Mac360 Twitter TweetsSponsorship and Advertising on Mac360Forums Member LoginRegister for Mac360 ForumsFrequently Asked QuestionsYouTube Video WatchDashboard Widget WatchPolls & SurveysMac360 Power Search Options
RSS FeedThe Mac360 Article ArchiveThe Cheap MacWhat's New!Mac Tips & TricksMacintosh User ForumsMac360 Reviews

Test What You Know About Macs With Mactracker.

TrackerI love free applications and no Mac is complete without a little history—for free.

Mactracker brings you information on any Mac ever made. Chips. Features. Specs. Prices. Click. Test your knowledge about Macs.

If you’re a long time Mac user, or a recent switcher, download Mactracker and track your way through the Mac’s history books.

Why? Because the history of the Mac is rich and flavorful. You’ll be amazed at how much Macs once cost and how underpowered they were.

Did I mention that Mactracker is free? Did I mention that you get detailed information on every Mac ever made?

You can’t still want another reason, can you?

The Mac has a history that traces back to the early 1980s, further if you count the PARC days—the computing interface research from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

Macs available to the public started life in 1984, so there’ve been over 223 years of Macs since that original 128k. As I understand it, both Ron and Mac360’s founder, Tera Patricks, owned 128k Macs.

That’s what Ron told me. Tera always said he was older than dirt, so knowing about old Macs must be a side effect.

A couple of years ago, before Tera’s death, I put her Mac knowledge to the test by opening up Mactracker and calling her on the phone. You know, just to chat.

So we talked about this and that, about some tweaks to the Mac360 site, chatted about the new Macs with Intel chips, and I steered conversation to older Macs. Tera mentioned she once had a Mac LC (Performa)575.

What did you like about it, Tera?” Then I clicked Performa 575 in Mactracker to test her knowledge.

Tera said the most notable thing was the SCSI hard drive on rails which made for easy disk replacement. “How much RAM did it have back in those days?” I asked.

She rattled off specs about as fast as I could check in the Mactracker stats. “Hmmm. Let’s see, Alex. It was an odd number, like 68 megs, with 512k of video RAM, with those old Motorola 68LC040 chips running at 33 mhz, same as the system bus.”

Tera should have been a history teacher. “OK, Tera, what was the Apple ‘code name’ for that old Mac?” Who remembers those things?

I could hear the frown on the other side of the phone. Then she blurted out, “It was Optimum. Or something like that.”

Ha! Age gets us all. The Divine Missy T had choked. It was “Optimus, not Optimum.” But I didn’t tell her I knew what it really was.

See? There’s a lot of Mac and Apple history wrapped up in this nifty little Mac database called Mactracker.

In fact, it’s not just Macs or Apple. There’s details on Motorola Macs, PowerComputing UMAX Macs, and more.

Remember iBooks, eMacs, Newtons, Performas, PowerBooks? It’s in there. Even MacBooks, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro.

Mactraker doesn’t limit the database to Macs. There’s info on Airport Base Stations, Apple’s QuickTake cameras, Displays, ImageWriters, even the old StyleWriter printer.

There’s even information about the Mac OS going back to System Software version 5.0, but that was back to October 1987. Where were you in 1987?

Simply put, if you like Macs and Apple and a little detailed history, Mactracker should be on your Mac.

There’s even details about the iPods going back to generation one, the five gigger from 2001. Click Here for the details and download link.

How about you? How far back does your Mac knowledge go? 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? To infinity and beyond?

Read 1 Comments on this article. Or, Post your own Comment.

Classy Mac360 PhotoBy Alexis Kayhill | I'm a 20 year Mac user veteran, writer, photographer, wife, and mommy. I live in sunny San Diego with my husband, three children, two dogs, one mean old cat, and an SUV with a back seat full of beach sand. Follow me on Twitter.

• Email This Article  •  Follow Mac360 on Twitter
• Posted in the Encore Reviews Section

Off Topic Note: Need more Mac software reviews? Check out Page 2 for encore articles. Help support Mac360. Order your copy of Mac OS X Snow Leopard from Mac360 through Amazon. Snow Leopard is $29 for the Single User Upgrade, and only $49 for the 5 User Family Pack Upgrade.

Mac360 posts daily Mac updates on Twitter, too. If you Twitter, give Alexis, Bambi, or Ron a tweet and follow Mac360 on Twitter to get daily Mac tips and tricks.

Chrome
Do Mac users really need another browser that is 1990s ugly?
Tue Nov 10 - Full Article »
xScope
Are you really a graphic professional if you're not using this utility?
Mon Nov 9 - Full Article »
Utility
If you could have only one utility on your Mac, what would it be?
Fri Nov 6 - View Topic »
Flock
Flock is the perfect Mac or PC browser for the social networker.
Thu Nov 5 - Full Article »
Animate
Animation is the domain of experienced graphic professionals, right? Not.
Thu Nov 5 - Full Article »
Diary
Journal or Diary. Your life is worth remembering beyond photographs.
Wed Nov 4 - Full Article »
Snow Leopard
What's in the FORUMS?
Mac360 Link Farm