Set your own parameters and explain what you believe which Mac it is.

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Ways to improve web conference image and sound quality. [forums.macresource.com]

.....the Greatest (Love) of All....

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

MacPro1,1. Still going strong, on Mavs, 12 years later. When I get to the proc upgrade, a killer back-up box.

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!#$@@$#!

Powerbook G5

Just look at those ports!

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The Plus - overcame the first two mac model's limitations, and enshrined the 9 inch form factor as the mac's platonic ideal. It sold well, for years. It ensured there would be other macs, and that macs weren't just a sideshow to the Apple II.

Runner up: the original iMac. Without it Apple dies. No ipod, iphone, ipad, or billions of dollars. It was the perfect product at the the perfect time.

Second Runner Up: The Pismo. Classic, awesome laptop deign. If it had a retina display and an i7 CPU you know you'd buy five of them.

Going home with a years supply of Coco Puffs: the IIci. Super easy to work on, super powerful, and upgradeable to a PPC! It was like a IIfx you could afford.

The II series was pretty stout.

My iMac iLamp G4 is still going strong, the original drive lasted 12 years. I think the grandkids will be getting that one (my kids are just tweens).

What - nobody is saying the TAM?

I'll second the Plus and Bondi iMac as the two key machines

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What - nobody is saying the TAM?

Nice design, bad performance, horrific price. Made to look good on a shelf. Every mac from that era is less-than stellar. They should've produced a 30th anniversary mac done right.

Mid-2010 iMac 27".

$1900 for a refurb.

Over the years, I had to replace the hard drive [SSD, baby], and the power supply, but despite an occasionally dodgy video card, paltry RAM, and being obsoleted to Sierra, it still does everything I need it to do [Knock on wood].


Runner Up: PowerMac 8500.

My Dad bought it for me shortly after my Mom passed away because she wanted me to have a computer.

It's a $4500+ doorstop, but I ain't ever getting rid of it.


2nd Runner-up: Titanium PowerBook G4

In its day, nothing could touch it. No, literally, you couldn't touch it or the hinges might crack.

+ on the plus; to me, the best computer and the first real computer that could do everything.

The one I had the most fun with and used the most was the Pismo. Easy to tear down, easy to work on, good keyboard feel, and a fine looking machine.

I miss laptops like that.

There is no greatest of all time... unless I could combine several.

mid 2010 27" iMac can take up to 32 GB of ram, takes but a few minutes to install.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

My vote goes to the unibody aluminum MacBook Pros. If I had to pick one, the 2012, since it has USB 3.0.

- Solid design
Strong case, few problems with things like hinges, display cable, or getting squished easily in a case, backpack, etc.

- Very upgradable
Relatively easy to swap the hard drive, relatively easy to add memory (although earlier models typically limited to 8 GB), can replace the CD/DVD drive with a second hard drive.

- Ports
Ethernet, Mini-displayport, FireWire 800, USB, SD card slot
2011 models add Thunderbolt, and 2012 adds USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 4.0

- MagSafe power connector
Still the standard.

- Decent keyboard
While not quite as good as what some earlier Mac laptops had (my 12" Aluminum G4 PowerBook, for example), by comparison with many other Macs, the keyboard is quite good.

- Longevity
I'm using a 2010 MBP to type this, on El Capitan 10.11.6. I think this one can go up to High Sierra. The 2012 can go to Mavericks. I do not feel any need to upgrade the Mac to be able to do anything I want.

The first unibody MBPs, introduced in 2008 (15" & 17"; 13" in 2009), came with Mac OS 10.5, and can run 10.11. The 2012 models came with Mac OS 10.7 and can run Mavericks 10.14.

About the only thing missing was an upgrade from 802.11n WiFi to 802.11ac, and the Retina display.


So, if usability is the criteria, Unibody MacBook Pros.

