How to Bronze a Mac
A little light reading for Friday. Even if you don't like the bronzed look, this page steps you through the compact Mac painting process. And really, what is cooler than a painted vintage Mac...hmmm. Yea... Send your lists to news@macmothership.com.

How to Bronze a Mac

Memoir of a Homebrew Computer Club Member
Bob Lash recounts his experiences. From the page:
"My first exposure to computers was at age 6 (1963), as a subject in Dr. Patrick Suppes' accelerated mathematics experiment at Stanford. I was taken to a small room with what I now know was a CRT display and an intercom. I was asked to push some keys in response to some shapes on the screen. Afterwards, they showed me around a large room filled with big cabinets, some with lots of blinking white lights.
They said it was a "computer" and its name was the "PDP-1". A tall thin man asked me to hit a key on a console to make a "decktape". I had absolutely no idea what a "DEC tape" was at the time, but when I hit the key, a small pair of reels BEGAN TO TURN!! It was a moment I would never forget."

Memoir of a Homebrew Computer Club Member

Archive of Homebrew Computer Club Newsletters
The Digibarn Computer Museum celebrates the Homebrew Computer Club 30th Anniversary with a Special Online Exhibit! "Phase One features the newsletters of the Homebrew Computer Club that met at Stanford University and around the soon-to-be-renamed Silicon Valley. This is a great look into the deep recesses of the birth of personal computing." Available online are scanned images of these newsletters, 1975-1977! A great history resource.

Homebrew Computer Club 30th Anniversary

A CD Drive in an SE/30
For some reason hardware hacking makes us a little giddy. Increasing function or appearance with a hacksaw and soldering iron just seems so naughty! Here is a page at the Power Colour Classic site covering the useful installation of a CD drive into the beloved SE/30. Lets do it!

A CD Drive in an SE/30

Apple Cart; The II Can See and Speak
Another trip down memory lane at atarimagazines.com, this time an article by John J. Anderson and Owen W. Linzmayer, which originally appeared in Creative Computing, Vol. 10, No. 10 / October 1984 / Page 178.

Apple Cart; The II Can See and Speak

IDEfile - A ProFile Emulator
This is a cool hardware emulation of the Apple ProFile drive for Apple III and Lisa computers. From the site:
"A Lisa Emulator Project can be found on the net, but up to now hardly any working ProFile emulators are known. Years ago, Sun Remarketing and Sigma Seven offered ProFile-compatible hard drives. Tom Stepleton and Al Bui tried to design a bridge from the ProFile parallel interface to an EPP printer port, letting a PC emulate the drive. Project documentation can be found here, but after their prototype refused to work, they abandoned the project. Therefore I decided to design and build my own drive.
IDEfile is a ProFile compatible hard drive for Apple /// and Lisa systems. Emulation of the classic 5MB ProFile and the rare ProFile 10M is provided. I intend to support Widget-10 and a big 20MB Widget-20 too, but before that I have to figure out the syntax of its additional commands. Any help on this is appreciated, also any technical information on calibrating and formatting these beasts!:

IDEfile - A ProFile Emulator

How Jean Louis Gassée Changed the Mac's Direction
A very interesting biographical piece at Low End Mac by the talented Tom Hormby, explores the impact of Gassée at Apple. From the intro:
"Jean Louis Gassée has proven to be one of the most effective managers in the computer industry. He propelled Hewlett Packard to the forefront of the computer industry in Europe, managed Apple's new products division during the Sculley era, and served as the CEO at Be. Most recently, he has become the CEO at PalmSource after serving on its board of directors since Palm's spin off from 3Com in the late 90s."

How Jean Louis Gassée Changed the Mac's Direction

Apple II FAQs
Tons and tons of questions answered for those Apple II fans. A great place to get started.

Apple II FAQs

Apple IIc Revealed
This is an article from the Atarimagazines.com archives, which originally appeared in Creative Computing, Vol. 10, No. 10 / October, 1984 / Page 30. Written by Owen Linzmeyer, author of Apple Confidential, it begins:
"The Apple IIc is like no other Apple computer ever introduced, and yet it is virtually an Apple IIe work-alike. The design of the IIc represents a change of philosphy for Apple. Gone are the expansion slots that hardware hackers loved. In fact, you can't even open the IIc easily. Apple has built a computer that is to be used as an applicance--like a telephone or a tape recorder."

Apple IIc Revealed

PowerBook 5300 FAQ
The poor PowerBook 5300. No friends. Well, here at The Mothership, we don't think it's all that bad - no, really! So here is a 5300 FAQ, all hyperlinked and full of handy information.

PowerBook 5300 FAQ