MacTalk | Vintage Macintosh Clvb

Home

Desktop

Author

Contact

Guestbook

MacTalk

Vintage Macintoshes

Why Vintage Macs? I think there are two kinds of people who buy secondhand vintage Macintoshes: people who don't need a lot of computing power and don't have a large budget; and people who collect them because they like them. I'm both. Compact Macs are really elegant "computers" (I hate using this word. Macs are Macs. They are not computers!). It was the Macintosh who sat the standard of computing today. The simple, user-friendly point-and-click phenomenon as we know it today came from these little machines. I'm not a computer nerd. The simplicity of the Macintosh system allows me to use the computer like I'm using a natural tool -- it's all intuitive. I especially like Vintages Macintoshes from the Lisa (or Macintosh XL) up to the SE/30. They are such simple machines. You can do some serious work (word processing / MacPaint graphics, etc.) with just two 800k floppy drives, no hard disk. System 6 is also a very lean system which does not use very much memory, even if you run a number of system INITs. There are still a number of useful application programs and INITs that can be used with System 6. Even if you have a pretty powerful, new Macintosh, Vintage Macs can be fun to collect. They are very inexpensive and, don't you think it's cool to have a piece of computer history on your desk? Since I'm a designer, the classic design of Vintage Macs really appeal to me.

The Apple Lisa II, later known as the Macintosh XL. The Lisa was a pre-Macintosh system, the first personal computer incorporating a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The high price ($10 000) of the Lisa made it very difficult to sell. Apple then converted the original Lisa to the Macintosh XL, which can be used with a Macintosh emulator called MacWorks, allowing it to run Macintosh applications and sold them at a lower price.

Graphic Capabilities. I'm also very interested in using Vintage Macs to produce graphics. I think it's about time to revive those low resolution MacPaint graphics again. When the Mac was first introduced, low resolution really was a great problem for graphic designers. Now it becomes a style that we can choose to use. Outputting your work on an ImageWriter II dot matrix printer can give you some surprising results. And you can use up to 8 colours on an ImageWriter II too (Yes, on a black and white Mac!). Don't think MacPaint graphics is all Vintage Macs can handle. They can do vector based graphics. Not just MacDraw graphics, either, but professional Postscript graphics! On some Vintage Macs, such as the SE, Plus, and SE/30, you can run Postscript drawing applications like Illustrator 88 and Freehand 3.1! Although they don't display colours (well, you can get them to display colour if you add some sort of video card with an external colour monitor), you can specify process and Pantone colours in you drawing and take your disk to a service bureau to have a colour separation done. You can also do some serious, mostly text desktop publishing on Vintage Macs, using programs like PageMaker, Ready, Set, Go!, or Quark Xpress 3.1 (Yes, 3.1!), with Postscript fonts and output to a LaserWriter or film. Not much difference than doing it on a Power Mac if your job is not graphic intensive.

How much do they cost? Secondhand classic, compact Macintoshes can be bought quite inexpensively nowadays, probably with the exception of the Apple Lisa or the Macintosh XL, as Apple didn't manufacture many of them and they are gradually becoming collectibles(I might be wrong though). A 125k or 512k are worth approximately CAN$10 to $20, although I've seen one for sale at CAN$125! They are quite difficult to find now. A plus, which is my favourite compact Mac, can be bought at around CAN$50 without a hard drive, or with a hard drive for around CAN$110. Expect to pay no more than $200 for an excellent condition SE/30 or Classic, 4MB RAM, 80MB HD. Hunt around for bargains. You might be surprised how cheap they can be at garage sales or flea markets sometimes. Their availability is very inconsistent. Therefore you really need to visit secondhand consignment stores frequently. I visit my local consignment stores at least once a week. If you are collecting Vintage Macs, be sure that they are in really good condition. I know some machines are difficult to find, but buying one which is in poor condition is just as bad as not having one at all. Even if you are not planning to use them for work, still make sure that they are in good working order. You never know, they might cost a fortune some day. It really is like collecting antiques. In my opinion, if you are collecting Vintage Macs, you should not upgrade them. It is always nicer to have everything in the original state. Not even upgrading the RAM. Original Apple peripherals are also better than third party ones. Actually, there is no point in collecting third party peripherals anyway.

So, what can I run on these Macs? An old, compact Macintosh is just as good as (or even better than) any new computers if you only want to do some simple word processing, spreadsheet, or simple black and white drawings / paintings. Their all-in-one, compact case makes it ideal if you do not have a lost of space. If you need e-mail, you can hook an external modem to you compact Mac via serial port, although it can be quite slow. The simplicity and user-friendliness of the earlier Macs makes them better deals than secondhand IBM-compatible PCs. The older versions of the Macintosh System (pre-System 7) are very elegant and easy to use, therefore classic compact Macs are ideal for beginning users who do not need a lot of computing power.