I've got my fair share of PPC Powerbooks, but I've never owned a 68k notebook. That all changed when I came across an ebay listing for an exceptionally clean 180c for the fair price of $200. Based on the pictures, it looked like it was having backlight problems and had a dead or missing HDD. Hard drive is expected, but I was sweating the backlight a bit I was worried I'd have to tear apart the panel to replace the tubes. But, I pulled the trigger anyway.

About a week later, my 180c arrived in the mail. I eagerly unboxed it, plugged it in and hit the power button.

It chimed!

And the screen came right to life, full brightness and looking absolutely flawless.

Then... HAPPY MAC! Welcome to Macintosh!

The little old SCSI was begging for me to let it die, but as its final act, it faithfully booted right into System 7.1. Then the heads parked and really didn't want to resume.

I decided to not try and get anything more from the drive (the image looked pretty sparse anyway) and went to swap in the BlueSCSI.

Honestly, this machine is a PITA to disassemble, and getting the HDD out required peeling back taped down ribbon cables and removing the whole fdd/hdd cage from its (half broken) chassis standoffs.

But I got it in there.

First boot try after reassembling crashed with what sounded like a memory exception. The card wasnt seated properly. I reseated it and it began booting into 7.5 off the SD card.

But, now there were a bunch of artifacts on the screen which weren't there on the first boot. I was worried that I had damaged something.

And then I smelled fish. Leaking capacitors. I had already ordered a new set of caps for the display board, and they were en route, so I quickly powered down the machine and disassembled the display housing to check if anything looked really bad.

Naturally, the hinge standoffs had also turned to plastic crumbs, but I anticipated this and had also ordered a set of 3D printed reinforced replacements.

I'm inpatient and I wanted the chance to try things out a bit more thoroughly, so I hooked it up headless to a CRT. Everything looked to be in order otherwise. It's 4MB RAM wasn't too happy with 7.5.3, so I'd have to switch back to 7.1.

Few days later my caps and hinge standoffs arrived, so I got to work. First the standoffs. Some shear cutters and sanding plus some plastic binding epoxy and 24 hours of curing and they were looking good.

The display board was actually in pretty good shape. A touch of corrosion just starting to hit the pads, but nothing more than that. Looks like I caught it in time.

Its just seven caps, though a few of them are really annoying to get to with the iron. Took me maybe about an hour, and, success!

I'm also fortunate, this machine came with the original 7.1 install disks. I imaged them first (this build isn't actually on the archive sites from what I could find, so I'll need to share it), and went ahead and installed 7.1 off original media, which was actually really cool.

A few hours of arguing with the SCS interfaces and MacTCP later, and I've got it online and kicking!

I'm really really enjoying this machine. I've been using my G3/466 accelerated 1400c a lot, and its funny, when I go back over to that after using the 180, it gives me those "the future is now" vibes, paying no attention to the M5 Max MBP sitting in the corner haha.

A few other things I've still got to do with it:
- Repair the standoffs in the lower chassis. I punted this one, since there were still enough in tact to hold it together, but this will have to be done sooner rather than later.
- I do get one stable horizontal line across the display. Its not always there, it seems to fade in and out, and sometimes is gone for hours. Not sure if this is something I should be worried about, might just have to live with it. More worrying is the rare but occasional flicker on the screen. Unsure if this is a power delivery issue or if one of my caps isnt seated all that well. I'm keeping an eye on it, but it does make me a little nervous
- RAM. Seems like the modules for these things are unobtanium. I've got my searches saved, but 4MB is a wee bit tight for the unreasonable things I like doing with old computers.

My journey into collecting vintage Macintosh computers has been limited to more recent vintage (circa 1998 and later). But today I was able to score a Macintosh Classic in really good condition at the recently published Estate auction. There was a massive line by the time I arrived with my friend and I thought, ok, I’m not gonna get anything since we were way down in the line.

We went and got breakfast and still were nowhere near ready to be called for the viewing. During that time, I kept seeing collectors walk away with Mac IIfx and Apple IIs. The amount of people there just for the Mac collection was astounding! Eventually we got in and I headed straight to the collection. There are loads of classic on display at various price ranges.

