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Along with leaking batteries and failing capacitors, hard disk drives are one of the common failure points these days in vintage computer systems of all shapes and sizes. My own vintage Mac collection is no exception, so to get ahead of the curve I've spent the last year slowly converting my...

So I am struggling mightily to get an SSD up and running in my 1.25 GHz 17" iMac G4. I had success with using one of the red Startech IDE-to-mSATA adapters in my 15", so I thought that the same thing might work here. But alas... The 17" model differs significantly in that it has two IDE...

For the first time in my 10+ years of tinkering, collecting, and working generally with vintage Macs, I finally have a proper workbench space. Woohoo! In the past I've resorted to doing cleaning, tinkering, and/or repairs (sometimes involving soldering, polishing, and other messy activities)...

Just sharing some images of this neat little device I acquired recently, the Dr. Bott MoniSwitch ADC, which is a KVM switch that allows you to hook up two ADC-based Macs to a single display and switch between them at the press of a button. It also allows you to share any peripherals attached to...

Sharing a very nice recent find - this Power Mac G4 MDD. It is one of the early 2003 "FireWire 800" models, specifically the dual-processor 1.25 GHz machine. I purchased it from the original owner who had two of them in his design office. He took exceptionally good care of it; basically looks...

Greetings folks, I could use some help diagnosing some weird behavior I am getting on a new-to-me G4 MDD tower. It is a dual 1.25 GHz model. Problem: The machine turns on, chimes, and seems to work normally, but does not ever boot all the way to the desktop. The system always either (a)...

Howdy folks, I could use another set of eyes on this PBG3 power board issue: I recently picked up a PowerBook G3 that works but has a flaky power connection at the DC input jack. The power connector has to be pushed and held in HARD for the machine to get power; as long as it's held like this...

Documenting this very obscure issue - and the solution too - in case anyone else ever runs into a similar problem in the future: Earlier this year I did a full "restoration" on my Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh - I say "restoration" because the thing worked fine beforehand, but there was just...

Howdy folks, The original HDD in my G3 B&W has become somewhat unreliable so I decided it was time for an SSD upgrade. After considering various options I got this 64GB Transcend SSD, to put into this SSD to IDE adapter, and install using this 2.5" to 3.5" adapter. When booted from the...

Replacement of the iMac G3 internal speakers - I recently took on this project, which had been needing done for quite a while. Figured I'd document it here in case it is helpful to others in the future. My iMac's speakers had rotted out pretty badly; they sounded terrible and were falling...

Recently I finally went ahead and got a BlueSCSI for my PB 165c, which is currently still running its original 120MB HDD with System 7.1 installed. I decided to try reinstalling that version since (a) that was what shipped on this machine originally, (b) it's what is installed on the HDD...

Greetings all, I've already made a couple of posts/comments here, but figured I should introduce myself! My name is Grant, and I'm a retro Mac collector based on the East Coast of the USA. I am the owner/curator of the mac27 collection, which focuses on the later PowerPC (G3-G5, 1998-2005)...

Working on a SuperDrive that has no signs of life whatsoever, pulled from a G4 MDD. I confirmed it is receiving the proper voltages from the PSU. After pulling it apart, there is one IC (pictured here) that looks as if it's burned/melted. Quite odd, as everything else inside the drive looks...