Macintosh at 40: The oddest and rarest Macs ever built

Since 1984, Apple has made some strange Macintosh computers. How many have you used?

See full article...

 

[Wheaty73]

Ah memories... I had at least 3 of these (Colour Classic, Mac TV and the Cube). Sadly they all got lost in a move along with a rev A Bondi iMac. The Mac TV was a brilliant beast and I am sure you could use its TV at the same time as the computer? Maybe I am remembering it wrongly. I had no idea it was so rare - I've owned two over the years!

They need to make more whacky stuff.

 

[GaitherBill]

Working for the the school system I was in while I was a high school student (cheap labor in the early to mid 90’s), I got to see nearly every make and model of Mac released during that time, along with a lot of classics.

Pretty much a nerds dream scenario.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I've got a G4 Cube lurking somewhere. Working, and with MacOS X 10.4 on it last time I looked.

Picked it up for the princely sum of £90 over a decade ago. Nice machine.


Edit: it occurs to me that it's probably got a slow, laptop-class spinning rust drive. It also occurs to me that I have (a) a 240GB SSD gathering dust, and (b) the 10.4 installation CDs.

Looks like I have a project for the weekend

Edit 2: as adamjb points out below, this won't work without an IDE->SCSI adaptor. Which I don't have, and the tight space inside probably limits the use of. Ah, well.

Edit 3: IDE<->SATA board arriving today (small, and hopefully small enough). Got the original 40GB drive out this morning with next to no hassle. Dug out my MacOS 9.1 media, and was pleasantly surprised to find a MacOS 9.2.1 Upgrade Disk in with it! Also, this bad boy:



So, that's going on!

 

[Dayturn]

I have used the Macintosh Portable and brought it for a trip to London and Glasgow. It was a real drag to handle around the airport and on the plane.

Also used the PowerBook 550c at work. Currently own a trashcan Mac Pro 2013, and may even get one more as they are dirt cheap now.

 

[lefizzle]

What about the PowerBook Duo with powered Duo Dock, that was basically my first computer, given to me by a producer in a production company where I worked as a runner. It was so cool and i spent way too much time hacking together a cable to connect it to a cheap PC modem and got on the internet for the first time.

 

[Hymenoptera]

I loved the G4 Cube along with its accessories. Design wise, the Mac mini (and more recently, Mac Studio) are certainly the modern descendant of the G4 Cube ; on the one hand, there's something to say about internals levitating in a transparent case, and a solid rectangular cuboid doesn't have the same charm, and on the other hand, aluminum doesn't turn yellowish with time and helps cooling the components.

The G4 Cube entered the collections of the MoMA in 2001 and fully deserves it.

 

[Peevester]

I had or used a bunch of these over the years. My trashcan pro is still in occasional use.

It's been WAY too long, but I seem to remember that you could have your Lisa retrofit into a Mac XL, which involved changing the screen geometry - Lisa pixels weren't square. If you just ran macworks, everything onscreen was distorted.

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

50%

Also, our office had a Bell & Howell Apple II with a black case.

 

[lakerssuperman]

I fondly remember seeing the Cube in stores and the original colorful iMacs and my young brain thinking how cool. I knew nothing of the Cube's design flaws that would hamper it and make it a nonstarter, but the one thing I remember from that time period was the notion that computers could have an aesthetic appeal. The Macs of that time were in stark contrast to the beige boxes and black laptops that dominated the space. Now we see beautiful custom gaming rigs and sleek desk setups all the time, but back then these trends were novel an exciting. Functionality is still king in my book, but it doesn't have to come at the cost of design and visual appeal.

 

[jonah]

What about the PowerBook Duo with powered Duo Dock, that was basically my first computer, given to me by a producer in a production company where I worked as a runner. It was so cool and i spent way too much time hacking together a cable to connect it to a cheap PC modem and got on the internet for the first time.

Definitely worth a mention, though far from rare like most of these.

I’ve used at least four of the models from the article. The PB Duo might still be my favorite.

 

[pbat]

I used the Macintosh Portable 1989, it was pretty cool. I could even play Microsoft Flight Simulator on it (don't ask me why you would do that on a tiny LCD monochrome screen...).


If I remember correctly, the copy of the ad in some markets read something like:
"This is not a Mac Portable but a portable Mac"
That is, the focus was on being exactly like a "true" Mac, only portable.
In weight, it was definitely like a true Mac.... :/

 

[IronTek]

Just as a reminder that rare doesn't always mean valuable...I recently bought a loaded trashcan Power Mac for $350 shipped.

 

[akial]

Had a client that bought two Mac Pro 2013s, I wonder where they got to.

They were okay, the main problem was the amount of stuff wired to them for all the accessories that couldn't be internal (big external drives for media exports etc) made them a rats nest of wires that ended up eclipsing the pretty tube computer and ended up being hassle to keep dust-free in the environment they were used in. The aesthetics were one of the reasons they wanted them, but theyd have been better off with a nice sculpture and a big tank of a conventional tower for all the trouble those things were at the price point.

