Which Clunky Apple Computer Was The Worst? (PHOTOS, POLL)

So Apple's new updates are sleek and all, but let's not forget that the Apple Lisa was once cutting edge too.

All this change has got us feeling a little, well, nostalgic, so we decided to open up the archives for a look back at the ugly ducklings in Apple's past.

See the slideshow of Mac's chunkiest, clunkiest computers and vote for the worst!

(Also check out the ad that introduced Apple to the world (from 1984) below.)

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Comments

[John Frazier]

The clunkiest Apple ever built was always superior to any PC on the market.

[MarcusT]

I was an early Apple guy and left not long after Steve hired Scully-who eventually fired Steve. Lisa was a train wreak-oooops!

[ParadoxHarbinger]

it's a trick question - they all suck and continue to, even today

[hypnotoad72]

I think it's Windows that's doing all the sucking... of money... from the wallets of the cheap, ironically... the latter in turn say everyone is jealous because MS has lots of money. (Uh, no it isn't and most of us detractors go out of our way to cite enough valid information to fill a small library...)

[OddManOut]

Dude, the OP was baiting you.

[emerson7]

mac sucks, but steve jobs is a babe!

[hypnotoad72]

Mac rocks, and yes Steve Jobs is handsome...

[jws2346]

I'll bet even E2D2's Grand Pappy used a clunky computer at one time. (I saw that on Star Tracks)

[ohiotechie]

Anyone out there remember NeXT? :-)

Another truly innovative platform by Jobs but unfortunately almost no one developed any code for it so it died on the vine and took a lot of investor money with it.

[Cycadeoidea]

I remember it. The gray-scale monochromatic monitor didn't help its appeal.

[ohiotechie]

Perhaps but in depth color wasn't the norm in the mid/late 1980's on any platform. It had a high resolution display and was true Postscript WYSIWIG; something no other platform could boast.... bonus points if you know what that acronym means without having to Google it. :-)

[RedDogBear]

NeXT was a great idea. The idea of providing an OO programming language from the OS all the way up was brilliant. IMO they borrowed it from the Symbolics LISP machine (and Smalltalk environments) which to this day would be my first choice to develop anything on if it was still supported. The problem with the Symbolics was that LISP was great for development but too slow for a run time environment. I remember when the NeXT came out everyone was looking for that perfect language that would give you the OO high level capabilities of LISP or Smalltalk but the run time efficiency of C. Objective C seemed like a great idea. I'm not sure why it never caught on, I never worked with it. I was in an R&D group that tried layering Smalltalk like capabilities on top of C++ and it never worked. There was just too much of C that was exposed in C++ and no matter how we tried we couldn't get the kind of dynamic interactive environments we had in interpreted languages. Sun finally got it right with Java (one of the few software things Sun ever did right).

[hypnotoad72]

A lot of NeXT is used in OS X...

[OddManOut]

zzzzzzzzzz­zzzzzz....­Oh! Did I miss something?

[MarcusT]

Jobs sold the Next OS to Apple for $700M+ :))

[ICthruM]

Used Lisa for a time. She was most effective for our company a few years later as a dumb monitor.

Have used just about every Mac from 128k to G5. Loved 'em all. Anyone remember Thunderscan? It fit into the cartridge of the Imagewriter and scanned photos. A great thing in 84-85.

Please insert System Disk - Please insert Excel Master Disk - Please Insert System Disk - Please Insert Excel Master Disk - Please insert System Disk - Please insert Excel Master Disk - Please Insert System Disk - Please Insert Excel Master Disk - Please insert System Disk - Please insert Excel Master Disk - Please Insert System Disk - Please Insert Excel Master Disk

The computer equivalent of my parents walking 2 miles to school in the snow. Kids now will never know!

[RedDogBear]

Yes. I can't see calling any of these machines "clunky". They may look clunky now (actually they don't to me) but at the time they were all amazing well designed machines.

[captcct]

No matter what some of the posters say, regardless of the flight back to 1984 (and the cool commercial), there is no denying that Steve Jobs vision came to fruition with Apple. Today Apple is the fastest growing computer company (and healthiest in $ terms) which pleases anyone lucky enough to have bought shares in it. I started using Mac in 1984. I created the world's first magazine all about helicopters (remote control and full-size) with Pagemaker in 1984 after doing it all by hand paste up on my dining room table. If it wasn't for Mac I would never have been able to do it thereafter for the next nine years. Today, Apple rules. Mac rules which is why byting into an Apple keeps the doctor at bay (pun intended - see why Mac has the best laptop in the world today: http://web.me.com/captcct/Site/Tech_Review.html For all the daft PC users and slaves to the Gates empire... I suggest you migrate and take a byte (boat) into a Mac and go to computer heaven. When you do, you will actually see the difference and believe why it is so rosy. No! I was not paid to say this by Mr. Jobs but he could consider it. (Nice smile).

[ParadoxHarbinger]

using a mac was one of the most frustrating things i have ever done.

[mikelartist]

You forget to push the mongoloid button. It would have been a lot less frustrating for you.

[sb250guy]

I would be much more concerned if I had any clue what the answer is.

I have a computer.
I turn it on.
I do stuff.
I turn it off.
I go outside.

[nakedhand]

Macs became pretty decent when they started being based on hardware developed for the PC.. such as Intel processors and ATI videocards. Still, who would want to spend that much extra on a neat case, and at the same time give up control over your hardware selection? Macs only makes sense for people with a lot of extra cash to spare on getting less performance.

[SNS]

I'll bet you that computer runs faster than the one I'm using now.

[Whinger]

As someone once said of Apple Mac - security through obscurity!

[OddManOut]

I thought it was security through running the fewest applications.

[mheister]

Equal time for the clunky-looking PC's!

[kartoon]

I worked with an Apple 3 from its first appearance for a couple of years until my employer saw the light and bought some PCs. It was perfectly true of the A3 that picking up the front a couple of inches and dropping it was the recommended solution for chip popout. The thing was only theoretically portable and you had to have a modulator and play the video through a television since no direct connect monitors were initially available, BUT, Apple Writer would run on it, and it did run a dot matrix page printer and that made it all worthwhile. I moved on to the first Apple II clone for sale that I saw for working at home and added a hugely slow $400 external modem asap. As there was no Internet at that point, you had to subscribe to The Source as I recall. But it was a beginning, a baby step in an imperative progression. I knew it was going to work about 5 seconds after I first saw Visicalc working. I also slugged a z-80 board into it and saw DOS in its pre-Microsoft incarnation for the first time on that clone.

[markbaker]

anyone who knew anything about computers back then, had a Commodore 64 and an Amiga

[johara2030]

I wrote software for the Commodore 64 in the '80s, and later worked for Commodore-Amiga. Those of us who worked there were dedicated to the unique hardware chipsets and operating system software. We joked about it being our religion. And yet I recall a day when I walked into the office of Head of Engineering as he was examining an Apple Mac (I don't recall which model). We both commented about the advanced construction techniques and high-quality components. Apple's biggest strength, however, was its user-friendliness. Now I use both Macs and PCs, and still marvel how the PC world has still not figured out how to simplify functions such as installing software. Of course, I also miss what might have been if Commodore had survived - the graphics on the Amiga 4000 were more advanced than anything since.

[RedDogBear]

I worked with Allen Kay (one of the inventors of Smalltalk) a bit in the 80's and I remember he would always rave about the Amiga as the best computer ever.