bigmessowires
Well-known member
I went on a minor rampage recently, including three different purchases today in three different locations, which I pulled off in only an hour! Total outlay was $220 for everything combined. Now what am I going to do with all this stuff?
The first meet was @jmacz, from whom I bought three non-working systems: a Performa 637CD, a PowerMac 6100/60, and a Performa 405. I won't post photos since these were already discussed in his posts, but after a bit of clean-up they're in pretty nice physical condition inside and out aside from some cracked plastics. I'm optimistic that all three could be restored to working order with a logic board recap and some TLC, but I might actually scavenge some of them for spare parts instead. In particular, the P405 might get a motherboard transplant with a spare LCIII board I've got, and turn into a prize giveaway. I'd like to get the 637CD working if I can, because hey, 33 MHz '040!
The second meet was with a person from NextDoor who'd advertised a working Performa 6214CD system. He turned out to have lots other Mac equipment too, which he threw into the deal. First was the P6214CD itself, which is a 75 MHz PPC 603 with 48 MB of RAM and 1.1 GB hard drive.
In the peripherals pile were an AEKII keyboard, round-style mouse, and an ADB numeric keypad. Also a box of floppies and three SCSI cables.
An external SCSI hard drive, not tested yet.
External SCSI CD-ROM.
There was also a big box of adapters. Most of them are unknown to me, and have an RJ-11 phone plug on one side, and 9-pin or 25-pin connector on the other side. Anyone know what these are? Some other strange adapters too.
Hey, a StyleWriter too. I'll look more at this later, but don't have high hopes for getting it working.
Finally there was a 17” (or maybe 16") E-Machines ColorPage T16 II CRT Monitor. This was the piece I was most excited about, but now that I have it, I already regret it. It is ungodly heavy, I really can't understand how a 17" monitor could weigh so much! By myself I couldn't even begin to lift it, and even with two people it was a challenge to load it in the car. Unloading it at home was even worse, and we actually dropped it once. We barely managed to get it inside and onto the kitchen table, where I expect it will crush the table soon thanks to its immense weight. I think a giant box of rocks would weigh less. No idea yet if it works because I'm not sure how I'll ever get it out of the box.
Third meetup was somebody from Craigslist selling a 14 inch CRT with VGA input. For $10 how could I say no? It seems to work well enough, but it's not a Trinitron and the focus seems a bit off. There's also some unexpected red fringing in one area, which I'll need to investigate more when I have a working operating system. It's been so long since I used a CRT monitor, I don't remember if this is a normal artifact or a defect.
Fourth meetup was another person from Craigslist selling a 19-inch 1280x1024 LCD with VGA input, which I thought could make a nice Mac display. Smaller LCDs with 4:3 aspect ratios and VGA inputs are getting pretty rare, and this was the only one I found out of 100 monitors for sale on my local Craigslist. I feel like I need to stockpile them.
But is it actually 4:3? Dear reader, I was today years old when I realized that 1280x1024 is not the same aspect ratio as 640x480. It's 5:4, and it looks distinctly squarish. It works as a Mac display at 640x480, but it stretches the image to full screen, which results in a non-integer scale factor and a non-uniform aspect ratio, so it looks pretty bad. The left edge of the screen is also slightly cut off. Sadly there don't seem to be ANY image controls on this monitor (ViewSonic VG900b) except for brightness and contast - no way to change the scaling settings or to compensate for the left edge cutoff. I'm disappointed on that.
If any of this interests you, most it will probably end up at Mactoberfest Meetup next month, so you can see it there or win it or buy it.
The first meet was @jmacz, from whom I bought three non-working systems: a Performa 637CD, a PowerMac 6100/60, and a Performa 405. I won't post photos since these were already discussed in his posts, but after a bit of clean-up they're in pretty nice physical condition inside and out aside from some cracked plastics. I'm optimistic that all three could be restored to working order with a logic board recap and some TLC, but I might actually scavenge some of them for spare parts instead. In particular, the P405 might get a motherboard transplant with a spare LCIII board I've got, and turn into a prize giveaway. I'd like to get the 637CD working if I can, because hey, 33 MHz '040!
The second meet was with a person from NextDoor who'd advertised a working Performa 6214CD system. He turned out to have lots other Mac equipment too, which he threw into the deal. First was the P6214CD itself, which is a 75 MHz PPC 603 with 48 MB of RAM and 1.1 GB hard drive.
In the peripherals pile were an AEKII keyboard, round-style mouse, and an ADB numeric keypad. Also a box of floppies and three SCSI cables.
An external SCSI hard drive, not tested yet.
External SCSI CD-ROM.
There was also a big box of adapters. Most of them are unknown to me, and have an RJ-11 phone plug on one side, and 9-pin or 25-pin connector on the other side. Anyone know what these are? Some other strange adapters too.
Hey, a StyleWriter too. I'll look more at this later, but don't have high hopes for getting it working.
Finally there was a 17” (or maybe 16") E-Machines ColorPage T16 II CRT Monitor. This was the piece I was most excited about, but now that I have it, I already regret it. It is ungodly heavy, I really can't understand how a 17" monitor could weigh so much! By myself I couldn't even begin to lift it, and even with two people it was a challenge to load it in the car. Unloading it at home was even worse, and we actually dropped it once. We barely managed to get it inside and onto the kitchen table, where I expect it will crush the table soon thanks to its immense weight. I think a giant box of rocks would weigh less. No idea yet if it works because I'm not sure how I'll ever get it out of the box.
Third meetup was somebody from Craigslist selling a 14 inch CRT with VGA input. For $10 how could I say no? It seems to work well enough, but it's not a Trinitron and the focus seems a bit off. There's also some unexpected red fringing in one area, which I'll need to investigate more when I have a working operating system. It's been so long since I used a CRT monitor, I don't remember if this is a normal artifact or a defect.
Fourth meetup was another person from Craigslist selling a 19-inch 1280x1024 LCD with VGA input, which I thought could make a nice Mac display. Smaller LCDs with 4:3 aspect ratios and VGA inputs are getting pretty rare, and this was the only one I found out of 100 monitors for sale on my local Craigslist. I feel like I need to stockpile them.
But is it actually 4:3? Dear reader, I was today years old when I realized that 1280x1024 is not the same aspect ratio as 640x480. It's 5:4, and it looks distinctly squarish. It works as a Mac display at 640x480, but it stretches the image to full screen, which results in a non-integer scale factor and a non-uniform aspect ratio, so it looks pretty bad. The left edge of the screen is also slightly cut off. Sadly there don't seem to be ANY image controls on this monitor (ViewSonic VG900b) except for brightness and contast - no way to change the scaling settings or to compensate for the left edge cutoff. I'm disappointed on that.
If any of this interests you, most it will probably end up at Mactoberfest Meetup next month, so you can see it there or win it or buy it.
