*Least* collectable Compacts?

[Bunsen]

Heyo,

As I'm slowly working towards a variety of casemods using compacts, I want to seek the opinion of members as to which of the compacts are the most common. Note that I'm talking about the cases themselves here - any working parts retrieved will be offered up for sale or trade. Essentially, if you had a variety of compact shells, and you were going to perform somewhat destructive mods to them, which would you choose?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Older brown Plus is probably the most common. Then probably the SE, then probably the Classic.

 

[jsarchibald]

Agree with Anonymous Freak.

Hope you're not taking apart perfectly good machines to mod? There are plenty in non operational condition for that purpose.

 

[LCGuy]

I'd say the Classic or Classic II, easily.

 

[Unknown_K]

Classic II or SE probably. Even if the machine is working don't worry about gutting one for a case mode, plenty of people will need the internal parts to fix their dead machines and those are cheaper and easier to ship then a whole system.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Classic. The Plus at least has Trekkie collectable value, and no small amount of nostalgia.

 

[macman142]

Interesting how there's a few varied answers here. Doubt anyone will say "512k" or "128k" but so far we've got beige Plus, SE, Classic and Classic II already.

Personally, I think the Classic is the most common. Especially the educational one without HDD. I think I must have about 10 of them 8-o

Also it depends on what this "mod" is but the Classic is probably the most recognisable to most people too.

 

[Scott Baret]

Some time ago on these forums we had a list of compact mac variants. If you look at specific varieties and configurations, I'd say by far the most common are:

1. Macintosh Classic with 2MB RAM and 40MB Conner drive, revision B analog board.

(This would make sense since Apple sold a ton of these for the 1991-1992 school year, at which point the revision B board was used throughout the line).

2. Macintosh SE (800k model) with 1988 copyright badge, 1MB RAM, and 20MB MiniScribe drive.

(This would also make sense since the majority of SEs were produced during the time frame of 1988 to mid-1989).

3. Macintosh Plus 1MB, beige case.

(Again, this makes perfect sense, as the Plus was one of only two models sold when it had a beige case and was far more popular than the 512K models of the day; the platinum Plus was produced far longer, but in lesser quantities since Apple sold lots of SEs to potential Plus customers).

Note all configurations are what the Mac shipped with out of the box.

I wouldn't put the Classic II on this list, as there seem to be more 68000-powered machines than anything out there.

 

[beachycove]

Apple itself said in marketing material that the Classic was the best selling Compact. What best selling means is another matter -- most as in total number, or greatest volume in a quarter, etc.?

I am miffed that people are saying bad things about the Classic II. It is not a bad little 'appliance'.

 

[FlyingToaster]

I've owned around a dozen compact macs and the classic 1 seems to be the cheapest and most common. Now every single one of them is off the wall in price even if it's broken.

 

[classic]

perform somewhat destructive mods

Is this an art project?

I was quite impressed by this G3/G4?:

 

[Gorgonops]

It's unrelated, of course, but currently I'm debating whether I want to use a spare Commodore PET chassis for a case mod or not. On one hand it's just begging to have a modern motherboard installed, as the case is plenty roomy and would require little more than drilling a few holes to fit a Mini-ATX motherboard into it. But of course on the other hand... they ain't making any more of them. I'm sort of considering a middle ground where I go ahead and install the motherboard in it but cheating when it comes to the keyboard area. (IE, instead of cutting/enlarging the original holes in the keyboard bezel to fit a newer keyboard I'll just lay one of those thin "it's like a laptop keyboard" mini-keyboards over the existing hole and try to make it look as original as possible by building up the top with plastic molding that could be removed in the future. The original keyboard is missing so making a protocol converter for a complete stealth mod isn't an option.)

 

[trag]

I am miffed that people are saying bad things about the Classic II. It is not a bad little 'appliance'.

I think the Classic II gets a bad reputation because of what it could/should have been.

It could have been an updated, perhaps faster SE/30. If the SE/30 was a IIcx in a compact case, then the Classic II could have been a IIci, or an LCIII+ in a compact case. Instead it was more of an LCII in a compact case.

Taken alone, it probably is a fine little appliance (don't have one) but in comparison to what it should/could have been, it's quite a disappointment.

