jsarchibald
Well-known member
As you may have seen on another thread or two (eBay finds and an older Drexel Mac thread), I scored a Drexel Mac for the princely sum of USD$199.95. However, add in GSP to get it to Australia of USD$138.28, and then a handy credit from eBay of USD$14.35 (or AUD$20), and I’m left with a bill of USD$323.88. Then, as it turns out, the seller sold the mouse separately, to our very own Unity. He was kind enough to agree to part with it in order for my Drexel Mac to remain complete and original, so I parted with a further USD$62.75, for a grand total of USD$386.63, or $544.55 in Aussie dollars.
Which brings me to my delivery of goodness yesterday, waiting for me when I got home. I unwrapped it in record time, and it has survived the transit halfway around the world to my doorstop. Whilst I’m struck by how tidy the unit is, with no scratches, gouges or cracks, it is far dirtier than I was anticipating. Why is every old Mac I buy dirty as hell, but every single one I sell clean as a whistle? Just once, is it too much to ask?! Anyway, I find the cleaning process cathartic, and over the next few hours, wipe down all of the dirt, even cleaning the top grilles vent by vent with a cloth and thumbnail, until it comes up looking great. No stains, no marks, no pen, and consistent but very minimal yellowing. One of the feet is missing, and the ones on the keyboard are a little sticky, but I can easily fix both of these issues.
When I went to open the Mac up, I noticed that all of the case screws were black (I’m used to 3 black, 2 silver), had no marks or chips on them, and they all felt to be the same tension, so I am thinking this may not have ever been opened. There was a little bit of corrosion on the top terminal from a battery leak, but that’s the full extent of any damage, and the battery compartment is spotless otherwise. The dust inside the Mac though was plentiful, but I just got an electric leaf blower for Christmas, so 30 seconds of blasting and most of the dust and tiny webs are gone. Inside looks promising, as I see a Sony OA-D34V installed with a November 1983 date, the early grey cover on the side of the analog board, and an original 128K board. It has a 44th week of 1983 Motorola 68000 chip, RAM with the Apple logo on them, and a ROM LOW 342-0221 and HI 342-0220-A. All seems to be original, great news! The Mac is a 5th week of 1984, and the keyboard and mouse are both 6th week, so very consistent.
When I bought this one, the seller said it turned on but wouldn’t take a disk. I haven’t tried to turn this one on yet (must remember to use the step-down transformer for 110V!), and don’t intend to until I’ve cleaned everything up and gotten the floppy drive working. I got it disassembled last night and started to clean out the gunk that used to be grease, but I haven’t been able to get it to cycle a disk just yet – a job for tonight. The pictures of the auction show it booting to the screen where it asks for a boot disk, so that indicates all is well if I can get the drive to read media. At least this one still has its felt pad to hold the media to the read head!
Below are some pictures of the part numbers and date codes, would appreciate those in the know (I’m looking at you Unity!) to let me know if any of these seem out of place (ie. Replaced at some point). Also not sure if the apparent repairs on the bottom of the drive are from the factory, or were done later. Once I have everything cleaned, serviced and working again, I’ll take some more pictures and update this thread. Very surprised just how crisp and clean the Drexel logo is, considering it’s now 33 years old. It seriously looks like it has just been done, no fading or wearing off at all.
Which brings me to my delivery of goodness yesterday, waiting for me when I got home. I unwrapped it in record time, and it has survived the transit halfway around the world to my doorstop. Whilst I’m struck by how tidy the unit is, with no scratches, gouges or cracks, it is far dirtier than I was anticipating. Why is every old Mac I buy dirty as hell, but every single one I sell clean as a whistle? Just once, is it too much to ask?! Anyway, I find the cleaning process cathartic, and over the next few hours, wipe down all of the dirt, even cleaning the top grilles vent by vent with a cloth and thumbnail, until it comes up looking great. No stains, no marks, no pen, and consistent but very minimal yellowing. One of the feet is missing, and the ones on the keyboard are a little sticky, but I can easily fix both of these issues.
When I went to open the Mac up, I noticed that all of the case screws were black (I’m used to 3 black, 2 silver), had no marks or chips on them, and they all felt to be the same tension, so I am thinking this may not have ever been opened. There was a little bit of corrosion on the top terminal from a battery leak, but that’s the full extent of any damage, and the battery compartment is spotless otherwise. The dust inside the Mac though was plentiful, but I just got an electric leaf blower for Christmas, so 30 seconds of blasting and most of the dust and tiny webs are gone. Inside looks promising, as I see a Sony OA-D34V installed with a November 1983 date, the early grey cover on the side of the analog board, and an original 128K board. It has a 44th week of 1983 Motorola 68000 chip, RAM with the Apple logo on them, and a ROM LOW 342-0221 and HI 342-0220-A. All seems to be original, great news! The Mac is a 5th week of 1984, and the keyboard and mouse are both 6th week, so very consistent.
When I bought this one, the seller said it turned on but wouldn’t take a disk. I haven’t tried to turn this one on yet (must remember to use the step-down transformer for 110V!), and don’t intend to until I’ve cleaned everything up and gotten the floppy drive working. I got it disassembled last night and started to clean out the gunk that used to be grease, but I haven’t been able to get it to cycle a disk just yet – a job for tonight. The pictures of the auction show it booting to the screen where it asks for a boot disk, so that indicates all is well if I can get the drive to read media. At least this one still has its felt pad to hold the media to the read head!
Below are some pictures of the part numbers and date codes, would appreciate those in the know (I’m looking at you Unity!) to let me know if any of these seem out of place (ie. Replaced at some point). Also not sure if the apparent repairs on the bottom of the drive are from the factory, or were done later. Once I have everything cleaned, serviced and working again, I’ll take some more pictures and update this thread. Very surprised just how crisp and clean the Drexel logo is, considering it’s now 33 years old. It seriously looks like it has just been done, no fading or wearing off at all.
