Share your Apple Collection!

[CooperBox]

Basically only the things out of my price range. Not even counting the "ridiculously expensive" items, the ones I keep hunting for an unreasonably cheap one of are: Apple II (original, pre-Plus,) Lisa 2/Macintosh XL (Lisa 1's out of any serious consideration,) Apple III, TAM. Wouldn't mind a trash can Mac Pro, but that'll have to wait until they're "obsolete item cheap" - I'm just worried that they'll go from "old but still usable, so expensive" directly to "desired Apple vintage system expensive." A working Macintosh Portable. I had one long ago, but it stopped working and was out of my repair expertise, so I sold it to someone who had the time and ability. Haven't gotten a replacement, and now they're expensive.

Plus a few "probably cheap enough, I just haven't bothered to get one yet" - a ruby or sage iMac G3; I always loved those colors, and haven't found one locally. An iMac G5 - I've just been too lazy to pick one up locally that's been cheap enough. A first gen and a second gen iPod Touch.

No, my Apple collection is basically complete. The TAM is the only one that's a real "really want, and just at the edge of my price range" item. Apple III desire is mostly for curiosity's sake, it's not that good/impressive a machine. Same with Lisa. I never used an A3 or a Lisa when they were new, so I have no real nostalgia for them. A2s and the whole line of Macintoshes I do.

Referring to the 20th Anniversary Mac (TAM) comment, I can't help wondering what your "just at the edge of my price range" is.
Here's a photo of mine. Gorgeous piece of equipment dating from 1997, which when listening to the built-in TV/FM radio tuner even today still amazes me at the sound quality from the custom-made Bose system - especially the floor mounted woofer.

 

[cosmichobo]

I've had difficulty making a list, but thought it might be fun to participate with a photo instead.
View attachment 858264

This is exactly the type of collection I always dreamed of having... maybe a few too many Mac 512/Plus/etc era machines... and was going to say too many PowerMacG5 / MacPros - til I realised they hold up your display!

Gawd... Thanks for doing this - somehow I don't feel the need now.

I'll settle with my current (about to get smaller) list...

Newton MP 2000
TAM
G3 iBook Clamshell
G3 Powerbook Pismo
G4 Cube with Harmon Kardon Sticks and 17" Studio Display
G4 Mac Mini
G4 iMac Lampshade

iPod Nano 2nd Gen
iPod shuffle (? gen)
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 5
iPhone 5S

Core2Duo 24" iMac early 2009
Core2Duo Macbook Pro 2009
Mac Pro 5,1 2010 with 2 x 23" Apple Cinema HD Displays

Referring to the 20th Anniversary Mac (TAM) comment, I can't help wondering what your "just at the edge of my price range" is.
Here's a photo of mine. Gorgeous piece of equipment dating from 1997, which when listening to the built-in TV/FM radio tuner even today still amazes me at the sound quality from the custom-made Bose system - especially the floor mounted woofer.

View attachment 1739021
View attachment 1739021

Where's the background pattern from? Looks like my signature flannel tshirt from 1995... (which I made into a desktop design!)

The TAM - well, actually I haven't seen many on eBay to give an accurate price guesstimate... but I'd think a complete, working machine probably sells for about $3k these days. My TAM is complete with box, but was having SCSI issues.

 

[trash eighty]

Where's the background pattern from? Looks like my signature flannel tshirt from 1995... (which I made into a desktop design!)

One of the Mac OS7 backgrounds, you can download them off the internet. I used that one on my Macbook for awhile.

 

[cosmichobo]

Found the "flannel" background I made circa 1998.

 

[trash eighty]

I prefer the green version, this is a bit much

 

[onawaiowa]

 

[trash eighty]

Look at that Lisa, what a beauty. Also like the Apple II joystick, got one of those too. Its one of my favourite bits of old Apple hardware.

The owner of the first company i worked for had a Lisa in his office, not working though unfortunately. He later bought a Next Cube and i set it up for him. He later gave me a ][e, i kinda miss working there...

 

[cosmichobo]

Once upon a time at my last job the owner's son went through the "cupboard" and pulled out a bunch of Mac Minis, iMacs, etc etc that were surplus to requirement - maybe not working, or just "got too slow" etc. I think most ended up in the trash.

I considered asking for some of them, but was afraid I'd be told yes. Then I would have "owed" the owner, which with her, would have been like waiting to be asked to sacrifice your first born child.

 

[TheGeneralLee86]

I have a Macintosh Classic and Classic II that I just got new logic boards with new caps for both, new floppy drive for the Classic I and have 2 SCSI2SD adapter's coming for both of them to replace the not working drive in the II and working one in the I so I don't have to worry about either one failing again! Also have a lot newer iMac 21.5inch Late 2013 that I bought brand new and hardly ever used it.

 

[Steve Adams]

This thread tickles my nerd inners. I wish there were more photos of everyone's items, apple or not. I love old iron. Almost like collecting old muscle cars etc.

 

[MacTech68]

...Almost like collecting old muscle cars etc.

But requiring less storage space

 

[Steve Adams]

Yes, MUCH! I have 2 cars that get stored for the winter and that's enough.

