What Apple hardware do we have?

[fu]

@commodorejohn check. those babies of a baby, is what a rhapsody usually starts with :)

thanks syb, will check.

memory flashback and back on topic: i also owned a ColourClassic and just like my story with the crybaby o2, it was cute but needed intensive care. iirc, there's a way to upgrade it by placing a LC575 motherboard and going through some soldering but i can't recall the details.

[commodorejohn]

I've just acquired a Quadra 840AV with 128MB RAM Passes POST, but it doesn't find a bootable volume - I'm not sure at this point if it's an issue with the hard disks or the SCSI controller, but either way I'm looking forward to getting it up and running...

[fu]

@john, did it come with its original CDs?

the 840av came with customized versions of MacOS and Quicktime

give us a shot or two when you get a chance

[commodorejohn]

No, but I'm sure I can dig up a copy somewhere.

[ClassicHasClass]

memory flashback and back on topic: i also owned a ColourClassic and just like my story with the crybaby o2, it was cute but needed intensive care. iirc, there's a way to upgrade it by placing a LC575 motherboard and going through some soldering but i can't recall the details.

No surgery needed if it's just the board -- it's a direct swap. I have two such Mystic CCs and they just use the original display. The rear ports don't match up with the old backplate anymore, but there are 3D printed replacements that one can source easily.

You can do surgery if you want a higher resolution, but I'm not interested in stressing the already marginal CRT more than it is, so I left that unmodified.

[guardian452]

Most student software, depending on the relationship between vendor and university, lasts for a semester, a year, three years, etc.

One notable exception, at least for the university I went to, is Microsoft. They provided full versions with no expiration date for the cost of media. I still have my copies of (windows xp, office 2003, visual studio 2005, etc). But they have kinda... expired on their own. Much like a carton of milk left in the sun My student copy of matlab, solidworks, mathematica, would still be quite useable and valuable even 10 years later, if they didn't expire soon after activation.

The university always had much nicer computers than me, anyways (secondhand thinkpads and an octane). So I lived at the library.

[fu]

here's 40 years of apple products in one picture:

circle what you own and try to join the years of technology behind (or ahead of) it

the only certain thing is that the "faster" the computah gets the more we nag about it :)

[ClassicHasClass]

I got off the Apple treadmill shortly after the Intel transition. I only have two Macintels, but this house is full of Old and New World Power Macs that live and do useful work.

[fu]

iirc you also develop a firefox version for old macs and we thank you very much for that chc :)

i’m the last one to go into an OS war since i don’t give 2 beeps about what each one is using to get his work done. after all we’re not supposed to get sucked into those fookin’ machines, get your work done so we can go for a walk afterwards.

funny thing is, when all of this was exotic and “slow”, we would sit on our asses in front of the monitor and the "clickey" keyboard and do things; today it seems that we snivel all the time, jump from one machine to the next (gotta test that new thing) and getting work done has become an acronym. “gtd” “100 apps to manage your inbox” “best list-making apps” and the rest of that circus.

back on topic, i also owned (and kept running) a PM 9600 for lots of years (a decade if my memory serves me right). it started as my main desktop @home, then it used to handle a film printer and its final duties were to serve files as it had room for a bunch of HDs inside the case.

that was the era of desktops (and lots of noise) @home for me. i suffer from migraine and i gave up desktops and noisemakers @home long time ago.

[GIJoe]

i'm in the user-replaceable-parts camp too. have only had apple machines of the intel-powered variety since one replaced my sgi in 2008. love the kinda-media-unix feel you get with OSX. very compatible with my amiga- and sgi-experience.

i'm still with my 2011 series MBP (with SSD and RAM upgrades) mainly for the issue with non-upgradeable current machines where for the sake of starbucks bling-factor you now even have to buy an extra network-dongle just to be able to connect to a fast network that doesn't just randomly go down. wtf.

being able to swap out the storage seems pretty essential to me. i have not only suffered several broken hard drives which were a quick fix due to the ability to get into the machine but would also like to benefit from future SSD capacity increases. lastly I would simply not want to hand off my computer to the service guys with work data still on the drive. the advice i received was to encrypt the drive then.
another password to remember and my mum's maiden name gets passed around yet again? lovely.

when my laptop once contracted radeongate, i bought a mini as a backup. tried linux as an alternative and it's not too bad on the end user side but not reliable nor laptop-friendly like i'm used to with OSX. hoping the non replaceable storage issue is due to apple going with the non-standard stuff for size and performance over SATA initially and not a now permanent part of their product planning. fingers crossed.

