[NTLK] Off Topic: Macintosh SE/30 - to buy or not to buy?

[Forrest]

Let me chime in here and mention to William another option. You should check online and see if there's a local Apple Users' Group near you. Depending on the size of the metropolis (?!) you live in, there's a good chance there either was one or used to be one.

Sadly, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple one of the first things that started to happen was that the gradual decline of information shared with those users' groups. If none exist, there's likely a former member/officer of the group that can either assist you with James' suggestions, or knows someone who can. Perhaps there's a Mom and Pop Apple store--that was all we had until 2001 when the first Apple Retail Store opened. They are also possibly a good source for repair work.

I remember about eight years ago visiting the home of the president of the Tucson Area Users' Group (Tucson, AZ). I needed System 6 (and wanted DOS 3.3) on Mac formatted floppies for my Mac Classic, as I was bootstrapped. If memory serves me correctly, the room into which he had his Apples and Macs installed was about 10' x 15' and had a continuous waist-high shelf around the room mounted about two feet deep. On the shelf at various points were a couple of Apple IIs (with matching floppy drives and monitors), a Mac Classic, a newer iMac, a Mac Pro, several large Cinema displays, a IIc, a IIgs, and so on.

The point being: he has old machines. I'm sure they either break down or need "outpatient" work, like caps replaced, etc.

Thanks,
--Forrest

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On Nov 2, 2012, at 12:50 PM, James Fraser <wheresthatistanbul-newtontalk at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The floppy drive will probably need to be cleaned and lubricated as well, seeing as how it's a 20-plus year old machine.  If you have the recapping done by someone else, be sure to ask if they can take care of that for you as well.  If you want to do it yourself, either Vintage Macs or 68kMLA should be able to offer guidance (assuming a walk-through can't be found in the FAQs).