It makes sense that I post about old stuff.
Wandering the
a2central.com site tonight I looked into Luddites Apple //e web server. I was wondering if it was still up after all the abuse we'd all given it. So, I jumped over and took a look at it. Still there, 2000+ hits. But I noticed a link to a C64 running the same software. When I got over there I found a much more C64 like page with a lot more info AND more than 60,000 hits.
Looks like a challenge to…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on May 15, 2008 at 10:27pm —
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Having had my retro-ism renewed, and fast running out of annual leave, I decided to dust off my Twentieth Anniversary Mac for a while today.
While it has a Sonnet 300MHz G3, it keeps crashing when trying to load the extension - I'll need to look into that. With the extension gone (and t…
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Posted by macdownunder on May 14, 2008 at 8:00pm —
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Machine: Apple //c
Date of Manufacture: 1984
Original Operating system: AppleSoft Basic
Current Operating System: AppleSoft Basic
Amount of RAM installed: 128K
CPU: SynerTek 65C02
CPU Speed: 1MHz
Current Application: Provides text only files to Macintosh Performa 580CD
Machine: Macintosh Performa 580CD
Date of Manufacture: 1995
Original Operating system: System Software 7.5
Current Operating System: Mac OS 7.6.1
Amount of RAM installed: 36MB
CPU: MC68LC040
CPU Speed: 33 MHz
Current Application:…
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Posted by Alex Lima on May 10, 2008 at 4:22pm —
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Been a little while since I've been able to do any work on my collection.
As some of you may know, I'm involved in a broadcast radio tech show here in Australia (check out the
TechTalk Radio website).
Anyway, last week we had an interesting collection of laptops in the studio. The co-host was running a PIII with the latest release of Ubantu extolling the virtues of Linux (which I usually agree with) and attempting to connect to the radio's access po…
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Posted by macdownunder on May 10, 2008 at 2:01am —
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We now have 2 Apple IIGS in our family, yes! After so many years, we finally have real machines in our house, not running emulation.
All my kids love Apple IIGS, they will say "Apple IIGS" when they see the rainbow Apple logo, not "Mac". This is especially true for my son, who has learned how to program on an Apple IIGS…
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Posted by Lim Thye Chean on May 4, 2008 at 7:30am —
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Posted by Robert 'Bo' Huttinger on April 29, 2008 at 8:09am —
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Distractions... distractions... distractions...
A neighbor of mine dropped off a complete IIe, IIgs, and a box full of software that has been sitting in his garage for two years. Both machines come populated with an assortment of cards (no SCSI though). He also says he has an Imagewriter and a IIsi. I asked him what he wanted for the whole lot and he hasn't specified a price. We've agreed to work something out once the semester wraps up.
I should be wrapping up my semester curriculum for my mi…
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Posted by Ken on April 21, 2008 at 12:10pm —
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Posted by Robert 'Bo' Huttinger on April 20, 2008 at 9:58am —
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I received a pair of these in the mail today, and although they weren't advertised as functioning and sold "as is", they booted just fine with the addition of a power adapter I have from a PowerBook 5300. They are in both in pretty good physical shape. One is missing the battery door, and both are missing their rear port door. These are really interesting computers, and I plan to do a more detailed segment on a future podcast episode.
I am having trouble finding more about their history. So far…
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Posted by James on April 16, 2008 at 9:30pm —
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I was looking for a picture of the cover of "Zen and the Art of Macintosh - Discoveries on the Path to Computer Enlightenment" by Michael Green (One of my favorite Mac-centric books). Much to my surprise, there were none to be found, even where I found it for sale at used book sites! So, here for your perusal is not only the cover but a few pages from inside as well. "Zen and the Art of Macintosh" was published in 1986 by Running Press Book Publishers. This book is a celebration of desktop publi…
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Posted by John on April 15, 2008 at 10:30pm —
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Back in the day before the book for dummies there had to be books on how to for the Mac. Heres an old one I found some years ago. Im posting to share some memories with anyone who had this book as well. I dont have the rights to upload the entire book, so its just the cover r…
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Posted by Robert 'Bo' Huttinger on April 13, 2008 at 9:59am —
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if theres a group of people id like to share with... its people with the same sickness I have, old Macs. I know some of you have iPhones or Touches so here is a basic tutorial on how to set up a house remote using a Touch or iPhone!