 

[Airsculpture]

My fish tank

 

[Steve Adams]

My fish tank

You win. that's awesome. So is the avatar!

 

[csdb]

Here is the priceless piece of "Apple History" I own.

It is the original Macintosh developper documentation. The documentation was written and put together by the original Macintosh development team working directly under Steve Jobs (Joanna Hoffman, Chris Espinosa, Andy Averill, Caroline Rose, Andy Hertzfeld, Guy Kawasaki, Alain Rossman, Mike Boitch, etc ...) and dates back to 1981/1982/1983/1984. Apple assembled everything in 2 huge binders (around 1000 pages) to be distributed among a few key macintosh software developers.

• What Joanna Hoffman said about this documentation :
"I was in charge of Technical Product for Macintosh (among other things) and, like everyone else in our little team, I reported directly to Steve. One morning, he asked me to urgently finalise the Programming User Interface Guide because we had a meeting with Microsoft (a small software editor developing a few programming language software and with a mediocre OS ...)".

• Chris Espinosa is an Apple fellow, one of Apple first employees ( N°8 officially) still working for Apple. He joined Apple in 1976 (he was then 14 years old), when it was still operating out of Steve Jobs parents' garage. He was then writing software programs and manuals for the Apple II after schoool. He joined the Macintosh development team in 1981 and became together with Caroline Rose the main writer and architect for the macintosh documentation. He has then worked on many different projects within Apple, like Mac OS, A/UX, HyperCard, Taligent, Kqaleida Labs, AppleScript and Mac OS X.

• Caroline Rose joined Apple in 1982 to write the technical documentation for Macintosh. Inside Macintosh, co-written with Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman etc ..., has been used by numerous Macintosh software developers. She left Apple in 1986, to follow Steve Jobs and be in charge of publications at NeXT.

Those binders are the ancestors and the complement of "Inside Mac Vol. 1 and Vol. 2" and they are signed by Joanna Hoffman, Chris Espinosa and Caroline Rose.

NOTA:
For true Apple aficionados, in the movie Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle 2015), Kate Winslet plays Joanna Hoffman et Eddie Hassell plays Chris Espinosa in the movie Jobs.

 

[JMStearnsX2]

I've had difficulty making a list, but thought it might be fun to participate with a photo instead.
View attachment 858264

I really appreciated zooming in on this photo and seeing lots of devices that I've owned in the past, brings back lots of memories. The Xserve table is a nice touch!

 

[DMG35]

I found this boxed up in an estate sale for $200. It is in absolute mint condition with all original paperwork and all of the original software disks. Original box is also in perfect shape. Makes a cool office accessory.

 

[TheGeneralLee86]

Just got a PowerMac G4 Digital Audio Graphite 733Mhz 1.5GB Ram, 2x60GB HDDs to add to my Mac Collection and installed new DVD Rom Drive and airport card on it as well!

 

[mikas]

Ok I think I'm home.

one more thing..

 

[sammy2066]

Some really great collections everyone!

 

[ChrisA775]

A few pics from outside my office. During the pandemic it was a bit like a full sized diorama of old computing life. The cubicles had computers from different decades (not all Apple). Tucking things away again now, but fun to collect and display for a while.

 

[cosmichobo]

Oooh adjustable keyboard! Haven't sold mine yet... but eBay Day is coming...

 

[Applicator]

A few pics from outside my office. During the pandemic it was a bit like a full sized diorama of old computing life. The cubicles had computers from different decades (not all Apple). Tucking things away again now, but fun to collect and display for a while.

This is so awesome, I really can't tell which one I like the most. Probably the sweet PM G3 + blueberry studio display setup

 

[mi7chy]

Went on an off-road adventure to finally fill a hole in my collection. Never owned one before but remember playing it when I was young at a department store, I believe Montgomery Ward, and thinking how great the graphics was compared to other consoles like Atari 2600 and IntelliVision. Last opportunity to acquire one slipped through and required inter-state travel. This one was only five hour round trip.

 

[Berenod]

Aah, cool thread, just found, usually for my collectibles (read 68000 era) I'm active on another forum...
So my, compared to most here, tiny collection consists of (only including PPC or earlier):

• Mac Portable (M5120, the non-backlight version). Fully restored/recapped and working. Only thing not original is a BlueSCSI/SD adapter, as the original hard drives (Conner CP3045) are becoming extremely rare in working condition.
• Powerbook Duo 230
• iBook G4
• Powerbook G4 15" Aluminium
• Powerbook G4 17" Aluminium
• iMac G4 15" "lampshade"

So, apart from the Portable and maybe the Duo pretty common and regular stuff, all the PPC's have been upgraded to max ram and the spinning disks replaced with SSD's (using msata to PATA adpter for the laptops and a regular sata to PATA adapter for the iMac g4.

There's plenty pictures of my lampshade and the Powerbooks in the respective PPC thread, but as aparently after browsing this thread and seeing no Portables (although a few people looking for one), I'll post pics from mine here!

If you ever are looking for one and need some info/tips, feel free to shoot me a message, it's a bit like looking for 2nd hand cars, you really need to look under the bonnet (or hood) to search for the standard issues popping up with those machines, especially as even non-functional machines go for substantial amounts of money (over 300€).