Mu0n's Color Classic thread

[Mu0n]

Win a Yahoo Auctions through buyee

Have it shipped intact to the buyee warehouse

Have it shipped intact to Canada

Dodge a battery explosion

Recap at least the logic board

Become a traitor to 1-Bit gfx by owning a color mac


I've been on buyee casually hunting for one for the past few months. I've been waxing on and off and posting my anxious progress on the discord (some here are aware of it) and I finally won one of those! They used to sell for under 10,000 yen, but very recently their numbers have diminished (no idea if it'll pick up again) and most auction finish in the 20,000 - 40,000 range (around $250 USD give or take). Most show no activity on the screen. The rare ones that do tend to finish above $400, which is all fine and dandy compared to North American prices, but the broker fees (buyee) + local shipping (from the Japanese vendor to buyee) + intnl shipping (from Japan to you) absolutely slay you - you have to be prepared!

I won mine for 12,500 yen (full disclosure) and it can be found here: https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/s1049075628

Here are some choice pics, it looks good outside. It's all a big risk as there's no pic inside, no activity shown on screen.

MEANWHILE
there's someone in my province offering a LC575, a LCII and a IBM 8525 (PS2 line) free, or it's e-waste time. So Mystic upgrade lined up? It enters the realm of possibilities! Many people local to me are interested by the IBM, but no one (including me) is interesting by the 8 hour round trip to his remote location. For funsies, I calculated what the trip would entail with my EV:
11h17m round trip, including 2h25 spent waiting on 5 charging sessions

with a cost of $29 in electricity instead of $200+ for gas.

For those who'd tell me "ROAD TRIP", I just can't. I'm at the end of a semester (grading nonstop and feeling behind nonstop) and I have 2 young kids, I can't go AWOL for a whole day like that. If it's not claimed before it goes to e-waste, there was some opening to ship the board only, but no firm commitment was made.

 

[VikingExplorer]

Congrats on winning it! I saw the item for sale some days ago. I hope it arrives to you in one piece!

 

[Mu0n]

It arrived at the buyee warehouse earlier in the week and I promptly ordered an additional protective packaging. It's been sitting in that state for about 3 days now.

I'm kinda regretting not requesting a photo of its status before ordering the repackaging.... rookie mistake I guess?

 

[jajan547]

It arrived at the buyee warehouse earlier in the week and I promptly ordered an additional protective packaging. It's been sitting in that state for about 3 days now.

I'm kinda regretting not requesting a photo of its status before ordering the repackaging.... rookie mistake I guess?

View attachment 4818

No buyee packages very, and I mean very well.

 

[Mu0n]

No buyee packages very, and I mean very well.

I don't doubt that at all!

However, the local person who sent it to buyee's warehouse might not have done a good job and it could already be destroyed in some unfortunate way. Regardless of how the machine is now a finely grounded powder or a pristine machine, I'll never know until it arrives here and I can witness the contents inside buyee's repackaging work.

 

[jajan547]

I don't doubt that at all!

However, the local person who sent it to buyee's warehouse might not have done a good job and it could already be destroyed in some unfortunate way. Regardless of how the machine is now a finely grounded powder or a pristine machine, I'll never know until it arrives here and I can witness the content of buyee's repackaging work.

They usually vacuum seal foam around their stuff, I believe they use DHL.

 

[VikingExplorer]

I once ordered a reinforced protective packaging for a LC575 I bought on Buyee (the thread should be somewhere on 68kmla under my other username tommijazz91). The Mac arrived completely destroyed, and the package consisted of a big box, some bubble wrap inside and little more.
Fortunately I got a full refund after sending tons of detailed pictures while opening the package. I would advise to you to document everything with pictures, especially as you open it (should you find it broken).
Still, I may be one of the unlucky ones and the CCs are a bit studier than the very brittle 575 cases.
As others here say they package things well, I am now beginning to think that I paid more for an extra I didn't get...

 

[This Does Not Compute]

Here's my experience ordering a Color Classic using Buyee from earlier in the year:

https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/a-beige-mac-international-shipping-holiday-miracle.642/

And if you're worried about a lack of status updates, it was Golden Week in Japan so many businesses were closed.

 

[Mu0n]

I've read that thread already @This Does Not Compute and seen your video , neat stuff and so satisfyingly lucky.

