If you skulk around these parts in any semi-regular sort of capacity, you're already all too familiar with our admittedly paranoid and irrational concern that, what with the runaway success of the iPod and all, Apple might be kindasorta leaving the Mac behind. We know, we know, it's just crazy talk; still though, given that Apple has stated that music is its "No. 1 priority," its corporate headquarters now boasts iPod billboards where the Mac posters used to be, and the company sold more iPods than Macs last quarter, you can at least spot the root of our psychosis, right? It's got some basis in reality, so we're not completely out there in Insanoville.

Well, we're actually feeling a little better about the whole thing today, and no, it's not the pills. (Although those do make us feel special.) No, it's because faithful viewer Simone Bianconcini tipped us off to a Reuters article (by way of MacMinute) which reports that Apple has "created a new division within the maker of the Macintosh computer to sell its popular iPod" and said division will be run by erstwhile hardware engineering veep Jon "Don't Fear The Reaper" Rubinstein. (Yes, he of Megahertz Myth fame. Oh, the memories...) Meanwhile, there's also a "newly-organized Macintosh division" run by worldwide sales-'n'-ops veep Tim "Scooter" Cook, and Tim "No Nickname" Bucher, who formerly headed up Mac system development, will focus on Mac hardware engineering.

Reportedly this shuffle was recently communicated to the troops in email form by Steve Jobs himself, and while the establishment of an official iPod division at One Infinite Loop doesn't calm any fears about Apple's music initiative eclipsing further Mac development (indeed, it may well be the proverbial Foot in the Door™-- da da da dummmmmmm!!!), the fact that there's a rejiggered Mac division alongside it gives us hope. But even that's not the clincher. Check out this choice quote from Fearless Leader himself: "This organizational refinement will focus our talent and resources even more precisely on our industry-leading Macintosh computers and the wildly successful iPod."

He said it! STEVE JOBS SAID "MACINTOSH"!! Of course, it wasn't in public or anything, and it was in the context of the iPod being given a whole freakin' division, but still, Steve said "Macintosh"! Why, we couldn't be happier than if Apple had actually shipped a new Power Mac sometime in the past four months. Well, okay, maybe that's overstating it a little, but still. Good times.

Oh, wait-- we just noticed that the quote wasn't Steve's at all, but rather that of an unnamed "company spokesman." Nurtz. But then again, at least that means it was a public corporate acknowledgment of the Mac's continued existence, and hey, that's gotta count for something, right? Besides, everyone knows that all those company spokespersons are genetically modified cyborg puppetdroids anyway (well, except for Natalie Sequeira-- she's 100% all woman, buster, and don't you forget it), so anything any of them says may as well have come straight from Steve's lips.

Whatever. The point is, something that Steve never said greatly eases our irrational concern about something that would never happen. Got it?

And the Great Apple Retail Search continues! Remember a couple of weeks ago when Think Secret reported that Apple retail guru Ron "Cash or Charge?" Johnson was scouting 100 potential locations for new stores? Well, we've been wondering; do you suppose that figure is just for U.S. spots, or does that include stores on foreign soil? We're just curious, since Apple is clearly looking to go global with this whole "Come Look at Our Nifty Glass Staircase" thing; there's already one Japanese store open in Tokyo and a second one in the works in Osaka, and the first UK store is slated to open in London before the year is up. With nearly 90 locations already open here in the States, we originally suspected that the scouting list was worldwide, but recent developments imply otherwise.

See, Apple's retail wonks are apparently taking this whole "overseas expansion" thing pretty seriously; AppleInsider reports that Apple is "currently scouting over two dozen retail locations" in Japan alone, some of which have been "secured" as future stores. Top-priority "A list" stores in the Land of the Rising Sun are said to include two more Tokyo locations, a second Osaka store, and "a fourth location set in Harajuku/Omotesando." (Didn't he used to pitch for the Nippon Ham Fighters?) Then there are seven second-string "B list" spots (which we assume are slightly lower-priority), six "C list" locations ("We'll get to 'em when we get to 'em"), and yes, even three "D list" spaces ("Maybe if there's nothing good on TV"). Lest you think that Apple got a little obsessive with the categorization, there are reportedly three spots on the list that haven't been assigned a letter grade, presumably because they're rugged individualists who defy all attempts at classification, man.

