A lot of you probably know me from 68kMLA and the old ThinkClassic.org forums... I'm John, from Duvall, Washington, in the USA. Been involved with computers since the age of 7, when I used a TI99/4A in Kindergarten. Graduated to Apple //e machines when I entered 1st grade. Then, in 1985, went to a summer camp at a school in Seattle, WA, which had C64s all running the Terrapin Logo software, controlling Capsela vehicles we'd construct. A few weeks later, got my first home computer, which happened to be a C64. Shared that with my dad, who eventually started using it to do taxes and other office work for his side business (at work, he used a PC XT at Boeing).
In 1988, a neighbor of ours sold us an Apple //e system that his company had surplused. Was your typical unenhanced //e with a monitor ///, two disk ][ drives, a numeric keypad //e, and an Epson MX-80F/T printer. The next year, we decided to have the IIgs upgrade done to it, after the //e board's bus became fried after the Saturn Systems 128K memory card blew a couple chips. So, between the summer of 1989 and the summer of 1995, I had one of the Stealth GS systems. Kinda wish I'd kept it, especially considering what they're worth today, but hindsight is 20/20.
First Mac was a Plus 1/0 with two floppy drives and an ImageWriter II printer that we got for $575 from the original owner in Seattle, in September 1993. Used that for a few months, then, decided I'd rather have a IIsi. Visited RE-PC and picked up a IIsi 5/80 machine with 12" Macintosh RGB monitor from them. Used it for a few years, upgrading the monitor to a M1212 monitor in 1994, then a 230MB hard drive in 1995, and, after the SCSI bus was blown by the cooling fan shorting out against the external SCSI port in September 1996, a replacement board - actually another complete IIsi, with a better case. The design of the contacts for the speaker and the cooling fan on the IIsi were not the greatest. Began corroding, eventually developing issues where both items would cut in and out at random times. Anyway, cannibalized the original IIsi system, converting the A9M0106 floppy drive I saved from the Stealth GS to a SuperDrive, then upgraded the RAM to 17MB on the replacement system, so I had a 17/230 configuration. Later that year, a friend of mine brought his Classic down from Bellingham, and we upgraded his machine to 4MB of RAM using the two-chip 1MB SIMMs from the original IIsi, and my Plus to the same amount, using the 8-chip SIMMs that I'd pulled from the replacement IIsi.
For the next year, pretty much didn't do any upgrading, computer-wise, at least until I discovered eBay. In early 1998, found a local seller who had a IIcx for cheap. Grabbed that, and put it into backup status. About a month later, visited Boeing Surplus back when it was in Kent, WA, and found a IIci 5/210. Upgraded the IIci with the IIsi's 4MB SIMMs and swapped the 230MB hard drive over. Used that machine for a few months, then found my first Centris 650 on eBay. Bought it. Upgraded it to 40MB RAM, moved the 230MB drive over. One night, was using AOL Instant Messenger. It crashed, freezing the computer. Rebooted, and was greeted with the blinking question mark. Thought all was lost, so I reformatted the drive, and started installing everything from my last backup, which happened to be from December 1995 when I upgraded to the 230 in the IIsi. Lost a bit of data in that debacle. A couple months later in early 1999, it happened again. This time, on a whim, I grabbed the IIci out of my closet, dropped the drive into it, and hit the power key on the keyboard. Started up, and booted to the finder. Wish I'd done that the first time around...lol... Ran Norton on the drive, and found some bad blocks, so I grabbed the 250MB drive I'd installed in the IIcx, and backed everything up to it. Installed that into the Centris 650. Was fine the rest of the time I used that computer. I think I sold the IIci to a friend in California, and sent the IIsi up to Bellingham with my friend who owned the Classic. Guess the Classic was getting wonky and he wanted a color Mac for his wife at the time to use.
