Best Mac Ever
With the Macintosh now 25 years old, several sites have been discussing which was the best Mac ever. I made up my mind fully before clicking through, and was happy to see so many people agreed with me.
The SE/30 wasn’t my first Mac, but it was the one that carried me the longest. It was compact, speedy, and for its time better than all challengers. Yes, there’s a degree of Golden Age nostalgia; you love the things of your youth partly because you loved being young.
But I think I love the SE/30 because it felt pure. Its limited hardware and software were perfectly matched in a way I haven’t seen again until the iPhone.
I just emailed my Mom to see if it’s still in a closet somewhere.
Articles
January 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
The Apple IIGS. – (The G.S. was for Graphics and Sound.) – Only took 4 disks to boot up into Print-Shop!!! Oh the luxury.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
If your Mom doesn’t have it, you can have the one my Dad still keeps in his closet. Loves it too much to just throw away, poor bastard.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I still have an SE/30 up in the closet in my home office.
It was most recently used to prop open the door at my last apartment when I was carrying groceries inside.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:23 pm
My vote goes to the eMac, pure as the driven snow.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I think I had the SE because the SE/30 was a little out of my price range. But I have fonder memories of my Apple IIc and all its 128K of memory.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I can’t remember if I still have my Quadra 950, my first mac. I think I may have thrown it away.
I don’t know what happened to my mom’s LC either.
Oh, if only apple would sell a consumer desktop (screenless!) machine again.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I loved the pre-Mac Apples for nostalgic purposes, but my favorite Mac has to be the Mac Performa CD. The CD means that it came with one of those CD caddies – an independent little tray that encased the CD, which you then inserted into the giant gap in the front of the computer. I was one of the only kids on the block to have a built-in CD drive and, boy, was I proud. That Big Computer That Could got me all the way through high school and then kept my mom going well after that. Ah, memories.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Offtopic, but:
“John August to pen ‘Preacher’ for director Sam Mendes” (from ew.com)
Is this true? This would be incredible. Not only is it a great comic, but John, you totally have the chops to elevate and shape the material into a fantastic (possible set of) movie(s). I hope this all works for the best (if true)!
January 21st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
@Phillip:
Yup. And yours was the first notice I got of the EW story, so thanks.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:23 pm
My family still has an SE/30! My younger sister was using it just today. She was playing Cannon Fodder. I started writing on that computer years and years ago. It still works fine.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:56 am
Aw, I love(d) this Mac too! But I have to admit, I’m completely smitten with my new MacBook.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:43 am
The SE/30 was great, but — speaking as someone who covered the Mac for seven years (1984-91), first for BYTE and then for Macworld — my vote goes to the Mac IIcx. It had slots and color, was very stable and reliable from both a hardware and software point of view, and pretty much was the pinnacle of Mac architecture. Things started going downhill with the IIci and the IIfx, and then they really went to hell until Jobs came back. IMHO; YMMV. ..bruce..
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
My favorite Mac would have to be… my iBook G4. I bought it freshman year of college, and while I didn’t even really need it, it was the first time I owned an Apple machine and saw the progress they had been making towards making Windows and Mac’s work together. What a glorious sight.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I just have to pick you up on something because it’s been bugging me ever since I read your post. You wrote; ‘you love the things of your youth partly because you loved being young’.
WOAH! Not everyone cherishes their youth. My best Mac ever is my MacBook Air and I’ve been buying Macs for almost twenty years.
After a few ‘mods’ the SE/30 made a cool aquarium though, I’ll give you that.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:15 am
My favorite is the pb12″. What a perfect machine.
January 25th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I loved my Quadra 610. Got it in 94, had it for ten years, still has a bunch of my scripts from my younger days, and absolutely no internet connectivity. Made me free of internet distraction. It was either write pages, or Doom. (Or in some cases, both.)
January 27th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I love my new 13-inch MacBook as well. It has better fit and finish than any laptop I’ve ever touched.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Funny. I was just dusting off my Performa 630CD for my 4 year old. Great games for him and it still runs great after almost 20 years!
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I still it would make a great Olympic game throwing the old Macs, since they have a perfect handle for it. And yeah, I loved my SE/30, too. I wish my old PowerMac could convert to newer files – it was perfect for what I needed to do.
I just subbed in a school in LAUSD in which they had a Mac from 1995 as their primary computer in the classroom. Your tax dollars (not) at work.