The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 10 out of 10]

• Developer: Ian Page / [Product Page]
  
• Price: Free / donationware

Are you an Apple/Mac history fanatic? Is apple-history.com in your bookmarks bar? If so, you'll love this simple gem of an application. Thanks to Dan Frakes for pointing it out (in January's Macworld magazine, and in this weblog from back in September). Mactracker is a database of basically everything Apple has made since the days of the original Mac -- and by everything, I do mean everything. From the Apple QuickTake 100 to the Apple Color OneScanner to the Macintosh TV, they're all in there (even the clones are included). Double-click on any model in the list, and you get a new detailed product window with tabs that vary based on what you've chosen. For Macs, you get five tabs (Overview, RAM/Video, Expansion/Ports, History, and Resources); for non-Macs you get all but RAM/Video and Expansion/Ports.

Each detailed product window contains a wealth of info, from the CPU type and speed to cache, bus speed, hard drive sizes, weight and dimensions (click on the displayed values to toggle to/from metric), Mac OS versions, intro/discontinued dates, codenames, power consumption, number and type of slots, sound in/out features, and much much more. The History tab even has a photo of the machine, and (for most products) their original pricing. A button below each product takes you to the apple-history.com site for more info. There are even samples of the startup and death chimes for the various Macs. As an example of the level of detail, here's the History blurb for the IIfx:

The MacIIfx was the fastest Mac ever built at the time. The IIfx shipped in a Mac II-style case, and could accommodate up to two Super Drives and internal SCSI hard disk. Dubbed "Wicked Fast" by the press, the IIfx also contained a number of proprietary ASICs designed to speed up the machine further. These required software written specifically for the IIfx to run at the top speed, but either way, it was an extremely powerful machine. It sold for $10,000 - $12,000 U.S., depending on configuration.

And to think people say Macs are too expensive now! :)

Mactracker includes a basic search feature, shows the products nicely organized by type, and there's even a Bug button you can use to send in corrections to the database. Finally, there's a great "Install for iPod" feature that tosses the whole database into your iPod's Notes section. It took less than 2MB of my iPod, and I'm now a walking encyclopedia of useless Mac historical trivia! In short, if you're interested in Apple's history, and would like access to the data when you don't have access to apple-history.com, check out Mactracker!