In 2000, a friend of mine offered me some Macs he had lying around. Another IIci, a PowerComputing PowerWave 604/132 that needed help, and some other parts. During that same time period, I came home from RE-PC with an SE dual FDHD machine, an LC, and a Performa 475. After thanksgiving that year, my father and I headed down to Chehalis, WA to someone's house, where he refurbished Macs. Had a PowerMac 7100/80 that I wanted to grab. Brought that home, then promptly swapped the Centris 650's case lid, floppy drive, and hard drive over to it. After Christmas 2000, a couple friends of mine and I headed up to Canada to do some junkyarding. At the same time, we brought back a IIsi that someone up there was offering for sale.
In early 2001, traded the SE dual FDHD, the PowerWave, the LC, and the Centris 650 that now said it was a PowerMac 7100/80 on the case for my second //e with a monitor // and two disk ][ drives. Used that machine for a bit, but didn't like the later keyboard with its rather squeaky key action. Found another early //e that had been enhanced out of Arizona. Bought that machine, then proceeded to load it with pretty much every option I could find. Had two A9M0106 floppy drives run by a Laser UDC, an AppleMouse IIe card, SuperSerial card, RAMWorks II, Timemaster H.O. clock card, and the disk ][ controller card with the two disk ][ drives I had from the second //e. Eventually got a color monitor for it, a CH Products FlightStick to replace the one sold with my original Stealth GS system. Picked up another //e in Tacoma that I wound up using as a parts machine for the second before I gave that to another friend. Equipped it with an early keyboard and some other items from that computer. Also bought a IIgs system. Later that year, did some computer repair work for a woman in Seattle and upgraded her Centris 610 to a PowerMac 6100/66. Wound up keeping the old Centris 610 as partial payment for the work. Decided on a whim to max out the RAM on the old IIsi to 65MB. Then, proceeded to install MacOS 8.1 with the old Born Again patch. Worked well, albeit slowly.
In 2002, I wound up rehoming the IIgs, along with the Centris 610, and I think the IIsi. Still had the 7100/80, the //e, and some other items. Picked up another Centris 650 from Boeing Surplus, since the screw that holds the case lid onto the chassis on the 7100 had broken. Then, realized that it'd be a lot of work to remove said screw. Picked up another 7100/80 at RE-PC. One that was supposedly being sold without a hard drive. Alas, they didn't look in the CD-ROM bay. Hiding out in there was a Quantum 3GB Fireball hard drive. Moved the data from the 1024MB Micropolis hard drive over to it, then swapped everything else over to the new 7100/80.
2003 was when I got my first PCI PowerMac, a 7500/100 that was upgraded to a 200MHz 604e. Found a NewerTech G3/300 upgrade card for it. Also updated to OS 9.2.2 so I could use MSN Messenger. A year later, bought a 9600/200 and used that for a while. Also sold off the //e system. Needed the funds at the time. A month later, came home with a Mac II from a thrift store and upgraded to a 9600/300, then eventually a 9600/350. Later that summer, found a ][+ with Kensington System Saver and two disk ][ drives at another thrift store. Brought it home. Had video problems. Then, the friend who received my second //e picked up a motherlode of ][+ machines and accessories off the internal Microsoft classifieds. Apparently they just wanted the stuff gone, so he and I split up the items. Got most of the systems myself, plus a Sider hard drive that needed some work, and some other parts. Built up a nice early ][+ that was originally a ][ for myself, then rehomed the remainder. 2005 consisted of receiving my fifth //e, which was another later keyboard machine. Bought an unenhanced //e in Portland for $50, brought that home, swapped the enhanced ROMs and 65C02 to that computer's motherboard, and swapped the upgrades the enhanced machine had on it, then rehomed the resultant unenhanced late keyboard //e. Bought my first SE/30 for $50 and a beige G3MT 300MHz machine. Sold the beige G3, and gave the SE/30 to a guy in Shelton, WA. Then bought my original B&W G3/400, which, alas was a Revision 1 machine. Continued to use the 9600/350 that had the G3/300 swapped into it. Sold the ][+ with a couple drives to someone later that year. In early 2006, bought another B&W G3 that had 10.4.8 preinstalled on it. Swapped the 400MHz chip to it, then my drives, in addition to the 6GB drive it came with. Finally retired the 9600. Remained with the B&W and the //e through 2007 and 2008.
