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Classic II any hope?

CharlieFrown

CharlieFrown

6502
hi, hoarding in progress...Found Classic II on internet ad site for decent price, quite a bargain.

I might get it just for spare keyboard, mouse, CRT, hdd and such. Judging by the case it looks ok (no cracks, dents), but its condition is unknown/non working. According to the seller it was kept in garage for years in Mac carry bag (included) and doesnt respond to switching power on at all. No picture, no jittering sound, nothing. I am trying to figure what might be wrong with it. Once I got Classic with severe PRAM battery spillage, but at least it showed those bars on screen unlike this one, no signs of life. I know it's impossible to diagnose it based on this description, but do you think it's totally hopeless condition?

 
It's hard to say. It could just be that the PSU is fried and everything upstream is okay, or it could be that everything inside has melted into an amorphous blob. If it's a decent price (like less than fifty dollars), I'd say go for it. The bag, case, peripherals, and any working internal parts are probably worth it. More than that and you're on thinner ice.

 
the logic board is filled with bad caps for one thing, and so is the analog board. 

if it was kept in non-climate controlled storage, its MURDER on the capacitors and rubber stuffs. Trust me. 

The other thing to worry about is the PRAM battery leaking/exploded, thus ruining the logic board. 

Pull it apart and check it out. 

 
If the price is right, I'd say it's worth the risk. Normally if it's battery leakage or bad capacitors it will still turn on, just not function. I suspect a PSU issue or lose connection.

 
If the price is right, I'd say it's worth the risk. Normally if it's battery leakage or bad capacitors it will still turn on, just not function. I suspect a PSU issue or lose connection. 
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I purchased my Classic II new, stored it away and 25 years later took it out of storage.  It would not turn on at all, nada, zero, nothing.  Opened it up to discover that the battery leaked all over the place.  After spending 4 months working on it every week night I was able to get it operate correctly again.  

I had to re-cap all the usual capacitors on the logic board as well as analog board. -and do some serious cleaning and run a few wires where traces were destroyed.  It needed other additional work, but that is what it took to at least get it to turn on. -lots of patience and about $30ish in capacitors.

 
thank you all for the tips, I just bought it for about $50 including original carry bag, mouse and keyboard. Let's see how it goes. 

I am not setting my hopes high, but at least it might be a CRT donor for my SE/30 (arent they the same?). 

 
Please don't tell me you paid $50 for a Classic II. They might be 030 but like the Classic I they're horribly crippled.

 
50 for a classic II with keyboard, with mouse, and with carry bag is definitely worth it, just for the peripherals alone. Unless of course you are selling similar packages for less?

 
ADB keyboards, mice and cables are not all that rare or uncommon. Most of use have more keyboards and mice than macs. Not so much dime a dozen but  $5 a dozen, sure.

Still, paying $50 for a mac which is not only an SE/30 with its arms and legs blown off in an industrial accident but doesn't even turn on is a huge gamble. If it was a real SE/30 sure it's worth it but it's a Classic. It's literally the worst series of compact macs Apple ever built.

 
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It's literally the worst series of compact macs Apple ever built.
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I don't agree with you, of course the Classic II is not really the successor of the SE/30, as the Classic was not a better SE, just keep in mind that both were sold in the Low Cost strategy (the IIsi, the LC and the Classic sharing the same design and low performance setup) but all of them were pretty well built.

The Classic is a Macintosh Plus in disguise, and the Plus is still seek after by collectors as a must have...

$50 is not a huge sum, and including mouse, keyboard and bag is a bonus.

look at all those skyrocketing Macintosh 128 and 512, most of them, apart from first of the line rarity are not really of any use today... but is just my two cents.

 
Man, CelGen. I don't know what area you're living in, but it must have some seriously slick deals on computer hardware.

Also, I'd agree with bibilit on the Classic II. Even sans expansion slot and with the 10 MB RAM limit, it's still the second-fastest compact Mac. The thing's not garbage by any means, and makes a perfectly reasonable $50 package with the keyboard, mouse, and bag.

 
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Keyboards and mice may be a dime a dozen, but getting your hands on one/both when you don't have them is the trick. Unless you have a generous buddy within driving distance willing to throw a spare at you, the best I've been able to do is $25 shipped for keyboard & mouse, and that was with a fair amount of hunting. 

Plus, the bag alone (assuming you wanted one enough to pay for it) is easily worth $50. I've never seen them on ebay go for less than $50; $80 or more plus shipping is more normal. They are handy, too, I have several that have come to me over the years with computers that people recycled from their basement into mine.

Hope there is some good stuff in that Classic II for you! Sometimes I can't resist buying an unknown status machine just to figure out what I can harvest from it.

 
CelGen: well yes, from North American point of view it's not a bargain, but bear in mind that I live in Central Europe, where you can't find many compact Macs in local ads, flea markets and such. Unlike C64, Amigas, 8 and 16 bit bit Ataris and ZX Spectrum. Some wiseguys over here want an equivalent of 18 bucks for a basic  ADB cable :-/  

 
I'm starting to think that Kamloops is magic-land for macs. They have giant mountains of them everywhere. People have to shovel ADB peripherals and 50-pin SCSI hard drives out of the way to get to work. SE/30's are used as doorstops and landfill.  ;)

Good deal for the haul if you live somewhere else though.

 
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CharlieFrown said:
CelGen: well yes, from North American point of view it's not a bargain, but bear in mind that I live in Central Europe, where you can't find many compact Macs in local ads, flea markets and such. Unlike C64, Amigas, 8 and 16 bit bit Ataris and ZX Spectrum. Some wiseguys over here want an equivalent of 18 bucks for a basic  ADB cable :-/
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I feel you

;)

In Portugal the few SE/30 you can find are 250€ a pop, or more...

There's this guy selling a rotten Original Macintosh online for 250€...  :p

250€~$280

 
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