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VCF East 2022 Swap Meet Haul

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
I didn’t announce it here, but I made the trip to New Jersey to attend today’s swap meet. I came with a few hundred dollars and left with tons of fun projects! I came with just about any charger I could possibly need to test laptops as well. Here’s a list of what I got, in rough order of earliest in the day to latest.

1. PowerBook 180c.
I’m pretty shocked I ran into one of these. I know they’re pretty rare. It boots up to an original SCSI drive, is in pretty good condition (missing one hinge cover but otherwise great), and the screen looks super nice (besides from some passive-matrix like artifacting, clearly due to bad caps). The seller said is washes out after a few minutes, so you bet I’m recapping it ASAP. I offered $80 and took it home, along with a WORKING original charger! Before I take it apart to check, does anyone have the list of display caps I'll need to replace?
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2. Dell Latitude D610.
I had been looking for one of these for a while, they’re just good XP laptops. This one was just sitting there untested, so I asked if I could test it and low and behold, it POSTs! It has a bad hard drive, but other then that it’s in great cosmetic condition and I’m glad to add it to my collection. I ended up paying only $10 for it.
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3. 2011 MacBook Pro
Right as I was testing the D610, I saw this up behind me and asked about it. The seller said it had a working battery, charger, an SSD, and 8GB of RAM. How much did he want for it? TWENTY DOLLARS. I couldn’t believe it! Of course I bought it! I got it patched up to Monterey with the OpenCore Legacy Patcher, and it runs great aside from some graphical artifacting on certain menus. (Probably because the drivers are still in beta).
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4. PowerBook 540c
I saw this one early on priced at $150. It was a bit beat up, with some cracked plastic. It was also missing both batteries and covers. However, it did boot up just fine with a working SCSI drive! I didn’t want to pay quite that much though. I came back a little while later and haggled down to $100, along with convincing the seller to include the charger, which he originally wasn’t going to. So, I’m now the proud owner of a slightly banged up (but functional) 540c, unobtainium charger included!
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5: The free MacBook
In the free pile I saw a unibody polycarbonate MacBook just sitting there. I took it and gave it a test, and sure enough, no signs of life. Turns out the power outlet was bad! After getting it home it booted right up to the flashing folder. I opened it up, and the drive is missing. An easy enough fix should fix it! And it was FREE! It appears to be the 2009 model.
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6. PowerBook 5300c
I’m a bit sad as the screen ribbon on my perfect Max RAM 5300ce broke recently, but now I’m much less sad as I’ve got parts now! I saw this poor PowerBook in a sad state at the booth of a guy selling Unix stuff. Unsurprisingly due to the weird barrel jack, it hadn’t been tested. Luckily, I brought my charger, and low and behold, it actually works. It booted straight to System 7 with a good screen. The guy only wanted $10 for it, and I happily agreed to that. It’s in poor shape. (Bad hinge, missing port door, scraped up, leaking battery, loose power jack and more), but at least it works! Now I can build a hybrid “5300c/e” with the faster processor but lower res screen.
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6. Power Mac G4 Graphite
I believe it’s an AGP model (the original/Sawtooth). Seller said he thought it was a 400MHz. It’s in decent shape, a bit scuffed up but that’s fine. I haven’t tested it yet, but all the parts were there and the seller said it boots. It’s apparently running some version of OS X, but I don’t know anything else. Asking price was $60 but I got it for $40. I’m happy to add it to my collection, and the first thing I’ve done so far is pull the PRAM battery :)
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7. A healthy stack of hard drives
Some guy had a box full of hard drives, so I looked through and pulled all the IDE ones. I think I got around 10, 3 of which being laptop drives. I offered $25 and ended up paying $30 for the lot, so not a bad deal. I have no idea if any of them work though. I’m sure at least one is bad as it’s an IBM Deskstar 75GXP (the original DEATHSTAR). I didn’t even notice until I had gotten it home.


