Adam Rosen I am a vintage Mac collector in the Boston, MA, US area, and an Apple Certified Macintosh consultant doing business under the name Oakbog. I've been using Macs for over three decades and counting!
The iPad is all the rage today, but Apple’s been working on tablet computers for a long time. The Newton is the obvious example of an ancestral form of iDevice, but it was far from the only (or oldest) concept Apple dallied with. While doing some research online I came across these photos of early Apple prototype tablet. Designed as concept pieces in 1983 (pre-Macintosh) by the legendary Frog Design – who did many of Apple’s early designs – these pictures show Apple’s efforts in a very different era:
The “Bashful” — named after the story-book dwarf in Snow White — was created alongside the Apple II computer series as an extension of the Snow White design language that frog Founder Hartmut Essligner helped create for the company in 1983. Concepts for this early pre-touch tablet included one with an attached keyboard and one with a floppy disk drive and convenient handle for maximum portability. An attached stylus helped the user interact with the screen. [Frog Design]
Given that Apple has been working on tablets for so long, it is a bit odd that the only thing released prior to the debut of the iPhone was the Newton – and this was by John Sculley, while Steve Jobs was at NeXT. When Jobs returned to Apple he famously killed the Newton, which has always been portrayed as a stab at Sculley and a disdain for PDAs.
But was it? Perhaps as much as anything else the need for a stylus for input rated Jobs’ repeated #FAIL behavior. All of these pre-iDevice tablets use a stylus and/or keyboard for input. It was only when touch screen technology got good enough that Apple finally released it’s first tablet device. And Steve is adamant about using touch, rather than a stylus or a keyboard, on Apple’s mobile computing devices. Hmmm….
I got the email on a Wednesday afternoon: Guy Kawasaki was releasing his work The Macintosh Way as a free eBook, and was looking for help to promote the effort. A group of local companies in Cambridge MA had volunteered to digitize the book and produce a promotional video, and they in turn were looking for some old working Macs on short notice.
A few tweets later they learned of my old Mac collection a couple towns away, and asked if they could come by that weekend to shoot the gear in action. Old computers aren’t used to being needed urgently – it gives them a sense of purpose, they get excited – and it sounded like a fun project.
One rainy Saturday morning a small crew stopped by with video production gear, a couple decades worth of pop culture paraphernalia, and a sizable amount of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. We set to work choosing Macs from various years to place alongside chronologically matching books, CDs, digital peripherals (and of course The Macintosh Way) to reenact the Mac past.
The models shown in the video are the Macintosh 512k, an SE/30 (never say die), the PowerBook 170 (with Newton MessagePad), the original Bondi Blue iMac (with puck mouse), a PowerMac G4 (not shown) driving a 17″ Studio Display, a 12″ PowerBook G4 (still my favorite), and a MacBook Pro (not yet vintage). We shot even more that wasn’t able to get included. In the background you’ll see magazines, videotapes, iPods and other icons of their eras – recognize anything interesting?
The Macs in the Museum are all working, and everyone had a blast using the old hardware and software. Comments were made about the distinctive sound of that original Mac keyboard, how everybody felt like they were back in college again, and how much time they’d wasted playing Snood. We even had one Mac Virgin in the bunch, and had to explain what the Option key was for!
Good thing she didn’t ask about the Apple Menu.
After a whirlwind day of reliving the past my new friends left to finish the job. OfficeDrophad the task of digitizing the original (out-of-print) book, and were concerned about getting it right because Guy insisted they shred the book when finished. Pixability shot and edited the footage, and coordinated the whole endeavor. My Brass Rat even had a starring role (in a crew serendipitously full of MIT alums)…
It’s great that Kawasaki has chosen to release this seminal work for free. It was wonderful having a chance to help with the effort and show off the Mac Museum. I’m always looking for uses for the old gear.
Back in the 68k era Apple used small form factor 2.5″ SCSI hard drives in the PowerBook 100, 500 and Duo lines of notebooks. Use of the SCSI format provided compatibility with desktop Macs of the same era and permitted the use of external SCSI Disk Mode – the precursor to today’s Target Disk Mode.
The 2.5″ SCSI form factor was not widely used throughout the industry, however. Most vendors (and soon Apple themselves) utilized ATA (IDE) drives. ATA remained the industry standard until SATA took over this past decade.
Occasionally somebody with an old SCSI-based PowerBook will contact me about transferring files from their old system. If their PowerBook doesn’t boot, or the drive was previously removed from the computer, it becomes necessary to access the disk directly.
The scarcity of the 2.5″ form factor means that there aren’t many ways to read old PowerBook hard drives without having to install them in another PowerBook. A few external SCSI enclosures were made for this size but they can be hard to find today. Installation is not super difficult in the old models, but it isn’t trivial either. A sacrificial model is needed for the endeavor (I use a PowerBook 170, as shown). If the drive doesn’t boot your PowerBook you need to startup from a System Folder on an external SCSI drive in order to access the internal disk.