 

[malor]

It wasn't rare at all, but the 2006 Mac Pro was an awesome machine. I loved that computer to death. This was right after the Intel transition, and apparently Intel had promised Apple a really sweetheart deal on the Core 2 chips, so the Mac Pro was astonishingly cheap for the CPUs and RAM expandability it offered. (IIRC, you could put at least 64 gigs in one, and in 2006, that was an enormous amount of RAM. I believe I put 32 gigs in mine, which is more than mainstream machines use in 2024.) An equivalent workstation from Dell would have cost at least twice as much.

Apparently, however, the super CPU deal Apple got expired with the next generation of processors, so the subsequent machines were back to the usual nosebleed pricing level.

It's a damn shame. The 2006 Mac Pro was probably the closest to an xMac that Apple ever made. It was a wonderful computer; quiet, powerful, expandable, and surprisingly affordable. ($2500ish, when equivalents were $5K plus from other vendors.) Sadly, mine broke, but it lasted a great long while as my main desktop machine.

 

[HalfArsed]

The G4 Cube had at least one design flaw, and it was a doozy. The top facing optical drive was meant to only accept typical 5 1/4" disks, but nothing would stop a user from dropping in a mini-CD which would clatter to the bottom of the drive and get totally stuck, requiring complete disassembly of the device ! Good times, good times.

 

[jaberg]

My back and shoulders still bear testament to my carrying the Portable across Manhattan from office to graduate school. There was an equally heavy “book bag” slung over the other shoulder.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Just as a reminder that rare doesn't always mean valuable...I recently bought a loaded trashcan Power Mac for $350 shipped.

I've been watching YouTube stuff about restoring old kit, and in one of the episodes of The Retro Hack Shack (https://www.youtube.com/@RetroHackShack) Aaron picked up a Quadra 950 in immaculate condition.

When he opened it up and totted up the configuration, in today's money it would have cost something in the $20,000-$30,000 range, depending on how you cost it out.

He picked it up for...$20.

And I am very envious!

Link to the episode:
View: https://youtu.be/iuaO1TdM1DY?si=yuaHSU0zcbvup8K5

 

[benwiggy]

Are the trashcan Mac Pros in this list for being weird, or rare? I would have thought they sold decent numbers, over six years, despite the fact they weren't quite what the market wanted.

I always like the design, but couldn't afford one -- not till they had become slightly outdated (no TB 3).

Always wanted a Cube, though.

It's amazing that the first Mac Portable had an 8-hour battery life.

 

[dmwalsh568]

I've been a certified Apple tech since 1989 so I've seen most of the units available in the USA, including the hidden signatures inside the Mac Portable.

But since I work in a school district I saw a LOT of the PowerMac G3 AIO and we even kept a couple way past their useful life to use as a floppy disk reader for antique 400k disks from the original Mac computers. It was the last computer I'm aware of that could read the single sided 400k disks and some of my users tended to keep "critical" documents on antique media, then they were shocked when their current computer couldn't read the disk....

I wish I could say that my users learned their lessons from that, but just two weeks ago I had someone looking to convert their ClarisWorks documents....and yes, I have an old MacBook that can run AppleWorks 6 and has an old version of Pages on it. So I guess they learned that I will continue rescuing them from themselves. Sigh.

 

[ca14129]

If I remember correctly, the copy of the ad in some markets read something like:
"This is not a Mac Portable but a portable Mac"
That is, the focus was on being exactly like a "true" Mac, only portable.
In weight, it was definitely like a true Mac.... :/

This still makes me laugh somewhat. I had a Plus and (still have) an SE/30; both of those went into a tote back where I'd truck those things around EVERYWHERE. The bag for the SE/30 was tall enough I could even toss in its MO drive (one of those 3.5" optical-writer drives with disks shaped like uber-phat 3.5" floppies).

Something similar to...
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-apple-macbag-carry-bag-252814602
I keep wanting to fire the SE/30 up but figure I need to crack it open and check out the caps on the powerboard before doing so.. :/

 

[adamjb]

I've got a G4 Cube lurking somewhere. Working, and with MacOS X 10.4 on it last time I looked.

Picked it up for the princely sum of £90 over a decade ago. Nice machine.


Edit: it occurs to me that it's probably got a slow, laptop-class spinning rust drive. It also occurs to me that I have (a) a 240GB SSD gathering dust, and (b) the 10.4 installation CDs.

Looks like I have a project for the weekend

Gonna need an IDE to SATA adapter.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Gonna need an IDE to SATA adapter.

Oh, bugger. Yep. I'd forgotten that. Good catch.

 

[Geebs]

It used a number of PowerBook laptop parts, including a keyboard with a touchpad.

Given that the MacOS GUI is so completely mouse-dependent that a desktop mac without a connected pointing device is essentially a brick, Apple really should have made this a standard feature.

 

[psarhjinian]

I would never have guessed the Color Classic was that rare, but I suppose as a Canadian it makes sense now.