8. 2 ThinkPad T21s.
I was originally going to pay $30 for a lot of 2 T21s, one in good shape with Windows 2000 and Linux, and another as a parts machine, along with a few other assorted parts. However, just as I went to do one last test on the good machine before buying it, it decided it was the right time to kick the bucket and the BIOS started throwing out checksum errors and locking up. I agreed to take them both for $10 after that, and I should hopefully be able to build one working unit. The parts machine POSTs, but has a loose power jack. It should be a fun project :)
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9. Dell Inspiron 9100
This is the last thing I bought, right before leaving. The 9100 is a crazy thick desktop replacement complete with a desktop Pentium 4, and all the heat that comes with it. This is a pretty good example of one, although I’m not sure of all of its specs. The seller self described it as “booting to the most junked up XP install I’ve seen” so I’m going to have to do a reinstall there. It came with 2 batteries, both of which are dead. I got it’s monster power brick included, and it works great (installation junk aside).
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So, that's the haul! I'm extremely pleased with everything I got. The swap meet as a whole was a great experience as well! I met Steve from Mac84, Sean from Action Retro, and Mike from Mike's Mac Shack, all of whom were super nice. I'll definitely consider going back next year, and I now have a ton of project machines to work on.
 
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3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Indeed! I’ve already gotten the D610 up and running with XP and it seems to run ok. I also wiped the 9100 and it‘s running nicely now as well.

I had to 180c running for a few minutes to test SCSI and the floppy drive (both work) but I smelled something fishy after turning it off…
I took the display apart and I don’t see any leaks or corrosion, but man do they stink. I’m ordering replacements tonight. I’ll also be reinforcing the intact hinge standoffs with superglue.

The Power Mac runs great as well! It boots up to OS 9.0.4, not OS X, but that’s fine. I installed a second hard drive (the death star drive - it surprisingly works fine), and it actually already has 9.2 on it. I’ll keep that install and put OS X on the primary drive.

The white MacBook is actually a 2010 model! It boots fine but the keyboard is busted. The backspace key backspaces but also turns the volume down. The enter key enters but also prints the right bracket. Other keys have similar issues. What an odd problem!

Also, the MacBook and D610’s batteries both work!
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
Sounds like it's time to turn the A1181 into an inverse Oreo. Early 2008 blackbook keyboard, then max out the RAM and swap in an SSD so it runs cooler. Either of the Dells could make a nice portable Linux box if you want an alternative to XP.
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
I'd love to make an oreo macbook at some point. I have 2 black ones and a white one right now, so if I get my hands on another white one I'm doing it. The 2010 model is a unibody model unlike the earlier ones and they never made a black one of those. I wish they did though, it would have looked awesome.

As for Linux, I tried running it on a 2008 HP laptop, but it runs like junk due to the spinning hard drive. Maybe down the line if I install an SSD. I'm hoping the 9100 will get me into some early 2000s games, it's got the power to run them! I'm also planning on throwing Linux on my G5 at some point. One of its HDDs has an empty partition that I made so that I could experiment with alternative OSs, it might finally be time to use it!
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
I just got the caps ordered for the 180c. I removed the display and things are looking pretty good! A bit of dullness on the pads but no sign of liquid leakage. I'll bet there's plenty under them though. The real challenge is the tight clearances. I got only tantalums and ceramics so hopefully I can get them all installed.

Just for fun since I have 2 of them now, I also got caps for the 5300 power board. This is mainly just a challenge for myself since the clearances for that one are super tight as well. I know they'll need to be recapped sooner or later so I might as well get the jump on it now. I'll update further soon!
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
2 nights ago was standoff reinforcement night! I tore down both of my 5300s, as I’m working on building one fully functional one with intact plastics. And it wouldn't be a 90s PowerBook plastic without broken ABS...

The $10 swap meet PB practically fell apart as I was taking apart the screen. The display latch fell out, many standoffs shattered. Luckily all the parts I needed were intact. My 5300ce with the broken screen cable went a lot smoother (partially since I knew just how to take it apart now). No damage whatsoever and all the display standoffs look good. I reinforced them anyway with superglue. Here’s to hoping it holds. I’ll let the glue cure until the next day, then reassemble everything.

-- The Next Day --

I reassembled the PowerBook, and it actually works! The only thing I didn't do was lubricate the hinges. Should I use WD40 to do that or something else? Anyways, I've got a 5300 with all good plastics now! It has the 177MHz 5300ce board and the 5300c screen. Hopefully I'll find a display cable someday...

On a different, sadder note, the new keyboard for the 2010 MacBook arrived today. Rather, the whole top case because it's practically all fused together...

As I was reassembling, I noticed that the power LED connector was damaged! The plastic on the connector was missing! I managed to make it work anyway, but I was a bit disappointed about that.

So, I got it all reassembled and the dang keyboard doesn't work! No inputs work, pushing caps lock on an external keyboard doesn't even make the light on the internal keyboard light up. Totally dead, except that sometimes it will input random keys. Hopefully I can get a replacement, the seller had a bunch of them in stock.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
Hmmm, odd. I'd definitely get in touch with them and let them know that the keyboard is usually dead.

