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Looking at where one is on the PPC Mac collecting journey

velocityg4 said:
I'd say for most lines. Whatever the premium model was. Will be the most collectible and expensive for collectors. Because it was the best. Also it was the most expensive. So, it is the rarest.
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I don’t have access to sales figures at the ready. I’m not sure how many folks do, to be honest.

What I do know is between the two models during the final run of PowerBook G4s, Apple stopped accepting new build-to-order/configure-to-order options for the 15-inch model, the A1138, on 10 January 2006 — when the A1150 went on sale (and exhausted stock on remaining, non-BTO/CTO A1138 models by 22 February 2006).

The A1139, meanwhile, stayed on sale through 24 April 2006. Both went on sale 19 October 2005. The difference in price for the display and form factor was USD$500. Aside from display, mass/dimensions, and one difference in number of USB ports, their specs are virtually identical in every single way.

The A1138 was on Apple’s web site for maybe 75 days (or 120, if counting factory-configured models still in the stream); the A1139 was on sale for 180 days. Compared with other prior generations, the DLSD models may not have been on sale as long as others, including their immediate predecessors, but at least the A1139 was on sale for a reasonable amount of time.

tl;dr: locally speaking (Canada, eastern half), since finding my A1138 and A1139 in 2019, the prices for both have gone up since then as “collectible”/nostalgia demand for survivor examples has increased, but A1139s around here tend to appear for sale at least as often, if not more so, than A1138s.

velocityg4 said:
Just look at the price difference between something like a IIcx and IIfx on eBay, a Quadra 610 and a Quadra 840AV, Power Macintosh 6100/60 and 8100/80AV, and so forth.
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The Quadra 840AV was the high water mark for the 68k Macs. It was a delight to work with.

The Power Macintosh 6100/60 was nightmarishly, hair-pullingly slow (I had two jobs at the time — one where I worked on an 840AV, and another where I used a 6100/60 for ancillary work). The 8100/80AV felt like a half-step backward from the 840AV when our employer moved us to the former. Power Macs didn’t really begin to pull their promised heft until the 604-series Macs went on sale in ’96.
 
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B S Magnet said:
The Quadra 840AV was the high water mark for the 68k Macs. It was a delight to work with.

The Power Macintosh 6100/60 was nightmarishly, hair-pullingly slow (I had two jobs at the time — one where I worked on an 840AV, and another where I used a 6100/60 for ancillary work). The 8100/80AV felt like a half-step backward from the 840AV when our employer moved us to the former. Power Macs didn’t really begin to pull their promised heft until the 604-series Macs went on sale in ’96.
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Software: If the software wasn't PowerPC native. Those first gen Power Macintosh models ran 68K code at 68020 speeds. But running native code was a big upgrade over 68040. I assume your boss didn't also upgrade software or bought the Power Mac way too early on. When practically nothing was updated yet.

I just remember on my 7100/66AV. Some stuff was a massive upgrade over my Centris 650. While the 68K software ran much slower. I don't know what Connectix did. But Connectix SpeedDoubler provided much faster 68K emulation. I remember it improved 68K performance to 040 speeds.
 
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velocityg4 said:
Software: If the software wasn't PowerPC native. Those first gen Power Macintosh models ran 68K code at 68020 speeds. But running native code was a big upgrade over 68040. I assume your boss didn't also upgrade software or bought the Power Mac way too early on. When practically nothing was updated yet.

I just remember on my 7100/66AV. Some stuff was a massive upgrade over my Centris 650. While the 68K software ran much slower. I don't know what Connectix did. But Connectix SpeedDoubler provided much faster 68K emulation. I remember it improved 68K performance to 040 speeds.
Click to expand...
The question over whether software was 'fat' (containing both 68k and the new PowerPC code) at that time was my first serious encounter with Macs. It is the first transition Apple went through that I can remember.
 
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eyoungren said:
The question over whether software was 'fat' (containing both 68k and the new PowerPC code) at that time was my first serious encounter with Macs. It is the first transition Apple went through that I can remember.
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Well there was the Apple II to Mac transition. That was a lot rougher software wise.

I remember how disappointed I was when I found out that a IIgs was different than a Mac. Since the OS looked the same to me. I was so disappointed because I got a IIvx. But my friend and a cousin had the IIgs. They had a ton of games I was looking forward to copying and playing.

I had to make do with the demo game CD that came with my Mac. Until I could afford some games. Not that I bought many. All I really cared about was hardware. So spent all my money again. Quickly moving to a Centris 650. Putting in a ton of RAM. Then again to a Power Macintosh 7100/66av, loads more RAM. Fast wide scsi, 17” Sony trinitron and FWB jackhammer SCSI card.

