I’ve been into Apple Computers since Apple Computers was invented, and accordingly I have quite a collection of hardware from bygone days.
Back in 6th grade (1980) there were four Apple IIs in the ‘computing lab’ located in a repurposed storeroom off of the library, and I spent a ton of time on them… This was where I started using a hex-editor to crack copies of friend’s games so that I could play the game when they weren’t around.
I personally never owned an Apple II of any flavor though, as they were inordinately expensive even back then. My father had an OSI C1P and then a TRS-80 Model 1 that I messed with in the late 70’s, and my first personal computer – as in it was mine – was a Sinclair ZX-81 that I built from a $99 kit in 1981. I then moved to a Commodore VIC-20 in ’82 and an Atari 800XL in ’84 – but at school it was all Apple IIs and I used the crap out of them…
My first exposure to the Macintosh line was in late 1986 – one of the guys in the barracks at General Dynamics Electric Boat (EB) had a brand new Macintosh Plus his parents had bought for him right before he enlisted, and he wasn’t into it. So I picked it up off of him for a couple hundred bucks even though it was a $2600 computer at the time – which is $7500 in today’s money.
That Mac Plus is there on the left in the above photo, along with the “Mac Saver” fan on the top and the HD20 external drive I added later… 20 megabytes – it can hold almost three of the above JPGs – and it was amazing at the time.
That Mac Plus still runs, almost 40 years later. I need to re-cap the analog board as the monitor image is getting a little wobbly, but other than that it still runs MacPaint and Zork flawlessly.
In 1988 I moved to an Amiga 500 to get access to better color graphics, and the Mac Plus was relegated to the closet.
I was still using the Amiga 500 in late 1993 when I picked up the PowerBook 165C – the grey laptop just to the right of the Mac Plus. The 165C came out in early ’93 and I really wanted one to run this new “PhotoShop” application on, but they were around $4300 (about $9500 in 2025). By Christmas ’93 though I was able to score a used one for a grand – and it too still runs, though the battery has long since given up the ghost and is unobtanium these days.
The next Mac chronologically is the Power Mac 8100 sitting under the 165C. I picked this up in late 1995 for a song… I was working at a local used computer store called Action Computers as one half of the repair department, and the 8100 came in for repair. It was a $9,000 machine that needed about $700 in parts as I recall, and they never came back for it – so I got it for parts cost.
The above image, taken in March of 1996, shows the 8100 sitting between the machines for my BBS ‘Silicon Psychosis’ and under the ISDN modem and router that was my connection to the raw, unfiltered Internet. The 8100 was my workstation, where I cruised the nascent Internet, hung out in IRC and a few MUCKs, and did digital image stuff in PhotoShop. It also ran my website using HTTP server software called WebSTAR.
By the time the 8100 was retired it was maxed out in ram (264MB), HPV video with 4MB ram, 2GB HD, and a CD Burner. I recently replaced the HD with a SCSI to SD card adapter, but the rest of the machine is as it was back then – and it still works…
The next Mac is the PowerBook G3 (black laptop in the center). I picked up a PowerBook G3 “Wallstreet” in 1998, after I moved to Virginia in 1997, for use in my work in D.C. I eventually traded the “Wallstreet” for a “Pismo” in 2000. The Pismo is a 500Mhz G3 with a gig of ram and the “Airport” card – it was a hotrod back in the early aughts… Also still functions apart from the unobtanium battery, and I use it to dial into a few local BBSs on occasion.
Next is the 17″ 1.33Ghz PowerBook G4 (silver laptop in the center). This was a laptop I was given when I returned to Virginia in 2003 for an ill-fated teaching job. The tech school fell through but I got to keep the laptop. I did a full restoration of this machine with new old stock parts five or so years ago, so it’s pretty much as-new – even has a working battery! I pull this out and get it onto the Internet on occasion just for giggles.
From here I had an assortment of “Intel Macs” that weren’t really worth hanging on to and they generally got horse-traded for newer more powerful models… Things like iMacs and MacBooks and Mac minis…
Eventually, in 2010, I traded my way into that MacPro 5,1 (the big silver machine on the right). This was originally the bottom-spec single-CPU Xeon W3530 machine, but is now a fully maxed out dual-CPU 12-core 3.46Ghz Xeon machine with 128GB of ram, a Radeon RX580 video card, a 1TB M.2 PCIe adapter, 4TB of SATA storage, USB3, etc., etc. I used this machine for work as recently as last year as with some effort it’ll still run current MacOS versions. It’s a beast, and it’s a shame Apple went away from this sort of machine.
Lastly is the 2013 Mac Pro “Trashcan” that I picked up in 2015. This one is the dual D700 video card version that I upgraded the CPU, ram, and storage on. I used this as my daily driver until last year when it was replaced with an M2 Ultra Mac Studio – which was recently replaced with a 2025 M3 Ultra Mac Studio that I am using to write this post.
Also in that first picture, for the eagle-eyed viewer, are three of my original iPhones – iPhone 2G, iPhone 4, and iPhone 5. My iPhone 3, being made of plastic, didn’t fare so well and I no longer have it. The 4th device is my old iPod. I had a first-gen iPod when those came out, but it got lost in a move…
On top of the Mac Plus is the last modem I ever bought – a USRobotics Courier V.Everything from the mid 90’s. That runs through a Grandstream HT802 to the Internet and allows me to simulate the days of analog when dialing up BBSs.
In the upper right is a very special Commodore 64 – that one has a mini-ITX board with an Intel i9-9880H, 4GB GTX1650, 16GB ram, and a 1TB M.2 stuffed into it. It’s a perfectly reasonable modern computer that is also a perfect recreation of the original Commodore 64.
To the right of the cheese grater Mac Pro is a small silver box – this is a modern recreation of an Amiga 500 – a Fauxmiga if you will… It has all of the Amiga’s custom logic (Paula, Denise, Agnes) in FPGA, but all of the actual CPU functions and processing happen on a new old-stock DIP-style Motorola 68000… So it’s an actual Amiga 500, just with modern VGA, PS2 keyboard and mouse, and SD card storage.
Next to the Fauxmiga is an Atari 800 “mini” and joystick that I use to play 80’s video games on occasion.
And lastly you can just see my old MiniDisc player from the late 90’s under the Fauxmiga and 800 mini. I still take this on my walks and listen to minidiscs that I recorded back in the day.