• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

How does a compact Mac fit into your daily lives?

BacioiuC

Well-known member
Ever since I got my hands on my first compact (a stock SE) I've been in love with these little things and tried to bring them into my daily work flow with the goal of getting them to a point where I can use them without the need for a modern PC. And although I cannot use my macs for freelancing/contracting work (unless someone wants to pay me to develop a game for a 68K mac) I find myself turning on the Color Classic II just as much as my iMac Pro.

With the right upgrades, and a raspberry pi in the vicinity, the machine is quite a decent companion to my workstation and an amazing music player! Although I use it for coding mostly - recently I've taken to using it together with Photoshop 3 for some light, retro photo editing and drawing for my own games. Web Browsing is enabled via the use of a proxy server I'm hosting locally (on the raspberry pi) and most modern sites work (as long as they don't rely on video content). I share files with my iMac pro via raspberry pi and the beautiful MacIP-Pi project and even use it as an email machine. Heck, I even ordered a pizza once from it :D.

My only gripe with the CCII is it's sub 640x480 resolution which cuts me off from most games (though some of them work with my little fVGA app) and I am weary of doing the VGA mod to it. Other than that, I hope this machine will continue to stay by my side for a long time to come.

So how does your compact mac fit into your daily life?

P.s. my se/30 is now relagated to inventory management. Game sales, media collection and everything that requires a local spreadsheet is kept on it using Excel 4.0. I wish I'd use it for more but the 040 CCII is a beast!

Quick video showcasing the capabilities of the upgraded CCII:

 

LaPorta

Well-known member
Actually...they don't, sadly enough. I store my master projects list on my active SE now, and print it with my ImageWriter II, but that is about it. All the rest of my compacts are closet queens, which come out for a neat event or to be worked on.
 

AndyO

Well-known member
Sadly, it doesn't.

I have a Classic, and a Classic II, and would really like to use them both. The Classic works pretty well, though the floppy doesn't, and the Classic II works when it feels like it, which isn't a lot.

I use classic MacOS every day on a combination of systems, including a G4 Mac mini, which works really well, a Performa 630CD which has serious attitude problems, and a 2002 (I think) G3 iBook, which I recently regressed from Tiger to MacOS 9. I also have a Raspberry Pi 400 which has MacOS 9 via Sheepshaver, and also works rather nicely.

I like classic MacOS and for my 'authoring' projects, it is excellent. My compact Macs were intended to be used on the coffee table so I could work while comfortable on the couch. But they're in too much need of maintenance and repairs, and I don't have the talent for that at all. But they do live, side by side, in the living room next to the TV, which serves as a reminder of the 512 Mac, then Plus, then SE which I used extensively at work for several years, all the way into about 1994 or 5.
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
You know what, I guess perhaps I don't use these the same way others do. I guess my whole goal of my collection is preservation for the future, so daily use doesn't really come to mind.
 

BacioiuC

Well-known member
I like classic MacOS and for my 'authoring' projects, it is excellent. My compact Macs were intended to be used on the coffee table so I could work while comfortable on the couch.
You know, my father is old (81) and he never taken a like to computers ever in his age but saw my SE/30 on a "Secretary-like desk" and asked me to show it to him. After 40-50 minutes with it went "I could use this on the coffee table and just write my memoir on it". It really is a good coffee table machine.


You know what, I guess perhaps I don't use these the same way others do. I guess my whole goal of my collection is preservation for the future, so daily use doesn't really come to mind.
It is a really good goal! Especially as machines get more and more different! Imagine showing these machines to someone 20-30 years from now.
 

joshc

Well-known member
Compacts don't form a part of my daily life at the moment. I've got two SE/30s which are stacked in my room, one being used for testing boards and cards and the other is only out because I haven't put it away yet. The others are stacked in a cupboard until I get around to looking at them again. My longer term plan is to sell off the excess SE/30s because nobody really needs 6 of them...

I think once I've done my house move, I will hopefully have things set up a bit better and might use my SE/30 more regularly if it was part of my actual main desk set up.
 

AndyO

Well-known member
You know, my father is old (81) and he never taken a like to computers ever in his age but saw my SE/30 on a "Secretary-like desk" and asked me to show it to him. After 40-50 minutes with it went "I could use this on the coffee table and just write my memoir on it". It really is a good coffee table machine.

Yes, it really is. My Classic sat there for a while, but having to use a Floppy Emu to get files on and off it was a bit untidy. The distraction free element of using it was really excellent... and the security of having a system not connected to anything. I really must get the system seen to by someone who knows what they're doing!

Currently, I use a 17-inch G4 iMac instead. It's great for the screen being so easy to place where you want it, but not quite as unassuming!
 

BacioiuC

Well-known member
I use my clear-case SE/30 it for server maintenance
Ogh yeah, I so forgot about SSH. I'm basically administering 68k.email, my indie game's website and download's server from my CCII via SSH! [sometimes, I use SSH to play NetHack]
 

techknight

Well-known member
Ever since I got my hands on my first compact (a stock SE) I've been in love with these little things and tried to bring them into my daily work flow with the goal of getting them to a point where I can use them without the need for a modern PC. And although I cannot use my macs for freelancing/contracting work (unless someone wants to pay me to develop a game for a 68K mac) I find myself turning on the Color Classic II just as much as my iMac Pro.