But I acknowledge that the G3 iMac was revolutionary, so might better deserve a "Greatest Mac" title. The Mac Plus was also pretty neat, but was an evolution. (I still sort of wish I'd upgraded my 512K Mac to a Plus when the upgrade was available.)


Good luck.

- Winston

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Be seeing you.

My SE/30 lasted the longest, and was the most upgraded....
Upgrade #1- More RAM.
Upgrade #2- Radius Pivot monitor and card
Upgrade #3- Daystar 68040 card and RAM


but my G4 Sawtooth is giving it a run for it's money. It's still running... hiding in the basement...

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Runner Up: PowerMac 8500.

My Dad bought it for me shortly after my Mom passed away because she wanted me to have a computer.

It's a $4500+ doorstop, but I ain't ever getting rid of it.

I'll never give up my first cube for similar reasons.

The beige G-3's treated me pretty good, and so did my Mid 2012 MBP.

SE/30.

It was the last mostly pure model that didn't have designed in limitations.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

I never had one personally, but the SE/30 should be high on the list. Sawtooth G4 mentioned above was definitely the easiest Mac to upgrade that I ever had. But I agree that the "GOAT" would have to be the original iMac. They were so unlike anything else at the time, and it seemed like everyone wanted one.

I’d pick the 2010 Mac Pro; with the 9600 next.

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My life goes smoothly and in regular intervals

Through the early years, Mac evolution provided incredible jumps in performance and productivity. The Plus opened up the business world to Macs, so mega props there, but the Greatest Mac, was not a Mac itself; I'm going w/ the LaserWriter and its legacy. Frankly, since the middle to end of the C2D era, not much perceptible change has occurred for most user tasks, Evolution (if you can call it that) has been with bloatware OS and iOS integration.
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Three come to mind...

The IIfx because no Mac has inspired such techno-lust in me before or after.

The SE because it just worked with no tinkering, took everything from the plus and smoothed out all of the rough-edges. The SE paired with a LaserWriter was the epitome for DTP workstations well into the 1990s.

The LC because it fit so much in the little pizza-box and started the whole beige-box trend. I had the Apple II card in mine, plus added an expansion chassis which took it to 3 processor-direct slots and two more drive-bays. Had four operating systems running on mine simultaneously (DOS/ProDOS/Windows/Mac). We take it for granted that we can multi-task on the Mac. This machine took multi-tasking to the next-level.

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The one that I am typing this on right now... The 2012 15" unibody MacBook Pro with the "high-rez" matte screen. Quad core i7, upgraded to 16gb of RAM and a 2TB ssd. Runs Mojave, no problem at all. Anything similar in today's lineup would be somewhere in the $4K range

Second for me would be the blue & white G3 tower. At the time, a pretty revolutionary machine and super easy to work on or upgrade. Especially compared to all of the beige madeness (knuckle busters) from earlier.

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Two wrongs don't make a right, but, three rights make a left.

The iMac. Why should I have to explain that?

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pRICE cUBE
In your opinion, what is the Greatest Mac of All Time?

Simple—the insanely powerful and capacious iMac Pro.

PM 7600. It was the first Mac I had the was really powerful.

Probably helped the the PM 7200 (the WORST Mac of all time) was what I had before it.

Beige G3 Desktop


It was so easy to get your hands inside it.

For some unknown reason I still have it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2019 05:26PM by msglee.

Another vote for the Mac Pro 1.1

I ran mine for over 10 years as my primary workstation and it was still running fine when I had to finally upgrade due to software support obsolescence.

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Athens, OH

MacBook Air. Any of them.

The SSD was the technological invention I'd been waiting for since I first waited a minute for an app to open and 2 minutes for a Mac to start up.

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M1 2020 Mac mini (16G 2T) • Monterey 12.x • Dual 25" Acer 1440p LCDs • M1 2020 13" MBAir (256G 8G) •

The Plus (maybe 512k?) or the original iMac were the most important to the platform and the company.

