Computers at school

[Cole D]

Did your schools you went to have older computers?



In elementary school we had Apple IIGS computers with color monitors in the computer lab. They also had the skinny frame keyboards and rectangular mouse with square button, although I don't remember using the mouse. Each one also had a 3.5" external disk drive. Some had 5.25" drives as well. We mostly played number munchers, word munchers, Oregon Trail and other educational games. I can't remember the names of them all. Each group had an ImageWriter II printer in the middle. Those computers had no hard drive, and if you turned them on with no disk in the drive, you got a blue screen with a line going back and forth that said "check startup device!"



The teacher's desk in that room later had a Macintosh G3 all in one with 15 or 17" monitor, 3.5" drive, zip drive and CD drive. It was white with a transulent top, there was another one at a side table and an HP Deskjet color printer.



Later the IIGS were replaced with blueberry iMacs with tray load CD drive, blueberry keyboards and hockey puck mouse. We mostly played Sim City on those and sometimes went online.
The internet was very slow.


Most classrooms had a Macintosh LC550 or 575 all in one with 14" monitor, 3.5" dish drive and CD drive students sometimes used and ImageWriter II printers. The teachers mostly had PowerPC all in ones with 15" monitor 3.5" disk and CD drive and StyleWriter II printers.



The media center had one of the white G3 all in ones, a blueberry G3 tower, Apple blueberry 15" monitor with three leg base and another I forget for the students to use. The librarian had a white Dell with probably Windows 3.1 or 95.



In middle school most teachers had white Dells. One computer lab had Dells in one half and the other half were Mac LC 550 all in ones. On top of the cabinets in there were old Gateways with 3.5" and 5.25" drives. Most classrooms had Dells for the teacher and LC550s for students to use. I remember one classroom had a Macintosh Quadra with separate 14" monitor 3.5" floppy and a CD drive, but the CD had to be put into a case before inserting it. There was also a Macintosh LC III+ 3.5" floppy with separate 14" color monitor. I only remember one other classroom having an LC III+. They were my favorites because of the pizza box shape case. The Quadra and LC III were only used once that I recall on a free day. The media center office there had an Apple IIe main unit on a shelf.



I only remember one teacher there that used a Mac and he had a G3 blueberry tower and white Princeton 15" or 17" monitor and an LC550.


The high school had only white Dells, although one teacher had a lab with Apple IIe with 5.25" drives and color monitors.



At home I had an LC575 but it was labeled Perfroma 575 instead which my aunt gave me when she upgraded, she was a teacher and bought it from a special program and I had tons of game CDs for it. One computer tech from the school once gave me an LC475 which was basically an LCIII+ with newer looking case, but I stupidly threw it away along with a Mac IIsi.



I'd love to have another Mac someday, maybe an older iMac to play the old games on. Funny I still have one of the oval Macintosh mouse and a rectangular one packed away and use an Apple gray mousepad with my Windows 10 computer.

[becausecanadia]

All of our computers were outdated piles of sh*t. All the way from elementary and through high school.

[Daniel G.]

In early elementary school, we used Power Mac G3 All-in-Ones. After first grade, they were replaced with Dell Dimension 4500s' with Windows 2000.

In middle school we also used Dimension 4500s', although they were loaded with Windows XP. Beginning in 7th grade, they started phasing them out with Dell OptiPlex 780s', with the Dimensions beginning completely gone by 8th grade. If I remember correctly, the Optiplexs were also loaded with Windows XP.

I think we also used Optiplex 780s' throughout high school. As of 2013, we were STILL using XP, upgraded to 7 shortly after.

[fancollector12]

We had Dell desktops with Windows XP or Windows 7 in school, and in high school they had a few latest-generation iMacs for the art classes to use (loaded with PhotoShop and other creative software). A lot of the non-Apple computers were hooked to Dell E771 CRT monitors with integrated speakers... poor sound quality (later, they upgraded to slightly "newer" Dell machines (black-and-silver instead of just black) with flatscreen Dell LCD monitors with the higher-quality speaker bar down below). The non-Apple computers had the "Quick Release" (no case screws) side panel with an option to put a lock in place (none of them had that) to prevent people from getting into them.

All throughout school, we also had "Mobile Labs", which consisted of a lockable white wheeled cart with two Wi-Fi routers to be plugged into the classroom ethernet port, 20 black Dell chargers, and 20 black Dell laptops running either Windows XP or Windows 7... we would mainly use those whenever we were all writing a paper. People would forget to log out and just shut down the computers, and it would give some sort of error that would need to be resolved by turning the laptops on and off several times in a row. I HATED that. Oddly enough, I STILL use a Windows 7-equipped black Dell laptop (NOT from school, just a similar model to the ones I used in school) at work that belongs to my boss... brings back a lot of memories. My boss has a cheap USB mouse connected to it.

