No Cameras Allowed by Computer Clan #012 - My Early Niche: Diving Into Vintage Macs Show Notes: Welcome to #MARCHintosh My First Vintage Apple Tours Episode (2012) Super News: Gates vs. Jobs Patreon.com/KrazyKen Transcription*: Hey guys, how are you all doing? If you're new here, welcome. My name is Krazy Ken, and welcome back to another episode of No Cameras Allowed, the autobiographical podcast, the journey of the Computer Clan YouTube channel, and how it has affected my life because it's been a major part of my life for the last 14 years or so. And in fact, I probably sound like a broken record by now. It is one of the longest running, still operational tech YouTube channels in the history of YouTube. So what are we talking about today? Well, it's officially March, so it's time for March and Tosh. This is actually the first annual MARCHintosh, and there's a lot of cool retro Macintosh content being posted out there. So make sure to search Twitter and YouTube with #MARCHintosh to see what other people are doing. And I will have another YouTube episode later about a rare Apple computer for #MARCHintosh But today we're just doing this podcast episode, but it'll still be a lot of fun. I received a question recently, which related to an idea of an episode I wanted to cover a while ago. So I thought this would be the perfect timing. This one comes to us from Poland, from Lasiczka. They wrote hi. I had a question for a long time. How do you start collecting vintage Macs? That is an excellent question. So I do have some tips and tricks that could help you, and you may pick up some nuggets from my story as well. And that's actually where we're going to start. We're going to start today with my story about an early niche that I got into on YouTube, collecting vintage, Apple computers, and Apple Macintosh's back in the earlier days of the YouTube channel, I didn't really have a focus. I didn't really know what I wanted to make videos about. It was a few months later that the tech stuff started forming, right? The idea kind of started coming together and some of those early video, in fact, probably, I don't know, at least half of those early videos had to do with vintage, retro, Apple hardware and stuff like that. I was really into it. So I wanted to make videos about it. That's the thing you got to make videos about stuff you'll love. Otherwise, you know, people can tell, you know, your stuff may not perform as well. If you're not putting your all into it. And the best way to put your all into it is to do a video about a subject you like, and this was one of the first niches I dove into. So here is that story of how it started when I was about two years old, probably, you know, living with my family, our family computer was a Macintosh. So later we switched to windows. That was our daily driver for like six or seven years. But then we switched back to an iMac and I do talk about that story in past episodes as well, particularly episode nine and episode two, we got this iMac in summer of 2007 and I liked it. It just worked the way my brain worked. I was able to click on things and figure it out really easily. I don't remember exactly how this started, but I ended up discovering Apple related videos on YouTube. Now this was 2007 YouTube. So there were a lot fewer videos, a lot fewer users. And you had a, you know, a 10 minute video limit. You had a hundred megabyte file limit at standard definition, quality, probably 360p resolution. So times were very different 14 years ago on YouTube, but I somehow stumbled upon Apple related videos on YouTube and they captivated me. I actually tried to load my favorites archive on YouTube. And I don't know, maybe it's just too big, but it would not scroll back to the beginning. I scrolled back as far as the website would load. And some of the oldest videos that I favorited on YouTube were old Apple commercials for their computers back in the eighties. And I just kind of fell down that rabbit hole. And I don't know how powerful the YouTube algorithm was back then, but I ended up finding more Apple related videos. So perhaps the algorithm was catching on here. You know what I'm saying? It was recommending more of that stuff to me. So I ended up finding video from super news called Gates versus jobs. You might've seen it, look it up if you'd like it's a cartoon of Steve jobs and bill Gates fighting and stuff like that in a computer war. It's hilarious. Funny enough. That's actually how I learned who Steve jobs was. I knew who bill Gates was, but I didn't know who Steve jobs quotes. So then I started going down more rabbit holes. And I talked about this in other episodes too, but Alfred DiBlasi from the Adiblasi YouTube channel and David Di Franco, who used to be called thecreativeone. They would make Apple-related videos, too, you know, upgrading computers, fixing them, stuff like that. A lot of Macs in particular. And again, that was the brand that got my attention. It was the Apple brand. So I started watching a lot of their stuff, right. And then I started finding more videos on YouTube. Again, that algorithm was probably just poking me like, Hey, Hey, you're watching this Apple related stuff. We're going to give you more. And you know, my young like teenage brain is just like, yes, I just want to consume this content. I'm not even thinking about it. Just give me more. So then this had to be the big thing that did it. I found the old Apple, no, it's where Steve jobs would be on stage announcing new products to cheering audiences. The dude was so gifted at presenting. He worked story and suspense and cool visual AIDS into a product presentation and an awesome demo. He was so good at owning the stage. I know he had help. I know it was a team effort, but he was so good on stage presenting new products. And they are so much fun to watch. If you have not watched older Apple keynotes from Steve jobs, watch them. They are easily rewatched. They're hilarious and fun. Sometimes we call them Steve notes. You know, that's what we call them. Steve notes. I started watching those and I vividly remember one of the earliest ones I saw was when he introduced the first ever iMac that G three, you know, cathode Ray tube bond. I blue colored CRT iMac thing. Oh my gosh. That thing was so pretty. And remember at the time, pretty much every was bathed. So the fact that they had this frosted transparent, bluish green, cool looking all in one computer, that was an attention grabber. And even though this was 2007, me seeing this recording from 1998, I was still super captivated by how he presented and how the older max looked. And I started getting intrigued by Apple's history, how they design their computers back then, how the software looked a few months later, I start the YouTube channel. I start doing kind of just random videos with my friends. And then I start doing it more of the tech stuff. The first technically tech video I released was computer showdown, which that's a whole different podcast episode in and of itself because that ended up being a, kind of like a mini mini cult classic in the early days of the channel. We'll get to that some other time. But then a few months after that, I, I guess I pulled enough money together and got permission from my mother to borrow her, her eBay account. I started searching for max because I wanted to start a Mac collection. So I'm borrowing and your eBay account. I wasn't old enough to have my own. I'm pretty sure that that was the rule. And I, I had 50 bucks. I had something like that, 50 bucks. So I look around and I wanted to get a computer that looked like that iMac, that Steve jobs presented. And I found one on eBay time. I thought it was the same one that Steve jobs presented it. I later found out it was actually a three-year newer model. That was a different color. But like, Hey, I didn't really know back then. It just cool. I found a 2001 imag T3, Indigo color for $50. I think the shipping was even free. And I was kind of surprised because you know, it's like a little television, it's got a CRT, those are heavy. These things are like 40 pounds and they were shipping it for free and I was elated. So I was like, okay, mom, can I buy this shirt, honey? Okay. Here's 50 bucks. Boom bought it. It arrived like a week later. And I loved that dang thing.