Bought a G4 Digital Audio 533MHz machine in early 2009, only to have the nVidia video card take a dump on me about a month later. Found another G4 DA in April 2009 from someone in Renton, WA. Combined the two to make one nicer machine, with an ATi video card installed. Maxed out the RAM, added an 80GB Seagate hard drive, so I had an 80, a 40, and a spare 30GB drive. in 2010, started dabbling in the Wintel world. Bought an Inspiron 8600 that needed a new video card and display panel. Set it up with a Radeon 9600 and a WUXGA panel, running XP Pro. Later on, the G4 received a 1.2 GHz processor upgrade. In 2011 or so, I picked up a G4 MDD. Dual 1GHz G4 processor machine. Wasn't too loud under OS X, but painfully loud under 9.2.2. Swapped in a 1 GHz single processor board. Much better. Still loud, but it didn't rev up to maximum speed anymore. Used that machine for a while after the Digital Audio's board started having issues from bad caps.
In 2012, a cousin's coworker decided it was time to get rid of his computer collection. Went from four computers to probably close to 30. Mainly Mac systems from the 68K era. Most of the stuff was in need of repair, but I was able to make about 10-15 computers that were in good working order. Traded a partially functioning /// and some Atari gear to RE-PC for a nice IIci, plus some NOS parts, including a Piltdown Man logic board, etc. 2013 saw my upgrading from the Inspiron 8600 to a D830, then trading an SE/30 to someone on 68kMLA for my first Intel Mac, an early 2008 A1181, then, later, adding another IIsi. 2014, traded some stuff to Dylan McDermond for some stuff he had. Also picked up a dead IIvx that I wound up using for parts for a Centris 650 I'd bought that same year. Upgraded the Centris 650 to a Quadra 800 board, modified to have the power LED in the correct location, turning it into a Quadra 650. Replaced the Centris 650 badge on it with the correct Quadra part. Later that year, found a pretty nice IIfx that wound up replacing the previous machine I had, which was a Stealth FX, being a II upgraded to fx specs. Those two machines, along with my //e and the A1181 are shown in my banner photo. Got a refurbished ][+ from a local friend. Traded the guts of the G4 DA, plus some //e items I had for it. Another friend found an A1186 Mac Pro 3,1 sitting curbside. Gave that to me, since he didn't need it. When I had the mishap of a Cherry Coke bottle spilling onto the keyboard of my A1181, the Mac Pro wound up replacing it. In 2015, picked up an early black A1181 to replace the white A1181 I had. Machine had some issues with the board, so it would randomly shut down and reboot, etc. Wound up swapping it for a late 2007 white A1181, which was more reliable. Beginning in 2016, I started purging items left and right. Just wasn't using them much at all. I did pick up an A1175 MBP, but that machine didn't last long. Sold it off pretty quickly. By mid-2018, I was down to the Mac Pro and my //e, which had been stripped down to two cards (an AE RAMWorks III from a junker //e that I picked up in 2015, and a mouse card from the fifth //e), the color monitor, and kensington system saver fan. Mid-2019 saw the additon of a junker A1260 MBP, my A1286 MBP that I'm typing this on, and my current B&W G3. In late 2020, upgraded the Mac Pro to a 1TB hard drive. Last year, I replaced the cracked glass equipped LCD panel on the MBP and pressed it into service after the Mac Pro started overheating randomly. At the end of the year, picked up a disk ][ controller card and a disk ][ for the //e. For the first time in almost 5.5 years, it booted up, as if it'd been used the previous day. The MBP had been used as my daily with the 200GB hard drive from the junker A1260 until a few weeks ago, when I upgraded to a 1TB Seagate Barracuda.