this is part one of many. (about 10 in all) and Ill be posting them on a fairly regular basis!…
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Posted by Robert 'Bo' Huttinger on April 9, 2008 at 11:30am —
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Yeah the Powerbook 1400 had an optional clear cover with paper inserts that you could put under the clear plastic! Ive even scanned one and used it as a template to make my own updated versions. I scanned the folder they came in and the 6 covers I have in jpeg format, all full…
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Posted by Robert 'Bo' Huttinger on April 8, 2008 at 7:30pm —
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My friend Drew and I drove down to Madison, Wisconsin from UW-Oshkosh to catch the premier of “Welcome to Macintosh” at the Chazen Museum of Art. The $30 in gas and cost of admission was money well spent. We met up with another friend of mine, Adam, who lived just a few blocks away.
Madison is fairly open-minded and, as you can guess, full of Mac-heads. The theater was not packed to the brim, but was mostly filled. The level of geekery/virginity was palpable as audience members waved their iPho…
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Posted by Ken on April 7, 2008 at 12:00am —
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I've added some links to some very useful Apple ][ Community resources on the
Pre-Mac Goodness page. It includes information about "Summer Camp for Geeks" -
KansasFest and the incredibly helpful
A2Central site.
There are lots of cool things happening this year with
ReactiveMicro,…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on March 27, 2008 at 8:27am —
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Bearing an obsession for Macs is hardly abnormal or uncommon these days. Let's face it. Steve Jobs can see into your dreams and extract a product that will ulti…
Posted by The Mac Observer on March 25, 2008 at 1:30pm —
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if you're wondering where the next episode is, it is delayed until at least Monday. I'm in Chicago this weekend so John and I will record Moday afternoon.
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Posted by James on March 22, 2008 at 10:02pm —
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Hey all! I thought Id look you up and join the merry group! When Im not changing diapers, or fixing the house, Ill be joining the discussion as much as possible!John, I think I met you after the Inhatko game show! Great to talk to you, and both of you keep up the great work on 'ye olde podcast'!
» cheers.bo
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Posted by Robert 'Bo' Huttinger on March 13, 2008 at 12:44pm —
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My real blog is over on
MySpace Continue
Posted by Andrew Roughan on March 11, 2008 at 11:06pm —
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A friend of mine asked me if had a spare iSight camera to sell him. He was looking to setup iChat but was alarmed at what iSight cameras are fetching these days ($200+). That got us both on the hunt for a suitable alternative. Unfortunately, none of them match the elegance of the iSight design, but there are at least are some choices which will work. This page gives a pretty good description of all the options:
Apple Mac Web Cam Video Ch… Continue
Posted by James on March 9, 2008 at 2:30pm —
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I received a Power Macintosh G4 "Yikes" in the mail yesterday. It was $40 + shipping so I figured why not? I have a Sawtooth and thought that was good enough to represent the first generation of G4 Macs, but Yikes is a little bit of a different animal with the PCI bus and the low-end 350 MHz processor. It will require a little cleaning and there are some hairline cracks in the case, so it is no where near perfect.
Upon startup, I got no video and no chime so I got to work. First I tried a new P…
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Posted by James on March 9, 2008 at 11:55am —
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With all the destructive PC viruses out there, it's nice that a Mac Virus isn't destructive but fun.
Article with Video From Gizmodo Continue
Posted by Wholly Mindless on March 4, 2008 at 4:28pm —
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Mac fans and documentarians Josh and Rob, who are getting ready to release "Welcome to Macintosh", invited me to attend an early screening this week in Los Angeles. Since the operating budget of the podcast doesn't include round-trip flights to California, I was fortunate to to be in the LA area thanks to a trip for my job. The screening was held in a small theater on a lot at Paramount Studios. The audience were coworkers and friends of Josh and Rob, many of whom screened the film in September,…
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Posted by James on February 28, 2008 at 7:28pm —
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This weekend I decided to get started on 'rebuilding' the Powermac 8500 I got from a friend. It came with the original manuals, CD and stuff in the 'Look here first' box, so I ran the install CD. It installed Mac OS 7.5.3.