With the right upgrades, and a raspberry pi in the vicinity, the machine is quite a decent companion to my workstation and an amazing music player! Although I use it for coding mostly - recently I've taken to using it together with Photoshop 3 for some light, retro photo editing and drawing for my own games. Web Browsing is enabled via the use of a proxy server I'm hosting locally (on the raspberry pi) and most modern sites work (as long as they don't rely on video content). I share files with my iMac pro via raspberry pi and the beautiful MacIP-Pi project and even use it as an email machine. Heck, I even ordered a pizza once from it :D.

My only gripe with the CCII is it's sub 640x480 resolution which cuts me off from most games (though some of them work with my little fVGA app) and I am weary of doing the VGA mod to it. Other than that, I hope this machine will continue to stay by my side for a long time to come.

So how does your compact mac fit into your daily life?

P.s. my se/30 is now relagated to inventory management. Game sales, media collection and everything that requires a local spreadsheet is kept on it using Excel 4.0. I wish I'd use it for more but the 040 CCII is a beast!

Quick video showcasing the capabilities of the upgraded CCII:

Now, how in the world did you manage to order a PIzza on that thing? I didnt think they could render the modern web to do such tasks.
 

BacioiuC

Well-known member
Now, how in the world did you manage to order a PIzza on that thing? I didnt think they could render the modern web to do such tasks.
If it's a PHP only website it works pretty well. I have a local pizzeria that's just PHP + HTML + CSS and it works with CSS disabled. Heck, I can acess a (badly presented) wordpress dashboard from it and I used PHP to write my own twitter client so I can use it from the CCII :)
 

techknight

Well-known member
If it's a PHP only website it works pretty well. I have a local pizzeria that's just PHP + HTML + CSS and it works with CSS disabled. Heck, I can acess a (badly presented) wordpress dashboard from it and I used PHP to write my own twitter client so I can use it from the CCII :)

Yeah everything here is chain which is JS heavy.
 

Mu0n

Well-known member
It truly does, I keep one at all time in my main desk in the basement, besides my modern PC and my vintage IBM 486.

My 4 year old loves to play Déjà Vu from Rubicon software (mostly on the Mac Plus), the memory tile matching game, not the ICOM visual adventure game. We love the sound clips it plays out to let you know you messed up or successfuly got a match. She's pretty good at it as well.

I keep it around to test real modern made software, especially if it targets a Mac Plus. I follow youtuber 'gruz' (formely known as 'insanely gruz' formely known as 'killgruz') as he's created new stuff such as MacGhost last year and has shown a platform game in progress, Dangerous Caves (iirc), which is still unreleased. When I have time (ha!), I have programming projects that target specificallly the early System 6 era with the Sound Driver as opposed to the Sound Manager. If I can make the BlueSCSI work for it, I could finally have in one spot, all the games I've never owned in that era of Mac back in the day.

I switch it out with my Mac SE/30 and I intend to create pieces of music with a Roland Sound Canvas 88ST in Cubase. Just need to finish watching that vintage tutorial film that used the Atari ST version which looks almost identical.......
 

krishnadraws

Well-known member
I use my SE/30 as a file trafficker to get data from my PowerMac 6500 to my Apple IIGS. The IIGS has a network card, but I don't know how to get AppleTalk to work with it. So I shuttle data from my 6500 to the SE/30, and copy data onto a 3.5" floppy to feed the IIGS. :D
 

beachycove

Well-known member
I recently completed a cross-country move and my collection is still in boxes, so I am not using anything from it presently, compact Mac or otherwise.

However, my plan is to set up an SE/30 as a writing station, used in combination with some later machines (somewhat as the OP has) — not for doing anything online but for simply cranking out a book. I find a compact Mac inspires this kind of use in a way that machines like the iPad Pro on which I am composing this just don’t. That has something to do with the iPad’s not having been designed for/ being unsuited to that kind of work, being vastly overpowered for it and so on. I also much prefer a smaller screen for composition, though editing and certainly page layout work is better done on big screens.

I’m also planning to do some of the work on a typewriter, and some with a fountain pen and nice notepad.

Everything in its place. It’s a little like using a block plane in woodworking for detailed work, versus a jack or jointing plane. The latter could be used to do the job, but in lots of situations the larger tools just aren’t an appropriate fit for the task in hand.

First, however, I want to build a small ‘writing studio’ on the grounds. It may be a year or two before the plan comes to fruition….
 

Byte Knight

Well-known member
I use my SE/30 as a file trafficker to get data from my PowerMac 6500 to my Apple IIGS. The IIGS has a network card, but I don't know how to get AppleTalk to work with it. So I shuttle data from my 6500 to the SE/30, and copy data onto a 3.5" floppy to feed the IIGS. :D
You can use AFPBridge to connect via TCP/IP:

 
Top