A couple weeks ago, got back into 68K Macs again, with the arrival of my current Centris 650, which is about to be upgraded to a Quadra 650, just like the previous machine. Been purchasing parts for it, and also am about to conquest a IIci for $60, plus a Mac Plus with keyboard and mouse for $100 this week. Anyway, that's my computing history. Work is freelance computer repair and network administration. Has been kinda slow lately. Other hobbies consist of nature photography (both film and digital), plus maintaining my 1982 Volvo 242 Turbo.
In 1988, a neighbor of ours sold us an Apple //e system that his company had surplused. Was your typical unenhanced //e with a monitor ///, two disk ][ drives, a numeric keypad //e, and an Epson MX-80F/T printer. The next year, we decided to have the IIgs upgrade done to it, after the //e board's bus became fried after the Saturn Systems 128K memory card blew a couple chips. So, between the summer of 1989 and the summer of 1995, I had one of the Stealth GS systems. Kinda wish I'd kept it, especially considering what they're worth today, but hindsight is 20/20.
First Mac was a Plus 1/0 with two floppy drives and an ImageWriter II printer that we got for $575 from the original owner in Seattle, in September 1993. Used that for a few months, then, decided I'd rather have a IIsi. Visited RE-PC and picked up a IIsi 5/80 machine with 12" Macintosh RGB monitor from them. Used it for a few years, upgrading the monitor to a M1212 monitor in 1994, then a 230MB hard drive in 1995, and, after the SCSI bus was blown by the cooling fan shorting out against the external SCSI port in September 1996, a replacement board - actually another complete IIsi, with a better case. The design of the contacts for the speaker and the cooling fan on the IIsi were not the greatest. Began corroding, eventually developing issues where both items would cut in and out at random times. Anyway, cannibalized the original IIsi system, converting the A9M0106 floppy drive I saved from the Stealth GS to a SuperDrive, then upgraded the RAM to 17MB on the replacement system, so I had a 17/230 configuration. Later that year, a friend of mine brought his Classic down from Bellingham, and we upgraded his machine to 4MB of RAM using the two-chip 1MB SIMMs from the original IIsi, and my Plus to the same amount, using the 8-chip SIMMs that I'd pulled from the replacement IIsi.
For the next year, pretty much didn't do any upgrading, computer-wise, at least until I discovered eBay. In early 1998, found a local seller who had a IIcx for cheap. Grabbed that, and put it into backup status. About a month later, visited Boeing Surplus back when it was in Kent, WA, and found a IIci 5/210. Upgraded the IIci with the IIsi's 4MB SIMMs and swapped the 230MB hard drive over. Used that machine for a few months, then found my first Centris 650 on eBay. Bought it. Upgraded it to 40MB RAM, moved the 230MB drive over. One night, was using AOL Instant Messenger. It crashed, freezing the computer. Rebooted, and was greeted with the blinking question mark. Thought all was lost, so I reformatted the drive, and started installing everything from my last backup, which happened to be from December 1995 when I upgraded to the 230 in the IIsi. Lost a bit of data in that debacle. A couple months later in early 1999, it happened again. This time, on a whim, I grabbed the IIci out of my closet, dropped the drive into it, and hit the power key on the keyboard. Started up, and booted to the finder. Wish I'd done that the first time around...lol... Ran Norton on the drive, and found some bad blocks, so I grabbed the 250MB drive I'd installed in the IIcx, and backed everything up to it. Installed that into the Centris 650. Was fine the rest of the time I used that computer. I think I sold the IIci to a friend in California, and sent the IIsi up to Bellingham with my friend who owned the Classic. Guess the Classic was getting wonky and he wanted a color Mac for his wife at the time to use.
In 2000, a friend of mine offered me some Macs he had lying around. Another IIci, a PowerComputing PowerWave 604/132 that needed help, and some other parts. During that same time period, I came home from RE-PC with an SE dual FDHD machine, an LC, and a Performa 475. After thanksgiving that year, my father and I headed down to Chehalis, WA to someone's house, where he refurbished Macs. Had a PowerMac 7100/80 that I wanted to grab. Brought that home, then promptly swapped the Centris 650's case lid, floppy drive, and hard drive over to it. After Christmas 2000, a couple friends of mine and I headed up to Canada to do some junkyarding. At the same time, we brought back a IIsi that someone up there was offering for sale.
