
15-Year-Old’s 200 Vintage Apple Computers Are Now a Mac Museum - leephillips
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/technology/apple-computer-museum-maine-teenager-alex-jason.html?smid=tw-share
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ChuckMcM
Reminds me of how I started my MicroVAX collection, I saw a couple at a closed
auction and had to bid the minimum to see the price they went for. Turns out
it was the only bid and I found myself the owner of a couple of MicroVAX 3's
in the ginormous BA123 roll-around chassis.

The other thing that it reminds of that things in context are more valuable
than things in isolation. Specifically by going to the trouble to research the
systems, understand their place in Apple history, the exhibit takes on a value
that simply having an old Apple computer would not.

My hat's off to the kid.

~~~
brudgers
Acceptable usage?

    
    
      MicroVaxen 3
    
      MicroVax 3en

~~~
VonGuard
Obligatory VAX jousting video.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP-F7XxrDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP-F7XxrDA)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, that is sad. I get it, really I do, but its sad to see what were once
machines doing service to some goal somewhere, being smashed together for
kicks like that.

~~~
bitJericho
Don't worry, this was 2002. It'd be like jousting with a couple Proliant G3s
or something.

------
yolesaber
Amazing! Absolutely gorgeous collection. I wonder how came into possession of
an original Apple I board - that's like finding the Holy Grail!

~~~
npunt
Seriously. I thought 'oh cool, I have a bit of a collection too' and then the
article casually drops that he has an Apple I. Not exactly something a 15 year
old typically gets their hands on.

The video (1) shows these machines in fantastic condition - this must have
cost a pretty penny, most old machines from eBay or craigslist aren't in great
shape. Only thing I can see is they could use a bit of retr0bright to get rid
of the yellowing.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_-1Sb8Bbw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_-1Sb8Bbw)

~~~
organsnyder
The use of retr0bright could be controversial, I would think: For many
collectibles, the value goes down once that sort of restoration is undertaken.
I know that's true for collectible coins, at least...

~~~
fernly
right right right, don't do anything to the plastic. To a museum the natural
aging of the plastic is part of the artifact and its history. Ret0bright[1] is
a chemical combination that could have effects down the line. museums have to
think in terms of storing artifacts for 100 years.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retr0bright](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retr0bright)

------
koz1000
_On Saturday he was looking for so-called Easter eggs, or surprises hidden by
software programmers, on Macintosh SE models that reveal a slide show of the
company’s development team._

>G 41D89A

That one has been etched in my brain for the last 29 years.

~~~
imglorp
Also, a hardware Easter egg, some Macs had a bunch of signatures inside their
cases. Of course, you need a foot long hex wrench to get inside to see.

[http://www.cultofmac.com/122408/signed-by-steve-jobs-co-
sign...](http://www.cultofmac.com/122408/signed-by-steve-jobs-co-signatures-
inside-the-original-macintosh-case/)

~~~
koz1000
Oh man, that Torx wrench. Pre-internet, that was nearly impossible to find
unless you knew someone that had a Mac repair business.

~~~
salgernon
They were routinely sold under the name "MacCracker" \- and had a flat disk
with a ridge. Once the screws were out, the ridge would be worked as a lever
to separate the edges.

Bottom has some screen shots:

[http://www.tcocd.de/Pictures/Micro/Apple/mac128.shtml](http://www.tcocd.de/Pictures/Micro/Apple/mac128.shtml)

------
elmarschraml
Also mentioned in the article, in case you're not in the U.S.: Last year, the
largest private collection of historic apple products has opened as a museum
in Prague: [http://www.applemuseum.com/en/about-
us](http://www.applemuseum.com/en/about-us)

(Reviews on tripadvisor are a bit mixed, but looks promising)

------
ChrisArchitect
Lawn cutting? I'm more curious about how they fund this. And why? such a young
kid collecting stuff like he's a storage wars hunter

~~~
davewongillies
Perhaps you could even call it a "hedge fund"

~~~
nekkoru
No more internet for you today, young man.

------
HillaryBriss
> Other prized artifacts include ... the first prototype of a mouse, known as
> the Cursor III ...

Is that correct?

