• 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.

Legit "barn find" Apple IIe

Brett B.

Well-known member
I have had this for a couple weeks now and just had time to post it - bought it off a guy from NE who answered my craigslist ad.  As you can see... it's in BAD shape.  I got it for the monitor to use with my II - fortunately I had a power inverter with me to test it or I would have let it go.  The story I got was that it was put in his barn, where he had big sacks of livestock feed.  Mice got it and made a nest.

Not sure yet what to do with the computer - the disk drives look OK and in good shape.  The monitor, although horrible discolored, worked great once I cleaned it up.  Maybe I can salvage some of the expansion cards.  The motherboard and lower case are really nasty, lots of rust and obviously mouse pee and poop all over.  Half tempted to strip it down and take it to the car wash... why not at this point.

KIMG1304.JPG

KIMG1305.JPG

KIMG1306.JPG

 

PB145B

Well-known member
8-o  Poor IIe! Definitely at least save those keys off of the keyboard too! The case plastics may also be fine once washed up.

 

Brett B.

Well-known member
Yeah... the case plastics are probably OK.  The Apple logo and IIe logo are peeling off and it's super discolored.  I need to rig up an old dishwasher outside for projects like this.  

I forgot the part where the guy told me he was going to make a fish tank out of the monitor if I didn't buy it. 

Why not just run it through your dishwasher? :lol:
Well, because I don't have one.  :lol:

 
Last edited by a moderator:

kb3wmh

Well-known member
I'm absolutely not an expert, so if this is bad advice someone please call me out on it. But you could try scrubbing the board with distilled water? Supermarkets sell it for cheap. 

 

Johnnya101

Well-known member
That board is rusted beyond repair, you can see rust buildup around the ICs. Im sure it is much worse under the nesting material.

 

Brett B.

Well-known member
Distilled water will definitely not hurt it. I wouldn't be afraid to scrub this one with dish soap, or vinegar, simple green, etc... Just rinsing all the soap off and drying completely is the main thing. 

I think I'm gonna try washing it and cleaning all the removable ICs. Maybe it'll work! Who knows! The power supply is the part that scares me the most, it's been peed on extensively.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

LaPorta

Well-known member
If none of the above work, I’d try evaporust. Some of the coolest stuff I’ve seen for dissolving rust. I can’t say what it wi

do to a PCB though, so try it on some scrap or something else you don’t really need. Just submerge the board for a day, then rinse/dishwasher.

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
I don't think rat pee affects plastics but it is hell on circuit boards (metals). If you are lucky the cards might still work but the PS (if it got pee in it) and MB are probably toast.

 

CC_333

Well-known member
That's indeed pretty ugly!

It doesn't hurt to try cleaning the MB, just to see what'll happen. These older electronics are quite resilient to this kind of damage, at least, relative to more modern electronics....

I saw a video awhile back where someone found a C64 which had been exposed to the elements for many years. It was rusted pretty badly, but after a good scrub and some contact cleaner, it booted right up!

c

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
That's indeed pretty ugly!

It doesn't hurt to try cleaning the MB, just to see what'll happen. These older electronics are quite resilient to this kind of damage, at least, relative to more modern electronics....

I saw a video awhile back where someone found a C64 which had been exposed to the elements for many years. It was rusted pretty badly, but after a good scrub and some contact cleaner, it booted right up!

c
With a C64 I would be more worried about ESD which kills the RAM, Joystick ports, and sound chip.

 

Paralel

Well-known member
When working with something that may have been inhabited by mice, make sure you wear a mask and gloves. Mice can carry some very, very nasty stuff.

 

Huxley

Well-known member
Man, this post is bringing out some seriously mixed feelings for me: joy at seeing an Apple II rescued from a hazardous environment, sadness at an awesome old computer that's very likely been killed by mice and rust, hope that the expansion cards and disk drives / monitor may be salvaged, optimism that the Apple II itself could be made functional again, or at the very least might serve as a donor machine to another Apple II, and a weird feeling of delight that there are still vintage computers sitting in barns in the world, just waiting to be found and restored.

Congrats on your remarkable find - please keep updating us as you work through it all!

:)  

Huxley

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
I have cleaned my share of computers that were dirty, had liquid spills from soda, wood chips from being in a woodshop, food and human hair (keyboards mostly), and one IBM PS/2 model 90 that had a solid coating of white lint from who knows what. I draw the line on cleaning rat poo and I tossed a keyboard that was soaked in some ladies cat pee (Gateway 2000 one I actually wanted). To be honest I am also worried about bringing something with live roaches into the house, so all the old machines are opened up  and checked before I bring them inside.

 

Paralel

Well-known member
I have cleaned my share of computers that were dirty, had liquid spills from soda, wood chips from being in a woodshop, food and human hair (keyboards mostly), and one IBM PS/2 model 90 that had a solid coating of white lint from who knows what. I draw the line on cleaning rat poo and I tossed a keyboard that was soaked in some ladies cat pee (Gateway 2000 one I actually wanted). To be honest I am also worried about bringing something with live roaches into the house, so all the old machines are opened up  and checked before I bring them inside.


I would say your approach is entirely prudent and appropriate.

Despite what anyone things, the roaches/spider thing is very real. I had a friend who was going to refurb a neglected system he got for free, brought it into his house. Ambient environment caused a roach egg case to hatch, and he suddenly had a mass of tiny roaches trying to invade his workshop.

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
You tend to have critters living in "barn finds" much more often then an old machine somebody stores in a basement or attic.

I don't like storing machines in my garage either but there are a few parts machines because I just don't have space in the basement anymore.

 

Brett B.

Well-known member
Stuff like this either gets put in my detached shop building or left outside until it can be cleaned (the former, in this case.)  Hantavirus is a very real concern but it can be mitigated - and as gross as this computer looks, I have cleaned out cars that were FAR worse.  Just try not to breathe in the dust from the nest and it'll be OK, and/or blow it out with compressed air outside, wear a dust mask and stay upwind of the cloud.

I dropped by my house on my lunch break today and took it apart.  I think that I can actually salvage most or all of it!  As bad as the motherboard looked, it actually cleaned up pretty dang well after a bath with the garden hose.  I have it soaking in a drain pan of water and vinegar at the moment.  Most of the caps (C17, C15, C12, C9, C8, C32 and C80? in particular) are heavily damaged and the rear ports are fairly rusty, but it's just not too bad, considering. 

The power supply may actually just have some surface crud to clean off, the expansion boards are in great shape, and the disk drives appear to be in need of a wipe down and perhaps new cables but also just not too bad.  The case and keyboard will be a challenge.

The expansion cards turned out to be an Apple 80 column card, Epson APL printer interface, Novation modem card, and the Disk ][ controller.

If someone has a link to a components list for recapping this, I'd sure appreciate it.  I think it's worth a couple bucks worth of capacitors to see if it fires up.

KIMG1311.JPG

 
Top