What's the Coolest Apple/Macintosh project ever?

[sanddrag]

What is the coolest Apple/Macintosh project you've ever seen done? Hardware or software, either one.

And no this is not an attempt for you to vote for mine, I want to get some new ideas, that's all

[bhweezer]

I'm working on making an aquarium out of an old Mac right now. Does that count? lol

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

What is the coolest Apple/Macintosh project you've ever seen done? Hardware or software, either one.

And no this is not an attempt for you to vote for mine, I want to get some new ideas, that's all

I would have to say the Virginia Tech Super Computer.

[cmaccoy]

Originally Posted by Kyle Fenton

I would have to say the Virginia Tech Super Computer.

Wow that was certainly the coolest apple project i've ever seen.

[jdiwnab]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

What is the coolest Apple/Macintosh project you've ever seen done? Hardware or software, either one.

And no this is not an attempt for you to vote for mine, I want to get some new ideas, that's all

Do you mean done with a mac to to a mac or by mac?
Pixar does great things with macs (Hehe).
The G5 iMac is really cool too.
And, already stated, the VT computer is really cool.

[dubious elise]

Originally Posted by bhweezer

I'm working on making an aquarium out of an old Mac right now. Does that count? lol

Mind if I ask which kind? I kinda like the aquariums made out of the old Cubes (though I always get teary-eyed thinking what a beautifully engineered machine it was before it was gutted too...). I'd love to see pictures if you have any!

[av11d]

The GUI.

Because you wouldn't be looking at what you are looking at right now without it.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by jdiwnab

Do you mean done with a mac to to a mac or by mac?
Pixar does great things with macs (Hehe).
The G5 iMac is really cool too.
And, already stated, the VT computer is really cool.

Actually, Pixar does most of their work on Silicon Graphics machines. They only recently ported their Renderman Server software to Macintosh. I doubt any of the films you have seen so far from Pixar made significant use of the Mac in their production. I do expect that to change though with the porting of Renderman.

It's been a common "dig" in the industry to point at Steve Jobs and say, "If the Mac is so great, why isn't his other company using it?" So Pixar is making the change.

Best thing about the Mac is the "Human Interface Guidelines" that Apple put together. Make programs adhere to standards that aren't different for similar operations (cut and paste, menu system, open, save, etc.). I bought my first Mac (Mac 512k -- FatMAC) in 1985, and all the grad students laughed at its' size and shape. While they were struggling through the manuals for word processors and other programs though, I was the one laughing. You didn't have to learn new keystrokes for each new program. Unfortunately, human interfaces have taken a back seat to "bells and whistles", or I'd be speaking to my computer now just as Captain Kirk does on Star Trek. (My son plans to change that though upon graduation -- B.S. 2006 EE/CE. Go Josh!!!))

[JonBell]

Well I've done a few mac projects in my day, including a car linux mp3 player, and a digital picture frame. Macmod.com has a ton of amazing projects too, even including the iTablet (of slashdot fame!).

[jdiwnab]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Actually, Pixar does most of their work on Silicon Graphics machines. They only recently ported their Renderman Server software to Macintosh. I doubt any of the films you have seen so far from Pixar made significant use of the Mac in their production. I do expect that to change though with the porting of Renderman.

It's been a common "dig" in the industry to point at Steve Jobs and say, "If the Mac is so great, why isn't his other company using it?" So Pixar is making the change.

...or I'd be speaking to my computer now just as Captain Kirk does on Star Trek.

In the extra stuff in "The Incredibles", you can see plenty of Macs in the back ground, so some of the stuff they do is on mac and they use Maya to model (I'm prety sure about that) which works on mac and Pixar does do amazing things with whatever computer they use.

You can speak to macs, but not many pieces of software work with it (on OS X, system prefs>speach>speakable items) it's slick, but not many commands. And more than just Kirt speaks to comuters (see my sig )

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Actually, Pixar does most of their work on Silicon Graphics machines. They only recently ported their Renderman Server software to Macintosh. I doubt any of the films you have seen so far from Pixar made significant use of the Mac in their production. I do expect that to change though with the porting of Renderman.

It's been a common "dig" in the industry to point at Steve Jobs and say, "If the Mac is so great, why isn't his other company using it?" So Pixar is making the change.

You are correct. The Incridbles was the last film Pixar film rendered on IBM machines, Cars will be on Macs. It's even in the credits.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by jdiwnab

You can speak to macs, but not many pieces of software work with it (on OS X, system prefs>speach>speakable items) it's slick, but not many commands. And more than just Kirt speaks to comuters (see my sig )

I've played with "Speakable Items" in OS9 years ago, when I provided IT support to a local school. 70 Macs, 9 years, 1 volunteer (me) -- sweet and easy. We setup the student accounts so they could log in by speaking their name. Cute process, but very limiting when you wanted to do some real work.

I've also used (and still have) IBM's Via Voice for dictation. Once again, good process, but I end up having to speak unnaturally to get the words correct. It was so much easier when Kirk addressed: "Computer get me the latest data on . . . "

And yes, Star Trek IV was the best of the movies. My wife loves the line, "Cap'n! There be whales here!"

[petek]

If you include third-party applications, I'd have to say Excel was the coolest. Excel v1.0 was released for the Mac in 1985 (the year after the first Mac). Excel wasn't ported to the PC until v2 in 1987.

I remember my first encounter with it about that time and thinking that it might be a pretty useful tool. Little did I realize how much time I'd be spending trying to make sense out of mountains of test data using it!

Other than various email applications and web browsers, Excel is probably the application I use the most for my work and it features pretty prominently here in the FIRST community for engineering and scouting .

Running a close second, Ashlar Vellum introduced the world to parametric 2D design on the Mac. At that time it was competing with AutoCAD (v6), MacDraft and Claris CAD for the low-end engineering design market. I used it in 2D, 3D and "solid modelling" versions until Inventor came along. Now if Autodesk would only port that baby to OS X...