I had found a nice ISO image with lots of Classic Mac software, and used the CD I created to install System 7.6.1 on the system's second hard disk. Next I upgraded to 7.6.1 (how nice you can do all this without rebooting or having to run something first!).
Via the *excellent…
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Posted by Marijn de Jong on February 25, 2008 at 1:23pm —
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I added more Apple themed photos to my photo area. These are Mac and iPod related photos
pulled from my Flickr site. Continue
Posted by Mel on February 24, 2008 at 9:27am —
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As my trusty Pismo (Powerbook G3 Firewire) turns eight years old, I reflect not only on how I've made use of it over the past eight years, but also on how it has alter…
Posted by The Mac Observer on February 23, 2008 at 7:30pm —
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After revisiting the commercial flop that was 1995's The Net, I was sadly reminded of the fact that Hollywood has yet to deli…
Posted by The Mac Observer on February 22, 2008 at 1:00pm —
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• Ein Modem? Was zum Teufel ist ein Modem?
• What the devil is a modem?
• Das Akronym RTFM hat keine richtige deutsche Übersetzung.
• The acronym RTFM has no real German translation.
• Die Schnittstelle von Leopard ist leicht auf den Augen.
• The interface of Leopard is light on the eyes.
• Hast du deinen Steve Jobs Rollkragen mitgebracht?
• Did you bring your Steve Jobs turtleneck?
• Computer Problemen? Haben Sie ein Macintosh als ein Upgrade überlegen?
• Computer problems? Have you considered…
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Posted by Ken on February 19, 2008 at 12:30pm —
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Picked up a rare NuBus card today from eBay here in Melbourne, Australia: An Apple Remote Access Server Card complete in box with all manuals and software.
I've taken a few photos of the box and contents for those who are interested:
Apple Remote Access Server Card photos
Essentially this is a four po…
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Posted by macdownunder on February 19, 2008 at 4:25am —
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A slightly loony Canadian has managed to get his Apple //e hosting web pages to the internet using an ethernet card and the Contiki OS. It's actually running as a server and is delivering a page with a few links and some images. I'd have put the link in this earlier but I wanted to ensure that you guys knew that this machine is WOEFULLY unsuited for delivering content. The tiny image of the //e, is actually 1/3 of the entire memory space of the machine.
One really useful piece of info there is…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on February 18, 2008 at 11:36pm —
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So this is what "
Non Existent Theme" is. The song was written by me on sheet music when I took a piano class long ago. Around 1990 I found a discount music program called MUSIC WORKS that ran on my Mac Plus. I re-noted the entire song on the music works program and had it saved as a Music Works recording. After that the song sat on a floppy disc, syquest and other media for years.
Last year after installing Mini vMac on my Power Mac G4, I had the contents of my Mac Plus hard drive instal…
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Posted by Mel on February 18, 2008 at 9:20pm —
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I saw this and thought of RetroMacCast...
This is a quick blurb about the computer used on the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) betwen 1969 and 1972 on http://dvorak.org/blog
A Brief Look At The Computer That Helped With The Lunar Landing
From the posting:
It’s cycle time was 1 Mhz, 11 instructions. It had 1K of 16 bit words of erasable (RAM) core memory and 12K of read-only memory (ROM). The ROM held the “Colossus 249″ flight control software… Continue
Posted by Wholly Mindless on February 14, 2008 at 8:30pm —
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(taken with my iPhone)
Someone in the family decided to upgrade from a Power Mac G4 quicksilver to an octocore Intel Mac Pro. In exchange for getting him set up with parallels I got the G4. I could just put it somewhere as a decorative piece (the case is like new), but I wouldn't be part of the retromac gan…
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Posted by ApplefanBE on February 12, 2008 at 10:00am —
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I found this article while monkeying around:
I thought you guys would enjoy the fact that police everywhere are just a bit thick when it comes to these things. Strange that we give them guns....
