A piece of technology from the recent past - Mac and Apple history

in Throwback Thursday • 10 days ago

But only if 2007, in the age of accelerated technological progress, can be called recent past 🙂

I am not an Apple user.
I've never had a Mac, I've never used an iPhone, Somehow Apple devices were far away for me at a time when it was largely taking over the leading position in the world of technological innovation.

Far from the impossibility of buying from America, but also the impossibility of a financial nature 🥲

And today I got my hands on something from that era and from that brand, with the Apple logo.

It was a total unknown for me, so I called a colleague (much younger than me, who had just left kindergarten when these devices were in use, but therefore very warm to the Apple ecosystem).

The amazement in his eyes when he saw these old laptops was incredible to me.
"Where did you get this?", then "Do you know what kind of machines they were when they appeared" and similar questions I listened to for several minutes, until I told him, "I know, let's look together by the markings..." .

One Laptop, oldest, from 2007, Model A1229, Mac ProBook 17", 2.4Ghz, Core 2 Duo, 2GB, 256MB VRAM 160 GB when it appeared on the market it was a real beast of a computer.

The price was also strong, $2499 (the only price I found on the internet, because the purchase receipt was lost somewhere 🙂).
Whoever needed such performance for work or entertainment was lucky to be able to buy it.
And to feel the recognizable Apple polished aluminum under his hands.

The latter, just a year later, the Mac ProBook 15" (2008), arrived redesigned, with rounded edges and glossy screen glass.

The price of such a Mac computer in 2008 was $2799.
Even stronger than his big brother.
I liked the design and mechanism of the battery and HDD cover with a lever to open it. The price of this Mac was probably high because of the 320GB HDD, quite a lot of memory space for that time.

Much later (2017) was bought a Mac Book Pro 15", Retina, which Apple released in mid-2015, but I only have the box from it.

In the box of this 2015 mac i found a package with stickers and a screen wipe. There is an Apple logo on the tissue, so I gave it to a young colleague.

It's a pity that I don't have that model, 7 years younger, so that I can feel the quality under my fingers, whether it improved or deteriorated from 2007/2008 to 2015.

Judging by the keyboard on these two antiques, where not a single key has peeled off, as well as the softness and quiet sound when typing, I can bet that the quality has gone down on the 2015 model.

As it is today, the quality is certainly much worse than on the 2015 model.
I only know one thing. my laptop, one year old, has more damage on the keyboard than this 17" 17-year-old.

And as the biggest surprise of my colleague, there was an Apple TV, first generation from 2007.
He admitted to me: "I have never seen this live". 😀
I know, neither am I 🙂

What surprised me about this device was not the audio and video connections via chinch, but the fact that it has a built-in HDMI and optical port.

In disbelief that this Apple TV set was working, we plugged it in.
The light from the laser port announced that he was probably alive.

We connected it with an HDMI cable to the monitor and here it is, working.

It matched the resolution with a monitor 15 years younger without any problems and displayed the image of its interface.

Unfortunately, I don't have a remote controlerfrom it, so we couldn't check how it works, but the very fact that it turned on prompted a young colleague to suggest that he bring the charger of his private Mac computer and try to turn on these old laptops.

A Mac from 2007 is difficult, because we don't have a battery for it, but this one from 2008 might work.

If we manage to do it, I will publish it in a new story, and if not, this post will remain as a reminder of an interesting period in the first decade of the 21st century, when technology was accelerating.