Category: Uncategorized

Quadra 605

This Macintosh Quadra 605 from 1993 is my first Mac. If I remember correctly, with the monitor (CRT, I don’t have that anymore. Who does?) it was around $1500. Back then, in order to buy a Macintosh where I live, one had to go to this specialty store near downtown Denver. At the time, I had to pay with cash, so I went with a buddy who terrified me when he wanted to go to Burger King in this bad part of town that we had to drive through to get there… while I had this money in my pocket. But, we did accomplish the mission safely.

I did buy an Apple Laserwriter shortly after this for around $600, and used it for a very long time. That was a great printer, which still worked well when I eventually let it go for a $60 printer with more features.

Before this Quadra, I had a Magnovox PC running a system called GeoWorks, a competitor to Windows. I’d purchased it instead of a Macintosh in order to save $300 or so. While it was okay, it was lacking any software to do anything other than word processing, and simply token versions of anything else. I did a lot of writing back then, so that was okay for a while, but eventually I had to give in to the fact that paying a bit more for something that could do vastly more in return, was worth it. Poor GeoWorks, I remember watching an interview with the creator of that system, he was so frustrated with how Microsoft bullied them out of the market when they had a better system (supposedly) than Windows.

I upgraded the processor on this Quadra with one that had a co-math processor (or something to that effect), added more than the official maximum RAM, and an ethernet card. There wasn’t much more that could be done at the time. There was a PowerPC card for this, but they are extremely rare, I’ve never seen one since they stopped making them. These days, I’d buy one just because I could have the best Quadra 605 possible. Eventually I’d like to add a solid-state drive. I took the start-up battery out so it doesn’t leak and damage anything.

This Quadra has been in deep storage, in a cool area completely out of sun light. However, the beige plastic has a small amount of yellowing to it, I’m not sure if this is from the when I was using it back in the day, next to a window, or if it is just happening regardless. Super Nintendos do this, they yellow badly no matter what. I really don’t want to take the thing apart and soak it in that solution (I forgot what it was, hydrogen peroxide?) to get it back to it’s normal beige blandness. Yellow is much worse than beige!

Warcraft II would slow down quite a bit as any given network game progressed. Sim City 2000 could only go so fast, but was very playable. QuarkXPress ran well, but could bog now with big documents. It was a good Mac at a good price for the time, but it wasn’t for big programs in work environments.

The concept of having a computer like the new iMac that is so much smaller, cheaper, and more capable than this Quadra, it blows my mind how far we’ve come!

QuarkXPress 3.2

I’m a sedimental kind of guy; Also, I paid six-hundred dollars for this copy of QuarkXPress back in 1993, so I’m probably never going to get rid of it! This was my primary software for years, and actually was worth the price in the end. A great program. Far better than Corel Ventura, which I experienced a few years later.

Coming from manual and electric typewriters when I was a kid, (I found one in a trash pile once and used it until it fell apart!) these programs feel like science fiction and I still appreciate them more than most people do, although it is understandable why everybody takes these amazing programs for granted. Remembering those correction tapes for my typewriters gives me very bad memories! The first time I experienced the ability to just use different fonts, sizes, or spell-check, much less go back and easily edit anything, it was clear that typesetting had changed forever!

Long live InDesign! (And, XPress. Why not?)

Woodstock

Ten, maybe fifteen years ago, my Mom saw this framed Woodstock at a thrift store, and asked me if we should get it. I knew she liked Woodstock and bought it for her. It has been on a wall at home since then, and every time I see it, I’ve wanted to recreate it in Adobe Illustrator, it is really neat and represents my Mom pretty well. Also, to preserve it, and have the ability to recreate it if necessary. Every house should have Peanuts in it.

I finally got around to doing this, and while it would have been easier to take it out of the frame and scan it, I did the recreation from a simple iPhone photo.

Image Trace was used, but still had to create another layer for the larger yellow areas. Not the most intensive Illustrator project, but absolutely a worthwhile one.

2025: My Computing Setup

Understanding that everybody has different computing needs, I’m still going strong with a 2018 Intel Mac mini with 16 GB RAM. I use Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop as well as occasionally Dreamweaver. iMovie every week for editing videos from my GoPro 7 camera.

I’m also using two 30″ Apple Cinema Displays that are almost twenty years old, and require multiple adapters to work, but they are great monitors that originally cost $3000 and I bought them years ago for $300 apiece. I also have two 17″ Apple Cinema Displays from the same era on monitor support arms that I switch my main computer to when I’m working from home. So I’m basically surrounded by monitors on two of four sides!

I can’t afford a RAID setup, so I have six external hard drives, from 8TB to 10TB, and Time Machine running x2.

Add to that the ergonomic, tented, ortholinear, programmable split-keyboard “Moonlander” by ZSA, three Apple Magic Pads, one standard Apple Mouse, and that is my setup. And a Kensington SlimBlade Trackball.

When I find a job, I plan to migrate to one of these new little Mac Mini that have been doing very well in reviews, and I plan to shell out for the 32 GB RAM and buy an external conformal hub that has space for an SSD. Any recommendations on that would be great. The four Thunderbolt ports I have on my current Mini are vital for how things are set up right now with all of my external hubs, so I am going to have to factor that into whatever I get.

My previous 2014 Mac Mini was awful in that it only had un-upgradable 8MB RAM, and that kept causing problems and I couldn’t upgrade. I can upgrade what I have now, but what few issues I have aren’t urgent enough to warrant me opening it up. I used to always open up my Macs, I had a Power Computing 150 that had been totally Frankensteined with every upgrade possible, but these days I prefer everything just works, and it does. I’m kind of past the “satisfaction of doing things myself” when it comes to upgrading. I just want to get things done.

Any recommendations on drawing tablets would be welcome, I have no idea what would be good at an affordable price.

Additionally, in the “boneyard” so-to-speak, I have a G3 tower, a G4 tower, and a 2009 aluminum “cheese-grater” tower. Just can’t find it within myself to get rid of them, even though I did let the PowerComputing 150 go after nine years of daily use. That one was a beast. The 2009 Mac Pro Tower is more a piece of art, by value of that alone I’ll never get rid of it! The G3 Tower doesn’t start up anymore, and from videos I’ve viewed on that topic, it might be a bit of work getting it going again, especially if it is the power supply.

And I still have my original Quadra 605 from 1994. Never going to get rid of that box!