Another recent file transfer request got me searching for an external enclosure or adapter of some kind. After a fair amount of Googling I finally found a 40 54 pin (2.5″) to 50 pin (3.5″) SCSI adapter. This allows access to the smaller drives using a standard 50 pin ribbon cable and a 4 pin 5V/12V power cable.
I used the cabling from an external case to make an even more versatile adapter. The piece of ribbon cable has a 50 pin internal connector sandwiched between two external Centronics-style SCSI connectors. With this new rig and power provided by my external drive sled, I’m now able to connect old 2.5″ disks directly to my trusty Wallstreet’s SCSI port and bridge the years without having to put my 170 into traction each time.
A much needed little adapter!
Update 2012: After posting this update I acquired an external disk enclosure for 2.5″ SCSI drives. Once you remove the covers from these enclosures the remaining circuitry forms an adapter (or “sled” if the bottom panel is still attached) to use to connect bare internal drives to external SCSI connectors – in this case a standard DB25 SCSI cable. This is smaller and easier to deal with than the hybrid adapter described above, and has become my main PowerBook data transfer drive tool. 2.5″ external SCSI disk enclosures are occasionally available on eBay.
And in this case, it’s authors: Inside the Apple Macintosh by Jim Heid and Peter Norton, 1988. Two names which have become legends.
Found this at the Flea. Peter “Dr. Utilities” Norton looks just like his photo (and animated avatar) from all those copies of Norton Utilities for Mac. His suave, cool certainty – and the tie – helped calm many a nerve when an Undelete was needed.
Today I’m happy to announce Vintage Mac Museum TV, a new addition to the VMM website. Over the years I’ve acquired a lot of Apple marketing and promotional materials related to the Mac, in addition to the systems themselves. As we know Apple excels in this field, and much of their advertising remains impressive and enjoyable many years later.
I have copies of old Apple ads and promo videos loaded and running on various Macs in the collection. Since the website tries to give a virtual sense of the collection, I’ve created a VMM TV Channel on YouTube to share these spots, and updated many of the site entries with links to relevant ads and videos.
Watching these as you read though the history of the Macintosh is very entertaining. It reminds us again of the impressive achievements – and sometimes arrogance – of Apple throughout the years. Pieces include the seminal 1984 launch commercial, inspirational spots for 68k Macs like the Quadra, whimsical spots for the iMac and PowerMac, the Switch campaign with Ellen Feiss (of course), and PowerBook ads over several generations.
The Classic Macintosh Ads playlist provides a pre-loaded tour through the spots linked from the site. I’ve also posted additional ads and videos which can be browsed on the YouTube channel.
Most of these items are available elsewhere, a few are somewhat rare. Nice to have them in one place. As with the collection itself this sampling is meant to be representative, not comprehensive – not all ads from all campaigns are included. I plan to add more from time to time, along with other continuing efforts to keep the VMM site fun and relevant. Here’s to the Crazy Ones. Enjoy!
This past Sunday was the monthly MIT Flea, always a worthwhile event for geeks and a good source of old Macs for the collection. I picked up a PowerBook Duo 280c, a 68LC040 version of Apple’s mid-90s sub-notebook, along with more old Mac floppy and Zip drives. I already have a Duo 230 but what caught my eye about this one was the sticker next to the screen: Ready for PowerPC Upgrade
The 280c was produced from 1994-1996 and spanned the 68k to PowerPC transition. With PowerBooks at that time being so expensive (the 280c had a $3750 list price, and the 540c a whopping $4840!) Apple was sensitive to customer concerns about buying expensive dead end models, and so made PowerPC upgrades available for some systems.
I don’t recall many people who installed these upgrades (they were also rather pricey), but it was nice that they existed. Similar upgrade paths were not available also available on some desktop Macs, or you could install a third party PowerPC 601 card in a NuBus slot – which seemed a bit like taking a shower through a straw, performance-wise…
No such options at all with the PowerPC to Intel transition. You need a new laptop or desktop, but fortunately Macs are a lot less expensive now.
Funny thing about that sticker. If I had purchased the laptop new I would have removed the sticker, as I generally do with all marketing drivel. Now all these years later the sticker is what I find most charming about this PowerBook. How perspectives change!
The 2.5″ SCSI form factor was not widely used throughout the industry, however. Most vendors (and soon Apple themselves) utilized ATA (IDE) drives. ATA remained the industry standard until SATA took over this past decade.
Another recent file transfer request got me searching for an external enclosure or adapter of some kind. After a fair amount of Googling I finally found a 
After posting this update I acquired an external disk enclosure for 2.5″ SCSI drives. Once you remove the covers from these enclosures the remaining circuitry forms an adapter (or “sled” if the bottom panel is still attached) to use to connect bare internal drives to external SCSI connectors – in this case a standard DB25 SCSI cable. This is smaller and easier to deal with than the hybrid adapter described above, and has become my main PowerBook data transfer drive tool. 2.5″ external SCSI disk enclosures are occasionally available on eBay.
And in this case, it’s authors: Inside the Apple Macintosh by Jim Heid and Peter Norton, 1988. Two names which have become legends. 
Today I’m happy to announce 