Repairing a SE and more

[Macdrone]

So a guy from Portland contacts me a few weeks ago and says his SE wont boot. I said bring it my way i have parts and software to get it going. He likes macs, first 68K he says. So he brings it over today after I get home from work. Its a nice Yellowed SE and I am thinking screen or analog issue. To my surprise its a blinking question mark. Nice his hard drive died. I put one in and it boots fine then the hard drive I put in dies. What timing, I get another drive a boom format load os 7 on it for him and say what do you have for this? He says this is it. So I go into giving mode. I have a spare zip drive setup, I give him that as he has a scsi card in his G3 Blue and white. But he says my G3 wont turn on, So I give him a G4 thats just sitting here that just needs a hard drive. Then I give him some disks with software to set the hook and give him the web site address to here.

All in all I think I have him hook line and sinker into old macs. He has the SE with the box from some old lady (I told him congratz). He was nice and I think seeing what can be done with the older units really got his interest going.

 

[Under Dog]

Like he said... I was looking for help getting an SE to boot and he ended up handing me every useful spare thing he had laying around his "shop". I felt guilty leaving with so much stuff.

Thanks again Macdrone!!!

 

[uniserver]

Wow well its great to hear of such generosity, and appreciation from the other side.

Just like sometimes I'll be working on a board for 3 or even 4 hours, Its always the same price. Just doing my tiny part to help the community. That is why sometimes when people take stuff that i have re-done for them, and then throw the board back in their machine and post it on ebay for a thousand dollars or more, it bums me out a little bit, because from my perspective I like to fix them for the user, not for a sale… if it was for a sale/profit I would charge 75 bucks an hour and I probably wouldn't enjoy doing it as much.

 

[Under Dog]

I'm with you uniserver... I prefer to see this stuff get used by people who will enjoy them.

I've got another hobby that revolves around power tools made in the late 1940's. I HATE seeing them parted out on eBay, knowing that what doesn't sell probably just ends up at the metal recycler. That's another piece of history lost...

 

[James1095]

I've seen that happen with antique radios and I'm sure it does with other stuff too. Some idiot will take something that's complete and worth a bit, then tear it apart and try to sell the individual pieces. Usually one or two parts are in demand and sell but for much less than the complete unit would have, and the rest of the parts just sit there. Don't part something out unless it's already missing critical parts! More than once I've spent time fixing something only to give it away, I just hate to see usable stuff go to the landfill. It really bugs me to see something I gave away posted on ebay days later though.