1993-1997 Mac Classic
Used at Buck Memorial Library at Illinois Wesleyan University. Back in 1993, students had to go to the library to use a computer. It was extremely rare for students to have computers in their room in 1993.
1994-1997 Performa Performa 450
25 MHz
120 MB hard drive
no cd drive
All four years of design classes were done on the Pizza Box Macs. I hated learning how to use the computer and my designer professor wasn't too happy when I would do my design assignments in the darkroom instead of the computer.
1996-2003 PowerMac 7200
120 MHz
500 MB hard drive
My brother had a lab monkey job in the design lab at the School of Art so I was lucky enough to get the new family computer in my dorm room spring semester senior year. I still had to save my files onto zip disks and bring them to the design lab to print out.
After graduating from school, this computer resided at my parents house (where I lived from 1997-1999) until my brother gave them his blue and white G3.
I also had a different PowerMac 7200 in my apartment from 1999-2003. My employer was giving away old 7200s. I put one in my closet to use as a mp3 player. I used it probably three times. When I moved to my house in 2003, i took apart the 7200 from my parents house and the 7200 from my employer to use in artwork.
1997-1998 mac clone
Power Computing PowerTower 180
180 MHz
first job out of college and I got to use the fasted computer in the office. sweet.
1998-2007
I've been at my current employer for countless years and it's hard to distinguish exactly when I used each of the following computers, so I'm just putting them all in one giant list. I became very familiar with the workings of the G3 blue and whites, G4 graphites, and G4 QuickSilvers, because I was doing tech work for a year or two before and after my time as a designer. Power Mac G3 beige minitower, 266Mhz, 6GB hd Power Mac G3 blue and white, 350 and 400 Mhz, 9 GB hd Power Mac G4 graphite green button, 450 Mhz, 10 GB hd Power Mac G4 graphite blue button (gigabit), dual 450 Mhz, 30 GB hd Power Mac G4 QuickSilver, dual 800 Mhz, 60 GB hd Power Mac G5, 1.8Ghz, 80 GB hd
2000-present Powerbook G3 Pismo
400 Mhz, 6 GB hd
This is the first computer I bought for myself. I am proud to say that I am the first owner of a Mac laptop that has Firewire. This has been my favorite computer of all time. It has never given me any trouble. Unfortunately, I can't run the latest software on it. So the machine is used for email and a few games nowadays.
2004-present iMac G5 17"
1.6 Mhz, 80 GB hd
I have never hated a computer so much since I was learning how to use computers in college. I still need to take it in to get the fan noise problem fixed for the second time. I have no beef with imacs in general. I just got stuck with a lemon. It happens to every computer line ever made.
2006-present macbook 13"
2 Ghz, 80 GB hd
Officially my wife's computer. I use it occasionally such as right now to write this blog post. It's nice to use when I get fed up with my iMac. Hopefully, it can reach the revered status of my Powerbook Pismo.
I remember when you got the iMac. You were so excited. So it turned out to be a lemon? I didn't know that.
I also remember the computers at Buck. But I lived in Gulick, one of the only dorms with a "computer lab" [three Macs in the study lounge]. We had a dot matrix printer too. It was quite a luxury back then!
Dodds had 3-4 computers in the study lounge also (including at least one Mac Classic), but I don't recall if those were there our freshman year. I wrote several papers on that Mac though.
I didn't use a Mac again until we bought the MacBook a few months ago.
