Unboxing a mint Apple //c - twenty years after it was originally sold. Awesome! [via]

 My Apple MessagePad 2100 has arrived in England. The postman will soon be knocking!

An Apple Macintosh 512k upgraded to run OS X by replacing the innards with a modern Mac Mini and various supporting components, including a grayscale CRT monitor, an LS-120 floppy disk drive, and a microcontroller-based USB device that interfaces the Mini to the original keyboard and mouse.

In a few short days I’ll take delivery of a remarkably sophisticated piece of equipment and a little bit of computing history to boot.

I’ve just bought an Apple Newton MessagePad 2100. I have wanted to have one of these computers since they were first introduced over a decade ago and soon, thanks to the Gods of eBay, I will finally have a chance to play with one.

Naturally I’m going to try to get the 2100 to talk to my PowerMac G5. I’ll play with its handwriting recognition and I’m looking forward to testing its connectivity. If I can use it to access the Internet in the field then I’ll be over-the-moon.

I can hardly contain my excitement!

More to follow upon delivery…

The Commodore 64 had a Macintosh-like GUI. Who knew?