Live data from Hacker News

Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

blog.decryption.net.au

41–50 of 79 posts

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really disheartens me with modern cars is that electric cars are much simpler than than cars powered by combustion engines, which could be a huge boon to the fix-it-yourself crowd, but car manufacturers now lock customers out of their cars, so electric cars don't have the opportunity to become hobbyist friendly. There are small electric-car companies that let customers do what they want, like Edison Motors, but…

In theory they can be mechanically, in practice high ADAS standards and functionality like regenerative breaking make it feel like a pretty high risk proposal to allow an end user in.

Also 800V lithium battery packs capable of delivering hundreds of amps of current.

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#42

Take an SE/30, add some mass storage (something above 20MB), plug in a postscript printer, add ClarisWorks, maybe Filemaker, and you have something that, even today, would do 80%+ of what human beings use computers for. Outside of the internet. Get a network adapter (which pretty sure exists for the SE/30), and, like, Eudora(?), and you MIGHT even get email. Struggle there is everyone (rightly) does email over TLS, s…

Prince of Persia is a great game to run on older Macs (not necessarily the SE).

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#43
post #15

An old car can still drive on current roads. There's may be no aircon, only AM radio and no airbags, but there's still horsepower and size to do what cars do. Then, cars rust and naturally become rare and expensive to restore to a running state, and almost all of the appeal is that you can show off in them, displaying how much money you can afford to spend on a hobby. Old computers are pretty cheap and are limited to…

Well, I disagree!

Many countries in Europe are now restricting access to cities to exclude even what would be considered relatively new vehicles. For example, Amsterdam's plan includes a transition to a zero-emission city center by 2030, and is already at Euro 4 emissions, affecting many vehicles from the 2000s. Germany's cities are also well ahead on emissions restrictions, as is Paris. No classic for you! I think only one of my cars would be allowed to operate in much of the Randstad today, but thankfully I don't live or work there anymore.

Meanwhile PDP-8 systems like mine are selling for in excess of €6k these days, and someone recently paid €1750 for a NeXTstation Turbo Color like mine, to say nothing of the other 20+ 60s, 70s, and 80s systems in my collection. I regularly remind my wife: if I drop dead unexpectedly, SELL that stuff, don't junk it or give it away.

A random 1950s-1970s car in serviceable driving condition can be had for a few grand around here, but Millennials having kids, nostalgia, and money all at the same time, not to mention COVID madness, has shot old computer prices through the roof. I expect that market will crater when they put us in the ground, much as the vintage car market is coming down a bit as we lose Boomers without gaining as many younger people interested in old cars. Populations moving to cities means that parking your vanity car (if classics are even allowed) in addition to your commuter would represent a significant uplift in ongoing expense, which will probably help to keep that market depressed.

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#44

Suggestions for old Mac Apps to look out for: - WriteNow! a very nice word processor that was originally developed for Next computers, before word took over it was the favorite. - ClarisWorks/AppleWorks - One of the better pre office integrated apps - the database was REALLY easy to use, and interfaced well with the vector graphics module, spreadsheet, and word processor... - FoxBase+/Mac - Before Microsoft bought Fo…

I’m really sad about the loss of HyperCard (and HyperCard like things.) I worked in a musical instrument store in the early 90s and my boss had a Mac SE (maybe an SE/30 like in TFA?) tricked out with an entire custom set of HyperCard stacks designed to run his business, everything from inventory to accounting to instrument rental. Every now and then we’d need something and one of us would code up a new feature. My wife is starting a business today and I’m dreaming of having something as great as HyperCard to help her script up what she needs, but nothing commercial seems nearly as cool.

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#45
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like it needs a tune-up. Lots of performance parts available too for cars from that era.

These old cars can be a lot of fun but even the fast ones weren't that fast when taken against a modern family car... take a 68 Mustang, an iconic car as featured in Bullitt, with a 0-60 of 5.4 seconds and compare it to a 2012 Toyota Camry doing the same in 5.8 seconds. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a151426... https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15122183/toyota-camry-... I used to drive a 62…

Here's the thing. A 68 Mustang had no almost emissions controls. A 78 Thunderbird was almost the exact same stuff, except it was choked to shit. A modern computer-controlled Camry is not only way better performing, it also orders of magnitude cleaner.

IMO the ICE has achieved its final form, so now the future has to be something else (electric).

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#46
post #12

It's interesting how more "amateur approachable" both old cars and old computers are. Old cars can be worked on by anyone with some basic tools and know-how, and old computers could be understood and programmed the same way. MacPaint was made by one employee. I think this is partially why people want these types of objects. You can actually own them. You can understand them. You can mod them. Modern cars, games, comp…

Old cars are wonderful except for one thing: safety. Modern cars are just so much safer with crumple zones and airbags. I would never want to use an old car as a daily driver.

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#47

Take an SE/30, add some mass storage (something above 20MB), plug in a postscript printer, add ClarisWorks, maybe Filemaker, and you have something that, even today, would do 80%+ of what human beings use computers for. Outside of the internet. Get a network adapter (which pretty sure exists for the SE/30), and, like, Eudora(?), and you MIGHT even get email. Struggle there is everyone (rightly) does email over TLS, s…

would do 80%+ of what human beings use computers for.

Outside of the internet.

The internet is what 80% of people use computers for. They probably spend more than 80% of their computing time on it.

Furthermore, for business use you need to run the latest Office 365 applications. While an SE/30 could probably give a modern computer a run for its money at actual productivity, it’s not going to cut IT compatibility-wise. Plus there’s the whole PDF issue.

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#48
post #8

This resonates so hard with me! Except in my case it’s the Apple ][. I’ve decided it’s completely unnecessary to justify this retro computing passion, there’s nothing wrong with venerating the ingenuity, ethos and craftsmanship of the time. The excitement we felt at the breakthroughs that were coming fast and furious back then, the community and camaraderie of fellow nerds, the realization that those massively constr…

Totally agree. I recently re-read Revolution in the Valley (Andy Hertzfeld's memoir of working on the Mac) and I absolutely got same same vibe you described. It's also hard not to be in awe of someone like Bill Atkinson - RIP legend. I just wanted to experience first hand the work this team made, rather than just reading about it, looking at screenshots or using it via an emulator. Maybe I'll learn something, or worst case, just a sense of appreciation of the shoulders of the giants we stand on.

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#49
post #39

I know what he means. I don’t have the room (or time) to restore and keep an old Mac, but I am 3D printing little replicas (and tweaking the models out there) to build something to toy with: https://taoofmac.com/space/notes/2025/06/22/1830 Mine currently runs System 7 and After Dark 24/7 (while acting as a Tailscale exit node) on my shelf, and I’m currently (slowly) designing a facsimile mouse for it. I love tinkerin…

That little replica Mac is very cute - the flying toaster screensaver is a nice touch. Is that running on a Pi Zero or something?

Re: Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac

#50
I also own a vintage iBook G4 (maxed at 1.5G RAM so it's pretty powerful) and I'm struggling to find meaning in owning it.

Originally I was thinking about getting touch with PowerPC architecture and check out how Apple did the 68K emulator. But now I'm completely burnt out from work, I simply have no interest in programming at all, and the laptop sits in a drawer collecting dusts.

I feel sad for it and myself.

Post reply on HN