This is my PowerMac G4 Tower. It has long since been relegated to my boneyard of old, treasured Macs along with a G3 tower, Quadra 605, and a nice aluminum Pro Tower which was a gift from a friend. I wish I’d kept the PowerComputing 150 clone I used for nine years, but I can’t keep them all. (I try, though.) That one had been Frankensteined with every upgrade possible to keep it relevant. I was so upset when Steve Jobs returned and killed clone licensing, but he was correct to do so.

Because the Quadra 605 requires a simple battery to start up, and the G3 has a bad power supply, this is my only OS9 computer that works. Eventually I want to replace the hard drive with a solid state one, as this old example has just begun to fail.

I have no real need for anything OS9 (Who does?) but there are a lot of old, treasured games that I’d like to have available as well as the nostalgia of firing up QuarkXPress 3.0/4.0, something I spent a lot of time working with back in the day. It is a familiar, comfortable environment that brings back good memories. Plus, although this isn’t as pretty as my aluminum Pro Tower, it is a nice example of computer design done well and not just a box on the floor.

The beige G3 tower had the ability to fold out flat for upgrades, which at the time was pretty fancy. This one did better with its more simple open-door access. It was nice to have a computer that was so much better thought out than what everybody else was using. And that went for the operating system as well. Still does.

That PowerComputing clone I had for so long actually cut my hands more than once when upgrading it because aside from the operating system that it ran, it was just another beige box from the beige world of beige computers, with no thought at all to anything other than slapping parts together in the cheapest way possible.

Efficiency and design must be in balance in order to do the best work, and Apple has always had that going for it while all other computer makers were just slapping parts together in the cheapest way possible, and calling it a day.

I have watched the evolution of Apples’ design over the years, and in this world where there are so many ugly things, it is nice that this company has it in them to make something positive and appealing out of what everyone else overlooks. Which leaves us with tools that are aesthetically pleasing instead of more plastic-generic mediocrity.