@NanoRaptor I would’ve killed to have one of these to take to school, even in 1995 or 1996! The best my parents could afford was a second hand 486 with a dual scan colour LCD, and that was even in 1998 or 1999. Better than nothing, but I was forever losing the cursor because I refused to turn on pointer trails.
@NanoRaptor if I were to pick a more “modern” machine as my favorite…late 2008 MacBook Pro. Battery and hard drive? Right behind a convenient hatch. RAM? 8 screws or so and there’s your RAM. One of the easiest machines to service by a long shot. And it felt study as heck too. I really miss when Apple laptops were any level of serviceable without having to be proficient in soldering to pull it off.
And why I'd pick it; Just a few years after the closed-book became popular, it was a true desktop replacement. Most laptops, Mac or others, had a screen, keyboard, pointing device, serial port. Maybe networking. Maybe serial and video.
The 540c though: Stereo speakers, active matrix, 256 or thousands of colours, microphone, trackpad, floppy, dual batteries, or pc card in one bay, ethernet, serial, modem, adb, external video mirroring and spanning, scsi, in/out audio jacks...contd
swappable cpu, 25mhz? with 040? 183mhz ppc? sure go for it, pull them in from other models. RAM? 36MB ain't a bad limit.
Amazing to think it was only four years later it was truly bested by another incredible series of PowerBooks, the Wallstreets - a refinement of exactly the same idea.
The 540c was damned near 1992's Quadra 950 flagship tower, but portable, just 2 years after it.
And given everything was heading portable, and is now, that's why it's my pick.
@NanoRaptor 1) my 145b had everything my SE/30 had, but portable and 2/3 the price. Just three years later. Plus the screen was bigger, I think.
the PB G3 series (main st/wall st/pismo) were the first glorious Macs, in my view. (Between my wife and me, we did all three of them.) So sexy. So uncompromising.
@NanoRaptor My pick is the 11" macbook air, it packed SO MUCH actual public transit / airport warrior portability, battery life, and unix-y goodness into 2.4 pounds, it felt godly.
@thompsonize@NanoRaptor There’s basically no reason for this form factor not to exist again with the M chips. It’s right there, but they chose to make a 15” Air.
@NanoRaptor And I had been enjoying this machine, but the power adapter crapped out and it’s either fixing the brick or finding 16.5 volts somewhere else. But where!
@NanoRaptor so much plastic broke off of this thing so early. At least it had an active matrix screen. the 520c sucked in that regard. And specs decent too.
I remember hauling one of these in to fourth grade for show and tell in 2002-03 and I used it the whole time for keyboarding instead of the AlphaSmart they gave to everyone else.
@DeltaWye@NanoRaptor thankfully my dad was huge into eBay back in the day. Opened an account as soon as they started. These things went for peanuts. I remember it even came fully loaded w/a bunch of apps and some college student's personal documents. That got blown away though mostly. (mostly bc there's a 20yo floppy disk somewhere w/probably something from it.. around.. somewhere.. still..)
@colinstu@DeltaWye That's why I ended up with a whole bunch of them - early eBay. The first machine I bought as a retro collectable was a 540c, $20 or something. I was online chatting to friends on it a few months later when september 11 happened.
I think I have mixed up machines from the series still floating around.
@NanoRaptor@DeltaWye exactly! All of em went for $25 or so a pop. Really loved it when they came fully loaded w/accessories too.
Those days are long over ;v; wish I never sold it all. Got it all outta here by 2010.... like, right before prices started going up.
I guess the only solace I have are that the capacitors in all of these are going. I know I don't have the chops to repair that.
@colinstu@DeltaWye I should post my huge regret, when I moved house and figured I was over Mac collecting, and recycled two trailer loads., In 2010, nobody wanted to come pick them up for free, even.
@jsnell They were in ways! They did have flaws. I do not wish to disassemble any of mine ever again in case they don't quite fit back together properly.
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