I vividly remember seeing this ad as a kid. What a great gimmick.
Even most of today's nicer PC case designs are not as much of a joy to work inside—often the drive bays are stuck in random spots and require many screws to get at them.
Wish Apple would've carried that on again with the modern Mac Pro, but there are fewer replaceable parts now.
The modern iteration of the Pro Macs (really, Mac Studio for most people) probably the best that can reasonably be expected of Apple. But the continued feud with NVidia is really unfortunate.
Although I suppose the Mac Pro doesn't really support graphics cards in its PCI-X slots anyhow. Or at least that's what I recall.
But my last two PC cases over the last ~15 years were nothing terribly fancy and they have drive bays that just pull out on trays in the back. No need to open the case, just undo a chunky thumb screw and pull out the tray.
Just wish the rest of the cases were as solid and attractive as the old Mac Pros.
I also have a “trash can” Mac Pro that was my daily driver from 2017 (when I purchased a refurbished model) to 2022 when I switched to a Ryzen 9 build. My Mac Pro was a beast, and while it lacked expansion slots, it was still user-serviceable.
I miss the days of user-serviceable Macs, which is why I switched back to PCs after using Macs as daily drivers since I bought an Intel Core Duo MacBook in 2006. I now use a Ryzen 9 build at home and a Framework 13 laptop when I’m away from home.
I am grateful for Jean-Louis Gassée, who helped turn the Macintosh from a closed appliance to an expandable, user-serviceable machine, beginning with the Macintosh II in 1987. The IIfx, the Quadra, the Power Macintosh line, and the pre-ARM Mac Pro line were all part of this legacy.