Two PowerBook 520s

[Franklinstein]

In their original boxes, no less. 2000 yen. However, all is not well in Macland: both of them are dead. One of them is catastrophically destroyed, the other is most probably resurrectable. One came with a power adapter, all of the floppies and a KanjiTalk 7.5 CD, plus all of the manuals (in Japanese). The other has most of its original floppies, plus the KanjiTalk 7.5 CD. The batteries leaked in both of them, and I'm cleaning out the less-ruined one now.

Incidentally, does anybody have any good, sure-fire methods of removing the leaked chemicals from the casing? I'm just soaking them in hot water with lots of soap right now.

I'll post pictures and descriptions of the worst of it eventually (along with other stuff that I've been meaning to post) on my Flickr. You won't believe the condition of one of these things...

 

[MacTCP]

Original boxes! ;D

 

[Scott Baret]

The boxes alone are worth it!!!

 

[benjgvps]

POST PICTURES OF THEM BOXES! Then somebody might be able to kill me as long as i get to use a powerbook 5xx laptop.

 

[funkytoad]

The fact that the boxes are still around is pretty amazing to me.

 

[MacMan]

Very good find, especially at that price!

Original boxes are rare for pretty much any 68Ks so they are a very lucky find. As for the chemicals, your approach of soaking the plastics in hot, soapy water is probably the best. If the chemicals still do not wash off like this then maybe try some solvent-based cleaning fluid. Beware though that this may stain the plastics, so proceed with caution.

 

[equill]

With the exception of lead-acid batteries (Portable, PB 100), battery electrolytes are alkaline ... (Duh.) Certainly that of the NiMH batts in the PB500s is so. ABS is not a porous plastic, although its surface can be coloured/stained by chemical agents in suitable solvents.

What this adds up to is: immerse and soak the case parts in a gallon or so of water containing a little neutral detergent (eg, a few drops of dishwasher detergent) and a teaspoon of white vinegar, for a couple of days. Rinse well with clean water, and air-dry the parts. Don't scrub at the conductive silver and/or copper-coloured paint. Don't use petrol, turpentine, benzene or other solvents on those paints or the exterior footpads. If a concentrated detergent does not, swabbing with mineral turpentine will remove hand-grease from the outsideof of the case.

Take good care of the case scews, almost all of the small ones of which are unique to the PB 500 series. A few larger screws are shared with PB 100s. If you inadvertently misplace screws (tch! tch!), there is at least one seller who may still have complete screw sets available.

The circuit-boards can be similarly washed, if necessary, but the force of a hand-operated spray bottle is more useful than passive soaking. Then spray the boards well with clean water, and allow a good several days in a dry, ventilated location for the water to dry off completely.

de

 

[Franklinstein]

Thanks for the tips, equill. I removed most of the chemical goodness with soapy water, though a fair amount remains on what's left of the one machine. I kept the parts of that one because externally they're in fantastic shape. If I ever need to use them to restore a busted machine, I'll put more effort into it.

Anyway, update time.

One of the machines had a leaked battery. I initially thought it was both due to another condition of one of them, but that was not the case.

So I took the leaked battery one apart first. Immediately, I notice the extent of the leak. It mostly affected the top and bottom case plastics and the trackpad so far as I can tell. The trackpad clicker button and the sleep switch are toast, and there's noticeable corrosion on the trackpad cable. So that's scrap. The clicker and the rest of the trackpad support are broken, so they were gone. The top case had a crack on one side, so it got tossed, as well. The motherboard had one of its battery contact sets completely corroded off. There were spots of corrosion elsewhere on the board in the battery power area.

On the plus side, the display is in fine shape (except for the missing clutch cover) with a good screen. The keyboard is in great shape with minimal wear. The centre support is good with minimal corrosion that was easy to remove. The drives were unaffected by the leaked battery, and currently work flawlessly. Also, there was a 32MB RAM expansion card in this one (score!). While this one was soaking, I started in on the other one.