FUN FACT: When my high school was upgrading our Windows XP-equipped computers to Windows 7 in my senior year (Windows XP support ended in April of 2014), I was put in charge by our technology director to inventory all of our computers and find out which ones were capable of being upgraded or trashed and replaced. I loved that job.

In elementary school, in music class, they had Mac Performas and older translucent iMacs with a software loaded onto them called Music-Ace (anyone remember that?) that taught you how to read music and how to play the piano. My 1st-grade teacher had a Bondi Blue translucent iMac for students to use.

I haven't used the computers at my college much (I just use my personal MacBook Pro), but when there's a mandatory research period in the library and I'm required to use one of their computers, they have HP desktops with Windows 7: they have the tower with an integrated speaker mounted behind the monitor.

In terms of printers, I only remember the ones in elementary in high school... they were the big white HP LasterJet printers with the dot matrix green "alarm clock" displays OR a bright green-and-black monochromatic LCD displahy...they NEVER worked right... it would always say 'Check Toner' or 'Paper Jam'. I don't remember anything else about printers. I know some teachers had their own inkjet printers, mostly HP or Canon.

[Cole D]

I don't recall much about the Dells. I know in middle school they had the white desktop ones with curved front, I think they were Optiplex. Some of those were Windows 98 and some had 2000 on them. The monitors were 15" or so and had speakers on the bottom. Then they started getting the dark gray/black ones and those had XP and the 15" monitor with speakers on the base of it. The computer lab ones had the 15" monitor with speakers under the screen.

Those and the white ones are what we mostly had through high school. And most were missing the round or square metal Dell logos and some of the black ones were missing the gray door that covered the USB ports on the front.

Toward the end of the time I was in school they started getting the squarer Optiplex desktops with silver metal panels on the sides, still with the 15" monitor with speakers under it. We were not allowed to have the flat panel monitors in the classrooms because students would cut and poke through the screens. The tower ones were pretty rare too, we may have had one or two in the computer labs, but most were the desktop type. I remember one teacher had a compact desktop Dell in white, I forget that model, it was kind of like the Optiplex Small Form factor model. Also most of them were placed horizontally under the monitor, I don't recall any being placed vertically with the stand you could get.

There were a couple of the carts around with the Dell laptops inside, mostly just used in chemistry class. Although a few teachers did have laptops for some reason.

I only know much about the Dells because we used to get their catalogs in the mail all the time for some reason. I never had one, but my grandmother used to have an Optiplex tower in white with the 15" monitor with no speakers on the base.

[Jordan U]

I recall using the Dell Optiplex computers in high school,, the I forget what the exact numbers were but they were mostly the small form factor size.. They had Window XP and Window 7..

That mobile lab thing sounds interesting.. I don't believe we had anything like that in my school.. There was WiFi mostly throughout the building,, the only time laptops were used was in the library.. They would give out some type of Dell laptop if all the desktops were in use.. I don't recall what the model numbers were,, I never used any of them..

[fancollector12]

Yeah you usually have to reserve the lab or library if you're a teacher and wish to have your class use it... or sign out the mobile lab if the regular lab/library was unavailable... even in college we have to meet in the library sometimes for research days (my least favorite days since I really like to sit in class and learn than do research on my own for class).

[Cole D]

Does anyone remember any of the old games on Macs? I remember playing some in elementary school but can't recall the names, they were all 8 bit games on the Apple II.

I had quite a few games on my Macintosh Performa, but gave them all away with it. I had Word Muncher/Number Muncher, a sort of 3D racing game I can't remember. My favorite was Wacky Jacks, which was a sort of game show. If you clicked the wrong button it would say "Negative, negative, no no no!" or if the game crashed it would say "There's a problem with your Wackintosh!" The game had lots of video and colors plus music, so the sound tended to drag at times. I also had Star Wars 3D which was also very graphics intensive for 1993, given it was far ahead of most gaming consoles at the time, and often you had to wait for the game to load as the RAM would get used up. I think my 1994 Macintosh only had 12MB of ram or so.

[Jordan U]

I have a Performa, I'm not sure of the exact year but it's getting up there.. It was originally my grandfathers, then he gave it to me and I used it as my shop computer for a while.. It was taken out of service a few years ago.. Haven't used it since.. One of these days I should hook it up and make some videos on it.. I think it currently has OS 9 installed, not sure what other programs are on there..

[Cole D]

Yours must be newer if it has OS 9, the ones I had only had 7.5 or so on them and I don't think would have run much later than that. I believe they made the Performa line all the way up to 1997 when the G3 all in ones came out which were the last white Macs. Then in 1998 they went with the translucent and blueberry scheme. I wish I still had my Performa, these are getting to the age where they are becoming collectible and worth quite a bit as with most things vintage Apple. I don't think the same is true for most of the DOS or Windows clones. I don't see old Macs around anymore either, never did see that many really outside of schools.