Do you have an Apple/Mac?

All this talk about MAC got me thinking, " I wonder who has the oldest working Apple/Mac computer.

No prize or nuttin. Gest thought it might be of interest.

Mine was bought in 1976. Programs and data entered from and stored on Cassette Recorder with 16K of memory. Called Apple II. Upgraded to Apple II Plus by adding co-processor with floating point math in 1977. Also bought floppy drive late in 1977. Would have been still working with it, except software mfg's didn't support it.

BTW, it got my son hooked on computers. I left on a trip and left a tandy programing book out. At age 7, he took a very basic program and inhanced it by adding color.

So what YOU got?

Bruce

But you aren't actually still using it, Bruce, or did I misread your post?

So isn't this more a question of "who's wife has allowed them to NOT clean junk out of the basement the longest..."

My first computer was an Atari 400 circa 1983, and yea, mostly just for games. I moved up to an Atari ST a few years later (88-9ish) because it was significantly cheaper than a Mac Plus or SE, and yet still could produce fairly comparable desktop publishing work (which we used at work a fair bit back then). Of course Atari (the company) melted down a few years later.

But I got rid of the old Atari over 14-15 years ago.

Y'know in our "main" hobby, all kinds of people use 50-100 year old woodworking tools and produce useful work. (and I don't just mean planes, look at all the old Unisaws out there still being used) I look forward to the day when we can stop the upgrade madness in computers, and just settle down and keep using the one we have for 20+ years.

Art Mulder said:

But you aren't actually still using it, Bruce, or did I misread your post?

Y'know in our "main" hobby, all kinds of people use 50-100 year old woodworking tools and produce useful work. (and I don't just mean planes, look at all the old Unisaws out there still being used) I look forward to the day when we can stop the upgrade madness in computers, and just settle down and keep using the one we have for 20+ years.

Click to expand...

boy theres a mouth full,, the new software keeps edging out the machine you have finally got the pattern figured out on and smoothed things to work with just few key strokes then they change the key strokes that took you forever to learn...and the new software usually wont back save to older than one generation...only to have it stay the same for 2 yrs let alone 20

Art Mulder said:

But you aren't actually still using it, Bruce, or did I misread your post?

So isn't this more a question of "who's wife has allowed them to NOT clean junk out of the basement the longest..."

My first computer was an Atari 400 circa 1983, and yea, mostly just for games. I moved up to an Atari ST a few years later (88-9ish) because it was significantly cheaper than a Mac Plus or SE, and yet still could produce fairly comparable desktop publishing work (which we used at work a fair bit back then). Of course Atari (the company) melted down a few years later.

But I got rid of the old Atari over 14-15 years ago.

Y'know in our "main" hobby, all kinds of people use 50-100 year old woodworking tools and produce useful work. (and I don't just mean planes, look at all the old Unisaws out there still being used) I look forward to the day when we can stop the upgrade madness in computers, and just settle down and keep using the one we have for 20+ years.

Click to expand...

Art
I also started with the Atari 400 moved to the 800 then went the Heathkit H89 route and used the Heathkit as a disk drive for the Atari's for a while. Problem is me and my wife are pack rats. All my Heathkits are gone but I still have some Atari clutter around.

And I actually did more programing on the Atari than I have on Almost anything since.

However I have never had a Mac or Apple. Also stayed away from any Pet or Comadore (?) products.

Really trying to clean up my clutter since I retired but its real hard for a true packrat.
I even still have my Shopsmith...
Garry

On April Fool's Day, 1976, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released the Apple I computer and started Apple Computers. The Apple I was the first single circuit board computer. It came with a video interface, 8k of RAM and a keyboard. The system incorporated some economical components, including the 6502 processor (only $25 dollars - designed by Rockwell and produced by MOS Technologies) and dynamic RAM.


The pair showed the prototype Apple I, mounted on plywood with all the components visible, at a meeting of a local computer hobbyist group called "The Homebrew Computer Club" (based in Palo Alto, California). A local computer dealer (The Byte Shop) saw it and ordered 100 units, providing that Wozniak and Jobs agreed to assemble the kits for the customers. About two hundred Apple Is were built and sold over a ten month period, for the superstitious price of $666.66.

In 1977, Apple Computers was incorporated and the Apple II computer model was released. The first West Coast Computer Faire was held in San Francisco the same year, and attendees saw the public debut of the Apple II (available for $1298). The Apple II was also based on the 6502 processor, but it had color graphics (a first for a personal computer), and used an audio cassette drive for storage. Its original configuration came with 4 kb of RAM, but a year later this was increased to 48 kb of RAM and the cassette drive was replaced by a floppy disk drive.

~~~~~~~~
No longer have my Apple I (wish I did) but still do have an Apple II and IIe, and A Mac plus.. and several newer Mac's --

I started with a Mac II and 16" B&W monitor, then Mac IIci, 6100, 7200, 9600, and the last is a G4 TiBook. I'm posting from the 9600/G4 upgrade (built in '97) hooked up to 2 20"CRTs. Maybe time for an upgrade, but don't particularly like color correcting on LCDs.

Yes, I still use it for in house stuff using old software. Don't share, so no problems.

I do have a custom made computor (made by my son) to talk to the outside world.

Bruce