I woke up one chilly morning in the middle of December, last year, to an eBay alert. There was a TAM bass unit available for less than $1000! I groggily reviewed the photos and made an impulse purchase after being "awake" for less than 3 minutes.
I was in luck but certainly not in a traditional way — the unit's exterior was trashed. The plastic was so brittle a bump would release another rattling piece from the interior. Parts were missing. There was a large dent and crack in the side. In short, it was hideous... but it worked!
This was a particularly lucky break because in the April prior I had won a $75 Yahoo Japan Auction for a TAM. But enough about all of that — let's look at the bass unit's guts!
Starting at the bottom we can see two obvious screws, these hold a black cable retainer in place for the "umbilical" cord which I previously documented. Under the two long rubber pads are 6 screws.
Before you go taking screws out I want to emphasize to notes:
My shell was already broken so I didn't mind prying from the bottom. It gave way after a struggle but not without breaking the top of an interior wall. You can see it circled in this next photo.
We get our first look at the inside and can immediately see three items of interest:
Moving on to the Bose PCB, we can see a few new details — particularly the hidden "TEST" connector at the top right of the board.
We also get our first look at the TAM umbilical routing. Here's a look at the Bose board connector with most of the connections from the TAM side — as no surprise.
But let's go deeper... what about the power supply? At first blush you would be forgiven for thinking it's a regular old G3 PSU.
Aside from the coated metal bracket, which we see at the top right, it all looks reasonably straight forward. I thought "Probably just a custom wire harness" (for the umbilical).
Close, but not cigar. The TAM PSU has an extra transformer and leads snaking off to other parts of the board.
Looking from the top we get another view of the differences.
All in all this little TAM adventure has cost me close to $400 and what was I left with? A TAM that boots to a white screen. Perhaps it's just a dead LCD? I guess that's an adventure for later days...
I was in luck but certainly not in a traditional way — the unit's exterior was trashed. The plastic was so brittle a bump would release another rattling piece from the interior. Parts were missing. There was a large dent and crack in the side. In short, it was hideous... but it worked!
This was a particularly lucky break because in the April prior I had won a $75 Yahoo Japan Auction for a TAM. But enough about all of that — let's look at the bass unit's guts!
Starting at the bottom we can see two obvious screws, these hold a black cable retainer in place for the "umbilical" cord which I previously documented. Under the two long rubber pads are 6 screws.
Before you go taking screws out I want to emphasize to notes:
- At least in my experience, the plastic was ridiculously brittle. I've worked with a lot of older Macintosh products, some nearly a decade older than the TAM — but this was by far the most brittle plastic I have ever worked with.
- I do not believe the TAM bass unit can be disassembled without at least a little damage.
My shell was already broken so I didn't mind prying from the bottom. It gave way after a struggle but not without breaking the top of an interior wall. You can see it circled in this next photo.
We get our first look at the inside and can immediately see three items of interest:
- The Bose amplifier board
- The power supply
- A bass speaker
Moving on to the Bose PCB, we can see a few new details — particularly the hidden "TEST" connector at the top right of the board.
We also get our first look at the TAM umbilical routing. Here's a look at the Bose board connector with most of the connections from the TAM side — as no surprise.
But let's go deeper... what about the power supply? At first blush you would be forgiven for thinking it's a regular old G3 PSU.
Aside from the coated metal bracket, which we see at the top right, it all looks reasonably straight forward. I thought "Probably just a custom wire harness" (for the umbilical).
Close, but not cigar. The TAM PSU has an extra transformer and leads snaking off to other parts of the board.
Looking from the top we get another view of the differences.
All in all this little TAM adventure has cost me close to $400 and what was I left with? A TAM that boots to a white screen. Perhaps it's just a dead LCD? I guess that's an adventure for later days...