But for me it was the 7500. Shipped with:
100MHz 601 ("G1" chip)
8MB RAM
500MB SCSI-1 HD
10bT Enet
2MB VRAM mobovideo

Upgraded it to:
1GHz G4
1GB RAM
PCI ATA/100 card w/4x300GB HDDs
PCI FW400 + USB2 + Gigabit Enet
PCI 128MB Radeon 9200 video

How many orders of magnitude more performance was wringable from this chassis with these upgrades (observed numbers, not theoretical):

Processor: 0.76
Memory size: 1.1
Storage space: 3.4
Storage speed: 0.8
Network speed: 0.9
Video speed: 1.6
VRAM: 1.8

Total: 10.36 orders of magnitude more capability in 2010 than when this machine was sold in 1995.

Good design.

Edit: I forgot something important. It shipped with System 7.5.3 and at the end it was running Mac OS 10.4.11. Not bad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2019 12:35PM by Lew Zealand.

Quadra 840AV, because of the fantastic audio/video performance.

It was awesome even when I bought it in 2000 for $20 or so.

With a SpigotPower input card, it could record excellent video with quality that put a Firewire Mac using a Canopus ADVC-100 to shame. Too bad that, unless you didn't mind 640X240 progressive video and a 2 GB file size limitation, you were stuck with a short interlaced jpeg file that nothing modern could read. Oh sure, you could convert it to Cinepak...if you could spare a few months' worth of processing per video clip.

The A/D audio conversion is said to have been better than Macs that followed it, thanks to its AT&T DSP chip.

Yes, my Mac SE/30 with an overclocked '040 beats some of its specs, but to me, the Quadra 840AV remains a magnificent beast. My intense guilt and regret about throwing it away when I got married is probably why our house is now filled with literally dozens of rescued legacy Macs.

Pismo Powerbook. The most user customizable laptop Apple ever released. It was a GREAT road warrior machine. At that time, nothing in the windows world came close.

Lapzilla PBG4 17” - a sweet machine. Almost as nice as the Pismo it replaced. Screen was awesome.

I think the SE/30 was a game changer for its time. But I didn’t love it.

My wife’s MBP13 from 2010 has 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Still a fine Mac 10 years later hard to complain.

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apocketfulofwry
Mid-2010 iMac 27".

$1900 for a refurb.

Over the years, I had to replace the hard drive [SSD, baby], and the power supply, but despite an occasionally dodgy video card, paltry RAM, and being obsoleted to Sierra, it still does everything I need it to do

That's the model I just picked up, but I don't know it had a dodgy video card history. What are the symptoms?

Also, just loaded High Sierra, hopefully it wasn't too ambitious.

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jdc
There is no greatest of all time... unless I could combine several.

mid 2010 27" iMac can take up to 32 GB of ram, takes but a few minutes to install.

I called OWC and asked this question, but they were firm in their belief that it could not take more than 16gb. I'd love to try, but don't have that memory sitting around.

The original Bondi Blue iMac definitely was a game changer for me. The all in one design was perfect for schools. Only adults had trouble with the puck mouse.

The best Mac ever for me though...I have to second the MBA in the 11 inch size. Perfect for daily use and truly portable. The SSD was a miracle. I am on my second one and really have no need for anything more.

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“Live your life, love your life, don’t regret…live, learn and move forward positively.” – CR Johnson
Loving life in Lake Tahoe, CA

I think any machine put forth deserves justification. Too many great machines to choose from -

MacPlus / MacSE/30 - Proved the mac was real, sticking around
iMac - first move toward Apple becoming what it is today. More of a consumer goods sensibility.

I think those are the top contenders in my book

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sekker
My wife’s MBP13 from 2010 has 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Still a fine Mac 10 years later hard to complain.

Exactly what I'm using. Great Mac. The only one of that era that supported 16 GB RAM.


- W

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Be seeing you.