More details are here (from a link in the article above:
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on February 9, 2008 at 9:44pm —
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OK, normally I wouldn't have any issues posting a picture here for you guys to see, but in this case the problem is the picture itself. T-Mobile thought James was a serious Apple fan but I feat this guy's more willing to humiliate himself.
This picture at http://dvorak.org/blog is disturbing.James, John - I must ask that you NEVER go that far and please don't bother interviewing him.
(On a side note, I think it's photo…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on February 7, 2008 at 7:06am —
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From my own
blog:
Newsflash: Already profitable US Company raising prices to increase profits.
Okay now take a guess which one it is? Oil company? Cable company? Nope. It is eBay.
On January 29, they sent out an e-mail to all members heralding the lower costs of listing items on eBay. Nowhere in the communiqué did they mention that, in fact, they were raising prices. It is true that initial fees to… Continue
Posted by Ken on February 5, 2008 at 12:12pm —
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T-Mobile Big-5 Conference Denver, Colorado 28-31 January 2008
This week I got to participate in something I would have never guessed could have resulted from collecting a bunch of obsolete computers. It all started because T-Mobile had contacted Jeremy Mehrle to see if he would be interested in speaking to T-Mobile managers from the perspective of a product/company fanatic. You might remember Jeremy's name because of his amazing collection of Apple computers showcased in his basement. Since Je…
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Posted by James on February 2, 2008 at 2:00pm —
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Yesterday I began running into a problem with being able to read mail on my laptop. I woke it from sleep, and opened Mail. I checked everything, minimized the window, then went about my business elsewhere. A short time later, I heard the usual chime alerting me that an electronic correspondence has arrived in my inbox.
I clicked on the Mail icon. Nothing. No fancy genie effect, no inbox, however the Mail menus in the finder appeared as normal. I couldn’t get anything to work with it, however I…
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Posted by macuser77 on January 31, 2008 at 12:23pm —
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Das Macbook Air sieht magersüchtig aus, deswegen würde ich es nicht kaufen. Ich mag meine Laptops wie meine Fräulein, dick mit großen Behaglichkeitskurven.
The Macbook Air looks like it is starving and that is why I’m not buying one. I like my laptops like my women, thick with huge comfy curves.
Umsatteln zu einem Macintosh? Und wo hast du diese Schnapsidee gekriegt?
Switching to a Macintosh? Where did you get that crazy idea?
Die Sage ist, dass Windows 7 (sieben) in 2…
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Posted by Ken on January 29, 2008 at 11:58am —
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The morning started off slow, but things definitely picked up by mid morning and it was hopping into the afternoon. Many people stopped by to see the Mac relics we had on display, but quite a few came by to find out about Macs as an option for them. By the time we had our session in the afternoon, we had gathered a full room of interested expo attendees. I'm guessing we had at least 50 people listening to our presentation. It went very well and I recorded the audio. I'm going to attempt to match…
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Posted by James on January 26, 2008 at 5:56pm —
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After seeing me in our local paper when I was interviewed about my computer collection, the organizers for our local computer expo contacted me about representing the Macintosh for them. John has joined me and we are now sitting at our booth at the expo. Thankfully, we have internet access here so I'll be able to keep myself busy. Early indications suggest attendance will be low. In fact, looking around I see only two other booths. One is a local computer club and the other is a friend of John's…
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Posted by James on January 26, 2008 at 9:14am —
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Of course these things have nothing in common, other that they are both issues I have been dealing with in the last 24 hours.
First for the good news:
I got my Quadra 950 back up and running as a Ethernet to Appletalk router! So now, all my ethernet deprived Macs can get the internet via the MacIP protocol (routed using IPNetrouter) and can share my Xserve's files (routed via Localtalk Bridge).
For giggles, I need to get my Mac512 up and running with Mosaic and Ircle w…
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Posted by macdownunder on January 26, 2008 at 4:13am —
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Since my last entry, I've officially started my iPod collection.
