Clarus
Member
Hello all, and apologies if this is not quite in the right place/title as it's my first time making a thread. I'm a rather long-time collector and recently got my hands on a QuickTake. Given the recent energy and time to work things out, I've now almost got what I'd call a "retro mobile office" of a Newton MessagePad 130, a QuickTake 150, and a PowerBook 165c. I've got a printer and a dialup modem both coming soon on the to-do list. While the constraints of my needs prevent me from doing everything on it, I'm considering taking the latter two or all three with me traveling to another country, and trying to change a lot of my creative writing and perhaps music composition (which I'm trying to get back into) to be on retro machines. I used to use my Newton as a regular calendar/contact book/notepad, until the calendar issue became too much. Seems that the best updates are for the 2000, not the older ones.
Besides just enjoying the equipment, I've found that some of it is better for my productivity than using modern smartphones or laptops. My newer digital calendars are so full of alarms, lack of organization/notes, and other issues that they're becoming more useless, especially given how much goes on with my smartphone. I've found using a dedicated PDA to be closer to having a paper calendar as far as keeping me on the ball and organized on my calendar. I can't multitask ten billion open 'net tabs and get distracted by pings constantly if I can't even open much of it on my older computers, let alone all at once.
Given how far behind we've been left by now, especially as Mac users, I know it's considered a bit of a nutty thing to try doing, but I know other people do use their retro equipment—classic B&W Macs seem to be particularly popular with writers. I'd just like to talk to other people who have an interest in or do this specifically with older Apple equipment, although since I'm probably going to extend this to older non-Apple machines (older DOS portables and 70s minicomputers...) I may want to rephrase/rewrite this thread for more of a general audience.
So: how do you like using your old Apple equipment for productivity or other things that aren't games/just goofing off?
Besides just enjoying the equipment, I've found that some of it is better for my productivity than using modern smartphones or laptops. My newer digital calendars are so full of alarms, lack of organization/notes, and other issues that they're becoming more useless, especially given how much goes on with my smartphone. I've found using a dedicated PDA to be closer to having a paper calendar as far as keeping me on the ball and organized on my calendar. I can't multitask ten billion open 'net tabs and get distracted by pings constantly if I can't even open much of it on my older computers, let alone all at once.
Given how far behind we've been left by now, especially as Mac users, I know it's considered a bit of a nutty thing to try doing, but I know other people do use their retro equipment—classic B&W Macs seem to be particularly popular with writers. I'd just like to talk to other people who have an interest in or do this specifically with older Apple equipment, although since I'm probably going to extend this to older non-Apple machines (older DOS portables and 70s minicomputers...) I may want to rephrase/rewrite this thread for more of a general audience.
So: how do you like using your old Apple equipment for productivity or other things that aren't games/just goofing off?