Hollie
Well-known member
Hi guys, just wanted to show off my LC 475 and create the first of what will be many posts on restoring said machine.
Backstory: I found this poor machine amongst some rubbish on the side of the road about a week ago whilst I was out walking the dog. I'm assuming it was stuff from a recently-vacated house that was awaiting collection by the binmen. However, I first spotted what I later discovered was the remains of a Performa 6500/300 which got my interest; and then discovered the LC 475 with it. There was also a big box of floppy disks too, but that's a story for another day. Needless to say once I'd reached home, I swiftly returned with my car to collect the lot.
Sadly the Performa 6500/300 is beyond saving; the PSU is dead, most of the case panels are missing, and it's covered in rust. However the floppy drive was still present so I've kept that and will send the rest to recycling once the centre is open again, post-lockdown.
Under inspection of the LC 475, it appears to be complete. Physically it's pretty clean both inside and out. The barrel battery hadn't leaked (although was quickly disposed of). The big downside (although understandably) is that the previous owner has put a drill through the hard disk, but the chances of a 24 year old SCSI disk working was slim at best anyway. The big upside I can see so far is that the original 68LC040 CPU has gone and has been replaced with the 'full fat' 68040.
My plan was to see if there were any signs of life; if there were then I had to save it, especially as it was free.
Powering it up; the fan spins and the floppy drive makes a noise, but that's it; there's no chime. Whilst I can't get a video output yet, I'm going to have to wait to see how bad it actually is before I can take the next steps. But it seems like the power supply is decent, it even managed to spin up the hard disk, damage and all.
I'm now waiting for various deliveries before I can move on with this, but should be a fun little project. My end goal is for it to be running 7.5.5 (unless someone can suggest something better) and for it to be set up for word processing amongst other things.
Done so far:
To do list:
Backstory: I found this poor machine amongst some rubbish on the side of the road about a week ago whilst I was out walking the dog. I'm assuming it was stuff from a recently-vacated house that was awaiting collection by the binmen. However, I first spotted what I later discovered was the remains of a Performa 6500/300 which got my interest; and then discovered the LC 475 with it. There was also a big box of floppy disks too, but that's a story for another day. Needless to say once I'd reached home, I swiftly returned with my car to collect the lot.
Sadly the Performa 6500/300 is beyond saving; the PSU is dead, most of the case panels are missing, and it's covered in rust. However the floppy drive was still present so I've kept that and will send the rest to recycling once the centre is open again, post-lockdown.
Under inspection of the LC 475, it appears to be complete. Physically it's pretty clean both inside and out. The barrel battery hadn't leaked (although was quickly disposed of). The big downside (although understandably) is that the previous owner has put a drill through the hard disk, but the chances of a 24 year old SCSI disk working was slim at best anyway. The big upside I can see so far is that the original 68LC040 CPU has gone and has been replaced with the 'full fat' 68040.
My plan was to see if there were any signs of life; if there were then I had to save it, especially as it was free.
Powering it up; the fan spins and the floppy drive makes a noise, but that's it; there's no chime. Whilst I can't get a video output yet, I'm going to have to wait to see how bad it actually is before I can take the next steps. But it seems like the power supply is decent, it even managed to spin up the hard disk, damage and all.
I'm now waiting for various deliveries before I can move on with this, but should be a fun little project. My end goal is for it to be running 7.5.5 (unless someone can suggest something better) and for it to be set up for word processing amongst other things.
Done so far:
- Replaced barrel battery with a new Varta
- Binned HDD
To do list:
- Obtain peripherals (ADB mouse and keyboard)
- Obtain a converter to use it with a modern LCD of some description (I have a selection of different ones in the attic; one of them should work). Then test to see if there's any video output.
- Find someone in the UK to recap it. I can solder but don't trust myself to do it on this level.