In early 2001, traded the SE dual FDHD, the PowerWave, the LC, and the Centris 650 that now said it was a PowerMac 7100/80 on the case for my second //e with a monitor // and two disk ][ drives. Used that machine for a bit, but didn't like the later keyboard with its rather squeaky key action. Found another early //e that had been enhanced out of Arizona. Bought that machine, then proceeded to load it with pretty much every option I could find. Had two A9M0106 floppy drives run by a Laser UDC, an AppleMouse IIe card, SuperSerial card, RAMWorks II, Timemaster H.O. clock card, and the disk ][ controller card with the two disk ][ drives I had from the second //e. Eventually got a color monitor for it, a CH Products FlightStick to replace the one sold with my original Stealth GS system. Picked up another //e in Tacoma that I wound up using as a parts machine for the second before I gave that to another friend. Equipped it with an early keyboard and some other items from that computer. Also bought a IIgs system. Later that year, did some computer repair work for a woman in Seattle and upgraded her Centris 610 to a PowerMac 6100/66. Wound up keeping the old Centris 610 as partial payment for the work. Decided on a whim to max out the RAM on the old IIsi to 65MB. Then, proceeded to install MacOS 8.1 with the old Born Again patch. Worked well, albeit slowly.
In 2002, I wound up rehoming the IIgs, along with the Centris 610, and I think the IIsi. Still had the 7100/80, the //e, and some other items. Picked up another Centris 650 from Boeing Surplus, since the screw that holds the case lid onto the chassis on the 7100 had broken. Then, realized that it'd be a lot of work to remove said screw. Picked up another 7100/80 at RE-PC. One that was supposedly being sold without a hard drive. Alas, they didn't look in the CD-ROM bay. Hiding out in there was a Quantum 3GB Fireball hard drive. Moved the data from the 1024MB Micropolis hard drive over to it, then swapped everything else over to the new 7100/80.
2003 was when I got my first PCI PowerMac, a 7500/100 that was upgraded to a 200MHz 604e. Found a NewerTech G3/300 upgrade card for it. Also updated to OS 9.2.2 so I could use MSN Messenger. A year later, bought a 9600/200 and used that for a while. Also sold off the //e system. Needed the funds at the time. A month later, came home with a Mac II from a thrift store and upgraded to a 9600/300, then eventually a 9600/350. Later that summer, found a ][+ with Kensington System Saver and two disk ][ drives at another thrift store. Brought it home. Had video problems. Then, the friend who received my second //e picked up a motherlode of ][+ machines and accessories off the internal Microsoft classifieds. Apparently they just wanted the stuff gone, so he and I split up the items. Got most of the systems myself, plus a Sider hard drive that needed some work, and some other parts. Built up a nice early ][+ that was originally a ][ for myself, then rehomed the remainder. 2005 consisted of receiving my fifth //e, which was another later keyboard machine. Bought an unenhanced //e in Portland for $50, brought that home, swapped the enhanced ROMs and 65C02 to that computer's motherboard, and swapped the upgrades the enhanced machine had on it, then rehomed the resultant unenhanced late keyboard //e. Bought my first SE/30 for $50 and a beige G3MT 300MHz machine. Sold the beige G3, and gave the SE/30 to a guy in Shelton, WA. Then bought my original B&W G3/400, which, alas was a Revision 1 machine. Continued to use the 9600/350 that had the G3/300 swapped into it. Sold the ][+ with a couple drives to someone later that year. In early 2006, bought another B&W G3 that had 10.4.8 preinstalled on it. Swapped the 400MHz chip to it, then my drives, in addition to the 6GB drive it came with. Finally retired the 9600. Remained with the B&W and the //e through 2007 and 2008.
