It's always nice to own the latest and greatest Apple hardware, but some of us still use vintage machines. I've got a G3 All-In-One on my workbench that displays iFixIt PDFs while I work. I'll admit that I've wanted to tweet from that machine from a dedicated app, and now I can.

Grackle68k is a Twitter application for OS 9 through System 6. Yes, System 6! It's quite bare bones and low on bells and whistles, but it works. You'll have to enter your credentials every time you launch Grackle68k unless you're comfortable using ResEdit (if you're using this app, you likely are).

I played with this briefly on ny G3 and had fun. If you've also got a basement full of legacy Macs, give this a try. If only I still had that Powerbook 150...

Out with the old, in with the new. This week's hardware releases were met with new additions to Apple's vintage and obsolete hardware lists. The following have been added, and I'm sad to say that I'm still using the Dual Ethernet Airport Base Station:

• iBook G4 (Early 2004)
• iBook G4 (14" Early 2004)
• eMac (USB 2.0)
• Apple Cinema Display ADC
• Apple Studio Display 15" ADC
• Apple Studio Display 17" LCD
• Apple Studio Display 17" ADC
• Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
• Macintosh Server G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
• PowerBook G4 (DVI)
• iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM)
• iBook (16 VRAM)
• AirPort Base Station (Dual Ethernet)

I've also got a 20" G4 iMac and my wife uses at 14" iBook, both of which were previously added to the list. Supported or not, they're still useful -- check out this Macintosh Classic being used as a window display.

Back in 1994 my employer had several SE/30's connected via LocalTalk, and we thought that was the baddest thing on the planet. Not to mention late-night games of Maelstrom and Glider Pro. Oh, memories.

[Via HardMac]

If there's one Mac application that has seemingly been around forever, it's StuffIt. This compression and archiving utility was the tool to use for compressing files years ago, and I'll still occasionally run into a .sit file extension when pulling up old files. The original application was the source of a bit of Mac folklore, as it was developed and supported for quite a while by a young student by the name of Raymond Lau.

Mac OS X did its best to kill off StuffIt by adding built-in support for Zip compression, but the utility has continued to flourish over the years. During the last week, Smith Micro released the newest version of the application, StuffIt Deluxe 2010 (US$79.95, with an introductory price of US$29.95 through October 15, 2009).

Since compression has been part of Mac OS X for quite a while, you might think that this application would have limited usefulness. Smith Micro is spinning StuffIt Deluxe 2010 as a better way to share large files over the Internet. How does it work? Read on, my friends...

A couple of months ago I wound up in Paris and received a surprising direct message via Twitter from a young employee at Visua Mobile. Having nothing better to do in the City of Light, I wound up at their offices. I'm often suspect when a "mobile" development company rings me about their iPhone stable. Just like my tea, I prefer my developers steeped in Apple. Well, Visua Mobile is certainly made up of Apple fans. Just check out the gallery of their offices to see what I mean.

Visua's raison d'etre would be iPhone apps. To my astonishment, none have been runaway hits. They are beautifully designed and generally work well (some 3.0 bugs crept up). Visua gained some noteriety around their app, Fracture, that would make the iPhone screen appear broken when pressed. But they make a host of already-approved apps, including Celebrity, which features a special magazine cover just for TUAW fans.

Beverage choice should be simple: coffee or tea to rev up, wine or beer to spin down (App Store links). Of course, when it comes to drink choices, there's definitely an app for that: from the makers of espresso-instructions app Barista, we now have the $0.99 Cellar (under App Store review and appearing momentarily). Cellar's slick UI and quick data entry make keeping track of your wine library almost as fun as actually drinking the wine you collect.

When you start up Cellar, you face an empty winerack; you can add bottles one by one, entering both vintage details and customizing the look/label of the bottles with photos of the bottle labels. You can adjust the number of bottles of each kind of vino you have stored away, and then as you polish them off the 'empties' are stored in the Garage area of the app for reference or repurchase.

Cellars isn't an industrial-strength wine database or collection manager (My Wine or Velvet Vine Wine Pro might be better choices there, or a general-purpose database like Bento), but it is a handy way to remember what you've bought and liked. I'd like to see future versions support importing label images from the photo library (for iPod touch users) or download them from online wine libraries. Update: Apparently the library-select feature is already in place for iPod touch users. Readers also suggest checking out Drync for higher-end wine cellar management.

Cellar's $0.99 introductory price won't last for long. Check out the gallery for more Cellar shots.

Luxo Jr. gets Academy Award nomination
Even though Steve Jobs is no longer with Apple, we're still interested in what he's doing. You'll remember that he bought a computer graphics company from director George Lucas last year (for a rumored $10 million), which he named "Pixar."

We don't know how many units of the $135,000 Pixar Image Computer they've sold, but Pixar animator John Lasseter has put it to good use. The short film he produced, "Luxo, Jr." has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Animated Short Film category. Good luck, Pixar!

Lisa gets the axe
After several revisions and price cuts, the Lisa has been officially discontinued by Apple Computer. When it was released three years ago with an astounding price tag of $9,995 (Heck, the Tandy 600 is only $1599!) we were blown away. Not only by the cost, but by the machine itself. The mouse, the icons on the screen, that awesome trash can!

