The Color Classic Web Server

		The Macintosh Color Classic Web Server http://colorclassic.com http://colorclassic.dyndns.org

The Seed		Several years ago a dear friend and coworker of mine at Apple gave me a Macintosh Color Classic that she had been awarded way back when it was new. The Color Classic debuted at MacWorld Tokyo in February of 1993 among Apple's largest product introduction ever, and the first outside the United States. My coworker knew I treasured the friendly and welcoming appearance of the Color Classic, which has been described as resembling a puppy eagerly waiting to greet it's master upon their return. She also knew that it would be welcomed into a good home and treated with care and respect.
The Motivation		For too long it sat powered down on the desk next to my blue and white G3 Power Macintosh. It made a trip to a meeting of Capitol Macintosh (the user group that serves Austin) for CapMac's tenth birthday to demonstrate just how far the Mac has come. But it didn't get to do much, mostly just show the colorful swimming fish in the After Dark screensaver. I really wanted to find a cool purpose for the Color Classic in my office so that it could be a showcase of Macintosh dependability, longevity, and perpetual style. But I couldn't figure out what it could do that would be genuinely useful and at the same time unique. With its 80 MB hard drive and 10 MB of RAM along with an LC PDS ethernet card I installed it was easily networkable and could run an advanced version of System 7. One of the best features about the Color Classic is the simplicity of adding RAM or a card to it's expansion slot. Just remove a couple of screws on the rear access panel, then press a plastic tab to pop it out. With a firm tug the logic board slides out completely without having to disconnect a single wire. Elegant Apple design inside and out!
The Pioneer		The Color Classic may also be remembered as a forerunner of Apple's well-known original iMac, the all-in-one computer in the colorful shell. Prototypes of the Color Classic are reported to have been made in neon green, aqua blue, and clear plastics. Sometimes these rare cases are seen on ebay and command premium prices. Regular Color Classics in good working condition generally sell for between 50.00-100.00 on ebay depending upon condition and upgrades.
The Inspiration		One day while looking for something on the internet I came across a link to the Mac Plus web server that runs on two floppy disks, and from there another link to the Mac SE web server. Compared to the lengths those owners went through to get their compact Macs to serve web pages my "project" was simple and speedy. I am honored to learn that my humble web site has served as the inspiration for others, including Dave's Classic web server and Neato's Colour Classic Server (which also serves as a private file and print server). I am proud to be included in the 68k Macintosh Web Server Directory alongside other classic Macs that serve as constant reminders of Macintosh longevity, dependability, and style.
The Setup		I had already installed Mac OS 7.6.1, so I made sure that the networking was functional, then downloaded and installed MacHTTP. Following the simple included directions the Color Classic was serving web pages in less than 30 minutes. The Color Classic connects to the internet via ethernet to a Linksys hardware router connected to a cable modem. So far the traffic is minimal - a quick glance at the server logs shows more hits from viruses attempting to infect a Windows machine than "real" hits. I expect this will change if google ever finds this site!
The News		Aug 23, 2004 - Google found it! Oct 28, 2004 - The Color Classic web server is cited in the "Vintage Apple News" area of MacMothership.com. Dec 17, 2004 - On a lark I checked to see if the domain colorclassic.com was available. Amazingly it was. Minutes later it was mine, and now redirects to this server. Mar 27, 2005 - Server stats from ExtremeTracking.com show that over 100 people a month visit this server. Amazingly, many are Windows users! May 3, 2005 - a translucent green prototype of the Color Classic sells on eBay for $3,500.00 USD. Really. Aug 3, 2005 - Ric Ford's popular Macintouch site includes a link to The 68K Macintosh Web Server Directory site, where this site is listed third on the list. Traffic to the Color Classic Web Server skyrockets to 248 visitors in one day, and the Color Classic keeps on serving! Oct. 25, 2005 - I noticed that even though the Color Classic never crashes and MacHTTP keeps chugging along, the number of HTTP timeouts seems to increase the longer the machine stays on. I've installed Karl Potte's Keep It Up to automatically restart the Color Classic each night around midnight, and set up free web site monitoring through websitepulse.com to track the performance of the server and record uptime statistics. Big thanks to Karl for sending a 68k version of Keep It Up from his archives, and to websitepulse.com for the free service! Feb. 12, 2006 - MacHTTP was inexplicably not answering web connections every few days, so it was time to take the Color Classic web server offline for some love and maintenance. Disk Warrior fixed some directory damage and hopefully we're back to normal. Check out the spiffy new favicon in the location bar of your browser, generated by the very cool Favicon from Pics web site. Feb. 20, 2006 - According to the websitepulse.com uptime monitor the colorclassic.com server was up 100% of last week, so it looks like the hard disk maintenance did the trick! Dec. 20, 2007 - Check out Sing's incredible upgraded Color Classic! Great work! Jan. 2, 2008 - While reviewing access statistics for this site I am amazed to see December's visitor count was an amazing 965, compared to the monthly average of about 100. After checking the referrer logs it looks like I owe a big debt of thanks to the nice folks at Pingdom who included the Color Classic web server in an article about old Macs currently serving web sites. Check out Old Apples never get rotten - instead they run the Web. Pressure's on, though. They're tracking uptime of 8 different vintage Mac web servers, including an SE/30, IIci, LC, A couple of LCIII's, a Quadra 650, a PowerBook 540c, and this Color Classic. So far the CC's uptime stats look pretty good!
The Credits		Color Classic icon - Alexander MacLean of widget : widget Domain name persistence - dyndns.org Hardware - Kady (who saw the first Mac introduced) Server software - MacHTTP Visitor tracking - extremetracking.com
The Reference Shelf		Netcraft Report about the Color Classic Web Server Some useful links about the Color Classic The Color Classic FAQ Low End Mac's profile of the Color Classic The Power Color Classic MISUTHiKU's Upgraded Color Classics G4 Color Classic Wired story about Color Classic obsession "Classic" Macintosh Web Servers 68K Macintosh Web Server Directory Helpful resources for older Macs Resources for the Older Macintosh (extensive!) Low End Mac Jag's House Apple Computer History Sites Apple-History.com The Apple Museum Apple Computer History Weblog (1976-1993)