[NTLK] OT: Vintage Apple stuff, anyone?

[G. Isten]

Hi all, 

A number of you have expressed interest in those two 'black G3s'. Before we talk about shipping them, let me tell you what I found out.

I have good news and bad news. The good: They're both Pismos, and they both work. The bad: We can't find the power supplies, and each one has a little quirk.

An IT colleague filled me in as to their previous lives: one used to serve music in the IT lab, the other was used by our in-house user support. 

He said one has a defect in the monitor: there's a thin line running across the bottom of the screen. One would have to check if it's just a soldering that needs fixing; personally he would just live with it as it doesn't get in the way.

The other one has fried firewire. Other than that, it's fine. Of course, both batteries are old, no idea as to how long they would hold a charge. If he had found the power supplies, or at least one, he would have picked them up himself, he said. With the maximum of RAM, they could run Tiger...

Here are some pictures: 

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/4874770/1/old_gear?h=a72904

The order of the photos, from top left: 

01_Pismos_closed.jpg
02_Pismos_open.jpg
03_Pismos_PCMCIAside.jpg (the one on the right is missing the thingy to expel the card)
04_Pismos_CDside.jpg
05_Pismos_back.jpg
06_Pismos_bottoms.jpg
07_PismoA_left.jpg
08_PismoB_right.jpg
09_PismoA_left_serialno.jpg
10_PismoB_right_serialno.jpg

We have no idea which is which -- i.e., which of the two is the one without firewire and which is the one with the line on the screen. Any idea how to identify them without an original power supply?

I also picked up a 17-year-old "PowerCD" (photos 11_ thru 14_) with remote and manual. It looks pretty new (the protective thingy inside the drive is still there), but alas, we can't find the dock, and without that it's useless. Added the pictures in the event someone here has the missing part and could therefore use it. I admit, I have a soft spot for Apple's design of the 1990s; I liked the look and especially the feel of those dark gray devices (I still have a 190cs PowerBook somewhere).

Going through that enormous heap of stuff (which will get eliminated tomorrow morning *sigh*) was like travelling back in time. Pre-Ethernet... Those beige and grey LocalTalk boxes that dangled from our Macs and those LocalTalk 'routers' that allowed us to network our printers and the odd PC... And how expensive most of that stuff was (the first HD for my MacPlus, a 60Mb SCSI box, cost 2,300,000 lire -- way back then that was a month's salary, and a good one, at that)... 

Enough nostalgia. Let's be practical. Those two Pismos are no lightweights. Shipping one or both to any place outside the EU is not going to be cheap (I expect one would also have to pay customs duties, even if it's old stuff, right?), and they're not even in 100% perfect condition. So let's start afresh; now that you know what's wrong with them you can judge if you want to sink any money for the postage in it/them. If you do, please let me know off-list so I can check with the mail office if we have some deal going with any carrier for your destination. 

Ciao, 

Gisela