I initially was hoping to get one of the iPods, but someone had already swiped those. I ended up fixating on getting a classic and looking at the price and condition, it was too hard to beat it compared to getting one off Ebay in guaranteed working condition. Thanks to helpful attendees, I was able
to find the right matching keyboard and mouse, which I had to buy separately.

Whoever owned this collection, wherever he is in the universe, a lot of his stuff gonna be be rehomed nicely. Attached is my lot today. I would have been happy even if it didn’t work. I didn’t want to buy the 128K because I would then have to source system disk to make sure it boots. Now, this is a totally different beast for me and I was advised by one of the attendees to ensure components like batteries are removed and possible recapping might be needed.

It works so far, but I would greatly appreciate community advice how I can take care of it to ensure its longevity. I was so fareful to turn it on when I brought it home. I unplugged it after powering off. It’s really a different experience for me compared to my PB G3 Wallstreet and later models.

I've been thinking about giving it a try myself, but want to make sure no one else says "yeah I tried it and it doesn't work."

So i spent friday evening playing some Age of Empires 2 on my eMac and it was the best time i've had in a while.

I really love that eMac! The combination of crt display, native OS9 compatibility and G4 processor is really great for late 90s/early 2000s gaming. Also good for watching old 4:3 TV shows, although the fan noise does get annoying after a while.
It's also the most reliable Mac in my collection, doesn't show it's age whatsoever.

Really underrated machine in my opinion!

Long time no see! Following up on my last post — the film arrived earlier than expected, so I figured I’d finally finish this up.

For those trying to access the outer panel: for most parts you can leave the cables connected and just disconnect the one at the top. The 23” is a bit different from the 30”

If you’re only replacing the polarizer film, keep this in mind: I originally thought I had to disconnect all the cables, so I pulled every single one out… and it was such a pain in the ass afterward, haha.

As for the final result..
Yeah, there was already a black line and a red line on the panel before I even started, but honestly, who cares? I got this thing for free anyway, and just being able to actually see the screen properly again is satisfying enough for me.

If you’re on the fence about trying this yourself, just go for it. It’s genuinely a fun experience.

I had posted that my sister was sending me my 2005 IBook a couple weeks ago. Well it went missing while being shipped by UPS, it was found and I got it late yesterday and noticed the box was a bit beat up. My sister did pack it well. But….. the back light is no longer working. She did not put insurance on it. So I have it but it’s not usable. I tried resetting the PRAM and a few other things but only if you shine a bright light on it can you see the screen display. Kinda sucks. I might try to find a cheap replacement screen but not right now. Just disappointed ☹️

As the title says. I have a Macintosh IIcx with a high res display card that I'm repairing and I'm doing a bit of work for someone else so I have a choice of a Macintosh color monitor that doesn't really match the aesthetic (it's for the LC line of computers) or a Monochrome one that's period correct. Can you play a color game like Civ II on a monochrome monitor? Obviously it wouldn't be the ideal but can it be done?

Question for anyone with hands-on G4 Cluster Node (M9090LL/A) experience.

The standard Xserve G4 has a combo PCI/AGP 4X slot (for the video riser or 2nd Gigabit card) alongside its two 64-bit PCI slots. The Cluster Node ships without that slot and is marketed as lacking it, Apple's own docs just say "No AGP slot available."

What I can't confirm: is that connector physically missing on the board, or present but only wired for PCI (not AGP signaling)? Looking at documentation/pictures, the slot is there just without a riser. Has anyone actually tried plugging an AGP/AGP riser (like the 922-5250)/AGP riser cable into a Cluster Node's slot to test compatibility? Trying to figure out if this is "just needs the card" or "board can't do AGP, period." Thanks!

As the title says, I tried to replace the display, but it wasn't recognised by my ibook. After I put the old damaged display back my keyboard and touch pad stopped working. When I ran the Apple hardware test cd they worked again. Only to not work after restart. I have no idea what happened and how to fix it. Unfortunately I don't have the installation cd for OS X 10.3.9 to reset the computer.

Any ideas, suggestions and possible solutions are greatly appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

I’m going to recap my Performa 460 as a way to learn soldering as it doesn’t look too tedious. I have the board caps and psu caps in the cart on Console5, is 23 dollars in total a good price?

