Good thing I kept a spare...

[LCGuy]

So this afternoon I fired up the LCIII to write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. Nothing quite like doing word processing on a 68k Mac with ClarisWorks 2, and the good old Apple Extended Keyboard II. Then I went to print, which involved turning on my StyleWriter II, and it didn't turn on. Checked the power cable at both ends, tried a different power cable in a different power point, nothing. The power supply was obviously dead. Then I remembered - I still have the borked SWII I picked up at the local Lifeline thrift store a couple of years back, which had a good power supply. Plugged that one in and turned it on, it came alive, so the PSU was good. Pulled both SWIIs to bits, put them next to each other, connected the Lifeline SWII's power supply to the mainboard on my good SWII, and turned it on. It worked! So I unplugged it all, removed the PSUs from both printers, and put the Lifeline SWII's PSU in my good StyleWriter II. Put it all back together, plugged it back into the LCIII and hey presto, one working printer.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there...if there's any vintage hardware that you really care about, try and get your hands on a duplicate, regardless of its condition so that you have something to pirate parts from if you have the need. While the mechanical part of the Lifeline SWII isn't so great, the mechanical stuff is usually pretty reliable, its the electronics that I'm worried about, and all the electronics in the Lifeline SWII (apart from the dead PSU it now has) are in good condition. I'm glad I was able to get my good SWII working again, even though its not completely original now, it was the one we got when we got the LCIII brand new back in 1993.

 

[Byrd]

It's good to hold onto small things like these - I've a large plastic tub of power bricks saved from over the years which I'm always delving into - replacement bricks from Jaycar and the like cost a bomb and sometimes not worth resurrecting something over if you have to fork out $$ for it. Same goes with motherboards, LCD panels, etc - just the small things.

JB

 

[LCGuy]

Oh yeah, I have a mile of old power adapters as well, most of them will probably never get used, but I keep them simply because they might come in handy some day. In addition to that I also have miles upon miles of old cables for various things (most likely enough to stretch from here to Sydney and back) that I've collected over the years.

As for the StyleWriter II, I had a look at the service manual before, and whats interesting is that it seems that Apple didn't even want AASPs to swap out PSUs on them, rather they seemed to prefer they simply replace the entire printer instead. I can't understand why, its a simple enough procedure.

 

[Byrd]

Another bloody handy thing to keep is the tiny screws that hold together random laptops - if you're junking one, keep all the screws handy. You can't get them anywhere and almost always something comes along at a later date - eg. phone, PDA, laptop - and you'll have an exact fit.

Of course, keeping the standard case screws etc. is another good idea.

Cables I tend to not keep as much now, apart from a tub of commonly used audio/video cables, monitor cables, etc. - they're generally so cheap if I'm building a PC for someone and I don't have it, they can get it from their local PC store for a few bucks.

JB

 

[LCGuy]

Oh yeah, I have a couple of vegemite jars full of screws that I'e taken out of stuff over the years, I also keep specialised screws - for example, some Compaqs need special mounting screws for the drives, and unless you're very lucky and a hardware store has something similar, the only place you can get them from is another Compaq PC, so those get kept as well.