I had ridiculously overpowered computers for a high school student. Photoshop and Cinema 4D was just so slow.
 
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velocityg4 said:
Well there was the Apple II to Mac transition. That was a lot rougher software wise.

I remember how disappointed I was when I found out that a IIgs was different than a Mac. Since the OS looked the same to me. I was so disappointed because I got a IIvx. But my friend and a cousin had the IIgs. They had a ton of games I was looking forward to copying and playing.

I had to make do with the demo game CD that came with my Mac. Until I could afford some games. Not that I bought many. All I really cared about was hardware. So spent all my money again. Quickly moving to a Centris 650. Putting in a ton of RAM. Then again to a Power Macintosh 7100/66av, loads more RAM. Fast wide scsi, 17” Sony trinitron and FWB jackhammer SCSI card.

I had ridiculously overpowered computers for a high school student. Photoshop and Cinema 4D was just so slow.
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I had a TRS-80 from 1980 to 1984. Other than some cartridge games that you had to get from Radio Shack there wasn't much to do with it and I've never been interested in programming.

But in the summer of '84 my parents bought me a Commodore 64. Aside from all the other machines coming and going in the house that one computer was mine and I had access to a lot of games. I eventually got a C128 too. I ran a BBS from 1987 to 1992 (part time) so this was entirely my focus.

I knew about Apple and I knew about Macs, but they were never my focus. Compared to what my C64 was able to do (for a teenager interested ONLY in games) Macs seemed pretty useless. I played Dark Castle on a friend's black and white only Mac in 1989, then went home and gloried in full color higher resolution C64 games.

PC in 1990 and an Amiga 1000 in 1992. Defender of the Crown and Lemmings on Amiga as compared to the Mac? SMH, no.

But I was forced to engaged when I started my graphic design degree. With the exception of the Mac II series I can't say I saw much in Apple until the PowerPC era. Maybe I just needed a different perspective, IDK. But I had a 586 with a higher end graphics card, a 1GB hard drive and a SoundBlaster AWE32 at one point. Gaming was pretty good on that.
 
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I started collecting late in the game. About 2017. I had worked with x86, mips and arm, but never powerpc. So the journey began. Now almost 6 years later i have too many and need to thin the herd a little. If anyone in the continental US is interested shoot me a message for more info. I have 2 PM G5's, a mac mini G4 with a MorphOS license (that will include a spare parts G4 mini with a bad GPU), and an Intel c2d mini i'd let go to new homes.

Cheers
 
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velocityg4 said:
Software: If the software wasn't PowerPC native. Those first gen Power Macintosh models ran 68K code at 68020 speeds. But running native code was a big upgrade over 68040. I assume your boss didn't also upgrade software or bought the Power Mac way too early on. When practically nothing was updated yet.
Click to expand...

It’s been too long for me to remember. The main uses for that particular 6100/60 was for the then-current version of Aldus PageMaker (we produced our weekly circulars and monthly newsletters on it) and the then-current version of Microsoft Word for Mac, which would have been 6.0. PageMaker would have been either version 4.2 or 5.0, and I don’t remember when Aldus/Altsys updated PageMaker’s code to be PowerPC-native.
 
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Great thread, thanks for sharing! I've been wanting to post something similar for a while, and as we reach the end of the year I suppose it's a good time to.

My first experience with PPC Macs was as a kid; we were a Mac family, and I got to enjoy a hand-me-down graphite iMac DV SE in my room. My local elementary school also had some PPC Macs (iMac G3s and eMacs?). Later on I envied friends with the ultra-futuristic acrylic-era Macs like the iMac G4 and the gargantuan 23-inch acrylic Cinema Display, but as a kid had no idea what they were called.
At home we later acquired an iMac G5 iSight, aluminium iMac, 2012 Mac Mini, as well as many Powerbooks/Macbooks, iPhones, iPods and iPads (as well as 2 iPod Hifis). I was the first kid in school to own an iPad, and later when the school adopted a policy requiring all students to bring in laptops, I was the only person who attempted to use an iPad seriously as a laptop replacement. I knew all the tricks to make it work; the only failing point was the ubiquitous education Adobe Flash apps. That was from 2012-2015. Once I had moved out, I was a minimalist, with just a 2015 Macbook Air for university (and an iPhone SE).

2 years ago from today, I started to rediscover/discover for the first time all those PPC Macs of my childhood. There were some I'd never heard of: the iBook Clamshell and tower G3s/G4s fascinated me. It came as a huge surprise that you could readily buy these on local marketplaces. I probably overpaid for some back then.
In the last 24 months, it has been a wonderful, non-stop journey of learning about PPC software and hardware, developing aesthetic tastes and preferences for each MacOS and the machine, as well as their accessories.

