Mac Setups: Three Decades of Apple, From the SE/30 to the iPad 2

Jan 7, 2012 - 12 Comments

All-in-One Macs

Like any longtime Apple fan, I’m a sucker for retro Apple gear, and this great reader submitted Mac setup jumps across over three decades of Apple hardware, showing the evolution of all-in-one hardware from the late 1980’s to today.

  • Macintosh SE/30 from 1989
  • iMac 233MHz from 1999
  • iMac 24″ from 2008
  • iPhone 4 from 2010
  • iPad 2 from 2011

By the way, isn’t it awesome that the Mac SE/30 still works?

In some ways, this setup mirrors a few of Apple’s most significant Mac announcements, with the SE/30 being the first compact Mac to ship with a 1.44MB floppy drive standard, to the original iMac which was the first Mac (or PC) to ditch the floppy altogether, and the modern aluminum iMac which helped spread the aluminum unibody across the product line. Of course, the iPhone 4 and iPad 2’s influence is a bit more obvious and reach far beyond Apple, but they still changed the Mac platform with features ranging from multitouch gestures to the simplified UI experience of OS X Lion and Launchpad.

This is a great Mac setup, thanks for sending it in Robin!

Check out more Mac setups

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Posted by: William Pearson in Mac Setups

12 Comments

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  1. Henri says:

    Actually, it’s “FOUR decades of Apple”.

    Great setup though!

  2. Simon says:

    Ooops – what am i saying..??

    Apologies – of course the MacPlus had an 800KB drive, not the 1.44MB. Just shows how long ago it all was…….

    and all I had was 1.4MB to play with. eek!

  3. Simon says:

    Edit – the Se/30 was NOT the first Mac to have the 1.44MB floppy drive standard – that was the Mac Plus. I know ’cause I still have mine.

    What a beast – when I had the external floppy drive attached I had… 2.88MB of storage. Incredible. Just enough for the OS, Word, and an 8 page word document with lots of formatting. sigh.

  4. Well James, the Mac SE/30 is used often just for the pure joy of doing so as it works blindingly fast compared to our modern computers. It has both Word and Excel installed and even these earlier versions are still capable of pretty complex tasks. This Mac was previously used by a university professor on a daily basis to research, prepare lecture material and he had some pretty serious statistical software installed also.

  5. Dr Hicks says:

    I still have a Mac SE running WaterLooMacJanet serving applications to two Mac Classics !

  6. Charles Dale says:

    Nice setup.

    Clean, neat, simple and good looking.

  7. Darren says:

    Past, present, and future!

  8. Perry says:

    I gave my SE/30 away because I never used it anymore.

    But no doubt, that is my all time favourite Mac to this day. Makes me nostalgic for my University days.

  9. James says:

    @iLight – email a link to the photo of your setup to osxdailycom@gmail.com.

    I get the feeling this is a “fake” setup in that he threw together for the photo. I seriously doubt he’d use a Macintosh SE/30 for anything (even though it’s cool to see it).

  10. iLight says:

    Hi
    How can I send my mac setup?

  11. tom swift says:

    This is one of the most impressive Mac Setups that OSXDaily has show. Nice job to the owner of these fine historical Apple products!

  12. Jerome VADON says:

    Nice :)
    I got mac 128, mac 512, mac + and so many of this old mac (including newtons or frist mac portable) : all work very fine !

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