My New (to me) Mac
I've been thinking about getting a vintage Macintosh computer after starting to read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. I came to the Mac with the introduction of the colored iMacs. I bought my first Mac because I was moving my family to Canada for work, and my teen daughter wanted me to buy one of those cool green iMacs for her to use for school work. It was my first time to get hands-on with a Mac for any period of time though I worked at Peat Marwick which used Macs in its audit department. I liked that first mac so much, I decided to buy a blueberry iMac for me. From that moment, I was hooked! A steady stream of iBooks and Powerbooks followed. When I started my own CPA firm in 2005, I decided to go all Mac hardware, outfitting the office with iMacs and Mac Minis, even a Mac Mini server. Yet, I missed those first Macintoshes.
As I read the Steve Jobs biography, it dawned on me that I could probably find an inexpensive classic Mac on eBay for a nominal price. So, I started to check out the auctions in the vintage computing section of eBay. I guess I wasn't the only one who got energized about vintage Macs by reading the Jobs biography. Either the Macs were being sold for parts or working systems were being priced at hundreds of dollars as collectibles. I bid in several auctions only to have them get out of control in the waning seconds.
I was so close to buying an SE 30, the high point of the compact Mac line this morning. I had been sitting on a winning bid of $202.50 and my maximum bid was $261.50. With $35 shipping, I realized I was overpaying for computers that probably most often end up in garage sales or being dumped at Goodwill. But, I wanted it. The final price on that Mac, set in the last seconds was $355. The other auctions I've been watching for this particular model were "buy it now" listings at $349 and $499. No way I was paying that much! On Facebook and Twitter, I posted messages asking if any of my friends had old Macs that they would consider selling me. After all, I belong to the Apple Corps of Dallas, the oldest MUG in the world. Surely, there were packrats among this group of Mac super fans. As luck would have it, the monthly meeting of the ACD was this morning. I haven't been to a meeting in probably a year, but the program by HP on their ePrint capabilities sounded interesting, and I thought I could make my plea at the meeting. To my surprise and undying appreciation, an ACD approached me at the meeting and said that he had seen my post on Facebook. He'd gone up to his attic, found his old Macintosh Classic, and brought it to the meeting. He gave it to me! Gave it! How awesome is that!
About the Mac Classic
According to lowendmac.com, the Mac Classic was the white Macbook of its day, the first Mac to be introduced for less than $1,000. Released in October 1990, the Classic in its most basic configuration came with an 8 MHz 68000 CPU, 1 MB RAM, a SuperDrive (1.44 MB Floppy to you and me), and a space to mount an internal SCSI hard drive. The upgraded Classic came with 2MB memory and a 40MB hard drive. My classic has the 40MB hard drive and was apparently upgraded to sport 4MB RAM. Keep in mind, I'm talking megabytes, not gigabytes of RAM and hard disk space. One feature that is unique about the Classic is that it contained a "secret" ROM based boot up to System 6.0.8 that can be accessed during startup by pressing Option-Command-X-O.
Lowendmac.com calls the Classic a "compromised Mac" because of its pokey 8 Mhz processor. The website applemuseum.bott.org notes that the case, processor and basic configuration of the Classic are the same as the original compact Mac models. The website calls the Classic a slightly faster Mac Plus with a different name. This Mac was introduced after the SE 30, the zenith of the compact macs. In contrast to the Classic, the SE 30 had a 16 Mhz processor and buss, based upon the upgraded 68030 Motorola chip. According to applemuseum.bott.org, Apple somewhat hastily issued the Classic in response to criticism that Macs cost too much (sound familiar?), but the public didn't like Apple's solution of cutting specs. As a result, the company discontinued the Classic a year later and replaced it with a more robust Classic II. Still, it was clear by this time that Apple and perhaps the public had lost enthusiasm for the compact Mac form factor. The Classic and Classic II were making way for the Performa line with separate color monitors and CPU consoles. The last of the Compact Macs would be positioned at the bottom of the Apple food chain.
