A different kind of unboxing

Back in 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected president, the Channel Tunnel opened, and China got its first connection to the internet. The web and MacFormat were in their infancy, I was a software developer, and my first child was just a blue line on a pregnancy test. In May of that year, Apple released the PowerBook 520. It would be a stretch to call this an all-time classic, but it did break some new ground. It was the first laptop to use a trackpad – we’d made do with a trackball before that! It was also the first with stereo speakers, which seems even more incredible, until you remember that computer sounds had only just got past the beep-beep-boop stage by then. Someone bought a 520, used it and loved it, stopped using it, then boxed it up. Eventually, they had a clear out and sold this ancient laptop for £55 on eBay. And that, dear reader, is where I come in…