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Quite the Friday conquest or dumb luck strikes again

[SIZE=10pt]This past Friday as I was getting ready to leave work I ran into one of the building maintenance guys while waiting to get on the elevator.  He asked if I was the guy that had three monitors on my desk and when I confirmed that I was he mentioned he was cleaning out stuff left over by a tenant on a lower floor who had vacated a few weeks earlier.  He'd run into some old machines and I could have them if I was interested, since it would save him/his guys the hassle of carting them all down to the dumpster.  Once I got down there I found a bunch of Dell P4s (nothing special) and a lone C2D machine.  I figured "oh well" and was about to leave when he said he found an old Apple tower and an Apple Sonnet desktop he had put aside figuring I might want them.  I thought the tower was probably a G4 of some sort, given the age of the other machines but I didn't quite make the connection of what an "Apple Sonnet desktop" was.  The tower turned out to be a 6500/250 tower and the "Apple Sonnet" turned out to be a Beige G3 with a "Powered by Sonnet" sticker on it.  Of course, I was only too happy to pick up both machines and after helping him load the Dells onto a cart to be disposed of I was happily on my way.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Fired up the Beige G3 and found it has an Encore G4 running at 733MHz, plus a built in Zip drive, a Rage 128/16MB video card, a USB/Firewire combo card, and an upgraded (80GB) hard drive.  I figured this was going to be the highlight of the two machine haul, but boy was I wrong.  Starting up the 6500/250 I saw the “Crescendo G3” banner pop up beneath the 9.1 loading screen.  At this point I was thinking “Surely you can’t be serious” but once it finished booting I discovered I had a 500MHz G3 upgrade!  Quite a conquest for the low price of helping to load some derelict P4s onto a cart![/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]TL;DR – Managed to score an upgraded Beige G3 with a G4 and some very useful PCI cards as well as an upgraded 6500 with a Sonnet L2/G3-500.[/SIZE]

 
I'm just more surprised than anything.  Out of all the government contractors around, one that used to be in my building just happened to have someone who used a Mac, and they just happened to have two of the harder to find upgrades installed in systems that should have been put out to pasture years ago (then again, they were using P4 Dells for everything else).

This presents an interesting issue though.  The Crescendo is going straight into my TAM, but the G3 Desktop with the Encore G4 would make an excellent bridge machine.  That being said, I already have a bridge machine which works perfectly fine (G3 AiO) so the question becomes do I swipe the upgrades from the Beige G3 and trick out my AiO or do I get rid of the AiO and make the upgraded Beige G3 my new bridge.  Decisions decisions...

 
Tough choice.  Not sure you would gain any space moving away from the AiO bridge, to a Beige G3 and a separate monitor, but there are other considerations than that.

That is my favorite kind of find. You get something home, open it, or start it up and find that there is a golden ticket inside.

I also love the free, networking ('cause they know you like old Macs) find.

 
Depends whether your G3 desktop has the high-res "Bordeaux" personality card (which doesn't support the AIO). If not, you might think of tricking out your AIO and then passing on your desktop - it will be MUCH easier to ship. Then again, if space is at a premium, the AIO has massive collector's value so you'll get a decent price for it.

 
Awesome luck! By far the most satisfying type of conquest. Personally, I would definitely trick out the AiO. They are just so unique on there own.

 
Space (thankfully) isn't an issue so it really comes down to specs.  My AiO doesn't have the Bordeaux or even the Wings card, just a plain 'ole Whisper.  I'm certainly leaning towards tricking out the AiO, since apart from the nicer video card everything the desktop has that the AiO doesn't will very easily transfer over...and I used to support a lab full of these so there's some sentimentality as well.

 
If the desktop has a Wings, make sure to grab that. Also, why not take the external video card and use it for dual-monitor support? (Also, is your AIO a rev. A or B/C?)

 
Fired up the Beige G3 and found it has an Encore G4 running at 733MHz, plus a built in Zip drive, a Rage 128/16MB video card, a USB/Firewire combo card, and an upgraded (80GB) hard drive.  I figured this was going to be the highlight of the two machine haul, but boy was I wrong.  Starting up the 6500/250 I saw the “Crescendo G3” banner pop up beneath the 9.1 loading screen.  At this point I was thinking “Surely you can’t be serious” but once it finished booting I discovered I had a 500MHz G3 upgrade!  Quite a conquest for the low price of helping to load some derelict P4s onto a cart!

TL;DR – Managed to score an upgraded Beige G3 with a G4 and some very useful PCI cards as well as an upgraded 6500 with a Sonnet L2/G3-500.
You should have looked into the P4's to see what video cards were in there.

I have been snagging stuff for ages and very rarely do I get surprised by a very decent find. I found a IIgs system for $10 locally that had a Transwarp IIgs in it. One time I snagged an AWS95 + sealed software pack (A/UX 3.0) for free, and one junk PC I was given had a Voodoo 4500 PCI card in it (never seen one before). Those finds make your day.

 
I never get those... Just the rare find by the side of the road. 

Nicely done! I'm betting some people want to see pictures. ;)

 
If the desktop has a Wings, make sure to grab that. Also, why not take the external video card and use it for dual-monitor support? (Also, is your AIO a rev. A or B/C?)
Nah, the desktop just has a Whisper card too.  While it would be fun to have a Wings or a Bordeaux card, I never used any of those ports when I had them in my 8500 so at best they'd be decoration/bragging rights.  I'll have to check on the AiO revision this evening, I want to say it's a later model but can't say I've ever checked.

You should have looked into the P4's to see what video cards were in there.

I have been snagging stuff for ages and very rarely do I get surprised by a very decent find. I found a IIgs system for $10 locally that had a Transwarp IIgs in it. One time I snagged an AWS95 + sealed software pack (A/UX 3.0) for free, and one junk PC I was given had a Voodoo 4500 PCI card in it (never seen one before). Those finds make your day.
The P4s were nothing special, standard bone stock govcon grade machines, all the way down to the built in video and paltry amounts of RAM.  That's what made it so surprising that in the midst of all the nondescript Dells there were two hot-rodded Power Macs.  This is easily the most memorable find I've had in quite some time, I only wish I could have gotten a little more backstory on the machines as I figure the person who used them would have had a lot of sway to be the only Mac in a sea of PCs.

 
I have an extra wings card in my parts AIO, if you want it (I might move in a year or two, so I wouldn't mind clearing it out).

c

 
That is a sweet find, TAM owners will be bugging you. 

Wings cards are real easy to find, but getting your hands on a Bordeaux will take a while, they tend to pop up on eBay a few times a year.

 
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