Posts categorized “macs”.

Get your (classic) Mac lingo straight

March 27th, 2013

Mac OS extension manager

What’s an extension? An extension conflict? The command key?

A fantastic little site called The Essential Mac has all these keywords listed and defined — great if you’re new to the classic Mac operating system.

It’s also a great primer for everything from Control Panels to those pesky extensions in pre-OS X Macintoshes. And since time on this site seemed to stop in 1997, you have a classic reference piece. The Essential Mac comes courtesy of the South Shore Mac Users Group in Long Island, NY.

(via System Folder)

PowerBook G3 Round-Up

December 26th, 2012

Stephen Hackett at 512pixels:

In retrospect, it’s easy to see just how important the PowerBook G3s were to Apple. The machines bridged the gap between old-school and modern Macs, and each generation included significant progress in Apple’s mobile technology.

The photos are great, as is the analysis. Having never owned a PowerBook G3, I often find it hard to get the naming system just right.

[via Thomas Brand.]

System Folder: Vintage Italian Apple brochures

October 31st, 2012

Page 2 of a 1998 Italian Apple brochure introducing the iMac G3, the PowerBook G3, Mac OS 8 and related software.

Good “vintage” stuff from Riccardo Mori over at System Folder. Love the lady’s shirt.

Medicinal eMac

August 20th, 2012

Funny what you find in a top-rated, university-backed medical research facility.

Man, those eMacs. Still plugging along.

Skeuomorphism throughout Apple’s history

July 25th, 2012

Thomas Brand at Egg Freckles gives us a history lesson in Apple skeuomorphism, all the way back to the beginning:

Before the Mac there was no skeuomorphism, because there was no graphical user interface. For almost thirty years the iconography of desktop objects have greeted users as they stare into their computer screens. The desktop metaphor has given new computer users a familiar foundation to ground their experiences upon, and expert users terminology such as “files” and “folders” we still use today.

Brushed metal, DVD players, and even the calculator – Brand shows that skeuomorphism is nothing new for Apple.

Even the Newton had its share of skeuomorphism, with the lined paper metaphor greeting us in the Notes app.

Iron Man, circa 1984

May 18th, 2012

Pretty fantastic.

[via Devour]

Mac Floppy: disk stories of yore

March 12th, 2012

Thomas Brand, he of the delightful Egg Freckles, has done it again: Mac Floppy is a tumblog of the old Macintosh disk days.

Brand covers everything from classic Mac games, to MacPaint, to Disk Swapper’s Elbow.

With Egg Freckles focused on longer-form pieces, Brand says Mac Floppy helps him get creative with shorter pieces on classic Mac software.

“A lot of people grew up staring at a Macintosh with a monochrome 9 inch screen,” he told me. “I am hoping to collect some of those memories from the Macintosh community by sharing screenshots from my early Mac software collection. If everything goes to plan we should see the comments start to fill up with recollections from other users.”

Brand is looking for guests posts, so let him know if you’re dying to write about an old-school application.

‘Something Old’ by John Carey

March 9th, 2012

Something Old by John Carey

This lovely image comes courtesy of John Carey over at fiftyfootshadows. Carey shares desktop images available for download — and boy, is this one gorgeous for all kinds of reasons. Says John:

I came across an opportunity to take this old Mac out back and shoot it recently. We were cleaning out old storage space and came across our Mac graveyard of sorts. Also In there was a Cube and moving head iMac. Good stuff.

Good stuff, indeed. Download the full version at the blog. You can see more of Carey’s work at his Flickr gallery.

And extra points if you can guess the Macintosh model.

Matt’s Macintosh: 1984

February 27th, 2012

Matt over at Matt’s Macintosh has a lovely office setup.

[via Stephen Hackett.]

Return of the Mac

October 19th, 2011

Golly. I’ve really done it now.

This little project started last fall, after the “Back to the Mac” Apple event. I collected a few Apple product videos, scoured YouTube for the highest quality PowerPC-era Mac commercials I could find – even asked Twitter where to find good, high-res files.

But I made do. And so here it is: a goofy, super geeky take on “Return of the Mack” – dropping the “k” of course.

What I like is that Apple videos make their machines fly – lots of swooping and dramatic angles and shadows. Tons of product rotations. All (except for the PowerMac G5 vid) against a brilliant white background.

For variety, I threw in some random stuff like the chip manufacturing shots. And some Apple reps doing some bad lip syncing.

Anyway. Glad to be done with it. It’s nothing like a pro job: there are still little hints of YouTubeness and window frames in there. But it’s just a fun little music video for us Macintosh geeks.