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How old is your oldest working Mac?

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Jan 27th 2009 at 12:00PM

A few months ago I brought my family's old Macintosh SE/30 to my home office. While it booted fine a few years ago, it looks like mine has developed SimasiMac, which means a trip inside the machine to replace a few capacitors (I hope). Along with the SE/30 I brought a Powerbook 540c, one of the more capable (and last) of the smaller, 68LC040-based laptops from Apple. The 500 series had numerous firsts, like a trackpad and sleep mode when you shut the lid, plus you could upgrade the CPU to a PowerPC chip.

Currently our 540c doesn't have much software on it, as we used Zip disks to store many of the educational programs my little brothers used in the 90's. It does, however, have a copy of SoftPC, and Windows 95 installed on it. Not two months ago my son sat here in the office and had a ball playing with Paint (why isn't there something like this pre-installed on Macs, hm?) and Minesweeper. He's playing with the calculator in the picture. I find it a little sad that we had to resort to Windows for casual fun, but I guess that's why Macs were never considered "toy computers" (that's sarcasm for those who missed the reference).

When the kids do play classic Mac OS games, I let them use my 500 MHz G3 iBook (the first of the "icebooks"), which not only runs Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, but has a version of TuxPaint for OS X, which I highly recommend. It should be noted that quite a few older Mac educational games won't run on the iBook. Often it's an issue with older versions of QuickTime expected by the program, or some funky extension or Director call that just won't work after OS 8.5 (remember Sherlock?).

You can see some really old Macs pulling serious duty over on Cult of Mac as well. But I want to know what you readers are running in the way of older Macs. What's the oldest Mac currently still living in your house, and what do you use it for? Oh, and if anyone has a copy of NetTrek they'd like to share...

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A few months ago I brought my family's old Macintosh SE/30 to my home office. While it booted fine a few years ago, it looks like mine has...
 

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Clark

Running a Mac Plus, Powerbook pismo, G4 AGP 400, G4 AGP 500, purple iMac g3, and G4 powerbook alum 1.5 all on a daily basis.

The plus and AGP 400, and pismo seems to be the only ones that run successfully without any maintenance to the drives on a regular basis.

Still like some aspects of 6.0.4 better than OSX ;)

April 07 2009 at 10:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tuomas

A Power Macintosh 6100 (Mac OS 9) is hooked to midi keyboard at home, and has an ethernet connection with iMac. With 6100 I write and download midi files and play them back. There are some games and KidPix (like Paint for kids) for my sons. And it acts as a print server for LaserJet 5MP with control panel LocalTalk Bridge.

Older Apple hardware are in the basement. But another thing is using old software with emulation. ClarisWorks 5 works in an Intel iMac (Mac OS 10.5) with Sheep Shaver, loaded with Mac OS 9, and some old game with Basilisk II. I am grateful to people who have made it possible to keep my investment.

February 02 2009 at 11:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kel

When I was three years old, my father brought home an original Mac 128k. The wonders of MacPaint kept me entertained for hours, and are still entertaining my young cousin, 24 years later.

February 01 2009 at 2:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Max

My oldest Macs are two 128Ks, one with the rare SCSI and RAM upgrade. They worked when I last tried them a few years ago, I don't have the space to set them up, otherwise I would like to use them for some "simple computing", when I got one of them it needed a new power supply, I put in one from a Mac Plus, the old one probably just needs some new capacitors. I won't list the dozen or so Macs I have newer than that I have, I don't think I can remember them all. I also have some older pre-Macintosh Apples. My two newest computers are a 2002 600MHz iMac (found it in a dumpster about 3 years ago, it replaced my 2000 400MHz iMac DV I bought new) and a 2001 500 MHz Powerbook G4, which I use everyday. I realize these are ancient by many people's standards but they work fine for what I do and I have no plans to replace them. When other people see my PowerBook, they think it is a lot newer, like others said Window laptops this old were generally heavy ugly bricks that would probably be horrible slow today.

January 31 2009 at 11:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Max's comment
Sally G

My first Apple was a IIc; I've had a few computers over the years, always giving the hand-me-down to my parents. I generally stay with a computer as long as possible, changing only to accommodate new printer requirements, system requirements, etc. My only current Mac is a PowerMac G4 desktop that I bought new in Feb. 2002 (I wanted a computer that could run Classic as well as OSX). When I upgraded my dial-up (56K modem) Internet connection to broadband this past October (so I didn't have to switch between processing windows so often) and could watch the videos that I had been resisting as time-wasters, I realized it finally needed more than the 256MB memory originally installed. Yesterday I added 1 GB, so I guess I'm set until the next forced upgrade. My needs are relatively unsophisticated, primarily print, and I have been meeting them comfortably.

February 01 2009 at 3:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Robert Bigelow

I use a 2000 PowerBook G3 (FireWire) I've lovingly named "Methuselah" in honor of her longevity. With a 400mHz PowerPC 750 processor, 512mB SDRAM and a Seagate 80gB ATA HD, she handles Mac OS 10.4.11 (Tiger) like a champ and is arguably the most enjoyable Apple portable I've ever used. I have a more modern iBook G4 1.25gHz that I use as a "desktop" with a USB keyboard and mouse, but "iceBook" isn't anywhere as near an enjoyable machine to use as 'thusie. ^..^~

January 31 2009 at 9:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jaqui11

Oldest mac is now my eMac 700 Mhz, been overclocked to 900 Mhz, has a superdrive fitted, 1 Gb ram and a 160 Gb 7200 Rpm drive fitted recently and now runs 10.5 quite happily. This now gets more use than my quicksilver 933 as it takes up less deskspace. Only recently gave away an imac G3 400 that was still working fine but I had no room for it, went to a friend for their kids room to use for basic internet use.

January 31 2009 at 8:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mel

The oldest Mac in my house is a Mac Plus. I rarely use it, but it still boots and shows a display.

The oldest one in semi-regular use is a Powerbook 3400 that boots from a Compact Flash card into Mac OS 8.6. Runs telefinder client for connection to Headgap BBS, my favorite word processor, Write Now 4.0, old games, Nifty Telnet SSH, Stuff-It Lite and MS Word 5.1 among other apps.

My regular Macs are quite vintage too... Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 700 tower and iBook G3 700 both running Mac OSX.

January 31 2009 at 3:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Falstaff48

Oh and two g4 Cubes.

January 30 2009 at 8:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Falstaff48

My current main desktop is an G4 Imac 800 and the main powerbook is a 12" G4 powerbook. I also have a Quicksilver dual 800 G4 used as a media center. But I keep around and use the following, from time to time:
Clamshell ibook g3 blueberry, clamshell ibook g3 indigo, a pb pismo g3, 2 pb lombard g3, a wallstreet g3, a pb 1400/166c, a pb duo 280c, a pb 5300c, 2 pb 190c and a pb 520. in storage I have a working B&W g3 500 (sonnet upgrade) another quicksiver and an imac 400 dv that is my daughters (shes 5) computer that I need to bring home so she can watch her dvd movies. And don't get me started on my Newtons (5)and emates (2)!

Damn I need to re-focus my life!

January 30 2009 at 8:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chang

I have a graphite iMac DV/SE running Tiger. Perfect for Kidpix for my 4 year old son.

January 30 2009 at 4:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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