5.04.2008

If I had a time machine...

I was messing around trying to get the TAM to talk to the 2400c when it occurred to me that if I had that setup back in late '97, I would have been big pimpin': Apple's super-snob appeal desktop machine and the flavor-of-the-month subnotebook were both serious computing status symbols when they were new, and would have gone together like peaches and cream. Free-range peaches and organically grown cream, of course. From some pretentious yuppie grocery store with carpeted aisles.

This has given me an idea for a post, or a column, or something...

UPDATE: Looking at this more closely, the Macs I'm using during my experiment (a G4 "Sawtooth", a graphite iMac DV SE, and a key lime iBook SE) would have been a pretty swoopy computing suite, circa late 2000. It might be neat to do a series of experiments; go "back in time" and try using a comparable suite from 1992 (Quadra 950/LCII/Duo 270c) or 1994 (Power Mac 7100/Performa 636CD/PowerBook 540c), and see how it feels.

2 comments:

RevGreg said...

I remember thinking that about my old IIci a few years back...that was a serious machine when it hit the market (I had to check Everymac.com to see if my memory was good and, yes, the original price tag on the IIci was $8,800!!!) I think I shelled out about $800 for it and it was still a pretty competitive machine at the time...still have that little beauty.

I just went through an involuntary period of fossilization...I sold my G4 Quicksilver to my brother a while back and then my iBook G4 took a crap on me. The cash flow wasn't good so I ended up using my "bridge" machine (a 400Mhz Blue & White G3) for over a year to get by...just bought a shiny, new MacBook Pro, 2.4Ghz, 4gb RAM, 200gb HD...sweetness! Now "Old Blue" can go back to being my "Swiss Army Knife" machine...USB, ADB and serial ports, ATA, Firewire and SCSI (I actually have a SCSI printer on that thing)...you can connect damned near ANYTHING to that sucker!

On another note, you mentioned desiring a full size DuoDock and I just happen to have one laying around in the junque closet...I'll try to find some time to pop the Duo 230c in it and see if it still works, you can have it for the price of shipping since it's to big to use as a doorstop and too light to be a boat anchor. My PDA phone is more capable than the 230c...although the last time I used to 230c the internal 500mb drive was "augmented" by a 4gb CompactFlash card in a PCMCIA adapter during the recent "fossilization" period.

Tam said...

That would be ever so sweet!