Old Mac Lab Macs

There have been a lot of comments and questions about what happens to our old Mac Lab Macs. My comment about them being recycled left too much to the imagination. :-) For example, Drew Merkle left this comment on my Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab post:

Please, please, tell us that when you write "recycled" you really mean someone took the antiques home or gave them to a collector or a museum. Even to those who are not the biggest fans of Microsoft this stuff is true history. Sadly, those close to it don't always understand it as such. An "original" Mac (whether it be a 128K Mac or a Mac XL) once owned by Microsoft would be very valuable indeed. The birth of Excel 1.0, not to mention its predecessor, Microsoft's first GUI spreadsheet known as Multiplan, quite a significant milestone in human history if only because of the number of lives eventually touched. Oh, please, please say those antiques didn't actually get recycled... That would be really bad Karma. Could have even auctioned them off for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. There must be a lot of readers out there just shuddering to think of the tragic waste.

When I found out they were headed for the trash I felt exactly the same way. So here's what we did: 1. We gave as many as we could to Microsoft's Museum but they didn't need or want every single one we had so... 2. We found loving homes for a bunch of the Macs with Microsoft employees who love Macs, some inside MacBU, others not. 3. We somehow found more storage space for the rest :) Fun Fact: At Mac World 2004 we had a special Microsoft Mac timeline at the booth with a few of the old Macs, all of which came from our Mac Nursery and Sandbox areas. So Drew Merkle the Macs are okay. :)