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August 24, 2000

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A Long-Discontinued Macintosh Still Thrills Collectors to the Core

By PAUL KUNKEL



Andre Pichette for The New York Times
In Japan, die-hard Mac traditionalists keep the Color Classic alive. Members of the Club for Creating the Strongest Color Classic and the Mac Modification Club.
When the subject is Macintosh, love often turns to obsession. Such is the case for a small group of Apple aficionados who have decided that the one true Macintosh is the Color Classic.

As the last toaster-size Mac, the Color Classic followed the same basic design first offered in 1984 and was the only model to offer a built-in color display. Unveiled in 1993, the tiny all-in-one Classic disappeared from store shelves in 1994, but it still makes millions of brief appearances each day: the smiling icon that appears during every Mac start-up is a holdover from the Classic.

And for some traditionalists, the candy-colored iMac and the new G4 Cube will never replace it. The design looks modern even today. But the Web site called LowEndMac, which describes and posts rankings of older Macintoshes for collectors and die-hard fans, designated the Color Classic a "road apple" (a technological dud) because of its unbearably slow 16-megahertz processor and Apple's decision not to offer parts that let users upgrade their machines.

That does not stop fans like the Rev. Stuart Bell, who ministers to his parishioners in Sussex, England, by day and finds unorthodox ways of keeping his Color Classic up to date by night. He replaced the original circuit board with a PowerMac board, which he then upgraded with a 275-megahertz G3 chip.

"The original Mac design with the built-in screen in a box weighing no more than 20 pounds is the definitive and the cutest Macintosh of them all," Mr. Bell said. The iMac, at 35 pounds, recaptures that concept in some ways, he said. But, he added, "it's hardly portable, and I don't think anyone would call it cute."

One reason the Color Classic is still adored is the appeal of its case, which was designed by Daniele DeIuliis at Apple in 1992 (he later created the case for the Powerbook 500 series). Giving the original Classic a twist, Mr. DeIuliis (pronounced day-YOU-lease) lengthened the front, accentuated the forehead above the screen and carved the floppy disk slot to resemble a drooping mouth, a combination that reminded many users of Bart Simpson.

He made the side vents resemble gills, a look that suggested that the computer was breathing. The plastic around the display appears to stretch. A mirthful touch was the tiny round legs that resemble the feet of a baby elephant. A later Apple design language, called Espresso, used the visual cues that first appeared on the Color Classic.

"When you see the form and detailing," Mr. Bell said, "you know it is classic Apple. It's almost a living thing."

The Color Classic was a favorite among university students, who wanted a small machine that could handle word processing. But the hottest market of all was in Japan, where tight spaces made the Color Classic's small footprint especially desirable.

In 1994, Apple discontinued the product in the United States and offered the slightly faster Color Classic II in Japan; that model was discontinued the following year. By 1997, hundreds of Japanese users who had refused to trade in their beloved machines joined forces with the two-man team of Takashi Imai, who writes for the Japanese magazine MacPower, and Makoto Akizuki, known together as Takky. Together they founded the Club for Creating the Strongest Color Classic, which functions as a clearinghouse for information on how to upgrade the Color Classic using spare parts taken from later machines.

A computer high on cute appeal that disappeared from shelves in 1994.


With nearly 300 members, the club has a Web site ( homepage2.nifty.com/Kan-chan) that offers detailed instructions for upgrading the Color Classic's video output and installing a G3 motherboard, a new hard drive, a second power supply (for PCI expansion), an on-board CD-ROM drive, stereo sound and more. Currently, the strongest machine, owned by a club member known as Mr. Misutiku, has a 500-megahertz G3 chip, two power supplies, Ethernet and a TV-FM radio tuner with a remote control.

The first step is to find a discarded Color Classic, which often sells on eBay for less than $100. Next, open the back of the machine, replace the motherboard with one from a discarded Power Macintosh 5000 or 6000 series machine (as Mr. Bell did). Enhance the Color Classic's resolution by cutting one wire and soldering a new wire on the video circuit board (that increases the scanning voltage from 60 to 84 volts, which increases the screen density from 560-by-384 pixels to 640-by-480, which is needed for running Photoshop or browsing the Web). You now have one of the most sought-after cult objects in the Mac universe.

A Color Classic running at G3 speed can give the most confirmed iMac user a case of techno-envy, said Siu Chi Tang, who finances his Color Classic obsession by working as a Linux distributor in Montreal.

The club site warns that tinkering with a Color Classic can be dangerous (the cathode-ray tube can deliver a potentially lethal shock).

Many users prefer to order an already built unit from Maxus Computer in Japan (www.maxuscomputer.com), a Macintosh upgrade specialist that can remove the 333-megahertz G3 motherboard and 4-gigabyte hard drive from an iMac and install it in a Color Classic for $2,600, more than twice the price of a new iMac.



Andre Pichette for The New York Times
Siu Chi Tang, with a rare clear-case Color Classic prototype and a G3 conversion.
"The price is not really an issue," Mr. Tang said, "because having a strong Color Classic is like owning a hot rod car. It's impractical, but it's cool. There are a lot of people who will pay any price to have one." Mr. Tang displays his own jet-black G3 conversion on his company's Web site (www.tangal.com), where he also shows a souped-up Apple IIc and a machine that he considers his ultimate trophy: a clear plastic Color Classic, one of only three in existence, which Apple engineers used for testing. Asked to put a price on it, Mr. Tang paused, then said, "I can't."

Patrick Ng, an Internet executive in Hong Kong, has taken his obsession to more lyrical heights. A vice president at PacificDotCom, Mr. Ng has documented his self-diagnosed case of "CCFS" (Color Classic Fixation Syndrome) on his amusing Web site, Color Classic Forever (grus.hkstar.com/patrickn/colorclassic). The story began in October 1998, when Mr. Ng saw a photo of the Color Classic. He alerted a newsgroup to his quest for one and visited several shops until he found a dirty nonworking model.

After giving it a scrub, Mr. Ng rhapsodized in a diary entry on his site: "I now see the uncompromising beauty and elegance of CC even more obviously, it simply shines. As this mystic discovery continues, my super-ego seems to warn me the danger of the game, the emotional attachment to a physical object."

On New Year's Eve, while others were partying, Mr. Ng was otherwise occupied, as a later diary entry showed: "I embraced the dusted classic during the countdown. The rest of that night, perhaps I should say the rest of the millennium, I gradually slipped away and fell into a deep trance, everything went blurred except a single point of vision, I naturally put that point on the shining Color Classic."

He then decided that he wanted the machine to carry his child, "to give her life," he wrote. As it turned out, Mr. Ng's "child" is his Siamese fighting fish, Faust, who now swims in an aquarium installed in the Color Classic's chassis.

Cured of his obsession, Mr. Ng now keeps his Macquarium in his office, which overlooks Hong Kong. "I receive e-mails from all over the world asking about Faust," he said. "He's doing fine."


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