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Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

arstechnica.com

41–50 of 88 posts

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#41
post #35

If Woz were still in Apple there would be Apple-run makerspaces, with Apple branded 3d printers and all the types of filament you could dream of. Too bad Jobs turned the company into a boring locked-down anti-consumer appliance factory.

Unfortunately in our reality Woz is merely a humble multimillionaire instead of a billionaire, and we do not have Woz funded makerspaces.

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#42

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Grd_a4oi7qU is a really cool video where someone builds a computer that looks and feels like an early Apple design concept for a flat, portable Macintosh, something between a modern laptop and a tablet. They pull it off really well; if you didn't know better, you'd think you'd found a lost prototype. Anyway, one of the problems they had to solve was the plastic colour, and they did it by p…

Neat! Feels a bit like the Soulcircuit Pilet:

https://soulscircuit.com/pilet

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#43
post #4

Something that has been kind of funny for me, perhaps others are feeling this way: I see increasingly this "retro computing community" fawning over machines that I think of as ... just machines that I used once. Some of the machines were even kind of scorned at the time as I recall — now they're sought after, lovingly restored.... I don't know if my reaction is as one who is being made aware of just how old they are…

Does that same feeling of wow still exist for kids today? They have grown up with computers there entire life. Some of us were introduced to computers in our teens, so there was prior experience of not having a computer for that wow to hit. Even now, the wow factor has diminished for me with new computers/devices. They are not really doing anything new as much as they just do the things faster/quiter/cheaper/smaller.…

In my case the computers I 'learned computers' on were old pre-xp 90's machines. Nobody cares if some kid wants to take apart a few old computers on their way to the trash. That feeling of 'getting something to work' on those old machines sort of never went away for me, which is why I like retrocomputing even though the internet, cell phones, youtube, social media was pretty much around most of my life.

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#44
post #39
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is that you used them. The retro community is for people who lusted after those machines, but we’re stuck with something much more affordable and much less powerful. And now they’re well into middle age and they have money.

There’s a lot more to it actually. When given the knowledge of today, a lot can actually be done with vintage computers. I would say it’s an artistic medium. Take a look at the Commodore 64 developer manual and quickly realize that without much difficulty, one can learn the full assembly instruction set along with all BASIC commands. https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_programmers_reference/c... The machine is compl…

That’s the second order fascination which comes less in the actual original hardware but in rebuilds and equivalents and other “not collector but operational”.

Those are how younger people are going to get excited for the hardware - the software is available to anyone willing to run an emulator.

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#45

Something that has been kind of funny for me, perhaps others are feeling this way: I see increasingly this "retro computing community" fawning over machines that I think of as ... just machines that I used once. Some of the machines were even kind of scorned at the time as I recall — now they're sought after, lovingly restored.... I don't know if my reaction is as one who is being made aware of just how old they are…

Yeah, it's kind of weird. I had a 386 with 4MB RAM and am not the least nostalgic about it. In fact damn near everything about that machine was limiting and something I couldn't wait to replace with something newer. I even didn't care for the beige color schemes of the day -- I remember going for the brushed aluminium case way back because I was excited it wasn't freaking beige. Watching some of the channels though I…

> I had a 386 with 4MB RAM and am not the least nostalgic about it. In fact damn near everything about that machine was limiting and something I couldn't wait to replace with something newer.

It is difficult to be nostalgic about the machines lacking, for want of a better term, a soul. PC compatibles are as soulless as it gets. Quite soon after introduction, they became part of the endless treadmill of faster CPU - more memory - better graphics - larger HDDs. (That doesn't stop people being nostalgic about software running on PCs, again with that same basic characteristic.)

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#47
post #6

Something that has been kind of funny for me, perhaps others are feeling this way: I see increasingly this "retro computing community" fawning over machines that I think of as ... just machines that I used once. Some of the machines were even kind of scorned at the time as I recall — now they're sought after, lovingly restored.... I don't know if my reaction is as one who is being made aware of just how old they are…

The key is that you used them. The retro community is for people who lusted after those machines, but we’re stuck with something much more affordable and much less powerful. And now they’re well into middle age and they have money.

I have become slightly more interested in the software, that is, the GUI, the operations, etc. I miss some of the simplicity of classic mac, and the silly ideas I had trying to program it (which I sort of understand better now.) The hardware is physically demanding and costly (space in my apartment is precious).

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#48
post #38
post #35

If Woz were still in Apple there would be Apple-run makerspaces, with Apple branded 3d printers and all the types of filament you could dream of. Too bad Jobs turned the company into a boring locked-down anti-consumer appliance factory.

If Jobs didn't come back and run Apple the way he did, it is very likely that Apple wouldn't exist today. They were on a tailspin to destruction. That's my take.

Both things can be true.

And by the way, Microsoft saved them with a $150M injection.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh...

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#49
> The PLA filament (PLA is short for polylactic acid) allows hobbyists to 3D-print nostalgic novelties, replacement parts, and accessories that match the original color of vintage Apple computers.

> Over time, original Macintosh plastics have become brittle and discolored with age, so matching the "original" color can be a somewhat challenging and subjective experience.

So it seems like the color is for 3D-printing stuff to look "new"?

Makes me wonder if there will be a "thirty years discolored" version as well, if you want to print a piece to replace something broken... or can you just leave it out in the sun for a couple weeks or something?

Re: Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament

#50
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is that you used them. The retro community is for people who lusted after those machines, but we’re stuck with something much more affordable and much less powerful. And now they’re well into middle age and they have money.

I have become slightly more interested in the software, that is, the GUI, the operations, etc. I miss some of the simplicity of classic mac, and the silly ideas I had trying to program it (which I sort of understand better now.) The hardware is physically demanding and costly (space in my apartment is precious).

The emulators available are top-notch, and you can get a quite functional “developmental setup” running and even use file sharing to be able to target old Mac OS with modern IDEs.
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