Want to Experience Mac History?  Check Out Mactracker!

December 22nd, 2008 at 9:21 AM - Columns and Opinions by John F. Braun

Product Link : Mactracker 5.0.6 (Freeware)

Most people know that Apple helped start a computing revolution, with the introduction of the Mac in 1984. Part of the intrigue of these early machines was the decidedly nonstandard hardware, much of which offered features beyond the competition. If you'd like to take a walk down memory lane, there has been much written about the early Macs, and you can even look up the specifications via the Technical Specifications section of the Apple Support site. This can be a bit tedious via a browser, but not with Mactracker.

If you click on a specific computer, via one of the aforementioned categories, or via the This Mac tab, which will try to identify your machine, you'll be presented with a wealth of information in the General, Memory/Graphics, Expansion/Ports and History tabs. There's also a Notes tab, where you can take specific notes on your machine, and even add it to the My Models category, which can keep track of your machines and warn you when they are about to go out of warranty. The Notes tab also contains links to relevant articles in the Apple knowledgebase.

Some nice additional touches are that, if the machine in question has a Startup Chime, or in some cases, a Death Chime, you can click on a button and hear it. Finally, if you note an inaccuracy in the machine information, or have some additional information to provide, you can do so by clicking on a bug icon and entering the data.

So experience a blast from the past, or check the stats of your current Mac goodies, and give Mactracker a try! Have any other Gadgets that help you understand more about your Mac? Send an email to John and he'll get with the program.

John is a software engineer who works in the corporate R&D group of a Fortune 500 company, focusing on imaging and printing technologies. He has AS, BS and MS degrees in various computing disciplines, so his friends and colleagues are somewhat surprised that he’s a Mac enthusiast.  After spending the day developing in an environment comprised largely of PCs, and watching colleagues wrestle with the horror that is Windows, he’s glad to come home to a MacBook Pro and PowerMac G5 at the end of the day.