I worked on a Mac SE and a Mac II at my old job; upgraded the II to a IIfx and used it to route print jobs for several years. I gave it away when we moved to smaller offices, and then regretted not taking it home. The SE was no fun for tabloid layouts. We got a Viking Moniterm monochrome display for it that required getting a tech in to add a graphics card, but it slowed the SE to a crawl. The Mac Ii that we had next had a 13” Apple RGB monitor, and that was also not fun for tabloid pages. NuBus graphics cards were crazy expensive and we never got one.

After that, I worked on a IIci, followed in 1995 by a major upgrade to a 7500. The 7500 case was very nice to work with, and I upgraded the heck out of it. We got an Apple 20” Multiscan monitor for the 7500, which was incredible to work with after years of spending much of my workday scrolling around small monitors. We started with 48 MB of RAM. And that seemed huge after struggling along with 12MB on the IIci.

I rate Macs higher that are easy to open and upgrade, so on that basis, I would not put the gumdrop iMac on my personal list of great Macs, although I recognize that it was revolutionary, and great for a lot of people regardless of its limitations. And adding RAM got easier in subsequent gumdrop iMacs.

I would also exclude the 8500 and 9500 because of their PITA factor. The 8600 and 9600 are so much better.

I exclude anything that had serious shortcomings, such as the 7200, the Centris and Performa lines, or the Blue and White G3, especially the Rev. 1. The overall case design of the Smurf G3 was pretty nice, though, and got better through the MDD G4s.

I think they got just about everything right with the 2010 Mac Pro.

For laptops, the 2012 MBPs would get my vote, but I I have very limited experience with Apple laptops. I certainly wanted them, but didn’t get one until 2012. My 2012 matte screen MBP is a really nice machine, with the RAM maxed and a 1TB SSD in it. Would love that machine with a Retina screen.

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My life goes smoothly and in regular intervals



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2019 11:39PM by ka jowct.

SE/30. I've always loved dynamite in small packages.

edit: even though the SE/30 is more like a sparkler by today's standards.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2019 12:01AM by lost in space.

Quote
mrbigstuff

Quote
jdc
There is no greatest of all time... unless I could combine several.

mid 2010 27" iMac can take up to 32 GB of ram, takes but a few minutes to install.

I called OWC and asked this question, but they were firm in their belief that it could not take more than 16gb. I'd love to try, but don't have that memory sitting around.

My 2010 27" 2.93 i7 iMac has 32 GB of ram.

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

Quote
mrbigstuff

Quote
apocketfulofwry
Mid-2010 iMac 27".

$1900 for a refurb.

Over the years, I had to replace the hard drive [SSD, baby], and the power supply, but despite an occasionally dodgy video card, paltry RAM, and being obsoleted to Sierra, it still does everything I need it to do

That's the model I just picked up, but I don't know it had a dodgy video card history. What are the symptoms?

Also, just loaded High Sierra, hopefully it wasn't too ambitious.

I should have said 'failing' rather than 'dodgy. Video cards can fail after a time. The symptom, in my case, is multi-colored pixelation flashing on the screen. Minor occurrences can be dismissed, but more severe ones can cause the computer to lock-up, or crash, and restart itself. So, I save my work more frequently—not a bad practice in any event.

I can live with it for now, but I'm looking into replacing the video card.

In every era there is a greatest Mac...
2012 MacBook Pros (pre-retina, with 2.5" drive bay and USB3)
PowerMac G4 MDD (except for the damn wind tunnel sound!)
Wallstreet!
Starmax 6000 (How I dreamed of those, and an alternate reality where Motorola bought out Apple and went head-to-head against Intel/Microsoft in PCs instead of eventually divesting andfading away to nothing...)
PowerMac 7500 (the most affordable of the CPU-upgradeable PCI PowerMacs)
SE/30

Definitely the worst Mac was not the 7200... Although that was not a good Mac. It was the 62xx and 63xx performas that had the 16-bit bus to save money but which starved the 603 for data causing many wasted cycles.