The permanent marker mostly came off with a 50/50 mix of isopropyl and acetone. I took care of the plastics, removing the paint with hot water followed by a baking soda scrub. Given that I purchased it for only $60, and that only true fans would mourn its possible death, I decided this would be the perfect project for my son to go solo on. Clearly this particular Mac needed some love. The keyboard had similar markings, although without the attempt at removal.Ĭosmetics aside, the computer was also deader than advertised: “works as great today as it did 15 years ago!” bragged the listing… but powering it up did not include the happy chime (or even a sad one) and the display very slowly warmed up to a dim checkerboard pattern. The cosmetic condition wasn’t well-disclosed on the Facebook Marketplace listing: previous attempts to remove the permanent marker identifying it as classroom computer “#30” had resulted in stripped finish and smeared marker on the top of the computer - which had been covered by a mis-matched off-white paint. That was the history of our Classic II: purchased from a retired teacher, who’d acquired it after it was retired from a classroom. A compromised system architecture (a 32-bit chip throttled by a 16-bit data path) made it a poor replacement for the now- legendary SE/30, it did find itself a niche as a low cost compact computer for education. The Classic II was no one’s favorite Macintosh. I normally only post these projects in their own separate little nerdy section of the website, but this one was special, ’cause my son had the lead… Got an old computer you want restored? Or some data on ancient floppy disks you’d like to see again? We love a challenge - contact us! You can scroll through the post history in the section, and see them all, or use this index to jump to your favorite machine… Plus, having a hobby keeps me (and Nicole!) sane.

I learned a lot doing that - and managed to avoid electrocuting myself - then decided it might make a fun and profitable hobby for my son and I.Īs you’ll see from the entries, the profit part is usually missing, but restoring these little bundles of computer history has other rewards. Although most of my professional life is software (which tends to overflow into personal projects) this section of the website is dedicated to recording the computers I bring back to life (or my failures in doing so, where appropriate!) I got into this in early 2019 when I determined it was time to revive my original Mac Plus that has traveled the continent with me for two decades, slowly losing its will to live.

Atari 1040st emulator mac