I already have a G1 Shuffle 1Gb which I use for listening to RMC and transferring work files. I had also brought my wife a Pink G1 Mini back when they were new. But now, I've started in ernest. since Christmas I have managed to get hold of:
- G1 iPod 5Gb (in transit from USA)
- G2 iPod 10Gb in fantastic condition except for the dead battery
- G3 iPod 15/20Gb (HDD was upgraded)
…
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Posted by macdownunder on January 25, 2008 at 2:44am —
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One of the unfortunate truths of my part-time job is that I have to put older Macs out to pasture. Right now I'm installing 10.4 on a G3 400 Mhz Graphite iMac that was used by one of my professors. She still was using OS 9.2 up until last week. After all the data is wiped clean this machine will most likely sit in a corner until it is consigned to the disposal facility across the street. It costs the university money to dispose of this "obsolete" machine. It would make more sense and cents to se…
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Posted by Ken on January 22, 2008 at 11:28am —
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... so where the hell is mine?!?!
I just spent four hours, shoveling the driveway, waking up my teenage daughter (harder than the shoveling by a long shot) driving through a foot and a half snow and ice driving to work, just to find that we actually have today off (the front doors hadn't even been opened).
I used to work for banks and credit unions so I was used to having every weird holiday off (Left-Handed Bowler's Day anyone?) and knew that I'd be giving that up to work some…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on January 21, 2008 at 11:36am —
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With no physical media drive on the Gestalt of the MacBook Air unit, one has to wonder what function it serves. Gizmodo has just done a funny writeup on the potential for the MacBook Air's
awkward Eject key.
Before flaming, yes, I know about the USB Superdrive for 99 clams.
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Posted by Ken on January 19, 2008 at 4:09pm —
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Whilst listening to the aural sensation that is RetroMacCast episode 54 my ears were atwitter at the 24:47 mark hearing my RMC Social Network handle "Mac OS Ken." I wasn't in California this last week. Had another overdose of Diet Mountain Dew and wanton eBay scouring into the wee hours of the morning resulted in yet another psychotic break? What the?
It turns out there is another "Mac OS Ken" out there on the internwebs. It appears as though the real "…
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Posted by Ken on January 19, 2008 at 2:04pm —
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It has been such a busy day and we still have the Macworld party to attend this evening. We'll save our analysis of the keynote for the podcast, but in brief, it couldn't compare to last year's but I believe we had a lot of good stuff presented. It was great to meet Kathy and Jordan, two of our listeners, who made it to the Expo this year.
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Posted by James on January 15, 2008 at 7:53pm —
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I've gotten a Power Macintosh 8500 from a friend! It's the PowerPC 604e 180MHz, with all kinds of nice Video In plugs in the back. I've got the keyboard and mouse too, and connected it to an old CRT 17" display. The system is running Mac OS 9.1 and I've managed to install Office 2001, Photoshop 7, iTunes, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Alpha + CMacTex 4.4 on it!
So far it's running great.
Can someone tell me what the <...> port on the back is for?
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Posted by Marijn de Jong on January 14, 2008 at 5:27am —
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John and I arrived at our regional airport just before 5 a.m. this morning to catch the first leg of our journey to San Francisco to attend Macworld Expo 2008. WiFi must be catching on because even our tiny little airport has free access. Yes, I could have written this using my iPhone, but you can't beat the big screen and full mechanical keyboard of a proper notebook computer. We should be arriving at SFO at 1 this afternoon. Our only must-do today is to get to Moscone Center to register and pi…
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Posted by James on January 14, 2008 at 5:24am —
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This is "The Bridge," my computer work station. To the left is a WIndows 2000 machine, a Compaq iPac. My main computer in the middle is a tricked out Elixir tower running a PM 6500 mobo with a Sonnet G3, Rage 128, ethernet and USB. To the right is my most modern machine, an iBook SE running OS X that I use for podcasts (guess which is my fa…
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Posted by Mycroft on January 12, 2008 at 10:26pm —
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Well, I was hoping to teach my daughter a history lesson with Tron but it didn't go over so well. She was (somehow) thinking that you had to know about computers to understand it. Well, as *we* all know Disney movies are not anything like real life and take it as entertainment.