~~~
bradleyjohnson
No the first prototype mouse was this one I think:
[http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001083.htm](http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001083.htm)
Made in the 60s and patented in 1970.

The Cursor III is this:
[http://www.vintagemacworld.com/add2/add8.jpg](http://www.vintagemacworld.com/add2/add8.jpg)

~~~
HillaryBriss
wow. that vintage Mac peripherals photo is awesome. everything _still_ looks
futuristic.

------
bootload
> Lisa 2/5

Love the design of this model. Reminds me of the VT-100 [0] I used and loved
at Uni. For some reason, machine design (desktop) has got flimsier and moved
away this style.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100)

~~~
digi_owl
The change from CRT to LCD likely is a big contributor to the change of
design.

------
ticklemyelmo
They're over 5 years old? That's just sad.

~~~
sp332
It says "vintage", not "old". And next year it will be 6 years, then 7...

~~~
ticklemyelmo
[http://winsupersite.com/hardware/apple-
decides-600-million-p...](http://winsupersite.com/hardware/apple-
decides-600-million-pc-users-5-year-old-pcs-sad-fact)

~~~
sp332
Oh, I'd forgotten about that quote. I get it now.

------
ChrisArchitect
"Apple itself, founded by Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak
in a suburban California garage in 1976"

never heard of it

~~~
hinkley
California? It's that big state on the left side of the map. It looks like a
rectangle, bent in the middle. Like a UPS box.

Take a right turn at Albuquerque. Stop when you hit water. Can't miss it.

------
codecamper
What a rich little snob of a kid! I had to beg & plead & promise dad I'd start
a business (selling labels??) so he'd get me an Apple IIc. Which I was very
happy for. At the age of 12. Thanks Dad!

~~~
vosper
I'm not sure it's warranted to call him a rich little snob. I read this
article and one that it linked to, and it seems like he worked hard earning
and saving money to build the collection. Maybe his parents are rich and are
really the ones funding this but I didn't see anything to back that up.

~~~
teddyh
No average 15-year old can “work hard” and simply “earn” the enormous gobs of
money this kind of collection costs. Someone older who can be assumed to have
worked their whole life and slowly accumulated a large collection, such a
person have demonstrated dedication and sacrifice, which signifies genuine
interest and love for the subject. But someone 15 years old? They _must_ have
simply bought it all, over a comparitively short period of time, for ungodly
amounts of money. And when neither time, effort or sacrifice is involved, it’s
very hard to trust the person to be genuinly interested.

Sure, they _could_ still very well be genuinely interested and dedicated to
the subject. But, while we normally can make the reasonable assumption that a
person who owns a large collection necessarily is genuinely interested in the
subject (per the above reasoning), in _this_ case this reasoning is not valid.
They still might be genuinely interested, but we have no way of knowing that.

~~~
rsfinn
No way ... except, perhaps, by reading TFA:

"Alex said his first breakthrough was buying a collection of 50 Apple
computers — enough to fill a 26-foot-long U-Haul — with $2,000 he had saved
from mowing lawns."

"Alex described himself as a longtime tinkerer who studied how tractors worked
at the John Deere dealership, explored the innards of computers ... He was
inspired to pursue Apple computers after he upgraded the hard drive and RAM on
his first computer, the iMac G5, on his own."

And in a referenced article <[http://www.cultofmac.com/417572/teen-uses-lawn-
mowing-money-...](http://www.cultofmac.com/417572/teen-uses-lawn-mowing-money-
to-fund-incredible-apple-collection/>):

"Alex quickly discovered he could not tinker much with his G5 because it was
already at its limit for upgrading. So he sought older Macs for sale to take
them apart, get them working, and learn how they are put together."

But I guess it's easier to just pontificate.

~~~
teddyh
Sure he’s interested – _for the moment_. It’s whether the interest will
persist that we have no way of knowing. My point was that since he has done
this for such a short time, the size of his collection can’t, as it normally
would, indicate time spent and thus a larger than passing interest.

Also, my comment was to someone that seemed to claim that someone that young
could simply “work hard” and earn the money. Now, unless you’re surrounded by
people with way too much money than they know what to do with, this isn’t
true.

