Looking through my photo collection (2001, onward) I noticed I took quite a few pictures of computers and technology. I do think a lot of my career trajectory was defined by me coming to Virginia and making the choice to work in an environment with Apple Macs. Just as I’ve always been a Coca-Cola over Pepsi-Cola kind of person, I’ve only used Apple computers except for two brief work-based stints.
Thought I’d share a few of these snaps and explore some of the stories and nostalgia behind them.
Since I worked exclusively with Macs from 1999-2020, I’ve seen just about every model made across that period of time. In Goochland, all the teachers had these “All in One” G3 Macs made for the education market before they started issuing laptops.
This laptop model was among my favorites, for its very soft but comfortable keyboard, even though it weighs a ton!
The keyboard was special too, because it was backlit. Extra fancy!
Of course up in my home office, I had my own G3 model, the PowerMacintosh 7500, which I’d upgraded the processor to the G3. And in anticipation of Apple buying NeXT, I figured their new machines would all be black, so I took some paint to the case.
The Apple RGB monitor and the Apple Extended Keyboard II had been with me since my high school, then college days, when they’d been purchased to go along with my Mac IIsi.
My beloved Apple Extended Keyboard II is seen above in my “downstairs” office environment in Goochland, circa 2012? I used a USB/ADB converted to use the trusted keyboard with my PowerMac. Also visible was another favorite device from my time in Goochland, the Apple Cinema Display, their 30″ behemoth monitor. While expensive, that thing ran great with no issues for over a decade. And consider the age on that keyboard: it was the same one I was using in high school.
The image below is taken from my home office, using a mishmash of different things worth a mention. Let’s start with the Apple LaserWriter Select 360, a 600DPI printer that I’d purchased in my second year of college, remembering lugging it up the hill to the Susan B. Anthony dorms. That thing was a workhorse and I only retired it because the number of adapters needed to get it talk to my computer was getting absurd. The Apple PowerMac Mirrored-Drive Doors model was my last computer in the “El Capitán” enclosure series, alongside the Apple Cinema Display I’d purchased for $2500 after Apple had slashed the model’s original price. That was another awesome screen. I ended up selling it (foolishly, perhaps) with the MDD Mac. It’s one of the few Macs I’ve ever sold.
I’ve also had my share of iPods over the years. I still have it around, and I think it’s the only iPod I had to return because it was acting up. It had those touch-sensitive buttons and the wheel that wasn’t really a wheel. I also have the original Firewire iPod with the real scrolling wheel.
I can’t say exactly what was going on here, but I had a 15 and 17″ version of the PowerBook G4 laptops, which for me, while good and powerful, didn’t match the original elegance of the Titanium model. I evidently was updating them to Mac OS X Panther? It had likely just come in the mail.
The only Mac I’d purchased that gave me trouble was the PowerMac G5 tower. I remember hauling that back to the Apple Store multiple times, so I was happy to upgrade to the Mac Pro, my first personal Mac with Intel processors. I used my living room to transfer the data from one to the other, while also giving the dual G5 machine a little cleaning.
Apple Stores
This could be a topic for a different blog post; but since Apple opened their own stores, I always try to visit them when I’m traveling. These two were special.
The first is the window into the Apple Store that’s located underground at the Louvre in Paris. And the next is timely, as the aluminum model of Apple Park was just taken down at the Apple Store/Visitor Center on Tantau Avenue in Cupertino.
Little did we know, holding iPads, that Apple was forecasting the augmented reality it was building with Apple Vision Pro.
Black Beauty
Remember that painted PowerMac 7500 from above? Well, eventually Apple would make a black “PowerMac.”
This last image is a bit sad, marking my departure from my work in Goochland County. I’d received permission to bring my desktop machine home to back up some files. This was the machine I’d used for several years in my office at work. It was whisper quiet, and again, an outstanding workhorse.