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Every now and then I pop some fresh batteries into my trusty Newton 2100, and have some fun with it. However, there's one dumb that that always bugs me: when it comes back from a long period of no power, the date resets back to 1998, and the only way I've been able to set the year to 2024 is by...

They might not be quite as plentiful as in years past, but great deals do still exist! I found this semi-rough but functional Mac 512k at a local junk shop today - it was priced at $60 but they accepted a $50 offer. Although it did not come with a keyboard and mouse, it DID come with something...

A local friend messaged me a couple days ago to point out a post on a local community app I'd never heard of (think NextDoor, but hopefully less awful). The poster was offering to give away some vaguely-defined Mac stuff - old magazines, CD-ROM's, books, etc., along with some Berkeley Mac User...

My wife and I were out running some errands yesterday and on a whim we stopped into an awesome local secondhand / junk store. We had a nice time poking around and looking at tons of interesting items, and then I spotted something that made my brain twitch: a Mac-like device, but shorter and...

Hi all! I just completed a "brain transplant" - I relocated the innards of my Macintosh Portable from the original badly-cracked bottom case to a replacement case (thanks again @ScutBoy!). The operation was a success and my Portable is looking and working beautifully now. However, the hinge...

Hi all! I recently bought a really nice Apple IIc kit, which I'm pretty excited about - it's a system I've always admired but never owned. When I bought it a couple weeks ago, the seller gave me a quick demo and everything seemed to be working well. I finally have some time to play with it...

I'm happy to report that I have gotten one of my two Apple III's running smoothly! With a deep-cleaning, new Reactive Micro "Universal Power Supply," re-soldered Composite video connector, etc., this machine is running nicely. That said, while I'm far from an expert, I'm much more familiar with...

Given its business-oriented design and short lifespan, I do understand that the library of software (especially entertainment / games) for the Apple III is microscopic compared to the Apple II. With that said, I'll be exhibiting one of my Apple III's in early June and I'm looking for any...

Howdy everyone, I've recently become the caretaker of two Apple /// systems. One is already in good working order other than a wonky 'O' key which I need to get sorted, and the other is in rougher shape (couple broken-off keys, dead PSU, etc.). I spent some time playing with the working one...

Hi everyone, I recently became the owner / caretaker of a shocking large quantity of Apple /// stuff - two CPU's, two Monitor ///'s, a ton of books, floppies, etc. All the gear is in decent shape, but both of the Monitor ///'s are missing at least one or two of their blocky rubber feet, which...

In a classic "friend of a friend of a friend" scenario, I got a heads-up last night that someone in my town was looking to offload "some old computer stuff" before it just went to the local e-waste place. Without knowing much other than "I think they mentioned a small Mac of some kind," I agreed...

No crazy story here, but still: Stopped into my favorite local junk store while I was out running errands today, and I snagged an Apple Extended Keyboard, one of the greatest mechanical keyboards ever made along with a classic Apple mouse. The keyboard needs a little cleanup but otherwise looks...

Early this year, a colleague reached out to let me know that his father was finally getting ready to retire (at age 91!), and was looking for a new home for his old gear. The retiree had owned a successful architecture studio in Canada for many years, and until the late 1990's, he ran the entire...

So I was hoping to enter the "Portables Week" contest over on Reddit with my beautiful backlit Macintosh Portable. I ran over to my storage locker and grabbed the Portable this morning and fired it up with my SCSI2SD connected to the external SCSI port. I should note that this Portable has a...

A while back I bought a nice "complete in box" flying saucer style AirPort Base Station, the white "Dual Ethernet" model. I finally got around to trying to set it up tonight, but I'm stuck. I installed AirPort Admin Utility 2.0.4 on a PowerBook G3 running Mac OS 9.2.2, and connected the...

Hi all! Got a pretty straightforward question: will the AC brick from my PowerBook 1400 work with a "Wallstreet"-style PowerBook G3? The barrel plug looks to be the right size and shape, but the brick itself lacks any info about power output (it's just a blank space where that sticker should...

I'm using the very slick Newton app called "PT100," which is apparently abandonware at this point. There are few references to the app that I can find online, but this archived thread indicates that someone had a working Python-based serial number generator working 6-7 years ago. Unfortunately...

I might be speeding headfirst into "dumb question territory" here but whatever: Does anyone know if the Newton Keyboard requires a driver or extension to work with a Newton 2100? My keyboard 'works' but neither Shift key actually shifts - I have to use the Caps Lock key instead, which is a pain...

I've been hard at work restoring a nice early "Revision A" Apple IIe - it's been a fantastic learning experience! I've been into the RetroComputing hobby since the early 1990's, but until now I'd never really dabbled in soldering, capacitor replacement, etc., so it's been a blast. With the...

Hi all! I'm deep into a repair + restoration project on an Apple IIe, and while I'm making great progress, I've run into a problem: I just recapped the Disk II drive, lubricated all the moving parts, etc. However, now when I power up the Apple IIe with a ‘known good’ boot disk in the drive...