A Mac Plus

[Appleanche]

I've got to say I've been going to just about every thrift store in the area about once a week for the past 2-3 months.. in this time I've managed to find a blueberry keyboard and a teardrop ADB mouse. I was getting sort of frustrated and wondered if they even would carry any vintage Macs (or did they refuse to take/throw them away..)..

I stopped in just to get a USB floppy drive I saw the other day, to my shock there was a Macintosh Plus right there in the same case for $20. In one swoop I grabbed that thing without even thinking about it. It doesn't have a keyboard, mouse, or even power cord but I used the power adapter for the SE and amazingly it turned on to a very clear and nice display (no floppies to test the drive yet, 800k disks on their way).

It may not be that much since I'm sure Mac Plus' are common just about everywhere but in a small city where the craigslist is just full of Power Mac G4s (where the sellers want hundreds) it's nice to know that the Goodwill and such aren't just recycling or refusing to take them.

 

[techknight]

They are supposed to, but at the same time, that particular goodwill may not follow that rule.

But i live near the main headquarters in woodlawn ohio, and i go there frequently. They NEVER have anything vintage. and thats when i found out about the recycling thing they do.

However, the funny thing is, I did see an older airking vintage TV from the 1950s there. Shoudl have grabbed it but i didnt have a truck. The only time I ever saw something like that.

Another time I saw a bally video poker casino machine, a REAL one. which at the time gambling was illegal in ohio so i dunno how it ever made it to the floor, it had an argosy casino tag on it, but I grabbed it, $40 I couldn't pass it up. it didn't work but i fixed it plus i had to do some minor repair to the hopper control board to get it working again. But it did power up to scrambled pixel display, CPU wasnt booting so the display was picking off random garbage out of the RAM. Turned out to be bad connections on all the ROM sockets/CPU socket. after that, worked fine. Only bug I have to work out now, is the lights dont work. none of the button lights or the attendent tower light. Power is going to the lamps, but there is a logic IC along with a triac assembly that runs the lamps, they are individually addressable. No light is working unless i physically enable the triac by hand. So the logic circuit is at fault, just havent had time to do much.

 

[Appleanche]

Do you know if there are national or regional regulations on things like this?

It seems so counter the idea of Goodwill to throw something away they can make pretty good money on. I mean especially iconic designs like the compact Mac series, even non Mac fans can appreciate them if nothing as a decoration somewhere.

I see older appliances, radios, and such quite often in mine fairly often but I've never really seen any computer older than 10 years old until this Plus.

It's amazing how fast Mac stuff moves in there though, there was a Powerbook G3 for parts for $50 that I briefly glanced at.. I came back a couple of days later to see which model it was and it was gone. The exact same case with a beat to hell white iBook G3, sold for $50 days later (they hardly go for that working on eBay..)..

 

[techknight]

Well here, they actually sell the stuff off to recyclers if its under a certain date. Thats what I heard anyway....

 

[Appleanche]

That's what I've read too, interestingly I saw a for parts beige Power Mac G3 there the other day too... so maybe they put the Apples out as exceptions knowing there is a market for them. Though if that were the case I'd think we'd see a hell of a lot more of the really common models like iMac G3s and such.

 

[techknight]

Ya i remember when I Was a kid, dad took me to the local thrift store. There was 2 apple lisas, but back then I didnt know anything about them. One had the twiggy drive, and one had the regular sony 3.5 drive. neither had keyboard/mice and they were both priced at $60. of course dad said no.

man, i wish.....

 

[Appleanche]

Wow, that would haunt my for a while. What year was that if you remember at all? It's hard to believe that one day a computer as collectable and valuable as Lisa was sort landfill fodder but there is always that period for almost every computer before being collectable.

 

[Mr. Ksoft]

Do you know if there are national or regional regulations on things like this?
It seems so counter the idea of Goodwill to throw something away they can make pretty good money on. I mean especially iconic designs like the compact Mac series, even non Mac fans can appreciate them if nothing as a decoration somewhere.

It seems to vary from location to location, but I've heard that (in general) if they get collectible stuff they know they can make really good money on, it usually never even hits the local store floors. It gets sent to some central facility and they auction the stuff for high prices on a website I can't remember the name of. As a video game collector, I've heard this tale a lot and it certainly explains why I never see anything good at Goodwill.

 

[Appleanche]

I have seen that auction site before... it does seem pretty unfair. If they are getting them as donations from the local area then consumers in that area should benefit. There are like little pledges on the windows that say something like employees can't hold, buy, and I may be remembering wrong but I think it says what's donated there is sold there.. but I may be wrong... maybe it varies regionally.

It seems pretty counter intuitive too, at least my Goodwills in the area tend to be fairly overpriced on electronics/computer items, at least compared to say eBay..