[guardian452]

i'm in the user-replaceable-parts camp too. have only had apple machines of the intel-powered variety since one replaced my sgi in 2008. love the kinda-media-unix feel you get with OSX. very compatible with my amiga- and sgi-experience.

i'm still with my 2011 series MBP (with SSD and RAM upgrades) mainly for the issue with non-upgradeable current machines where for the sake of starbucks bling-factor you now even have to buy an extra network-dongle just to be able to connect to a fast network that doesn't just randomly go down. wtf.

being able to swap out the storage seems pretty essential to me. i have not only suffered several broken hard drives which were a quick fix due to the ability to get into the machine but would also like to benefit from future SSD capacity increases. lastly I would simply not want to hand off my computer to the service guys with work data still on the drive. the advice i received was to encrypt the drive then.
another password to remember and my mum's maiden name gets passed around yet again? lovely.

when my laptop once contracted radeongate, i bought a mini as a backup. tried linux as an alternative and it's not too bad on the end user side but not reliable nor laptop-friendly like i'm used to with OSX. hoping the non replaceable storage issue is due to apple going with the non-standard stuff for size and performance over SATA initially and not a now permanent part of their product planning. fingers crossed.

Just upgraded my 2014 MBP disk from 128GB to 1TB. No issues here. I think it is the same type of disk that the current macbook pro/airs use. Some sort of PCI-express?

[GIJoe]

it's different types o drives per model year AFAIK. they have been upgrading number of PCI lanes over the years. similar or same tech to what they have now is in reach of the consumer market however so i have hope this bit becomes officially user-serviceable again.

pretty sure you are voiding your warranty by replacing the drive in the current models, too. not gonna happen for me on what is essentially now a 3000 euro (all inclusive) notebook.

[jan-jaap]

To be honest, I have the feeling the whole PC/Mac market is rather stagnant these days. It's not like the memory consumption of applications quadrupled over the last couple of years. My MacPook Pro is 5 years old and serves me just fine. And it was fairly modest when I bought it to begin with. I don't think fixed memory will limit the lifespan of the system.

The CPU is soldered down as well, and you could argue that they overcharged me for it. I would like to upgrade the screen to a retina display, but I can't. In the end it's just a thing, there's a price tag on it and it's my choice to buy it or walk away.

Non-upgradable storage would be a much bigger issue for me. But OWC will sell you upgrades for every Mac built in the last decade.

pretty sure you are voiding your warranty by replacing the drive in the current models, too. not gonna happen for me on what is essentially now a 3000 euro (all inclusive) notebook.

I did buy an OWC SSD for my MBP2011, and it didn't work. OWC replaced it, still didn't work. I took it to Apple and they replaced the SATA flex cable under warranty, at no cost, knowing it worked just fine with the factory harddisk but not my 3rd party SSD. Heck, I may have bodged that SATA flex cable myself doing the upgrade.

IIRC, the memory and hard disk are officially user serviceable, on my MBP at least. Maybe I was lucky, but I'd say all hope is not lost.

[GIJoe]

yes, 2011 models are officially user serviceable so it was more than luck in your case. you also don't need to buy OWC for these. any SATA SSD should do (i run samsung in all my machines, apple and PC).

and true, you don't need to swap machines so often anymore. my 2011 i7 MBP seems just fine overall in terms of performance and could even be handed down when i'm done with it. it is however well out of warranty now and written off and also has the problematic radeon chip which is a ticking timebomb. i keep that disabled (machine runs very cool ever since doing that but can't connect to external displays anymore) and would love for my next MBP to only come with an iGPU only to avoid those issues.

[uunix]

I contacted Apple support the other day for the install media for my Dual 2.3 PPC Power Mac, and was told they cannot give support in anyway for a product over 10 years..

That means, no downloads, no ability to purchase my media disks.. nothing!

10 years...