Well, it's the end of 2022 and I can't keep doing this forever. It's simply taken up too much of my life, as fun as it has been. My philosophy of collecting has wavered between "must-have for the aesthetic" and "must be something I'll actually use". I can categorise my PPC collection as follows:

Aesthetics-only: Lime iMac 266 (with lime stand), Blueberry Clamshell, iMac G5 (no isight), G3 B&W
Use regularly: G4 dual 500 Sawtooth (daily driver), Pismo 500 (for DVDs/gaming), Graphite Clamshell (rev 1 366, my portable with a working battery), Ruby iMac (CRT goodness/gaming).

I also got into early Intel Macs and early iOS, now that they are going cheap. I now have a coveted complete 2010 setup, with a 12-core Mac Pro, Macbook Air, iPad 1, and iPhone 4. I do use all of those.

I made a resolution not to get any more Macs in 2023. I'm already a little overstretched in the collection beyond what I need. My collection is largely dominated by translucent plastic accessories at this point, which I've also stopped collecting (unless something ultra-rare appears, lol). I think my biggest accomplishment wasn't really all the research, it was convincing my wife to let me keep them, and also converting her into a Mac user along the way.

The plan is to keep using what I have regularly, but no longer actively look for anything new, or bother with many future tweaks/improvements. I'm just glad everything I have works and is in great cosmetic condition.
 
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mectojic said:
Great thread, thanks for sharing! I've been wanting to post something similar for a while, and as we reach the end of the year I suppose it's a good time to.

My first experience with PPC Macs was as a kid; we were a Mac family, and I got to enjoy a hand-me-down graphite iMac DV SE in my room. My local elementary school also had some PPC Macs (iMac G3s and eMacs?). Later on I envied friends with the ultra-futuristic acrylic-era Macs like the iMac G4 and the gargantuan 23-inch acrylic Cinema Display, but as a kid had no idea what they were called.
At home we later acquired an iMac G5 iSight, aluminium iMac, 2012 Mac Mini, as well as many Powerbooks/Macbooks, iPhones, iPods and iPads (as well as 2 iPod Hifis). I was the first kid in school to own an iPad, and later when the school adopted a policy requiring all students to bring in laptops, I was the only person who attempted to use an iPad seriously as a laptop replacement. I knew all the tricks to make it work; the only failing point was the ubiquitous education Adobe Flash apps. That was from 2012-2015. Once I had moved out, I was a minimalist, with just a 2015 Macbook Air for university (and an iPhone SE).

2 years ago from today, I started to rediscover/discover for the first time all those PPC Macs of my childhood. There were some I'd never heard of: the iBook Clamshell and tower G3s/G4s fascinated me. It came as a huge surprise that you could readily buy these on local marketplaces. I probably overpaid for some back then.
In the last 24 months, it has been a wonderful, non-stop journey of learning about PPC software and hardware, developing aesthetic tastes and preferences for each MacOS and the machine, as well as their accessories.

Well, it's the end of 2022 and I can't keep doing this forever. It's simply taken up too much of my life, as fun as it has been. My philosophy of collecting has wavered between "must-have for the aesthetic" and "must be something I'll actually use". I can categorise my PPC collection as follows:

Aesthetics-only: Lime iMac 266 (with lime stand), Blueberry Clamshell, iMac G5 (no isight), G3 B&W
Use regularly: G4 dual 500 Sawtooth (daily driver), Pismo 500 (for DVDs/gaming), Graphite Clamshell (rev 1 366, my portable with a working battery), Ruby iMac (CRT goodness/gaming).

I also got into early Intel Macs and early iOS, now that they are going cheap. I now have a coveted complete 2010 setup, with a 12-core Mac Pro, Macbook Air, iPad 1, and iPhone 4. I do use all of those.

I made a resolution not to get any more Macs in 2023. I'm already a little overstretched in the collection beyond what I need. My collection is largely dominated by translucent plastic accessories at this point, which I've also stopped collecting (unless something ultra-rare appears, lol). I think my biggest accomplishment wasn't really all the research, it was convincing my wife to let me keep them, and also converting her into a Mac user along the way.

The plan is to keep using what I have regularly, but no longer actively look for anything new, or bother with many future tweaks/improvements. I'm just glad everything I have works and is in great cosmetic condition.
Click to expand...
As long as I keep my collection in my spaces (office, garage) my wife really doesn’t care too much. She looks at me sideways sometimes but doesn’t make it much of a point of contention. With that being said, I am on the hunt to expand specifically my early Intel portable collection. I wouldn’t mind at all, an original MacBook Air or a black book - always liked those. I figure I’ll run into them eventually and nows the time. But to your point, I’ve definitely slowed my collecting down as well. No other reason other than I’ve mostly acquired the PPC that I want.
 
