Disk II on the outside, Mac Mini on the inside
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It seems almost every time Apple is due to refresh their product line, the Mac mini is rumored to get the axe. But this model, the most affordable (though perhaps underpowered) of all Macs, is an excellent low-end product that most people overlook. For consumers switching from a PC who already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, the Mac mini is the best value. Three years ago, I replaced my father’s beige PowerMac G3 with a Mac mini. After I upgraded the RAM, he couldn’t have been more satisfied with his first OS X machine, which serves him well to this day.
But an average Apple II user might find the Mac mini underwhelming, as we like to trick out our rigs, and the mini, with its compact size and modest horsepower, doesn’t afford much opportunity to do that. So if we can’t go forward with the Mac mini, why not go backward?
Dr. Steve Weyhrich of Apple2History.org posted to csa2 the story of Charles Mangin, who has taken his Mac mini and encased it in a Disk II floppy drive, which was popular with the Apple II. Like the TARDIS, the Disk II must be larger on the inside than it appears!
Copyright Charles Mangin
(Hat tips to Gizmodo and Blake Patterson)