 

[beachycove]

Apple hobbles its low end machines to this day, in order to sell its high end machines to those who need the whiz bang features, and in order to maximize profits on what it sells at the low end. Take the antiquated screen resolution of a 13" MacBook, for example, or dual versus quad core i7s. But what stands at the low end is still a good appliance, even if a more limited one in the long term.

In the present case, to compare an SE/30 and a Classic II is really a bit much. The SE/30 was a high end machine and the Classic II a low end machine. You bought a Plus at the low end when the SE/30 was marketed; by the time the Classic II was being manufactured, it was effectively the base model (the Performa 200, 400, and 600 series is revealing -- a lousy Performa 600 was a big step up from what the Classic II was designed to be), whereas the equivalent in marketing terms for an SE/30 was maybe the Quadra 700. I doubt that even Apple had the ability to shoehorn the equivalent of a Quadra 700 into a Compact case back in those days.

So yes, I understand the sense of disappointment felt about the Classic II and even remember it from those days, but we mustn't compare oranges with Apples, ho ho ho. Besides, as a basic consumer machine, the Classic II did what it was supposed to do rather well. It ran Word 5.1 or ClarisWorks surprisingly well.

Essentially, what this means is that people who talk about the Classic II as the SE/30's successor are talking foolishness. It's more like the Plus's successor, from the very end of the Plus's run, and as such it's not a bad piece of kit.

 

[macquarium]

One more vote for the Classic and Classic II. I'd not hesitate to turn a duff one into a MacQuarium, whereas an SE/30 or Plus you'd put some effort into sourcing replacement internals to resurrect.

Yes, the SE/30 was a high end machine whereas the Classics were cheap low end machines. There are heaps of them about and they're more limited in their real world usefulness in the year 2011. That equals lower collectivity value. Which makes the insane prices they've been going for on eBay lately even more daft.

The Color Classic is of course just as hobbled, but it's colour, it's cute and it's easily upgraded, so we love it!

Cheers, Ben.

 

[Bunsen]

Hope you're not taking apart perfectly good machines to mod?

Well, I would *start* with non-functional ones, of course }

Examples would be:

• 040 logic board and 9" POS CRT
  
• LGA775/Core2Duo logic board and LCD
  
• Speaker/s, amp and battery w/ iPod dock
  
• maxed-out SE/30

The last of course would be in a clean, well-preserved and unaltered SE/30 shell. Motherboard type mods I can probably do stealth, using the original ports with adapter cables, or added port boards in existing cutouts. I have a couple of shells with some damage - a hole busted out of the top in one, for example, which might suit for the iPod dock/speaker hack. That one, and possibly others, will probably have a paint or dye job done on it too - gloss white or satin black.

It's a real shame that a genuine '040 classic was never introduced.

 

[Mac128]

It's a real shame that a genuine '040 classic was never introduced.

Not to split hairs, but the Colour Classic is easily upgraded with a 575 board (which may have been the original intent with the CC design, until Sculley got it in his head that bigger was better). So in my mind it was effectively introduced if not literally. In much the same way as putting an LC 475 board into an LC III gives you an "LC IV" which Apple probably considered at one point. Again, the idea that one can simply slide in another Apple logic board and have it work perfectly without any mods, suggests that Apple was only one marketing campaign away from introducing it as an official model".

Not sure if you are limiting yourself to the original compact form factor or not, since the CC is definitely not the same footprint thanks to the color CRT. In which case, yes it is sad there is no B&W '040 "Classic III" compact. However, the SE/30 had an easy upgrade path via an '040 PDS slot upgrade. So in that sense, while not an official Apple product, again an extremely simple way to convert a B&W compact into an '040 (at least at the time). Now if it's a literal "Classic" design you want, then we're back to "yup it is a real shame".

 

[Bunsen]

Not sure if you are limiting yourself to the original compact form factor or not, since the CC is definitely not the same footprint thanks to the color CRT.

No, there are definitely CC mods in my future. There, I am far more motivated to do stealth-style mods and avoid any case modifications at all. So, consider them relatively safe It was thoughts on the other, 9" greyscale classics I was seeking.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Not to split hairs, but the Colour Classic is easily upgraded with a 575 board

And man, I wish I'd done it sooner. A Mystic is a wonderful unit. I'm trying to find the right screws to fix the custom backplate on, and then it's good to go.