Now for the trivial part:
Who knows what computer Flynn used to remotely connect to the MCP's systems to look for the "scuzzy data"?
It wasn't a Mac but it was an Apple /// with a Silentype prin…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on January 5, 2008 at 5:41pm —
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I was surprised to see that another podcast thought enough of our podcast to give us a review. Stroll on over to That Podcast Show (http://www.thatpodcastshow.com/) and listen to Episode 2 to hear what they had to say. I think all of their criticisms are accurate. We certainly can improve!
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Posted by James on January 4, 2008 at 12:33am —
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It is rare for me to have free time to indulge in a hobby, but that is exactly what I have been able to do over the past holiday season. Every morning, I had my coffee, got on my old Macs, and listened to James and John on the RetroMacCast. I had been downloading the podcasts for several months now, but had never really had time to listen. Now, I have listened to almost all -- from episode 51 back through episode 7. Very good work! Somehow, I am going to have to make time for this. I had almost…
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Posted by Mycroft on January 2, 2008 at 7:55pm —
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It looks like even Microsoft can't resist giving money to google to try to woo mac users:
This ad is often displayed here at "The Network"
…
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Posted by Wholly Mindless on January 2, 2008 at 8:01am —
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I made a picture!! It's not great but it'll do! Or at least, it'll do until my graphic designer husband makes me a better one. My first computer was a Tandy. Well, my first computer was a Commodore 64 but all I did on that was play games so it doesn't count. I am amazed thinking back to that old Tandy and its 128K and floppy disks. :)
It was a good computer.
But if I could have had it, though, I'd have gotten a Banana, Jr.
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Posted by April on December 30, 2007 at 9:43pm —
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Ich würde sagen, dass Windows Benutzer ein bisschen masochistisch sind.
Ich would say that Windows users are a little masochistic.
Ich bin in meinem Macintosh verliebt.
I am in love with my Macintosh.
Darf ich das Licht zeigen? Es heißt OS X.
May I show you the light? It is called OS X.
Ich habe keine Lust Windows Crashsimulator 98 zu spielen.
I don't want to play Windows Crash Simulator 98.
Ich bin nicht schwul, aber ich würde eine Ausnahme fü…
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Posted by Ken on December 28, 2007 at 1:49pm —
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Apologies to the BareNaked Ladies for messing with their lyrics!
Hello and nice to meet everyone! What do you put in these first posts? I never know. I'm actually not much of a computer person. In fact, I'm practically a neoluddite. Technology does tend to break down around me; my friends say I have a techno-field. I joke about slowly turning into a superhero with the ability to control static electricity (seriously, I somehow manage to collect a lot of it - I would say it's shocking…
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Posted by April on December 27, 2007 at 8:40pm —
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Well today I managed to pick up a Snow iMac G3/500 for AUD$60 (sans keyboard and mouse). It's in great condition and booted up just fine.
I also received an eBay auction win in the mail today. An Apple Australia "In Modem" for the Apple // series. It came in great condition, complete with box, all documentation and the phone cable. According to the manual it runs at a blistering 1200/75bps!
This card was from an era when Apple Australia were building their own hardware. This mo…
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Posted by macdownunder on December 27, 2007 at 5:27pm —
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First off a round of my applause for my mother who, despite having children in their mid-twenties, still spoils them on Christmas. This year the center of our living room had a mountain of paper five feet high. I did get some Mac goodies.
- Elgato eyeTV Hybrid - for watching/recording HDTV on my main Mac
- 1gb RAM to add to my machine
- Ion iTTUSB05 Turntable to import vinyl into Garageband
Then of course
Long time, no post... So...
Dusting off the TAM
These are the Macs I currently own
The Apple IIGS Family
Part 5 now up!
Distractions!
Assistive Technology Freestyle Tablet
Zen
Old At Heart: The Love of Vintage Macs
My real blog is over on MySpace
A weekend with OS 7
The Power Mac G4 Jukebox
Leopard, Spaces and .Mac Sync are sour together
The Bridge
Gene Simmons never had a personal computer growing up.