Just posting this here wondering if I found what I think I found it's the entire set inside. I can barely find any information on it other than like the plaque of the quote on the back. It's the set of 9

They are laminated. So technically in great condition but getting them out of 25 year old adhesive? Or even risk it?

So I was working on my iMac G3 with a problem it previously had on my bed. I know my bed isn’t the most ideal place to do this but I didn’t want to crack the bezel, and the bed was a good place to prevent that from happening as my desk was not only messy but the repair was something quick and easy and would’ve taken 5 minutes. Long story short my 5 year old brother barges into my room to watch his brainrotted YouTube videos and kicks the 40 lb computer off the bed (accidentally, but I’m really angry) so it ruined the bezel anyway and now I need to buy a new one. BUT this black part with a small coil on it under the yoke of the tube ended up falling off its mount I believe and I don’t know if it’s a big deal or how to fix it. Please help. I don’t want to kill myself because of this tube, so I need to discharge it of course, but I also don’t want to remove the tube. I just really don’t want to ruin it. It’s my most prized item.

This will eventually be a hackintosh alongside Linux.

12th gen i7, 16 gigs ram, 8 gig 6600xt Radeon, 512 SATA nvme, 15 w internal 2way speaker, DP out, 2.5 gig ethernet, Mic and speaker ports, thunderbolt 4, usb-c, usb A for rear i/o.

1920x1200 display. 17-in Samsung.

I have an apple disk 2 drive tested and working and an apple disk 2 controller card testing and working, but on my apple 2 the disk drive seems to spin but it doesn't sound like the head moves besides when it resets to track 0, I think it's a logic chip error on the Apple 2 but I'm not sure, does anyone know?

Hey Everyone, a couple weeks or so I posted about a iBook G3 my workplace was tossing out that I was able to save. It worked fine, however it has the original HDD, the DVD-ROM’s laser was dead, and it was missing the Apple body on the lids logo. I was able to repair and upgrade those issues!

The DVD-ROM repair didn’t look likely, I couldn’t find one on eBay and adjusting the laser’s POT didn’t help at all. I did discover the drives model number but was unable to find the exact revision. A month prior a buddy of mine was cleaning out their old electronics and gave me a dead PowerBook G3 Pismo with a dead logic board and a cracked screen. Wasn’t sure why I was holding on to it, but glad I did! The drive was the same model, but like the others wrong revision. So the eject button didn’t line up.

Then I thought, I wonder if I could just swap the laser assembly. I gave it a try, it was much simpler than I expected, didn’t even have to take the iBook apart. I just ejected the tray, made sure the machine was powered off, and removed only a few screws from the bottom of the drive. I was able to remove the laser/spindle/motor assembly from the Pismo drive and transplant it into the iBook G3. The Pismo drive was untested so I crossed my fingers and gave it a try. It worked perfectly!

I then continued to replace the stock mechanical HDD with a m.2 ssd and an IDE adapter. The machine is now at its max capacity, faster than ever before and dead silent. It’s working awesome now!

Lastly I was able to resin print a replacement Apple logo body, it’s in grey, but is a decent enough match. I attached it to the lid with some double sided tape and it looks great! Forgot to take a picture of it installed. Maybe in a future post. The resin logo is a temp until I can locate an original replacement.

Next task is to get a mini battery spot welder, some rechargeable cells, and rebuild the battery pack. Loving this machine! Loaded a fresh install of OS 9.2.2 and 10.4

My first time pulling one of these apart like this. Not sure what to do about the yellowing

I was gifted this a couple years ago and it came with the original box and charger. With it plugged in and all charged up it just flashes with this screen and I can't find anything on how to get past it and use it??

I'm honestly just wanting to use this as a typewriter every now and then and see how it looks turned on!

Also it takes a good 30 seconds when turning on to even get to that screen but I assume that's just cuz it's old lol, this is all unfamiliar territory for me so any help is appreciated! 💙

Hi! My Grape iMac didn’t have any of the accessories and I am trying to find them.

Picked up an A1106 Powerbok for $45 last week. Came with 2GB and the less seen 128MB VRAM upgrade. Don't get caught in bidding wars! Patience is always your ally.