• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Dirty Macs - post your pics of the filthy ones

jessenator

Well-known member
My erstwhile PowerWave didn't particularly look dirty…
CPh2lKXl.jpg


But it had sat as a restaurateur's office machine where many cigarettes were combusted. Here's the cleaning aftermath after getting the surface dust removed:
e021SGvl.jpg
MbojnKql.jpg
D9iGYAdl.jpg
 

slomacuser

Well-known member
This one was posted on facebook group recently. It stil in use not powered off from the first boot. Serves as GMC parts database


DBA01A5E-1568-4E1D-A394-F72973276FA5.jpeg
 

macintosh2002

Well-known member
I have some pictures too - the dirtiest floppy drive I´ve ever seen and the logic board of a Color Classic I got. By the way, both are working now and look like brand new
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1889.PNG
    IMG_1889.PNG
    2.8 MB · Views: 22
  • IMG_1890.PNG
    IMG_1890.PNG
    2.7 MB · Views: 24
  • IMG_1891.PNG
    IMG_1891.PNG
    1.6 MB · Views: 20
  • IMG_1892.PNG
    IMG_1892.PNG
    1.6 MB · Views: 27

joshc

Well-known member
The problem is those floppy drives are the air intake on a lot of old Macs. They don't get as gunked up if they have the plastic sleeve around them, but I think that's only something they started fitting on later ones.
 

jessenator

Well-known member
the air intake on a lot of old Macs.
Even the alumibooks and onward. Some youtubist who claimed to have been an Apple tech/advisor stated that the number 1 RMA for the last generations of MacBooks with optical was basically this. Air goes in the path of least resistance, dust collects on laser, bad times. He also claims that it was the primary reason for their push to abandon all optical and physical media... again, youtubistism, so IDK.
 

CC_333

Well-known member
He also claims that it was the primary reason for their push to abandon all optical and physical media... again, youtubistism, so IDK.
To get totally abstract, esoteric, tedious and pedantic here, the computer itself can be considered a form of physical media, as can the wires and cables (fiber optics would be a hybrid physical/optical medium) that connect computers together to form the networks that constitute the Internet, not to mention the displays, which are an optical media that transduces the information contained in the physical media (an attached computing device) to a visual form that can be understood by humans or other creatures. So if one abandons ALL optical and physical media, they're basically abandoning anything that conveys information from one place to another and displays it via mechanical, electronic or optical means. Therefore, with that train of thought, all information not obtainable via the five normal senses alone (with no electrical or mechanical tools) must only be accessed person-to-person through either speech, sign language, telepathy, or some combination thereof. Even writing instruments such as pen and paper would violate the "mo physical or optical media" edict.

😜

Tongue in cheek statements aside, the point I'm making here is that this constant striving for interface minimalism, particularly on Apple's part, is becoming ridiculous. There are signs that they are perhaps beginning to moderate this a bit, but I'm not convinced yet. At least they've given up on making things infinitely thin for now (recent MacBook models seem to have actually gotten a bit thicker, with those molded, protruding feet of theirs contributing the bulk of the extra thickness, versus the minimal, almost flat plastic or rubber bumpers of previous models).

c
 

AndyO

Well-known member
.... the point I'm making here is that this constant striving for interface minimalism, particularly on Apple's part, is becoming ridiculous....

This is absolutely spot on right. The design journey from the necessary bulk of the early G3 systems, particularly iMac, to the wafer thin MBA, and the removal of all forms of thickness and texture from operating system appearance and structure was ultimately leading to Apple products being robbed of character and function. I suspect the realization they were heading for a dead end was at least part of the reason Apple and Jony Ive parted company after so long.
 

Durosity

Well-known member
I don’t have any photos of it, but in another life I used to run a mac repair shop in Glasgow, Scotland. The BBC Scotland studios were just up the road and they’d sometimes run a machine down to me for fixing. One day they taxi’d down a PowerMac 9500 which was randomly crashing. I think it’d previously been a video editing system but had all the cards removed and the pci slots were left open…

So cracked it open and found.. bits of mouse. Must’ve got its wee head trapped in the fan and.. yeah.. not pleasant..

The 9500 went in a black bin bag and was taken away to be disposed of.
 

Scott Baret

Well-known member
While it cleaned up nicely, this one was really dirty when I got it.
To top it off, it also happens to be 32-bit dirty...
 

Attachments

  • tempImage49hFzg.png
    tempImage49hFzg.png
    11 MB · Views: 31

Durosity

Well-known member
Very ewwww. There’s a few things that will stick with me forever.. that is certainly one of them.
 

DrGonzo

Active member
Bought a very nice looking (on the outside) IIci to add to the collection. Unfortunately someone else had taken up residence inside beforehand.

Even after removing all the stuffing and cleaning out the rodent 'stuff'/dousing with IPA, I found it to be battery bombed and the board unsalvageable. The power supply is recapped though and waiting for a new donor board to make it whole again. Who knows... perhaps someone smarter than I will reverse engineer the IIci board in opensource and I can begin the tedious process of migrating components. 😈

~Dr. G
 

Attachments

  • Mac IIci.jpg
    Mac IIci.jpg
    1.9 MB · Views: 22

ClassicGuyPhilly

Well-known member
This thread is absolutely disgusting...and I can't look away. Here's my contribution, the PSU from my IIfx

20230520_162152~(1).jpg

Thanks @Phipli , now I'll have sleepless nights until I can clean the floppies!
 
Top