Elfen
Well-known member
Now to me... Ha!
In the past I have owned every compact Mac expect for the Color Classic II. Many of them were modified or expanded upon and some of those I wish I still had. Like my old SE\20 - a Mac SE with an '020 Accelerator; and those Mac 128Ks/512Kes with the 2MB/SCSI Dove Boards (and the occasional ROM upgrades) in them. They were great machines in their day and still would be useful to this day if they were still around.
Currently I own a Mac Plus, Mac SE\30 and Mac Classic II. Currently they are shelved while I pay attention to my other Mac Projects, but of them all, I love the SE\30 the most. The Classic leave me wanting or more for some reason though it is an excellent little machine. And the Mac Plus has saved a few Old Mac Owners out there in Cyberspace as I used it to make 400/800K System Disks with it for them; alas it's 10MB external Hard Drive died long ago. I may have a couple more in storage but I need to look some more.
At most I have the SE\30 with 32megs of RAM and used it as a Web/Internet server for the community center I ran years ago. It also had had a shit load of games and programs; basically everything I did on my IIcx at home I did with the SE\30 at work except for color processing. And carrying work between the two machines on my trusty Duo 210 was great - either by floppy disk or for really big files Apple Talk!
The Plus was also from my community center days. To elaborate, I created the first Free Access Community Computer Center in NYC back in the 80s. (I also assisted in the creation of the first Public Access Computer Center in NYC but it was not free - people had to pay for its access.) With Dr. Levison, we found a Scrap Metal turned Computer Recycling Center in Kearny, NJ and made friends with its founder Eric Burchiel. He gave us old Macs as he could not sell them as well as the recycled PCs. The Macs he gave me I upgraded a couple of schools and the community centers I worked with. With the broken ones I used to teach teens how to do Mac repairs and upgrades and those who passed my final test - bringing a "dead" Mac to life got a tool kit and that mac they fixed in the final exam. A few companies began to hear of my work and supported me and my teens by hiring them to work for them over the summers; where most teens went through the NYC's Summer Youth Employment program and worked for minimum wage - my teens were getting $12+ for their jobs!
But the Plus and SE\30 had their analog boards recapped and the "usual suspects" replaced in the late 90s. It's the SE/30 logic board that did not survive the ravages of age and time but thanks to CompuNerd selling me a "new" SE\30 logic board, it's back among the living! So these two machines mean a bit more to me because they were there since the beginning.
The Classic II I found in the trash last summer with simasi'd screen. In seeing the videos and the posts here, I gave it a recap and brought it back to life though it has no sound. It has 10megs of RAM and a very bloated System 7. It needs some trimming down before I get to use it more seriously. However it is a great machine. I just don't like its 10meg limit as some programs I have requires 16megs. Just have to work around it I guess.
Though I do not have it, the Color Classic was great when I had them (2). Things at the community center were bad that I bought my on printer and copier from Eric at his computer recycling center as the administration of the center had the programs like mine pay for everything - including making copies at the copy room. (you should have seen the look on that a-hole executive director's face when he sent a bill for copies and I showed him my desktop canon copier and Apple Laser Printer in my office! LMAO!!!) One of the two CC's were on my desk and the other was on my 'secretary's' desk, and worked with the computer lab I created and ran by phone-net on the other side of the building. That ED wanted the place to be filled with PCs but being in the northern-area of an artist community, people requested Macs; but even the PCs the place had I got from the computer recycling center! Those were fun days.
But are there favorites? Not really though it leans more towards the SE\30 than to the Plus. There were niches to fill and these Macs filled them perfectly!
Because of politics and personal BS with the ED, I was "let go" with 30 days notice. So I did what I could - pack up my things and leave, including the lab of PCs and Macs. They were mine, they were given to me and a few I bought with my own cash. The ED tried to have me arrested but hen I showed receipts and matched serial numbers, the cops tried to arrest her; damn rabid female dog nearly had a stroke that day! So before I came in they had nothing and when they forced me out, they ended up with nothing. They also lost over $1.2M in funding grants and donations that I brought in for the program that the center kept taking for themselves. If they would have been nice, they would have gotten $5M, but instead they tried to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and you know how that goes.
As, as is, for me it is the SE\30, then the Plus (with a working hard drive) and a Classic II because that is what I currently own.