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Certificate of Excellence said:
But to your point, I’ve definitely slowed my collecting down as well. No other reason other than I’ve mostly acquired the PPC that I want.
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Yeah, that's where I'm at too. You also can't recover the fun of discovering machines like the Cube for a second time.
I just sold my Blackbook, though it wasn't in the best condition- I lost interest in the plastic Macbooks, as the trackpads degrade from regular use- and they all have that 'scent'.
As for the original MBA, I agree it's a nice design, but painfully slow. Perhaps if it were hacked to run Tiger and given an SSD it would fare better (though no graphics acceleration).

Certificate of Excellence said:
my wife really doesn’t care too much.
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We live in a small place, at least for now... so my collection is very noticeable 🤣. A separate office will help.
 
mectojic said:
As for the original MBA, I agree it's a nice design, but painfully slow. Perhaps if it were hacked to run Tiger and given an SSD it would fare better (though no graphics acceleration).
Click to expand...
I had an original 1.8 GHz MBA with a RunCore Pro IV SSD and hacked Tiger onto it. It was usable but generally felt slower than my 1.4 GHz 2010 MBA, also when both were running Snow Leopard. What struck me was how much faster the 2010 booted. It had already reached the login screen before the 2008 showed the spinning wheel IIRC.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
I had an original 1.8 GHz MBA with a RunCore Pro IV SSD and hacked Tiger onto it. It was usable but generally felt slower than my 1.4 GHz 2010 MBA, also when both were running Snow Leopard. What struck me was how much faster the 2010 booted. It had already reached the login screen before the 2008 showed the spinning wheel IIRC.
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This prompted me to check the storage specs of the original MBA and I couldn't believe that Apple supplied it with a 4200 RPM HDD. Not even a 5400 RPM unit.

Goodness.
 
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TheShortTimer said:
This prompted me to check the storage specs of the original MBA and I couldn't believe that Apple supplied it with a 4200 RPM HDD. Not even a 5400 RPM unit.
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B S Magnet said:
Ahhh 4200rpm… bringing back memories of the glacial 4200rpm spinner in the PowerBook G4/400…
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In all fairness, the original MBA used a 1.8" hard drive (so did the late 2008/2009), which, AFAIK never made it beyond 4200rpm. You could also have bought the 64GB Samsung SLC SSD for another $999 back in early 2008 and treated yourself to the early adopter's solid-state storage experience.
 
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wicknix said:
Same. I finally got the couple machines i was after. The others I just snagged along the way to fill the void i guess.
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I have an unfortunate habit of snagging unwanted PPCs off CL Free. I mean it is cool because they are free to me and otherwise destined for the dump or recycler at best, but I now have double of quite a few ie: QS, MDD, 2008 mb, Imacg4, imacg3 etc. Not to say that that has not helped me with aging parts as needed but that still makes for alot of unnecessary duplication which takes up space.
mectojic said:
Yeah, that's where I'm at too. You also can't recover the fun of discovering machines like the Cube for a second time.
I just sold my Blackbook, though it wasn't in the best condition- I lost interest in the plastic Macbooks, as the trackpads degrade from regular use- and they all have that 'scent'.
As for the original MBA, I agree it's a nice design, but painfully slow. Perhaps if it were hacked to run Tiger and given an SSD it would fare better (though no graphics acceleration).


We live in a small place, at least for now... so my collection is very noticeable 🤣. A separate office will help.
Click to expand...
Yeah man I totally get that. Small places make PPC boxes extra tough to collect and keep hidden from the greater living space. I mean aside from portables and minis, none of them are in any way small lol. I started my collection while living in a condo with my wife. I had an office there as well, none the less, space filled up pretty fast. Kids came, house bought and garage acquired but that in itself is not so much a solution as it is an excuse to entertain curiosity because a bench while great for working on old computers just opens up your ability to hoover in unwanted free CL macs outside of your office storage and which I still to this day run into on CL from time to time. With all that I have at this point, it is pretty hard for me to walk away from a functioning free CL mac. I'll now wait a few days to see if the advert goes away (another enthusiast picking it up is how I interpret this) but if it doesn't, I usually try and scoop it after a week of spotting it.

As far as the specs of the MBA or BB, neither are really intended to be DDd in any way. Theyre more just about neat design language that pushed what a mac was or in the case of a BB, seems like a nod back to the pismo days which I think is really neat. Both early intel, one looking back while another looking far ahead in design. Very cool. :):apple:

I always wished they released a black Darth Vader 2006 imac to compliment the black iphone, macbook & ipad design language. Never happened but sure would've been so cool!
 
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