Sales have declined over the past 12 months, and even a re-branding as the Macintosh XL last January didn't help. The Macintosh has been selling like hotcakes since its introduction two years ago, even though it lacks many of the Lisa's features, like protected memory, expansion slots and support for an impressive 2 megabytes of RAM.

Goodbye, Lisa! We'll remember you.

The AppleColor RGB Monitor is totally awesome at $499
There are now several monitors available from Apple, and the granddaddy of them all is the AppleColor RGB Monitor at $499. This 12" analog monitor was designed for the Apple IIgs, and supports a resolution of 640x480 (Nice!). Those of you with a Macintosh II can also use this monitor, provided that you have the Apple High Resolution Display Video Card.

The Apple Monochrome Monitor was introduced earlier this year for $129.

The Macintosh Plus rocks
Finally, we've got to talk about the Macintosh Plus. With a 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor and 1 megabyte of RAM (expandable to 4 megabytes), we're excited about this machine. Of course, the big news is the SCSI (or "Small Computer System Interface") peripheral bus and the new 3.5 inch double-sided 800 KB floppy drive.

The SCSI port will allow for a nice collection of new ad-ons, like hard disks and tape drives. Of course, the double-sided floppies have twice the storage capacity as their predecessors while the drive itself is backwards compatible with older disks.

Customers will find the software programs MacPaint and MacWrite bundled with their Macintosh Plus, which is great! You can pick up your very own for $2,599.


Even though reviewers and early attendees have pointed out a slew of Apple references (including a snippet of the 1984 ad) in the Watchmen film, the one we've been waiting for most eagerly is the appearance of Adrian (Ozymandias) Veidt's sleek black SE/30. In the film version of 1985, it's what every 'world's smartest man' is using as his desktop computer. Never mind that in our universe, Apple didn't introduce the 68030-based compact Mac until 1989.

Looks like Gizmodo has the first photos of the all-in-one running System 6 (naturally). Hey, it's the consensus best Mac ever -- what else would you choose? Also, pay no attention to the fact that while that's a consistent ADB mouse, the keyboard appears to be for a PC.

If you can't get enough Watchmen, Giz also has a spoilerific discussion of whether one of the characters resembles a certain iCEO, and the iTunes store is chock-full of smiley-face content for your enjoyment. If the idea of a black SE/30 makes you all tingly inside, check out geektechnique's slick mod on his machine.

Update: Word is that there was, in fact, a security-hardened 'Tempest' model of the SE/30 that matches this description, except for the color. Commenter defor writes:

IT actually IS a Tempest SE/30, model CSI-1891T (the proper model which is a SE/30 that's been tempest-ized) by Candes Systems http://web.archive.org/web/20011127001651/members.aol.com/tempestcsi/ I can't say I've seen one in black before, but it looks fully legitimate, and i've heard of them existing. The old manuals i had seen only showed the platinum variant.

Those of you buying tickets to Watchmen via movietickets.com may have discovered, as I did, that there's an iTunes bonus in effect through 3/15: a chapter of the Watchmen motion comic + a "sneak peak [sic]" of the Tales of the Black Freighter animated minifeature. Be sure to scroll down on your ticket confirmation page to see the gift code, as it will not be emailed to you (at least, it wasn't in my case).

Thanks to Laurie & everyone who sent this in.

Ars Technica reports that Apple will announce the latest additions to its list of vintage and obsolete machines on March 17. The list, initially reported through MacMerc, includes the following:

The "vintage" machines are ones where service parts are available to repair machines purchased in California due to existing statutes. This classification does not apply in the other 49 states.

• Xserve RAID
• Xserve (Slot Load)
• Xserve (Cluster Node)

The rest of the additions, to grace the "obsolete" list, include:

• PowerBook G4
• Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)
• Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)

These machines have all had good runs. I had a Quicksilver as my first post-college work computer and thought it was the greatest computer I've ever worked on the time - way, way back in the golden days of years gone by (aka 2002). These computers will now join their brethren in the Mac retirement home. But just because Apple classifies them as obsolete doesn't mean that you can't breathe new life into them.

Have fond memories of these machines? Share them in the comments!

Back when the Macintosh meant a machine with a built-in black & white screen, there were some extremely popular games -- but for the generation that remembers the introduction of the Mac II's color display, the unmistakable gameplay of Crystal Quest is sure to spark a deep sense of joy. Collecting those crystals and escaping through the hyperspace hatch caused your Mac to emit a sigh of... well, relief would be the polite way to put it (I'm trying to find a sample of the audio to link). Xbox 360 owners have had a Crystal Quest version for a couple years now, and Vista users also got a build to play with.

The wild crystal excitement has made its way back to the future, as an iPhone/touch version of Crystal Quest is available. While it lacks the level-finishing 'ahh!' of the original, the rest of the gameplay should be familiar to graying fans of Mac OS 6-vintage entertainment. Crystal Quest is $4.99 in the App Store.

