Computer History Museum unveils comically Large-Scale Rendition of the 1986 Apple Macintosh Plus — 'Big Mac' celebrates 50th Apple Anniversary towering all-in-one's Keyboard looks disproportionately huge Today.

The Computer History Museum is teasing the “Big Mac.” However, in 2026 design terms, only the keyboard looks particularly oversized, as screens on all-in-ones nowadays totally dominate designs, with the ‘PC’ bits so small they don’t look much different to monitors.

https://computerhistory.org/apple-at-50/

#apple #50th #anniversary #computer #history #museum #macintosh #engineering #media #retrocomputing #tech #news

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⁉️Apple’s Macintosh Plus launched with the same Motorola 68000 CPU as the original Mac, but buyers benefited from a default 1MB of RAM [expandable to 4MB with its 4x standard 30-pin SIMM slots], an 800KB 3.5-inch floppy drive, and a SCSI port for peripherals like HDDs and printers.⁉️ Though it appealed to graphic artists, largely due to the direction of its software library driven by the Mac’s pioneering GUI adoption, these machines [original and Plus] were built around a tiny 9-inch monochrome CRT with 512 x 342 pixels resolution. That’s why, even with the ‘Big Mac,’ the screen looks kinda small, while the keyboard is comically large in 2026. 👾The Macintosh Plus launched at $2,599 in 1986, for the configuration outlined above. That’s over $7,500 in 2026 money. Still, it was a workhorse fully supported by Apple System releases for a decade, with Mac OS 7.5.5 maintaining support for the little all-in-one when it was released in Sept 1996.👾

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[ImageSource: The Computer History Museum] ⁉️On the image you can see the “astonishingly large Macintosh Plus computer” recently acquired by the museum, based in Mountain View, California. The device was likely built for exhibition and demo purposes back in the day, when the Plus was a commercially available and desirable machine.⁉️ 👾The Computer History Museum shies away from any kind of technical details regarding the Big Mac. For this teaser, it preferred to try and hook in the keyboard ASMR crowd, a surprisingly large niche of enthusiasts. A staffer from the museum, is videos click clacking on the scaled-up replica of the Apple Keyboard [M0110A]. As you can see, this keyboard would be very compact, with just 58 keys, but at least it has arrow keys, which were absent from its predecessor, the M0110.👾

still, despite all that, i stuck with it for about five years. not sure why I didn't switch to #gshock sooner :)

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close-up shot of apple watch series 5 on a wrist

I'm out. Looking at the price hikes for the new M5 pro / max + the glass bs.. Now they're going for the race to the bottom with an 8GB RAM iPad with a keyboard? I ordered my Thinkpad X1 yesterday. Installing arch and #hyprland if I can wrap my head around it, otherwise just plasma.

Sure Macbooks still have the superior build quality and seamless hardware / software integration, but the scale has tipped for me. #apple #thinkpad

I have a lot of old #macintosh computers and accessories (Pre-G3 PPC and 68k machines + weird accessories) that I want to get rid of because they are just sitting and not being used/appreciated.

What is the best way to reach potential buyers who will appreciate them (collectors, retro hackers)? FB Marketplace or Craigslist I guess?
#retrocomputing #apple #mac

Another reason to hate #Apple We're seeing more 2018+ MacBook Pro/Air donations — but Apple's T2 chip means even after iCloud sign-out and reset, the firmware stays locked to the original account.

Without donor contact, these machines are useless. :(

I've upcycled ~1,000 older Macs, but T2 era machines will end that. It's controlling, creates e-waste, and will only get worse. #righttorepair matters — Apple couldn't care less.

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Stack of t2 era macbooks all locked

#OpenBSD 7.9 will be great news for #OpenBSDonApple users - the long-standing 4-hour EFI timeout boot bug was fixed in 7.8-current and will now become part of -stable. Great news for those wishing to revive older Intel Macbooks. #Apple

What Siri does when you ask her to set alarm to 8am every day

Thanks @nzrff for the picture

#iOS #iPhone #Alarm #Siri #Apple

Safari for macOS:

1. Open History (command-Y).
2. Select an entry using the arrow keys.

Which key(s) do you press to open the entry?

