Apple collection arrives at museum

Stephen Withers
Friday, 08 December 2006 07:17

Your IT - Home IT

A community collection featuring selected Apple computers and stories of how they affected Victorians' lives has opened at the Melbourne Museum.

Organised by iMUG (the Victorian-based Internet Macintosh Users Group) and focusing on the "five Apple revolutions: personal computing, publishing, imaging, video and audio", The Apple Effect is not just a bundle of old computer stuff but a collection that tells people's stories of how Apple's products changed the way they worked, learned and played, according to Noel Jackling, the project's instigator and leader.

A variety of computers, peripherals and software are on show, including a functional replica of an Apple I, an original Macintosh and external floppy drive, a LaserWriter, PageMaker, a Bondi blue iMac and an iPod.

Robin Hirst, director of collections research and exhibitions at Museum Victoria, noted that The Apple Effect represents a number of firsts for the museum, including podcast tours, a Dashboard widget showing a calendar of community collection displays at the Melbourne Museum, and a forthcoming virtual tour of the collection.

He also praised iMUG for the extensive publicity it had generated for the display. Anthony Caruana, immediate past president of iMUG said the project had attracted surprising levels of overseas interest with several people saying they plan to visit the museum during forthcoming trips to Melbourne.

Diana Ryall, former managing director of Apple Australia, was a special guest at the ceremony. "I just couldn't miss this for anything," she said. "My time with Apple was wildly exciting - I saw everything except the Apple I." In keeping with the theme of the display, she observed that Apple's contribution was in letting people "do stuff" without having to battle with technology.

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