Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh!

[ClassicHasClass]

And this post is being posted in Classilla 9.2.3! (More on that later; I decided to take it for a spin on the TAM and it works well.) See picture: http://www.floodgap.com/iv/1394

The conquest in question is actually somewhat delayed. I've had the TAM, bought from its original owner for a very nice price, for about eight months but had nowhere to deploy it until the new house. Now it is making an excellent bedside computer and CD player, and it included a FireWire/USB combo card, a bigger hard disk, a Sonnet 500MHz G3 upgrade, 9.2.2 with the Old World helpers and maxed RAM. I got RAMDoubler and Classilla installed on it, and it is a rather delightful system.

The unit came with all its boxes and packaging, even the remote, pen/pencil and CD wallet. The only blemish is that one of the rear panels snapped off, so it is held on by clandestine strips of tape. I'll replace that with Velcro if I decide to sell it, but I doubt I will ;D

Here's the unboxing: start with http://www.floodgap.com/iv/1389

Pros and Cons:

- Pro. The audio is fabulous. The subwoofer booms. It comes with a demo audio CD which shows this off well, and I like how the player buttons are integrated such that you don't need a player app up; the OS will shift tracks for you.

- Con. 128MB of RAM bites. RAMDoubler helps a lot here.

- Pro. The best damn looking all-in-one Mac ever.

- Con. Thousands of colors and 800x600 max

- Pro. Detachable keyboard with a sexy leather handrest.

- Con. Feels like someone inflated it with a bicycle pump. The 1400 reigns supreme.

- Pro. TV tuner.

- Con. Too bad NTSC OTA is dead :scrambled:

But, for what I need it for (playing music, a side unit to log into servers from the bedroom and very light web browsing), it's going to do great and it looks lovely.

 

[mcdermd]

Very, very nice! Someday I'll be less of a cheapskate and start looking for one. Maybe after the kids are grown

 

[Byrd]

Con. Thousands of colors and 800x600 max

If you find the right ATI update (top of my head says October 2002 update), it will enable millions of colours. TAMs are great mahines, mine is being used more and more now I've a proper desk spot for it (like yourself).

JB

 

[jsarchibald]

Awesome! I love mine, just wish I had the packaging.

PS - Found another one the other day that is already in Australia (what are the chances?), hopefully I will receive it soon!

 

[ClassicHasClass]

If you find the right ATI update (top of my head says October 2002 update), it will enable millions of colours.

How well does it work? I have them, but I'm a bit leery of installing it because one of the threads on RetroMacCast says it causes you to lose 640x480. What did you have to pull from your Extensions folder to get it to work?

 

[olePigeon]

You can get an external digital QAM tuner and hook that to the TV input. Now you have digital OTA.

I used to own a TAM. I miss it a lot. I had to sell it when I was down in the dumps and trying to raise money to move.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

That's true, I do have a tuner box. But I think I'll just use it for watching DVDs. Nothing good on TV.

 

[Byrd]

How well does it work? I have them

I did it a while back on my TAM (now have to re-do the hack since having an OS resinstall), no issue with setting 640 x 480, but recall it did go a bit weird with some games that used some element of 3D acceleration - strange colours/textures. If you manually dropped down to thousands games were OK.

It's like the VRAM just gives out for 800 x 600 x 24 bit with some software coaxing, but anything requiring more it will do strange things. Still looks great in thousands so I reckon I'll just keep it there.

jsarchibald: another TAM? man, you're obsessed now

 

[jsarchibald]

Yep, but I won't continue to hijack the thread so I'll give you all an update when it turns up. Sweet!