Welcome to Macintosh Page #7

But, you know, a Mac user...

They'll keep

an old machine around forever...

...if it's lights are still running.

We've all got old Macs,

like, you can't bear to throw away...

...in a basement,

or in a cupboard somewhere in the attic.

They're hard to part with. You figure

one day you're gonna dust them off...

...do something with them.

You never do.

They just sit, rotting away.

There's a lot of people that collect them.

But some of them are more serious

than others.

Okay.

Up first, this is our G3 monitor.

Very rare.

When this came in...

A friend of mine brought it in.

- It's the first time I'd ever seen it.

I didn't even know that Apple made it,

but it was... Got the Apple logo on it.

And it was made for the G3 tower.

This is Apple's entry...

It's got the Apple logo on it.

- Into the portable printer...

You recognize, these?

Black with the Bell + Howell

name on them.

Apple made it for Bell + Howell.

And they were mainly education.

I started buying a couple

of these machines from people I know.

And then refurbishing them.

Here's my II Plus that I purchased

originally, way back when.

I replaced my Apple II Plus

with an Apple llc.

I should've thrown the II Plus away,

but never did.

No, this is like

our conference room that is...

I ran out of space to fix my laptops,

so I started fixing them in here.

I didn't wanna see a nice room

go to waste, so I put more stuff in it.

In education, this is probably one of

the biggest ones, these Microzines.

Where it's like a magazine

and a diskette.

Almost every school had these.

Here's my 20th anniversary

and everybody's favorite, the Cube.

Here's a cool machine, Mac mini.

They hit a home run

when they made this.

Here's something that's...

Three-and-a-half-inch diskettes,

still shrink-wrapped.

They have the old, old, old Apple logo.

Apple's had several different logos

over the years.

And that's one of the old ones.

You may think it's an Apple lle,

but when you take this cover off...

...you may still think it's an Apple lle,

but it's not.

Apple llGS before the llGS cases

were made.

Anything interesting over here?

No.

And the I bought a lle.

Then I bought a lle

with a numeric keypad.

I should've been throwing these away,

but never did...

...so maybe that was my training.

Junk. That's a long name for junk.

Back here, we made some kind

of attempt at putting things on shelves.

Dual drives.

The Apple 51/4s. The Apple 31/2s.

Some Apple printers.

Apple keyboards, Apple mice.

Original boxes that are empty...

...that I just ain't got the heart

to throw away.

Just don't film my butt

as I'm going up here.

- Oh, I won't, I won't.

- Just watch your step up here, Rob.

Okay, we're in the bowels of the building,

up in the rafters.

There was too much nice space up here

that we didn't wanna waste.

So we built little shelves

so we could put all our lle's, II Pluses.

And it looks like critters

have been up here...

...because some have

fallen down on the insulation.

Apple II monitors, GS monitors,

and every single one works.

They were tested

before we put them up here.

Back here is a storage shed.

It was meant to hold the things

that were in my basement.

And luckily we built a little bit bigger

than what I intended.

Bell + Howells.

These things are going on eBay...

I've seen them as high as,

It's not ever been a money issue,

collecting or disposing of the Apples.

It's probably a sickness that I have.

I have the 128 Mac in hiding.

A lot of the SEs, SE/30s.

Classics.

Only a couple Color Classics.

Six-thousand square feet building

and this is only maybe...

...less than half of what I have.

There are probably

other Mac people out there...

...same boat as I am,

that just won't throw this stuff away.

So I see all these

complaints about Cult of Mac.

"What are...? It's not a cult.

This a rational choice."

And these are all these new Windows

people that have just come onboard.

You know, and are sort of defensive

about it a little still.

Because their other Windows

friends who haven't crossed over yet.

There's that Macintosh cult following.

You don't get a following for nothing,

you know? You get a...

If it's a good product

and it makes people excited...

You can have lots of good products.

They are lots of good products.

I got a skillet and it's good.

But I'm not crazy about the skillet.

Well, it's always been

kind of interesting.

There's definitely a fanatical

sort of zealotry of Mac people.

You know?

It's not a religion. It's a computer.

I got a lawn mower too,

but I don't sit around talking about it.

Yeah, I mean...

So I cut my grass, whatever, you know?

I type a Word document.

It's a screwdriver or it's a blender,

you know, like whatever.

You know, I'm not really in love

with my Mac.

I like a good movie

more than I do a good Mac, you know.

I like good beverages

more than my computer.

I watch the rumor sites like a hawk.

And I was a little more lucky this time

because my Blue and White G3...

...we got it and then the G4 came out

two weeks later. It's like, "What?"

Look how they're suing bloggers now,

you know...

...for revealing some details

about a very insignificant product.

Although, it's a problem that's plagued

the company, this kind of rumor control.

I get between 2500

and 3000 unique visitors a day.

And which is, you know,

for the fact that I'm just putting up...

...goofy little jokes

about a computer company...

...I think that's pretty good.

I was a pretty avid reader

of rumor sites for a long time.

And, you know, usually, I mean, pretty

much through the late part of the '90s.

And constantly checking on what

Apple's gonna do next, that kind of thing.

And then it sort of hit me that...

I think around the time

that one of them predicted...

...that there was gonna be

a crank-powered iBook...

...that these guys didn't necessarily know

what they were talking about.

I think they also just got worse

when Steve Jobs came back...

...because he cracked down on the leaks

that were going out to these sites.

And so they were probably actually better

during the mid-90s...

...they were probably more accurate.

I've actually gotten, you know...

Been fortunate enough

to have some contact...

...with some of the Apple executives...

...who apparently read the site

on a fairly regular basis...

...and e-mail me when they find

something particularly amusing.

There's one person

who I can mention...

...since he's not there anymore,

was Avie Tevanian...

...who was the chief technologist

at Apple.

And I had written... I had written a story

about him going into puberty again.

And just how he was

sulking around the office...

...and, you know,

kind of shuffling around.

And he wouldn't do any work,

and, you know...

And Steve was just having a terrible time

with him...

...and didn't know what to do.

And so, you know,

I usually end up writing...

Publishing the stories at night.

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