notANON

I ran across the RetroMacCast the other day when I was looking for podcasts focusing on older computers.  This podcast is ran by two guys, James & John who are both collectors, restorers and modders of old Macintosh computers.  They seem to be mostly interested in 68000 and early power PC architectures but certainly mention G3’s and G4’s all the time as well.  I like to listen to podcasts from the start when I find them.  The RetroMacCast started on December 17th, 2005 so they have been around a long time now.  As of today (6/27/2010) they have 165 episodes under their belts.  Their goal is to podcast once a week.

As of now, I’m only on episode 23 of this podcast so anything I mention now may change later but I like this podcast for several reasons.  Let me just list them off:

• They keep it moving at a good pace.  Aside from interviews, no segment goes on for over a five minutes or so.
• It is consistent.  You always know what to expect when you listen so if you like the first one, you’ll probably like them all.
• The format is good.  They read some fan mail, talk about a particular retro mac of the week, a piece of hardware or memorabilia, an eBay find of the week and current news.
• No sponsors so the podcast isn’t junked up with a bunch of ads.
• Good audio quality and production.

I’m not a big Mac guy personally.  I like the MacBook Pro that I use but I’m not a fan boy, I don’t idolize every little nuance of the company and I don’t collect old Macs.  That being said, I always learn some new and interesting about old Macs and old computers in general from this podcast and never find it overwhelming to listen to.  Going back to the start, it’s fun to listen to these guys speculate about new hardware coming out such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook Air, etc.  To me, listening to these podcasts about the old Macs is better than actually owning most of the systems since it takes up less space to just listen to their podcast and look at the pictures they post.  I’m confident that if I ever DO decide to buy a retro Mac, I’ll have the proper knowledge to figure out which one to buy thanks to this podcast.

James and John do a very good job of keeping it interesting and leave the listener wanting to hear more.  One of my favorite segments of their podcast is the eBay find of the week.  They will discuss a few rare items that are listed, give recommendations on whether to bid on them or not and then the next week, they follow up and tell how much the items did or did not sell for.  I would not be as kind as they are when talking about some of these sellers such as the guy wanting $500 for a toaster Mac case back or the other guy trying to get $3500 from a third party external scsi drive.

If you are into old Macs, this is your podcast.  If you are into new Macs, this might also be your podcast since they do hit all of the major announcements and don’t tend to drag on about them too much.  If you are into computer history, this is definitely your podcast.  Sometimes they even step outside their scope and dare to talk about things like the Apple I, Apple Lisa and Newton Message Pad.  If any of this sounds interesting, check out their website or just subscribe in iTunes.