Keeping family history alive!

3 years ago by Nisaea to c/retrocomputing

Hi, first time posting on lemmy, I hope yall will enjoy my late grandfather's happy lil Mac Plus! Maxed out at 4MB of RAM and modded with power through SCSI and a low rpm fan. That's a fully working ImageWriter on the left. :)

JSkier 12 points 3 years ago

This is what peak productivity looks like - after boot up, of course 😏

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Nisaea 4 points 3 years ago

Hey, even with 4MB it boots way faster than a Vista machine! 😂

Though to be fair, booting from a SCSI2SD does help a lot.

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anji 8 points 3 years ago

Nice setup. I grew up using classic macs. Powerbooks, Macintoshes, Powermacs. All such beautiful and functional machines (until an Error of Type 2 occurred anyway). I miss that era of being amazed at these wonderful computers, with seemingly new features every year. MIDI. CD-ROM. Netscape!

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Nisaea 3 points 3 years ago

Same, I discovered computer networking on those too, first with the Minitel then the Internet, that was magic! Everything seemed to promise endless possibilities!

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cognitivegears 6 points 3 years ago

That does look like a happy Mac! I used to help support machines a lot like this for the teachers at my high school, kept me from having to do as much school work lol.

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Nisaea 2 points 3 years ago

Whoa, you were living the dream!

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DarkDarkHouse 5 points 3 years ago

Fantastic! This brings back so many good memories. Endless hours of Dark Castle, Zork Zero and making pixel art in MacPaint. Does anything beat the sound of an ImageWriter at full speed? Zzzzt zzt zzzt zzzzztzzt

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tal 7 points 3 years ago

It is still possible to emulate the old 68k Macs.

https://basilisk.cebix.net/

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Nisaea 5 points 3 years ago

For added convenience, there's the https://infinitemac.org

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Nisaea 3 points 3 years ago

And the unmistakable ping of the SKCC keyboard? Ping ping pingping ping pingpingping

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noughtnaut 2 points 3 years ago

Thank you for bringing that sound back to life. I have a special love for the Image Writer II, as I think it represents the absolute pinnacle of 80's industrial design (regardless of brand or industry). And it's a damn fine printer, too.

On the other hand, the acoustics of that damn keyboard? Euch, don't miss that at all.

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SJ_Zero 4 points 3 years ago

I don't know how I'm going to do it exactly, but I hope to do something similar to this so my son understands that he's living in the future.

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Nisaea 6 points 3 years ago

To be fair, maybe an old Mac isn't the most exciting to learn about old technology for kids, as the monochrome screen and limited gaming capabilities really make it a more business-oriented thing, which, boring.

What could be dope if your kid's interested in that kind of thing, is to literally build an 8-bit computer, there's plenty of kits available and it echoes the time when you had to build your own computer if you wanted to have any at home. Super hands-on and educational!

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Cralex 3 points 3 years ago

I grew up with newer Macs in the house, but this is truly a representative from a fascinating era of computing.

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Nisaea 2 points 3 years ago

I learned to read and write on a Mac 512k, until it died when I was 12, but we then entered the multimedia era with a Performa. The technological jump was staggering.

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entropicdrift 2 points 3 years ago

I grew up using one of these and a Windows 95 HP machine, till I got my first PC just for me, an iMac G3 (2nd gen, with the CD slot instead of the tray that ejects).

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Nisaea 2 points 3 years ago

Eyy, grew up on a Mac 512 myself and my first computer was an iBook G3! We don't have the 512 anymore but my G3 is still alive and kicking! Do you still have yours?

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entropicdrift 2 points 3 years ago

My aunt has it at her place still, so while I don't have it, the family does

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Nisaea 2 points 3 years ago

Sweet! I use mine to help with data transfer between the Internet and the Plus. Works great for that.

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me 2 points 3 years ago

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