My Classic is running System 7.1 operating system. According to MacTracker (an iPhone app that tells these things), the Classic originally shipped with either System 6.0.6 or 6.0.7. The Mac also contained Microsoft Works 3.0 (upon which I started typing this document), AOL (ack!) and another communication program called First Class (the ACD bulletin board used to run on that application as I recall). I promptly deleted AOL and First Class to free up drive space. Cosmetically, the Mac is in really nice condition and David included a keyboard and mouse. The Classic isn't the Mac I was planning to buy on eBay, but as a free Mac, I'm going to give it a go.
Setting up My Mac
Even though my Mac was in use before the Internet became popular, there are awesome online resources maintained by vintage Mac enthusiasts. Lowendmac.com is one such resource, with specs of old Macs, plus numerous articles about setting up and using vintage Macs of all types. Another website called System 6 Heaven (euronet.nl/users/mvdk/system_6_heaven.html) makes the case that Macs using the 6800 chip run much faster on System 6.0.8 than with system 7. An article on lowendmac.com ("Which System Software is Best for My Vintage Mac?") also suggested using System 6.0.8 on the Classic. Since my Classic was unbearably slow with System 7.1, I thought I would give System 6 a try, but how?
At this point, my main method of moving files on to and off the Classic are by 1.4MB floppy disks. The Classic doesn't have an Ethernet port or a wireless card. There are some ways to connect a Classic to a network but I don't have the appropriate hardware to implement such a connection at this time. I found some old forgotten floppies in a drawer and I have a USB floppy drive that I purchased long ago and stuffed into another drawer. My Classic has the 1.4MB "superdrive" (ha!) whereas the original Macs used 800K floppies that modern computers can't read. Unfortunately, my main computer is a MacBook Air with OS X 10.7 installed. If I initialize a floppy disk on the Classic, The Air will read it but can't write to it. Floppies that I initialize on the Air are apparently unreadable on the Classic (even if I choose FAT format). There went my master plan up in smoke! Thankfully, I still had a Titanium Powerbook G4 in the closet with OS 9.2 installed. Since the TiBook has wireless card, ethernet, and USB connections, I can move files to the TiBook from my Air and then swap floppies between the TiBook and the Classic. I'm starting to see why people either have no old Macs or a bunch of them. It apparently takes a village of vintage hardware to move files back and forth between the ages. It starts sounding like a "how many people does it take to change a light bulb" joke.
I found System 6.0.8 via a link posted on System 6 Heaven pointing to Apple.com, where apparently downloads of several different legacy versions of the Mac OS can be had for free. To install system 6.0.8, I had to download the .sit files from Apple and decompress them using the free Stuffit Expander. The .sit file contained disk image files for the various versions of System 6 install disks. On my TiBook, I could mount the floppy disk images using a utility called Disk Copy and copy the files from the mounted disk image to freshly formatted 1.4MB floppy disks. System 6.0.8 fits entirely on two such floppies. I was concerned that my floppies wouldn't be bootable on the Classic since I would need to start the Mac from the floppy to re-initialize the hard drive and install the older operating system. But, unlike Windows computers, creating a boot disk on a Mac doesn't require any special formatting or copy procedure. I put Disk 1 in my Classic and restarted it. I had to put my finger over the drive slot so that the Classic wouldn't eject the disk during startup. The utility to initialize the Classic's hard drive is included on the floppy. I ran that utility first and then clicked on the installer. I few minutes later, Iwas running System 6.0.8. The web site was right. System 6 is way faster on the Classic than 7.1.
The system installation wiped out the one piece of software that was installed on my Mac, Microsoft Works 3.0. So, I needed to find some applications to install on my Classic via the floppy disk shuffle. I found links to multiple applications on 68k.preterhuman.net. Right now, I'm using an early version of Clarisworks (which was later named Appleworks) instead of Microsoft Works.
What next?
I am enjoying using the Classic as a writing tool and as a tangible history lesson of early computing. I plan to do more tinkering to see if I can come up with a better way to exchange files between my Classic and other Macs. I don't recommend that anyone give up a modern computer for a vintage Mac. But, as a lesson about what was and what is now, getting hands-on with a working vintage Mac really makes the point better than reading a history book.
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