HISTORY

HERE'S A LIST OF (ALMOST ALL OF MY) MACS USED DAILY FROM 1996 – PRESENT

1996 MAC NUMBER ONE:
Macintosh Performa 6400/200

It all started here with a beige box.

Peripherals included: Apple Color StyleWriter, a 13" screen with built-in speakers. 16MB of RAM with a 2.4 GB hard drive.

200 MHz PowerPC 603e processor. Original retail price of £1620.00.

Ran Mac OS 7 quite well. Couple of extensions conflicts but QuarkXPress was a dream after you installed it from the CD along with the copy-protected floppy disk.

1998 MAC NUMBER TWO:
Power Macintosh G3

Another beige box.

Peripherals included: 23" CRT Monitor, CD Rom drive and 3.5" Floppy.

233 MHz PowerPC G3 processor. Original retail price of £1900.00.

A huge leap in performance over the old 60x architecture. The extra box on the side allowed you to open it easily to tinker with the insides.

2001 MAC NUMBER THREE:
PowerBook G3

Out and about with a SCSI terminator.

Peripherals included: Hot-swappable CD Rom drive and 3.5" Floppy. Maxed out with 192Mb RAM.

233 MHz PowerPC G3 processor. Original retail price of £2280.00.

Running the classic Mac OS 9.1 (based on Mac OS 7.0 architecture). A genuine alternative to a desktop Mac proved to be a very reliable tool for many years.

2001 MAC NUMBER FOUR:
iMac G3

Where's the floppy?

Peripherals included: Worst. Mouse. Ever. Hockey-puck, useless.

333 MHz PowerPC G3 processor. Original retail price of £900.00.

When the internal CRT screen failed a new external monitor could be connected to the VGA cable inside.

2002 MAC NUMBER FIVE:
PowerMac G3

ZIP Drive anyone?

Peripherals included: Another terrible mouse and a transparent keyboard which filled with dirt within a week.

400 MHz PowerPC G3 processor. Original retail price of £2449.00.

Applied the look of the iMac to a desktop machine. Fans were very noisy but sat under the desk as you wouldn't want to look at it.

2003 MAC NUMBER SIX:
PowerMac G4

A DVD re-writer replaced magnetic media.

Peripherals included: A redesigned mouse and keyboard that were even more transparent. Showed up lots of dirt. Optical mouse rather than mechanical though.

500 MHz PowerPC G4 processor. Original retail price of £2999.00.

Floppy & ZIP drives seemed ancient with the new DVD-RW media. Burn errors were very common.

2005 MAC NUMBER SEVEN:
iMac G5

It's just a screen.

Peripherals included: Terrible keyboard and mouse from the desktop G4.

2.0 GHz PowerPC G5 processor. Original retail price of £1280.00.

A little underpowered for creative applications but a great Mac for home.

2006 MAC NUMBER EIGHT:
PowerMac G5

Heavy.

Peripherals included: Lovely new keyboard. Gigabit ethernet without any built-in wireless functionality.

2.0 GHz PowerPC G5 processors x2. Original retail price of £2560.00.

Very heavy, fast (at the time) and looked amazing. You can buy a broken one now for £15.00 and make a coffee table out of it.

2009 MAC NUMBER NINE:
MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 duo

First Intel based Mac purchase.

Peripherals included: A charger & a cloth to clean the screen.

64-bit 2.8 Ghz processor. Original retail price of £2190.00.

Has lasted for ages without any noticeable decline in performance with OS updates. The same cannot be said of the battery though.

2013 MAC NUMBER TEN:
iMac 27"

Why bother with a PowerMac?

Peripherals included: Wireless keyboard which was soon ditched for a wired-extended one.

3.8Ghz Core i5 processor. Original retail price of £2600.00.

Used everyday for years without even a minor glitch. Uses a 3TB Fusion drive for space and speed. Brilliant.

2017 MAC NUMBER ELEVEN:
iMac 27" 4K

Why bother with a Mac Pro?

Peripherals included: Wireless keyboard which was soon ditched for a wired-extended one (again).

3.8Ghz Quad Core i7 processor. Original retail price of £2400.00.

Another Mac used everyday for years without even a minor glitch. Still uses a 3TB Fusion drive for space and speed. A little tired now as the fan is getting very loud whilst in use.

2023 MAC NUMBER TWELVE:
Mac Studio

Oh, it has a power cable. Anything else? Nope.

Peripherals included: None.

M2 Max processor. Original retail price of £3099.00.

A box. With 2Tb storage and 64Gb RAM. That's about it. Very fast, still in the box it was delivered in, as NUMBER ELEVEN is still going strong.