I spotted a local Craigslist ad the other day offering some old Macs for $50. There were virtually no details and only one unfocused picture so I wasn't exactly confident that it was going to be a worthwhile endeavor but the seller was quite close to me so we arranged to meet after lunch. The ad did mention that the bundle contained a Mac Plus and since I have a Plus with a cursed motherboard that's never worked properly, I hoped that I might be able to harvest some parts at least.
I was a bit disappointed when the lady rolled up at our meeting spot and showed me the Macs: one Classic and two Plusses… all missing their case screws, one of the Plusses missing its motherboard, and no accessories at all. I opted to proceed with the purchase anyways (if nothing else, the cases and CRT’s appeared to be in good shape!), and we left on good terms.
I was surprised a short while later when the seller texted me again to say that she’d looked in her garage and found a bunch of additional stuff that went with the Macs, including the missing Plus motherboard! We met up again and when I realized that the accessories alone were worth more than I’d paid for the Macs, I gave her some additional funds and we once again parted on good terms.
Here's the status / condition of the three Macs:
The biggest happy surprise in all of this for me is the set of accessories: a ton of useful cables, an external floppy drive, various software disks, two 128k/512k/Plus-style mice, and the crown jewel: an absolutely pristine “Platinum Plus” keyboard. It’s the same style I first learned to touch-type on back in the 90s and it still ranks highly in my list of all-time best keyboards.
Now I have two questions for the group:
I was a bit disappointed when the lady rolled up at our meeting spot and showed me the Macs: one Classic and two Plusses… all missing their case screws, one of the Plusses missing its motherboard, and no accessories at all. I opted to proceed with the purchase anyways (if nothing else, the cases and CRT’s appeared to be in good shape!), and we left on good terms.
I was surprised a short while later when the seller texted me again to say that she’d looked in her garage and found a bunch of additional stuff that went with the Macs, including the missing Plus motherboard! We met up again and when I realized that the accessories alone were worth more than I’d paid for the Macs, I gave her some additional funds and we once again parted on good terms.
Here's the status / condition of the three Macs:
- The Classic is in great physical shape and (shockingly!) the PRAM battery was still intact - a huge improvement over my previous Classic with a battery-bombed motherboard. The motherboard caps are swollen and it doesn’t do anything beyond spinning the fan when I apply power, but I’m optimistic that it can be brought back to life. I've only ever recapped through-hole stuff so I'm very open to tips on how to replace these surface-mount capacitors without damaging the board...
- The “Platinum” Plus (the one that had its motherboard when I bought the set) was totally dead at first, but upon closer inspection I noticed that the cable connecting the motherboard to the analog / power board was not fully seated. Once I fixed that, the machine fired right up and booted happily from my Floppy Emu! The image on the CRT needs a bit of height adjustment, but otherwise this machine seems to be in good working order. Amazing! Not only does it seem to work fine, it already has the maximum 4MB of RAM, which is pretty great.
- The final Plus (the one originally lacking a motherboard) got reassembled during my lunch break yesterday. When I first tried powering it up I heard the standard beep but there was no image on screen (yes I checked the brightness knob LOL). I let it sit for a little longer and suddenly it 'woke up' and asked for a boot disk! Once I hooked up my Floppy Emu, I was able to confirm that it's a 1MB model and seems to work fine.
The biggest happy surprise in all of this for me is the set of accessories: a ton of useful cables, an external floppy drive, various software disks, two 128k/512k/Plus-style mice, and the crown jewel: an absolutely pristine “Platinum Plus” keyboard. It’s the same style I first learned to touch-type on back in the 90s and it still ranks highly in my list of all-time best keyboards.
Now I have two questions for the group:
- I’ve done a fair bit of recapping of through-hole capacitors, but never the surface-mount ones like the Classic motherboard uses. Should I invest in a set of solder-tweezers, or do you have a better suggestion?
- Where can I find three sets of the appropriate Torx case screws for these Macs? It’s the first time I’ve ever had this many without a single screw to hold them together!
