1997 was a cool year. I turned 13. At the very end of it, I got my first MacAddict, issue 16, an issue dedicated to games, which is the best topic for a 13 year old. To this day, I think Civilization II is the apex of gaming.
Tag Apple
Deatomization: MacAddict 1996
MacAddict was not the first, was not even my first, Mac magazine (that goes to MacWorld, I believe, and Mac Home Journal, respectively). But no doubt it was my favorite, picking my family up as a faithful subscriber when I was a teenager until I went away to college years later. It’s humor, coverage, design, attitude, and topics were so much more my level than the MacWorld my Dad used to get. And that’s why I started my deatomization project- to bring the Internet an almost forgotten piece of history, MacAddict.
Deatomization: Build Your Own Mac
This is the first entry in a new project of mine called Deatomization – where old books, magazines, tapes, etc. will be digitized however possible- scanning, converting, emulating, etc.
The first entry is a curious book from 1991 by Bob Brant, called “Build Your Own Macintosh and Save a Bundle”, covering the landscape back then of taking Macs (from 128k to the almighty IIfx) and putting them into custom cases, with third party keyboards, mice, RAM, Hard disks, video cards, etc.
Unofficial Apple Device Updates
Apple has a pretty consistent track record of cutting off OS support to Macs on convenient technological gaps- more than the logical cutoff of PowerPC support to Intel only support when Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard shipped. But the community around Apple has usually stepped in and provided some life to machines Apple has abandoned. Let’s look at a few of these…
MLPostFactor – Bringing Mountain Lion to machines left behind by Apple
Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) requires a 64-bit EFI to install, and fully 64-bit drivers for all hardware. For this reason, a lot of machines could not boot it and were stuck with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
AirPlay and AirParrot
I was approached with a challenge to craft a solution that will do the following:
– Allow a presenter to wirelessly display a presentation
– Allow the presenter to walk around with the device (preferably a light Windows based tablet to be held for 2-3 hours in one hand)
– Mirror the content to two television screens at once, with the content being readable on two large (40-50 inch) TVs
– Allow the presenter to utilize PowerPoint’s Presenter View to keep tabs on timing and have access to notes
– Keep the cost down while also getting it ready in three days