In the past I have owned every compact Mac expect for the Color Classic II. Many of them were modified or expanded upon and some of those I wish I still had. Like my old SE\20 - a Mac SE with an '020 Accelerator; and those Mac 128Ks/512Kes with the 2MB/SCSI Dove Boards (and the occasional ROM upgrades) in them. They were great machines in their day and still would be useful to this day if they were still around.
Currently I own a Mac Plus, Mac SE\30 and Mac Classic II. Currently they are shelved while I pay attention to my other Mac Projects, but of them all, I love the SE\30 the most. The Classic leave me wanting or more for some reason though it is an excellent little machine. And the Mac Plus has saved a few Old Mac Owners out there in Cyberspace as I used it to make 400/800K System Disks with it for them; alas it's 10MB external Hard Drive died long ago. I may have a couple more in storage but I need to look some more.
At most I have the SE\30 with 32megs of RAM and used it as a Web/Internet server for the community center I ran years ago. It also had had a shit load of games and programs; basically everything I did on my IIcx at home I did with the SE\30 at work except for color processing. And carrying work between the two machines on my trusty Duo 210 was great - either by floppy disk or for really big files Apple Talk!
The Plus was also from my community center days. To elaborate, I created the first Free Access Community Computer Center in NYC back in the 80s. (I also assisted in the creation of the first Public Access Computer Center in NYC but it was not free - people had to pay for its access.) With Dr. Levison, we found a Scrap Metal turned Computer Recycling Center in Kearny, NJ and made friends with its founder Eric Burchiel. He gave us old Macs as he could not sell them as well as the recycled PCs. The Macs he gave me I upgraded a couple of schools and the community centers I worked with. With the broken ones I used to teach teens how to do Mac repairs and upgrades and those who passed my final test - bringing a "dead" Mac to life got a tool kit and that mac they fixed in the final exam. A few companies began to hear of my work and supported me and my teens by hiring them to work for them over the summers; where most teens went through the NYC's Summer Youth Employment program and worked for minimum wage - my teens were getting $12+ for their jobs!
But the Plus and SE\30 had their analog boards recapped and the "usual suspects" replaced in the late 90s. It's the SE/30 logic board that did not survive the ravages of age and time but thanks to CompuNerd selling me a "new" SE\30 logic board, it's back among the living! So these two machines mean a bit more to me because they were there since the beginning.
The Classic II I found in the trash last summer with simasi'd screen. In seeing the videos and the posts here, I gave it a recap and brought it back to life though it has no sound. It has 10megs of RAM and a very bloated System 7. It needs some trimming down before I get to use it more seriously. However it is a great machine. I just don't like its 10meg limit as some programs I have requires 16megs. Just have to work around it I guess.
Though I do not have it, the Color Classic was great when I had them (2). Things at the community center were bad that I bought my on printer and copier from Eric at his computer recycling center as the administration of the center had the programs like mine pay for everything - including making copies at the copy room. (you should have seen the look on that a-hole executive director's face when he sent a bill for copies and I showed him my desktop canon copier and Apple Laser Printer in my office! LMAO!!!) One of the two CC's were on my desk and the other was on my 'secretary's' desk, and worked with the computer lab I created and ran by phone-net on the other side of the building. That ED wanted the place to be filled with PCs but being in the northern-area of an artist community, people requested Macs; but even the PCs the place had I got from the computer recycling center! Those were fun days.
But are there favorites? Not really though it leans more towards the SE\30 than to the Plus. There were niches to fill and these Macs filled them perfectly!
Because of politics and personal BS with the ED, I was "let go" with 30 days notice. So I did what I could - pack up my things and leave, including the lab of PCs and Macs. They were mine, they were given to me and a few I bought with my own cash. The ED tried to have me arrested but hen I showed receipts and matched serial numbers, the cops tried to arrest her; damn rabid female dog nearly had a stroke that day! So before I came in they had nothing and when they forced me out, they ended up with nothing. They also lost over $1.2M in funding grants and donations that I brought in for the program that the center kept taking for themselves. If they would have been nice, they would have gotten $5M, but instead they tried to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and you know how that goes.
As, as is, for me it is the SE\30, then the Plus (with a working hard drive) and a Classic II because that is what I currently own.
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