Alfred DiBlasi is at it again. A few months ago, he impressed us with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh he found on ebay. What's impressive about that? It was still factory sealed. Never opened, never booted, never used. That's the kind of find that makes my beige, vintage heart flutter.

This time around, he's playing with a vintage Lisa in an exhaustive demonstration video. Before booting it up, he takes it apart and discusses the innards, piece by piece.

Next is the money shot as the computer boots up, and Alfred moves through the UI. It's a pretty cool demonstration of a nice piece of Apple history.

Thanks for sharing, Alfred. What's next?

If you haven't tuned in yet for last week's talkcast, go check it out -- it features Scott's farewell announcement and our cranky assessment of MobileMe's first weeks. Download direct, or subscribe to the TalkShoe feed in iTunes.

Join us again tonight (Sunday 8/3) for our next live show, 10 pm ET as usual. Since this is the first anniversary of our little podcasting experiment (the kickoff show was back on 8/2/2007), we'll be looking back at the past year of Apple news and casting our Predict-O-Matics forward into the fall. We'll also be digging into the Ghost of Trivia Past bag for some trivia giveaways, all quite vintage (Mac OS 9 games! A broken iPod Mini! A copy of iMovie 3 Solutions by Erica Sadun, which we can probably get autographed for you! A pile of Zip disks -- with a drive!) but delivered with love.

Back in the summer of 1989, as an eager, green college intern for a major publishing company, I arrived on my first day of work to find that my office wasn't so much an office as it was a storage room. Sure, it had ample space and ventilation, but it was a glorified closet all the same -- home to my desk, shelves and boxes, and a few critical pieces of gear. Along with the network hubs for the floor, we had a rather sexy test system (a NeXT Cube, complete with 400dpi laser printer!) and an SE/30 running an unfamiliar email server. One of my tasks for the summer was to administer this server, which (considering the speed of delivery) bore the unlikely moniker "QuickMail."

With the ability to connect to other QM servers over intermittent dial-up links, offering gateways to public systems like AppleLink & CompuServe, and UUCP capability for Internet mail servers (yeah, old school), QuickMail Server and its companion client app made managing email for a small Mac LAN straightforward and easy. Future versions of the system expanded to offer webmail and POP compatibility, allowing for a heterogeneous mix of clients, but the original QM never lost its vintage UI or no-frills attitude.

Nearly 20 years later, Outspring, the inheritor of the QuickMail product line from original developer CE Software, has made it official: QuickMail is dead. Support for the product has ended, and users are encouraged to pony up the $39 to upgrade to Outspring Mail, the successor client -- as for the server, good luck (I'd recommend Kerio, Zimbra, EIMS or OS X Server, and Emailchemy to handle moving the user data). Farewell, QM; you and your sweetheart/nemesis Eudora enjoy your well-deserved retirement.

Written by Michael Rose.

[via Macintouch]

Mad props to my parents for keeping our basement an Apple museum! Aside from a pristine Apple //c (with monochrome monitor), vintage Apple ][ ,and Mac SE/30 (with a color monitor card) they kept most if not all of our Mac and Apple programming books from my youth. A few games even survived, although my addiction to Wasteland forced my dad to ship several of the more fun games to my French cousins. So I took some quick pics and made a vintage Apple books and software gallery. Enjoy the trip down memory lane-- and if any of the authors of these books are around, let us know in the comments.

Some of my favorites:

• Chipwits - one of my favorite edutainment titles ever (and the original authors are trying to bring it back)
• Jeeves - before he hit the web he was your personal assistant
• Adventure Construction Set - taught me a lot about game design
• Using HyperCard - oh how I miss HyperCard
• The Elementary Apple - notable because of the binding, which was really useful when trying to type in programs
• The Halley Project - who didn't freak out when they heard their Apple start talking?
  

For some reason my copy of Racter is MIA.

Combining two of our little trends lately, retroware and eBay vintage, here's the motherload for any NeXT fan-- a complete (and boy do I mean complete) set of NeXT computer cube stuff on eBay.

Holy cow that's a lot of stuff-- he's a matching grayscale (!) display and speakers, all the cables, a spare motherboard, all the books and discs, and even the original sticker sheet. Who keeps the sticker sheet?!? The thing even still runs Omniweb (inside NeXTSTEP 3.3 patch 2), and he's got a screenshot of Google up and working.

So how much will it run you? Currently, the auction is at $710 with a business week left to go even higher, but seriously now-- how much is it worth to you to get a little piece (or in this case, a lot of pieces) of non-Apple Jobs?

Thanks, Richard! (who saw it on Boing Boing)

After we posted that neon Apple sign a little while back, reader Franco thought we'd get a kick out of this Apple flag for sale on eBay, and he was right. The best news is that right now, it's sitting pretty at only $10 (reserve not yet met, though) flying upwards-- what are you TUAW readers, rich?-- so you could own a little piece of Apple history for cheap.

As for dating it, the page says the 80s. No mention of Macintosh might put it before 1984, but that's just a guess-- Apple IIs were known as the first "personal computers" and those were made all the way up until the early 1990s. I really love those fonts, though, and of course the rainbow logo is a classic.