#Apple #macOS #Safari

#notesArt #mastoArt #art #illustration #fediArt #apple

Foolish: https://notes.art/2026/04/01/foolish/

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A person sits under a tree on a bright sunny day, working at a laptop. The person is sitting on a lush green hill. Above, the sunlight blazes through the leaves, producing a white-yellow glow. In the distance, a purple mountain range sits under a blue sky. This is an interpretation of Apple Computer's first logo, featuring Isaac Newton. The painting is signed "Chris Silverman" in rainbow lettering.

@likesoldmacs @csilverman crumbs, like #appleNewton big brother

#newton #apple #retroComputing #retro

The whole block could’ve been a single dropdown

#Apple #Dropdown #AppleStore

For many people, the #Linux vs #Windows vs #Mac debate is a privilege — it assumes you can choose. But working with the Computer Upcycle Project, I've seen the real choice is often Linux vs no computer at all.

~95% of donated computers are "too old" for Windows 11 or macOS. Linux installs on them anyway, adding 10+ years of life to machines #Microsoft and #Apple called trash.

This isn't Linux vs Windows. It's Linux vs e-waste.

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graphic showing Linux VS Windows

Posted a long rant about #Apple and how they lost me after being a user for 26 years:

https://andregarzia.com/2026/03/apple-just-lost-me.html

The time is probably right.

Back in 2022, when I was still using iOS, I wasn’t completely happy with the Fediverse apps that were available. I was mostly using Akkoma, and the interface I liked the most was actually its web UI, even on mobile. So I started playing with Xcode and put together the foundations of an app tailored to my needs.

A lot has changed since then and today we have great alternatives like IceCubes, Mona, Ivory, etc. Each one has strengths and weaknesses though, so I picked up my old project again and kept pushing it forward.

So I’m happy to announce that my app will finally see the light: I’ve been using it for the past few days and, in my spare time, I’m fixing bugs and adding missing features. I’m building it around my own needs, so it doesn’t have to “appeal to everyone”. I wouldn’t call it opinionated, but it’s definitely targeted.

The app will have one key trait: #snac2 support will be a first-class feature, not an incidental one. Many apps, especially on iOS, support snac as a side effect, but the experience is often not optimal. In this case, the choice is deliberate and it strictly follows the Mastodon API support implemented by snac. So snac will work properly (within the limits of the platform, of course).

Among the features already implemented: the app is minimal and lightweight (under 10 MB, including debug code), easy on RAM, and privacy-first (for example it strips EXIF data from media before posting, so the server will never see it). On snac it also cleans up the "Boosted by Aoderelay" messages that appear when using a relay, removes the character limit, and supports posting in Markdown.

I also added support for Apple Intelligence to generate alt text, both for the media I post and for media posted by others that is missing alt text.

Everything is processed locally through Apple APIs and only on supported devices. The results aren't amazing, Apple Intelligence is extremely limited, but in my opinion it's the only privacy-friendly and ethical way to approach it. And of course, you can disable it.

On Mastodon it supports all the main features: lists, quote posts, granular notifications (you can choose what you want for each category), notification grouping, multi-account support, and it works.

It's still missing a few things (block, etc.) and has some bugs, which I’m spotting as I keep using it.
As soon as it's stable enough, I'll invite a few people to test it. I still haven't fully decided how I'll distribute it: an Apple Developer account has a yearly cost, and I hope to reuse it for other projects too. So this app might be paid, with a trial period, but if possible (I still need to check what’s feasible) I'd like it to be free if you connect to one of the BSD Cafe instances, illumos Cafe, or any snac instance, including your own.

I don't know how long it will take before it's ready... but I can already tell you what it will be called.
It already has a name, and it's... MastoBlaster.

This name was chosen for personal reasons, and also because of its similarity to Master Blaster by Stevie Wonder, which even today feels relevant and fitting for the Fediverse.

Stay tuned!

#MastoBlaster #Fediverse #Mastodon #iOS #FediverseApp #Announcement #Apple #snac #snac2 #BSDCafe #illumosCafe

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MastoBlaster, showing my profile on my phone