For the 5300 hinges, maybe some tri-flow would do well.
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Thanks, I'll look into that. The hinges are pretty stiff, and I'm sure that contributes to the common cracking and damage that affects these.
 

Johnnya101

Well-known member
Definitely don't use wd40 for long-term lubrication purposes. It's to protect metal from water and basic stuff like household door hinges for the most part, and will gum up within a few years. I have a bottle of Teflon oil that I use for this stuff, doesn't seem to be that heavy sticky oil that gums up.
 

CC_333

Well-known member
On a different, sadder note, the new keyboard for the 2010 MacBook arrived today.
I got it all reassembled and the dang keyboard doesn't work!
I've had that same experience with my 2010 MacBook (the Unibody polycarb one, which I assume is what you have). I finally found a keyboard that mostly worked, but the left Shift, Control, Command and Option keys are dead, so typing on it is slightly awkward.

c
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Are the keyboards on those just unreliable or something? (Yes, mine is the unibody polycarbonite one) I have 4 other MacBooks that use the chiclet keyboard (although presumably some are different revisions of the design) and I've never seen one with dead keys.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
The only one I had with dead keys was my original early 2008 A1181, after an errant 20 ounce bottle of Cherry Coke got knocked over onto it. Pulled the 160GB drive out of it and installed it in the early 2008 Mac Pro I'd just picked up. Kept going on. Got a couple more A1181s later on. One was a 2006ish machine (a blackbook) that had a weird tendency to just randomly either shut down or reboot in the middle of whatever I was doing, the other was a late 2007 version of my original SnowBook.

Every other A1181 (and my current A1286) has been fine, keyboard-wise.
 

reallyrandy

Well-known member
I was there looking for some NeXT stuff and a 12" RGB for my LCII, neither of which were there. I ended up just buying some small stuff like a 5 port EtherHub, a pair of TP Link Ethernet extenders, a USB hub, etc. I did pick up a free 4:3 LCD monitor though. It works great with my Beige G3 233.
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
@volvo242gt - I've never had trouble with keyboards on my older non-unibody MacBooks. Hopefully I just had bad luck and the refund/replacement goes well. I haven't gotten around to it yet.

@reallyrandy Nice finds! There really was a little of everything, wasn't there!

One thing I have gotten around to is recapping the display on the 180c! It works great now, and I've made a dedicated thread here.
Right after I finished recapping, the OS install froze and promptly corrupted itself. I get a bomb error now on startup. It's re-imaging from my RaSCSI right now, luckily the drive itself doesn't seem to be at fault.
I also got caps now for recapping one of my 5300 dc boards. They both work, but it's only a matter of time...
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
My replacement replacement keyboard for the MacBook just arrived and the first impressions aren't great. That same sleep LED cable is busted again in the same way - the plastic bit of the connector is missing, it's just the metal contacts left. That was the one part that worked last time, so hopefully it works this time too. It's also really dirty. If it works I won't mind, but I guess we'll have to see.
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Yep, it's dead. This one doesn't even have a working power button so I can't even start the darn thing. I got my money refunded at least. Unfortunately, there aren't really any others out there for a similar price so I'm just going to reinstall the original and play the waiting game.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
That blows. I'm guessing the logic board is different than the one for a mid-2010 A1278 MBP? If it's the same, find a dead A1278 and swap your board, drive, etc, over...
 

CC_333

Well-known member
@3lectr1cPPC That's disappointing, and quite perfectly mirrors the experience I had while trying to do the same thing (replace the keyboard), except you were lucky to get a refund. I never did, because the seller from whom I bought the one that actually mostly worked (dead left Shift, Command, Control and Option keys) inexplicably disappeared and the account went inactive (it was 150 stupid dollars too, so a refund would've been nice!). Apparently it's too much to ask for a keyboard that actually works 100%!

If you're interested, I do have a parts unit I might be willing to let you have? I have to check it and make sure it actually is a parts unit first, though (it could be the one I tried fixing in the first place, or it could be one of two that I set up for a friend back when they were still somewhat current). And then, even if it is, it's keyboard might be bad too, so if it powers on, I have to test it.

PM me if you're interested!

c
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Thanks for the offer, but I think I'm going to wait for a while before getting a keyboard. I'm kind of sick of working on that thing, and it works well enough as is with the wonky keyboard for now. I'll come back to it at some point though.
 
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