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Macintosh II - Do you remember what it was like?
- Thread starter uniserver
- Start date
I didn't get to use a modular Mac until the Iicx, so no, I don't. 
I *DID* get a summer temp job in high school that I got to use a IIfx for the most undignified thing possible: copying floppy disks.
The (very large) company was rolling out System 7, and needed many sets of install disks. The only dual-floppy-drive system available in IT was the IIfx. So I got hired to copy floppy disks for 8 hours a day on the fastest computer available. (This would have been Summer 1991, IIRC.)
I *DID* get a summer temp job in high school that I got to use a IIfx for the most undignified thing possible: copying floppy disks.
The (very large) company was rolling out System 7, and needed many sets of install disks. The only dual-floppy-drive system available in IT was the IIfx. So I got hired to copy floppy disks for 8 hours a day on the fastest computer available. (This would have been Summer 1991, IIRC.)
We had a Mac II and IIx at the NYMUG office, but they had the tiny 640x480 monitors of the era, so they didn't really impress me that much. My SE/Radius16 production machine was just as fast and had the Math CoPro. I was going to get a used Mac II to upgrade for the Rocket I'd planned on buying, but the guy I talked to at Sun Remarketing made a good case for going for the extra money for the IIx rather than bringing a II up to the specs required.
The performance of the IIx still didn't impress me much, even with the extra four MB of RAM. The PanaPro M1900M2 B&W TPD/Card combo was a revelation however, the 5x increase in desktop real estate was like playing on a football field. [
] ]'> The SE became the Plotter Server, productivity soared and I was happy as a clam while I saved every Nickle and Dime the business could spare for the Rocket.
The Logitech ScanMan, when the 4" hand scanner class rolled around and became affordable, was the only productivity enhancement to come anywhere near the escape from the confines of the 9" Periscope of the Compact Series in terms of productivity.
Those six NuBus slots made the Mac II revolutionary. :approve:
The performance of the IIx still didn't impress me much, even with the extra four MB of RAM. The PanaPro M1900M2 B&W TPD/Card combo was a revelation however, the 5x increase in desktop real estate was like playing on a football field. [
] ]'> The SE became the Plotter Server, productivity soared and I was happy as a clam while I saved every Nickle and Dime the business could spare for the Rocket.The Logitech ScanMan, when the 4" hand scanner class rolled around and became affordable, was the only productivity enhancement to come anywhere near the escape from the confines of the 9" Periscope of the Compact Series in terms of productivity.
Those six NuBus slots made the Mac II revolutionary. :approve:
Remember when the Mac II first shipped there was almost zero software that could make use of the colour capability. We had to wait until August 1987 for SuperMac to launch PixelPaint.
My first experience with a full width modular Mac (can't say whether it was a II, IIx, or IIfx) was right around Y2K. I was teaching Office to junior high aged kids at an Omaha high school in the Summers between 1997 and 2003. The regular-school-year teacher whose room I used had a fantasticly stocked back room full of every kind of Mac. So one day for giggles we took a II and put a graphics card in every slot. (Was there such a thing as a dual monitor nubus card? Because I swear I remember 8 monitors hooked up to it when we were done.) Anyway we arranged the 6 or 8 monitors on school desks in a semicircle around the chair and everybody took a turn taking the mouse pointer from the first screen all the way to the last with the Kensington mouse ball. It was like sideways Golden Tee. Bzzzzzzzzz!
We did all kinds of fun stuff with those spare machines of his. He quit suddenly one summer and left it all in that back room. I managed to rescue a few from their destined dumpstering, only to leave most of them in a back room at a different school myself a few years later.
We did all kinds of fun stuff with those spare machines of his. He quit suddenly one summer and left it all in that back room. I managed to rescue a few from their destined dumpstering, only to leave most of them in a back room at a different school myself a few years later.
so basically the Macintosh II had alot of potential, but software hadn't come around for a while... By the time software had come around, Newer macs were already out and the new machines were alot better.
Reminds me of my VOODOO 5500, it was a bad to the bone graphics card at the time. there was only a couple games that could drive it.
it kinda seemed to me at the time like a silly waste of money.
Reminds me of my VOODOO 5500, it was a bad to the bone graphics card at the time. there was only a couple games that could drive it.
it kinda seemed to me at the time like a silly waste of money.
Right away there was good software for the Mac II, just not colour software. Excel calculations or database sorts ran five times more quickly, even before the apps were optimised. Scientific and engineering apps that used the FPU became monstrously fast.
And the Mac II really gave the graphics card developers something to work with. Multi monitor systems became commonplace in the Mac graphics art trade, even though it was mainly a greyscale world.
Mac BBS systems flourished, filling the slots in the Mac II with Hurdler HQS 4-port Serial Cards from Creative Solutions
Before the Mac II, the world was Black & White, for all practical purposes. Grayscale was a revelation and color of any quality was almost unheard of, the Mac II series was the breeding ground for the evolution of high end color graphics solutions. Digital_Darkroom shipped for grayscale the same year as the Mac II, but Photoshop 1.0 was still three years away.
Before the Mac II, the world was Black & White, for all practical purposes. Grayscale was a revelation and color of any quality was almost unheard of, the Mac II series was the breeding ground for the evolution of high end color graphics solutions. Digital_Darkroom shipped for grayscale the same year as the Mac II, but Photoshop 1.0 was still three years away.
My IIxperience was while working in a hospital radiology department. We used the II's to track and print (barcoded) labels for the Radiology film jackets. I hung around the guy who was developing the program (it was done in MS Quickbasic) and at the time it was the largest program written in that language on the Mac. He had to work with Microsoft to overcome some size related limitations and after he left, he gave me his copy of Inside Macintosh (1-3).
The best part of the program was the Machine language routine that printed the barcodes out in under a minute! Pretty fast for the time - I wonder what they did with those Mac II's? For that matter, I would like to know where the IIfx's in Nuclear Medicine went to...
The best part of the program was the Machine language routine that printed the barcodes out in under a minute! Pretty fast for the time - I wonder what they did with those Mac II's? For that matter, I would like to know where the IIfx's in Nuclear Medicine went to...
Anybody know where to find the story of the "contest" that the Macintosh II won? I know folklore.org tells the story of the Mac, and that Burrell Smith was working on a next design, that wasn't chosen, but that's all it says. Another source I've read says there were three contenders for the next Mac, but that's all it says. What's the scoop?
That timescale pretty much ties up with the launch of 32 bit QuickDraw (April 1989). Graphics card manufacturers had created 24 bit colour boards before that date but each one implemented the functionality in a different way. Software developers had to write around the limitations of Color QuickDraw to get 24 bit colour, and they had to do it for every card. Development speed was limited until 32 bit QuickDraw on System 6 created a new standard. Then colour really took off.
Does anyone recall the test image of a frog that was used to demonstrate the ability to print green on a dye sublimation printer?
The Amiga would like a word with you.
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