Unboxing a 25-year-old Macintosh IIcx
Greetings retro Mac fans. Do your kids take their iPads for granted? Do they not understand the mind-boggling glory of their now primitive iPod touch? Well gather up the little ones for an hour long, yes hour long, piece of Apple history. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh, the fine folks at the Inside TWiT web series have put together a special video showcasing the 25-year-old Macintosh IIcx.
The guys crack open a complete IIcx, including shrink-wrapped manuals and its glorious inside. Watch as they install a cutting edge (for the era) video card that kicks the machine up to a stunning 256 colors. Explain to your children the convenience of the "programing switch", a plastic piece which allowed you to press the interrupt and reset buttons back when they were located on the actual motherboard.
Remarkably, the machine still works, and provides a history lesson for younger Mac fans about just how easy things have become. Imagine if kids still had to listen to that terrifying floppy drive click every time they tried to install an app? It's a joy to watch the TWiT guys install the old Kid Pix art program. After all these years I'd forgotten about the "bomb" clear screen feature in that particular program. There was nothing better as a kid than drawing some odd monstrosity, and then blowing it up into artistic oblivion.
If you've got a hankering for nostalgia join the TWiT guys for this hour-long look at a piece of our shared history.