Now, frankly, we don't know anything about Japan other than it produces some seriously twisted animation, so none of the reported locations means a darn thing to us. "Harajuku"? "Fukuoka"? Really, we might as well be talking about Saturn. Or Utah. But it's still reassuring to hear that Apple is doing its homework and at least tentatively plans to choke Japan with up to twenty-seven stores-- neatly ranked on an A to D scale, no less-- at some point in the future. So let's play the extrapolation game for a minute, here: if Apple's going hog-wild shopping for two dozen new retail stores in Japan, isn't it likely that a similar sort of process is underway in the UK as well? The first London store will be up and running by the end of the year; what then?

Well, we asked around a bit, and our own sources indicate that, if anything, Apple's UK expansion plans are even more elaborate that its Japan ones. "Sources close to the company" (quit laughing, you) claim that Apple's list of potential UK stores now includes no fewer than 1.3 million locations, all ranked in priority/desirability from A ("gotta have it now now NOW") to ZZZ ("eeeyeeewwwwww") and color-coded in four dimensions with scratch-'n'-sniff panels and laser lights and a fog machine and the whole thing is made out of solid gold and leprechaun hide and it can beat up your dad any day of the week! Now that's an expansion plan, baby!

The only real setback is trying to figure out how to suspend the glass staircase at the Apple Store Stonehenge...

Memory Lane time! Say, do you remember when a color Mac was one that had been spraypainted a hue other than beige? Do you recall that magical era when running more than one application at once seemed like some form of dark sorcery that was surely conjured forth from the very depths of hades itself? Remember when screens measured nine inches diagonally, had a 512x384 resolution, and we liked it-- no, we loved it?

You don't?

Oh.

Okay, so you're either really young, really forgetful, or really new to the Mac platform; no worries, because now's your chance to bone up on a little Mac history. Faithful viewer mrmgraphics pointed out a WIRED article about "an act of selfless cyber preservation" called the Web SE, which is a painstakingly accurate reenactment of the sobering experience of using System 7 on a 1987-era Macintosh SE. It's done entirely in Flash, so all you need to check it out is a reasonably modern web browser with a reasonably modern Flash plug-in enabled.

Now, it just so happens that we have a real Mac SE running System 7 down here at the AtAT compound; we rescued it from a neighbor's trash heap a few years ago, cleaned off the crayon marks, fished out the loose change rattling around on its motherboard (woo-hoo!), and blew $60 to replace its blown CRT, hard drive, floppy drive, and RAM. Sure, it would have been easier and cheaper to pick up a working model at the flea market for five bucks (at the time there were always half a dozen available on any given day), but how could we possibly have left that poor thing for a date with a trash compactor?

Anyway, as we were saying, we have the Real Deal here in the compound, so we're eminently qualified to state that Web SE does a pretty stunning job of reproducing the whole SE experience. You can dig through the hard drive, muck about in MacWrite and MacDraw (albeit with a little less flexibility and no saving or printing), and even play a few games, like Space Invaders and Tetris. Even the then-ubiquitous After Dark screensaver works. Sure, System 7 required click-drag-release to choose menu items and Web SE uses the more modern click-release-click-release paradigm we're all used to now, but really, about the only things missing are the grinding noises of the floppy drive, the soul-crushing delays when launching applications, and the flat, level top that was just so darn convenient as a place to set one's beverage.

Oh, and there's also the little matter of Web SE showing all the menu items in German. Ours doesn't do that. Funny how the developers made such a basic mistake.

(Yes, that was a joke. Please don't explode our inbox.)

Anyway, we point this out in part because Katie, our newly-moonlighting resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae, is now chained to a Steveforsaken Dell for eight hours each day, so we figured she (and the other reluctant Wintel-using worker ants out there) might appreciate a little bit of business-hours Macdom, albeit Macdom from a decade and a half ago. Still, does the heart good, doesn't it?