One that I'm surprised to not see on this list is the PowerBook 2400 (aka, the smaller Japanese-market 3400). Frankly, I'd put the PowerBook 5300c & cs on this list, too, since they had, by a wide margin, the highest failure rate of any Mac, to the point where Apple was handing out 1400s as replacments because people were on their sixth or seventh replacement logic board.

 

[psarhjinian]

Gonna need an IDE to SATA adapter.

They're really cheap. Honestly, get an IDE<>CF or IDE<>SDCard adapter instead: they're quiet and it's not like the old ATA bus was that fast.

 

[sjlundb]

I remember when our high school got a few G3's. Everyone fought over them vs the slower LC3's.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

They're really cheap. Honestly, get an IDE<>CF or IDE<>S they're quiet and it's not like the old ATA bus was that fast.

There's not a lot of room inside the Cube for that sort of stuff, but Imight be inclined to take a peek. It's been a while and there might be more room to work with than I think there is. A CF solution didn't occur to me - thank you.

 

[j17robotdancer]

Congrats on being another year older

 

[Talisman39]

I have a couple of intersections with the Mac Portable: A former roommate who was a writer had one, and she loved it... but she never moved it, it was just a glorified typewriter.

The case for it which is shown in the photo was designed by one of my industrial design teachers in college. He had formerly been at frog design (and I worked there later for many years), and he'd worked on a lot of the early Apple stuff, as frog created the design language that Apple used post original Mac, which was designed in-house by Jerry Mannock.

+1 for the PowerBook Duo being on this list - a "quirks and features" machine for sure. Remember Seinfeld had one in the background on his desk for a number of seasons, but never used it to, you know, write comedy?

 

[clackerd]

I got to play with a TAM and they are a little larger than you’d think. It’s a striking machine but I remember Macworld was saying it had meh specs for the time. The screen quality is ass unfortunately, but that was all lcd screens at the time

 

[macduff]

I remember buying the G3 All-In-One (code name: Artemis) in bulk for a design school classroom. I loved those things, but they were heavy as fuck. And for some reason they had a bunch of jumper pins on the motherboard; messing with them would brick your Mac (don't ask how I know that).

Also remember installing a G4 Cube for an Art Director; that thing was a mess. The power button was a capacitive touch switch on the top; but touching the Cube anywhere within six inches of the power button was likely to start the shutdown process.

 

[racca]

I was 13 when the Macintosh TV came out, and I lusted after it. The idea of having a computer AND a TV was wildly appealing to my teenage mind.

My parents bought me a Performa 6115CD for Christmas in 1994. I had to share it with the family, but it was technically my computer. That was a massive gift, but absolutely shaped my life and directly led to my education and career choices. And while the Performa was a much better computer, I still loved the idea of the Macintosh TV.

 

[FSM4ever]

Apple didn't abandon its circular ambitions entirely. As an option, Apple sold a set of $400 Mac Pro wheels, carrying on the proud tradition of creating a Mac Pro that can literally roll away.

What a gem of writing

 

[Geebs]

It wasn't rare at all, but the 2006 Mac Pro was an awesome machine. I loved that computer to death. This was right after the Intel transition, and apparently Intel had promised Apple a really sweetheart deal on the Core 2 chips, so the Mac Pro was astonishingly cheap for the CPUs and RAM expandability it offered. (IIRC, you could put at least 64 gigs in one, and in 2006, that was an enormous amount of RAM. I believe I put 32 gigs in mine, which is more than mainstream machines use in 2024.) An equivalent workstation from Dell would have cost at least twice as much.

Apparently, however, the super CPU deal Apple got expired with the next generation of processors, so the subsequent machines were back to the usual nosebleed pricing level.

It's a damn shame. The 2006 Mac Pro was probably the closest to an xMac that Apple ever made. It was a wonderful computer; quiet, powerful, expandable, and surprisingly affordable. ($2500ish, when equivalents were $5K plus from other vendors.) Sadly, mine broke, but it lasted a great long while as my main desktop machine.

The six core 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 was even more of a price sweet-spot. The 2006 Pros were obsoleted pretty quickly; I eventually retired my 5,1 in 2021.

 

[50me12]

I remember the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh sitting on Jerry's desk in Sienfield.

Anyway I loved the trash can design of the old Trashcan Pro.... I get why it isn't well thought of ... but god damn I love that deign / hope they give that a shot again. Maybe make a mini out of it or something.

I really hope as the power of chips keep going up / getting smaller we can get more interesting designs like the trashcan.

 

[ajmas]

Surprised the iBook didn’t make it to the list?

 

[kingjj]

I had to upgrade the processor (and add a fan) to the g4 Cube belonging to my boss. THAT was an adventure in computing.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I had to upgrade the processor (and add a fan) to the g4 Cube belonging to my boss. THAT was an adventure in computing.

 

[psarhjinian]

Surprised the iBook didn’t make it to the list?

View attachment 72724

Because they weren't rare. I do like these, though, they're pretty, and very unique-looking, especially for the era.