Performa 575 ... Entry into Multimedia

This computer sat on the Wal-Mart shelf at $1200. Months later, it would go down to $900, and more months I saw the price at $600. Parts started disappearing off the computer, and it must have sat there for close to a year I believe. I was a college student plowing away with my Mac Plus & Newton 110... happy enough in 1995, but ready for something new. And then one day, I saw the poor computer in horrible shape on the shelf still. I offered the store manager of the Wal-Mart $150 for the Mac, to which he thought about it, and then agreed to sell as is.

The poor computer had no keyboard or mouse, would not power up, missing the back hatch, and there was a PC version of Doom crammed in the floppy drive. But after spending about what I had paid for the computer to replace all that (which was still good) the computer was up and running. For the first time I experienced the speed of the 68030 and COLOR!! Macs were always good, but... COLOR! Speed!! The games, the CD roms. And when the Mac help line learned I had bought a Mac from a Wal-Mart with none of the discs or anything I received package after package of items to compensate... all the CD's, a Apple mouse pad, an Apple pen and so forth.

As time went on, the computer was upgraded to a 68040 and then a floating point. Eventually an internal modem was ridded and 'lo there was much internet surfing, and I finally learned the joy of downloading applications to the Newton! The hard drive was replaced by larger and larger drives, and in truth, the Performa 575 ran solidly for like six years till it finally crashed as the OS was bit worn. There was the option of upgrading the computer to a 5200 PowerPc, but after seeing how sluggishly the 5200 performed, figured it would have been a kick in the crotch for the peppy 575. So the computer remained it's 575 68040 fp dignity as it was passed on to a friend who was in need of a computer.

And now I miss that computer damnit!! (Sniff!)

Could use a computer like that (CD and multimedia) for running tech manuals in the garage while I repair my car!

Stupid... stupid monkey!!!