Huxley
Well-known member
Early this year, a colleague reached out to let me know that his father was finally getting ready to retire (at age 91!), and was looking for a new home for his old gear. The retiree had owned a successful architecture studio in Canada for many years, and until the late 1990's, he ran the entire business from an Apple /// setup. Apparently he understood that the Apple /// had long since become obsolete, but it worked and he was comfortable with the software so he stuck with it until deep into the Windows 95/98 era (which he eventually switched to).
Anyway, my colleague asked if I'd be interested in whatever old Apple stuff that turned up while he helped his dad clean out his studio, and naturally I said YES. In late April I received three enormous / heavy boxes, and yesterday my wife and I finally blocked out the afternoon to open it all up and see what was in there, all while filming an 'unboxing' video (link will be shared soon).
Suffice to say that I am blown away by what we received:
I’m going to take some time to photograph and catalog everything - given how uncommon the Apple /// is these days, it seems at least possible that some of these disks and manuals aren’t available online anywhere.
So with all that said, I have a few questions:
Anyway, my colleague asked if I'd be interested in whatever old Apple stuff that turned up while he helped his dad clean out his studio, and naturally I said YES. In late April I received three enormous / heavy boxes, and yesterday my wife and I finally blocked out the afternoon to open it all up and see what was in there, all while filming an 'unboxing' video (link will be shared soon).
Suffice to say that I am blown away by what we received:
- Two Apple /// system units
- Two Monitor /// displays
- An Apple Silentype printer
- A ton of software
- A ton of manuals, product boxes, cables and other associated ephemera
- 5 sealed rolls of Apple-branded thermal paper for the Silentype printer
I’m going to take some time to photograph and catalog everything - given how uncommon the Apple /// is these days, it seems at least possible that some of these disks and manuals aren’t available online anywhere.
So with all that said, I have a few questions:
- I’m super eager to try powering them up, but I’m assuming it’s likely that both power supplies have died of old age. Would you guys suggest just giving them a shot, or should I assume they’re both bad / dangerous and proactively re-cap them both before attempting a power-on?
- Same question on the Monitor /// - do the internal PSU’s on those tend to go bad and need recapping before it’s advisable to test the display, or should I just go for it?
- I’ve seen mentions of the Apple /// (or perhaps the /// Plus) having an onboard battery for date/time backup. Is that correct? If yes, I’m assuming those are long since dead (in fact, one of these machines had a handwritten note specifically stating that it has a bad battery). What’s the best bet on this topic? Will the systems work well without a battery (minus date/time storage of course), or should I assume that they need to be replaced before the systems will function?
- Both machines and monitors are very yellowed, but the Apple /// features a painted aluminum case vs. the typical injection-molded plastics usually used on other vintage Apple products. I don't typically "retr0brite" my vintage gear but since we have two of these, I'm open to attempting a color-correction process if such a thing exists for these machines...
- One of them has at least one broken key (the stem is snapped inside the keycap itself). Any tips on getting the broken stem-piece out without damaging the keycap itself?
- What else should I be thinking about, if I want to get both of these machines humming along and looking great again?
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