As you'll see from the pictures, the display on this one was destroyed in some way that I couldn't explain given the condition of the rest of the computer. Anyway, I took it apart, and there is corrosion all over the centre support. Happily, the drives and everything else were not affected by it, so I just tossed the support frame out and substituted the one from the other machine. The plastics are in fine shape, so I reassembled the bottom with its new innards, swapped the display over from the other one, and everything was golden. The machine powered up and loaded KanjiTalk 7.5, which I promptly replaced with an English version of System 7.6 (because I don't know Kanji for crap, and don't have any Japanese apps anyway). This machine also had a good hard drive and floppy drive, so the ones from the other machine are being kept for spares. Installed in this one was only the factory 8MB memory module, so I swapped over the 32MB card from the other machine.

The packaging for both is in great shape for being 13-year-old cardboard and styrofoam.

So that's pretty much the end of this story. The currently working model has the 25MHz 'LC040 with 36MB RAM, 240MB HD, one dead battery and a battery blank. Plus I have a new cache of spares, including an extra set of screws.

Finally, the pix: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15550281@N03/?saved=1

That takes you go my Flickr's home. I really have nothing besides several of these computer pix there right now, so have fun.

 

[Mike Richardson]

At a garage sale once I saw a Mac IIcx box. There was no Mac though. I thought about asking if I could have/buy the box but I didn't.

I still have all my original Mac boxes for those Macs that I bought new. They're handy for moving.

 

[macintoshman]

I have one, but it is dead. -Enjoy yours. That model was my first laptop too. :'(

 

[Pinstripes]

¥2000's not bad for a 520. Collecting classic Macs seems to have declined in Japan ... at least, on Yahoo! Auctions the classic Mac section is pretty anorexic these days :-/

 

[Franklinstein]

Collecting classic Macs seems to have declined in Japan

More for me, then! Alls I need to find is a 550 and maybe some of the Japanese-specific clones (Pioneer and a few others) and I'll be one happy camper. I think I'll be able to pick up an Asia/Australia-specific PM 7600/200 next weekend for another 2k yen. Woot![/code]

 

[LCGuy]

Colour Classic II? Pippin?

 

[Franklinstein]

I haven't seen a Pippin or CC II in person before, though I'm always looking. There's a store here that sells virtually every game system ever made (3DO, Nintendo, NeoGeo, Sega, PlayStation, XBox, etc), so maybe I can find a Pippin there eventually. Doubt there would be any games with it tho, seeing as how the Pippin never had more than two or three games to begin with javascript:emoticon('')

But I'm always looking for bonus points for my collection, and region-specific models, even cheap things like 4400/160s, 6200/75s, and 7600/200s add a few extra points. Not as much as a 550c would (those are like the holy grail of Macs, along with the 10th Anniversary Mac and the Japan LPGA PowerBook 170), but still more than just having the more mainstream models such as the 4400/200, 7600/132, or Perfoma 62xxCD (which I already have anyway).

 

[LCGuy]

Try for a Power Mac 7220. (the Australia/NZ only version of the 4400)

 

[equill]

... Anyway, update time. One of the machines had a leaked battery ...

There should be a Special Place reserved below (En Enfers, the French would call it) for people who mentally decommission PowerBooks, and then tuck them into a cupboard for 99 years without first removing the battery. I take that back. They should suffer the tortures of Tantalus.

I bought a 'PB 160' (for only AUD 10.50), which was in fact (and so marked) an amalgam of a 165c and a 180, from someone who was not the last user (I hope). The machine had last been used, judging by the external paper labels and some of the content of the HDD, at a western Uni. in Sydney some dozen years ago. The seller cannot have inspected the PB before sale (again, I hope), because the battery was right royally cemented into the PB with the products of its own decay and spillage. In the ultimate, it was only the corner few square cm of logic board and daughter card that were affected, but again one of the battery connectors to the main board was totally destroyed. With acidified water and a toothpick (between the IC contacts) I cleaned both boards, which had been bared of lacquer in places.

The 180 mobo was still a writeoff, but I yet held hopes for the colour display, which I hoped to be able to get going with a NOS 180c daughter card and a spare 180 mobo that I had. That is, however, another story for another time.

Hell should reserve its best delights for battery neglecters.

de

 

[MultiFinder]

Wow man, nice score, especially the 36 meg RAM card! I got my 540c with the 20 megger, and even that's amazingly nice and roomy. I can only imagine the fun you can have with 36 megs