Bought a G4 Digital Audio 533MHz machine in early 2009, only to have the nVidia video card take a dump on me about a month later. Found another G4 DA in April 2009 from someone in Renton, WA. Combined the two to make one nicer machine, with an ATi video card installed. Maxed out the RAM, added an 80GB Seagate hard drive, so I had an 80, a 40, and a spare 30GB drive. in 2010, started dabbling in the Wintel world. Bought an Inspiron 8600 that needed a new video card and display panel. Set it up with a Radeon 9600 and a WUXGA panel, running XP Pro. Later on, the G4 received a 1.2 GHz processor upgrade. In 2011 or so, I picked up a G4 MDD. Dual 1GHz G4 processor machine. Wasn't too loud under OS X, but painfully loud under 9.2.2. Swapped in a 1 GHz single processor board. Much better. Still loud, but it didn't rev up to maximum speed anymore. Used that machine for a while after the Digital Audio's board started having issues from bad caps.
In 2012, a cousin's coworker decided it was time to get rid of his computer collection. Went from four computers to probably close to 30. Mainly Mac systems from the 68K era. Most of the stuff was in need of repair, but I was able to make about 10-15 computers that were in good working order. Traded a partially functioning /// and some Atari gear to RE-PC for a nice IIci, plus some NOS parts, including a Piltdown Man logic board, etc. 2013 saw my upgrading from the Inspiron 8600 to a D830, then trading an SE/30 to someone on 68kMLA for my first Intel Mac, an early 2008 A1181, then, later, adding another IIsi. 2014, traded some stuff to Dylan McDermond for some stuff he had. Also picked up a dead IIvx that I wound up using for parts for a Centris 650 I'd bought that same year. Upgraded the Centris 650 to a Quadra 800 board, modified to have the power LED in the correct location, turning it into a Quadra 650. Replaced the Centris 650 badge on it with the correct Quadra part. Later that year, found a pretty nice IIfx that wound up replacing the previous machine I had, which was a Stealth FX, being a II upgraded to fx specs. Those two machines, along with my //e and the A1181 are shown in my banner photo. Got a refurbished ][+ from a local friend. Traded the guts of the G4 DA, plus some //e items I had for it. Another friend found an A1186 Mac Pro 3,1 sitting curbside. Gave that to me, since he didn't need it. When I had the mishap of a Cherry Coke bottle spilling onto the keyboard of my A1181, the Mac Pro wound up replacing it. In 2015, picked up an early black A1181 to replace the white A1181 I had. Machine had some issues with the board, so it would randomly shut down and reboot, etc. Wound up swapping it for a late 2007 white A1181, which was more reliable. Beginning in 2016, I started purging items left and right. Just wasn't using them much at all. I did pick up an A1175 MBP, but that machine didn't last long. Sold it off pretty quickly. By mid-2018, I was down to the Mac Pro and my //e, which had been stripped down to two cards (an AE RAMWorks III from a junker //e that I picked up in 2015, and a mouse card from the fifth //e), the color monitor, and kensington system saver fan. Mid-2019 saw the additon of a junker A1260 MBP, my A1286 MBP that I'm typing this on, and my current B&W G3. In late 2020, upgraded the Mac Pro to a 1TB hard drive. Last year, I replaced the cracked glass equipped LCD panel on the MBP and pressed it into service after the Mac Pro started overheating randomly. At the end of the year, picked up a disk ][ controller card and a disk ][ for the //e. For the first time in almost 5.5 years, it booted up, as if it'd been used the previous day. The MBP had been used as my daily with the 200GB hard drive from the junker A1260 until a few weeks ago, when I upgraded to a 1TB Seagate Barracuda.
A couple weeks ago, got back into 68K Macs again, with the arrival of my current Centris 650, which is about to be upgraded to a Quadra 650, just like the previous machine. Been purchasing parts for it, and also am about to conquest a IIci for $60, plus a Mac Plus with keyboard and mouse for $100 this week. Anyway, that's my computing history. Work is freelance computer repair and network administration. Has been kinda slow lately. Other hobbies consist of nature photography (both film and digital), plus maintaining my 1982 Volvo 242 Turbo.
