• Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.

Government auctions are cool!

luckybob

6502
Went to a government auction the other day. Ran by the dept. of corrections. Meaning all the work was done by inmates. You get free loading of your car/truck etc. Anyway, long story short, the very last items up for bidding were a few ppc macs and a very nice color classic. I ended up winning all the systems for a total of $120.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being flawless in box, the color classic was about a 1.5. I don't think this thing was ever used. Its just TOO clean. It might have ONE shade of fade, but you have to put a color swatch up to it to tell. The hard drive was removed. I spent about 2 hours today wondering why it would not turn on. I'm a bit ashamed to admit, but after a little googling, i learned you need to hit the power button on the keyboard to boot it. Just flipping the power switch wont work like on other macs. :I The hard drive was removed, however it looked like it never had one. But I slapped in a 7.1 floppy and it booted fine. YAY!

#2 I got a 17" apple LCD. The one with only one cable. Looks like DVI, but has round ends. A bit of investigation tells me I need an adapter to get it to work. I probably will keep it. Its a slick looking screen, and if I can grab an adapter cheap... probably a 3 in quality.

#3 A 600mhz imac, Graphite. Seems like this is almost the very last CRT imac made. Whatever school It used to be in, didn't wipe the drive. had os 10.3 on it. SLOW AS freaking mud. However it looks liek they at least upgraded it to 1gb of ram. I'd say almost a 2 in quality

#4 A 300mhz G3 blue tower. no drives, but it seems to be okay. Didn't like my 7.1 floppy, but I havent had the time to play with it anymore. looks like it was upgraded to 128mb of ram though. Some jerk closed the side on the modem cable, destroying it. Not that I will EVER use a modem again, but its the principle of it. Defiantly a 3.

#5 500mhz G$ grey server. Another system they should have wiped but didn't. This one came from a prison, I forget which one, but I got an intimate look at their office budget! They paid a LOT for laser printing toner in 2011! Had the original 18gb scsi, just sitting in the box, next to a pair of 120gb ide drives. The ide drives I wiped already, I will probably use them in my own server that I want to put together. it also looks like they put some extra ram in it as well. maybe a 2.5 here.

(3 couple usb keyboards as well)

I have no real desire to use these macs. I bought the lot just for the color classic. I'm only really interested in the pre-ppc macs and a passing interest in the beige ppc's, so would I be better off parting them out or what?

 
Maybe sell them either here, or seperately on eBay. Or give them away here.

As for the G3, it will take 8.1 minimum, hence why your 7.1 floppy didn't work, I bet if you put an 8.1 -> 10.2 disc in it'd boot straight up.

 
With enough RAM (as yours has) the upper end G3 iMacs do pretty well with X. The only downside is the older Gx chipset and their lack of acceleration issues under X. I'm guessing it just needs a fresh paving with 9 or your choice of X

 
If you decide to part them out, is there a hard drive carrier in the blue tower G3? On Saturday past, I was given a 733MHz Digital Audio G4. I got the box only, no monitor, keyboard or mouse. When I looked inside, the hard drive had been removed, but the carrier had not been put back in.....

 
#4 A 300mhz G3 blue tower. no drives, but it seems to be okay. Didn't like my 7.1 floppy, but I havent had the time to play with it anymore. looks like it was upgraded to 128mb of ram though. Some jerk closed the side on the modem cable, destroying it. Not that I will EVER use a modem again, but its the principle of it. Defiantly a 3.
Unless I'm mistaken or there's some third party hardware in play here, I didn't think the Blue G3 had a floppy. They did however have a ZIP 100 drive option.

 
sorry for late replies, busy week. what with company from out of town, turkey day, and my furnace deciding to commit seppuku, its been an eventful week.

@imac600

I misspoke. It does NOT have a floppy drive. I was actually using a 7.1 boot CD, that has all the system installs for 1.0 to 8.something.

@kc13

It looks to have ONE of the hard drive tray, the front one.

@theos911

Once I "get a round to it" I'll blow away the school teacher stuff on it and go with something that will run properly. I will probably take your suggestion of OS 9.

I will probably make a decision of what to do with these things this weekend. I think shipping these things whole might be cost prohibitive. My last package was a heavy AT desktop case and that cost me $35 fedex once all the dust settled. Part of me likes the all-in-one g3. but with a plus and color classic, there just isnt the desk room for everyone. I do like the graphite color.

 
Re: the B&W - find a 400 or 450MHz G3 chip. Direct swap in, just have to change the jumper settings once you do that. Or find a G4 ZIF chip, install the correct firmware on the machine, and run that. With respect to the modem, swap it out for a gPort. That way, you can hook up your legacy serial accessories to it, if needed. 10.4.11 is fast enough on a G3, especially if you replace the Rage 128 with something more modern, like a Radeon 7000. Ran one for a couple years without complaints. I did eventually replace it with my current G4, but, in a pinch, I'd still be running the old G3.

-J

 
Back
Top