It all started when I was at an estate sale. An old lady who had worked for NASA was selling her home, and emptying out all of her old possessions.
Sitting on the shelf, I saw them. Two beauties. A Macintosh SE and a Macintosh Classic. I had no idea if there was a market for these things, or if they worked, but I immediately wanted them. She was asking $75 each. Also included was an Apple Keyboard, Apple Stickers, a set of System Disks, and a shrink-wrapped Macintosh Users Guide. I got both computers and the whole lot of extras for $70 total.
One problem was that the keyboard had no ADB cable, and there was no mouse. So I couldn't use either of them. I realized I would need to "go deeper". I did clean both units, and boot them up. The Classic did not boot from the hard drive. It powered on, got the :beige: , but then froze. I didn't know if this was due to the lack of keyboard. Putting in the Disk Tools disk (the only bootable floppy I had access to), didn't change anything.
The SE also failed to boot from its hard drive. But with the Disk Tools disk, it started up fine! I was very excited to see a working system, even though I could not interact with the system due to the lack of keyboard wire and mouse.
And this was the state of my Vintage Mac collection for some time. I made a mental note to acquire the ADB cable and Mouse. I looked at eBay and was pretty disappointed at the high prices. I checked craigslist and failed to find anything. So I kept my machines in the closet.
Later, I decided it would be a good idea to sell one of the machines, and use the money to get the parts I needed for the other. Eventually I decided I would sell the Classic, and keep the SE, because the SE booted, and the Classic didn't. I thought I would have the best chance of having a working compact Mac by keeping the SE.
I sold the Classic on craigslist for $30, in a matter of days. I quickly regretted this. It was a very clean and beautiful machine.
The void that I was feeling by losing the Classic caused me to double down on my cause of acquiring a working machine. I saw an old Plus listed on craigslist, with no price indicated. The listingw was a little bit old. I put out a feeler and told the guy to give me a call if he hadn't sold it yet. Later that day, he called me, and I asked him what he wanted for it. His response? "At this point, I'd probably just give it away." I tried to hide my excitement, and went to pick it up several hours later.
Turns out, I was picking up a Macintosh Plus with working Keyboard, Trackball, and ImageWriter II printer. All of it in pretty good condition, although dirty (it had been in storage). I got it home and cleaned it up. Unfortunately, turning it on caused the floppy drive to make a repeated clicking sound. I opened her up and took the floppy disk apart, cleaning it using the instructions I found on this site. I restored motion to the joints. The eject motor was dead, so I took it off, and decided to use the manual paper-clip eject method. Unfortunately, there also seemed to be a problem with the motor that moved the read/write head, or the motor that spins the disk.
After about 2-3 hours of tinkering, I retired the Plus floppy drive into Mac Heaven (my closet). [if anyone needs parts from it, or the whole thing, let me know.]
My SE, Plus, and ImageWriter II
Net cost: $40.
To be continued... how I got an LC III and saved the day...
Sitting on the shelf, I saw them. Two beauties. A Macintosh SE and a Macintosh Classic. I had no idea if there was a market for these things, or if they worked, but I immediately wanted them. She was asking $75 each. Also included was an Apple Keyboard, Apple Stickers, a set of System Disks, and a shrink-wrapped Macintosh Users Guide. I got both computers and the whole lot of extras for $70 total.
One problem was that the keyboard had no ADB cable, and there was no mouse. So I couldn't use either of them. I realized I would need to "go deeper". I did clean both units, and boot them up. The Classic did not boot from the hard drive. It powered on, got the :beige: , but then froze. I didn't know if this was due to the lack of keyboard. Putting in the Disk Tools disk (the only bootable floppy I had access to), didn't change anything.
The SE also failed to boot from its hard drive. But with the Disk Tools disk, it started up fine! I was very excited to see a working system, even though I could not interact with the system due to the lack of keyboard wire and mouse.
And this was the state of my Vintage Mac collection for some time. I made a mental note to acquire the ADB cable and Mouse. I looked at eBay and was pretty disappointed at the high prices. I checked craigslist and failed to find anything. So I kept my machines in the closet.
Later, I decided it would be a good idea to sell one of the machines, and use the money to get the parts I needed for the other. Eventually I decided I would sell the Classic, and keep the SE, because the SE booted, and the Classic didn't. I thought I would have the best chance of having a working compact Mac by keeping the SE.
I sold the Classic on craigslist for $30, in a matter of days. I quickly regretted this. It was a very clean and beautiful machine.
The void that I was feeling by losing the Classic caused me to double down on my cause of acquiring a working machine. I saw an old Plus listed on craigslist, with no price indicated. The listingw was a little bit old. I put out a feeler and told the guy to give me a call if he hadn't sold it yet. Later that day, he called me, and I asked him what he wanted for it. His response? "At this point, I'd probably just give it away." I tried to hide my excitement, and went to pick it up several hours later.
Turns out, I was picking up a Macintosh Plus with working Keyboard, Trackball, and ImageWriter II printer. All of it in pretty good condition, although dirty (it had been in storage). I got it home and cleaned it up. Unfortunately, turning it on caused the floppy drive to make a repeated clicking sound. I opened her up and took the floppy disk apart, cleaning it using the instructions I found on this site. I restored motion to the joints. The eject motor was dead, so I took it off, and decided to use the manual paper-clip eject method. Unfortunately, there also seemed to be a problem with the motor that moved the read/write head, or the motor that spins the disk.
After about 2-3 hours of tinkering, I retired the Plus floppy drive into Mac Heaven (my closet). [if anyone needs parts from it, or the whole thing, let me know.]
My SE, Plus, and ImageWriter II
Net cost: $40.
To be continued... how I got an LC III and saved the day...
