$80 for SE / Superdrive (FDHD) – was it a good deal?

[man4mac]

ooops. I did it again.

Still pretty new at this, but $80 shipped seemed like a decent deal based on what I see these things sell for on eBay at least. Seems like it just needs an OS install and a little retrobright. Was I a total sucker?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/252795466325

 

[Johnnya101]

Meh. Not a "deal" but I'd say a good price!

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Nice one. It's got the Superdrive labelling! It's the only one missing in my SE collection.

$80 is ok. Seen worse. But that hard drive is probably dead. You'll need to replace it. 

 

[hunter44102]

I almost bought it myself yesterday! Wish it had a kb/mouse though

However I think you got a decent deal for a harder to find 'Superdrive' model and I think it will only gain value. Enjoy it!

 

[Themk]

Well ignoring the spam post....

My SE has the SuperDrive labeling. I never really thought about it. Is it really that much more rare than the FDHD labeling? It was my first 68k Macintosh (though not my first vintage apple computer). I got it locally for free from a friend of mine, who is the original owner of it. It was in fantastic condition too, he cared very much for the computer. It was his main computer until 1997 when they (Him and his wife) replaced it with a power mac of sorts. Not sure whatever happened to the power mac, but I suspect its gone. When I picked up the computer, it was sitting on their computer table in the middle of he and his wife's iMacs, so they kinda looked like 68k mac enthusiasts in a way. They said they kept the computer for so long because of all the documents on it. They are lucky the HDD still worked after all those years; imagine keeping it as the only archive of your documents only to have the HDD fail 25 years later.

 

[olePigeon]

Looks like it was wearing a bathing suit.  It's all tan up top, and pasty white on the bottom.

 

[man4mac]

So a little update on this Mac. The day I got it in I was really bummed because the top corner of the case chipped in shipping. Grrr. I'm hoping to be able to glue it (any suggestions on that?). The original eBay post mentioned that the mac wouldn't boot up (disk ?), I assumed this was a bad HD or missing HD. I figured I would just boot from a floppy so I put in a 6.0.8 os floppy. Should work right? Nope. It gave me a disk X, and then wouldn't eject. Bad first day, I had to leave on a business trip so I put it away.

I was honestly dreading working on it cause it seemed like I had just wasted $80. Really bad yellowing on the top, floppy drive that didn't work, bad or no hard drive. I was dreading doing any more on it. Just today I got back around to it...I popped the cover off....and boy was I wrong. Instead of a giant ball of dust, I found what appears to be the most pristine SE I have ever seen. This thing was immaculate. No dust, no corrosion, not even on the fan. If this thing was new old stock, and never used.

Since the floppy drive was stuck so I pulled it out, disassembled, cleaned and re-lubed (it was in perfect condition too). I buttoned it all up, and voila, it booted up like a charm from floppy. I tried a few disk utility tools to check on the state of the HD, but it was entirely missing from the profilers. So I pulled out another one of my SEs, and plugged this hard drive into that machine. Not only did the drive work, it actually booted up immediately from the disk, turned out there was an OS on there after all, and the drive was in perfect condition. So what was the issue? Turns out it was just a loose scsi power cable from the supply.

With this new knowledge of how good the interior was, I re-inspected the exterior and realized it is actually in amazing condition too (other than the newly minted chip on the corner). It was just the yellowing that had thrown me off. In fact the screen has zero visible burn in. zero.

I'm not even sure what to do with this thing. Its in such good condition I don't want to use it. haha. Here are a few pics of the internals moments after I opened the case up.

 

[Johnnya101]

Wow... nice! Usually there's a little bit of dust on the Merck.

And that's amazing about no burn in!

You can always swap the front plate or whatever with another if it's bad.

 

[Juror22]

It does look factory fresh on the inside.  Congrats!

 

[techknight]

Well, it is the newest of the SEs, and were sold torwards the tail-end of the run. So chances are it was bought, not really used a whole lot, and replaced with a much newer/color model. 

 

[hunter44102]

This is the glue you want:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006O8EJO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also, just leave the case out in the sun for 2 hours, most of the yellowing will go away.  

very nice find!

 

[man4mac]

Also, just leave the case out in the sun for 2 hours, most of the yellowing will go away.

Oh really? I thought that's what caused the yellowing in the first place? Don't I need to put some hydrogen peroxide solution on it first? You're blowing my mind right now...

 

[Themk]

Sunbrighting as it has been nicknamed does work without any solution, but it will need more than two hours. I would suggest just doing a traditional retr0bright. You can see how I did it here

 

[olePigeon]

I wonder if the yellowing is caused by sunlight through a window.  UVB is typically blocked by ordinary glass, but not UVA.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I just got confirmation from someone who is getting rid of his LCII. I wasn't interested in buying it but he kindly answered my questions.

The Mac was used in a completely black room (no windows) with just a light bulb as sole source of light. It has never seen the light of day since the early 1990s. And guess what, it's really really yellow! So maybe glass and obscurity are both responsible? 

 

[Schafeman]

I can confirm, on my SE/30 that was pretty yellowed, I had it sitting on a shelf in front of a sunny window.  Parts of it are now WHITE where the sun was hitting it.  Now I want to just do the whole thing to make it even, but yes I was surprised as I thought certain types of UV light were originally responsible for the yellowing.