So the way it now has gone:

-Buyee received the package locally
-I ordered a repackaging
-I waited 4 days; they just noticed me an hour ago that it was done
-The option of requesting a photo is now again available, but if I request it, I imagine they'll have to undo all their work, forcing me to repay it if I want it back. So off we go with the shipping then.

How I should have done it:
-Buyee receives it locally
-I request a photo
-I request a repackaging
-I request the shipping

You guys understand the issue right? They might have done a perfect repackaging job (of that, I have no doubt) around a broken machine, broken in the transit while in Japan, from seller to buyee. Since I have not done a photo request at the critical time after it arrived at buyee, I don't know either way.

 

[This Does Not Compute]

When you originally purchased the machine, which "plan" did you pick? The default is the "standard plan" which includes shipping insurance and product inspection (when the item arrives at Buyee's warehouse). If you picked that, or the insurance-only plan, then if the machine is damaged when it gets to you -- regardless of when the damage happened -- you'll get a refund.

 

[nottomhanks]

Win a Yahoo Auctions through buyee

Have it shipped intact to the buyee warehouse

Have it shipped intact to Canada

Dodge a battery explosion

Recap at least the logic board

Become a traitor to 1-Bit gfx by owning a color mac


I've been on buyee casually hunting for one for the past few months. I've been waxing on and off and posting my anxious progress on the discord (some here are aware of it) and I finally won one of those! They used to sell for under 10,000 yen, but very recently their numbers have diminished (no idea if it'll pick up again) and most auction finish in the 20,000 - 40,000 range (around $250 USD give or take). Most show no activity on the screen. The rare ones that do tend to finish above $400, which is all fine and dandy compared to North American prices, but the broker fees (buyee) + local shipping (from the Japanese vendor to buyee) + intnl shipping (from Japan to you) absolutely slay you - you have to be prepared!

I won mine for 12,500 yen (full disclosure) and it can be found here: https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/s1049075628

Here are some choice pics, it looks good outside. It's all a big risk as there's no pic inside, no activity shown on screen.

View attachment 4744
View attachment 4745


MEANWHILE
there's someone in my province offering a LC575, a LCII and a IBM 8525 (PS2 line) free, or it's e-waste time. So Mystic upgrade lined up? It enters the realm of possibilities! Many people local to me are interested by the IBM, but no one (including me) is interesting by the 8 hour round trip to his remote location. For funsies, I calculated what the trip would entail with my EV:
11h17m round trip, including 2h25 spent waiting on 5 charging sessions

with a cost of $29 in electricity instead of $200+ for gas.

For those who'd tell me "ROAD TRIP", I just can't. I'm at the end of a semester (grading nonstop and feeling behind nonstop) and I have 2 young kids, I can't go AWOL for a whole day like that. If it's not claimed before it goes to e-waste, there was some opening to ship the board only, but no firm commitment was made.

Which province is this in?

 

[Mu0n]

UPDATE:
Update on Mac Color Classic:

Win a Yahoo Auctions through buyee

Have it shipped intact to the buyee warehouse

Have it shipped intact to Canada

Dodge a battery explosion

Recap at least the logic board

Become a traitor to 1-Bit gfx by owning a color mac

The package shipped on May 11th with an estimated delivery today on Friday the 13th, by 5:00 PM.
Around 2:30 PM, Fedex changes status to: On Truck out for delivery, which is extra hard to believe because the time window is closing soon and I live across a big river from the Fedex centers out of Quebec city and rush hour traffic doesn't make this likely.

At 4:58 PM, I wrote in the Tinker Different discord that it would probably be delayed to Monday.

At 5:01 PM, I see the truck arrive. I tell my 4 year old daughter that it's 1 minute late! And of course she sets her mind to repeat that sentence to the delivery dude at all costs! Fortunately I can convince her not to say it with the delay provided by our 30-something stairs to my front door.

Well, despite splurging extra for a repackaging at buyee, here's the status of the machine:

It got damaged on the left side (when looking at it from a user vantage point).

Auction photo:

When it got here:

The front plate has shifted to the right side (point of view of a user), but only near the top of the machine.

Before anyone has a chance of asking (Hi @Ron's Computer Videos ! ), I promptly removed the battery, no apparent damage. No leakage from the SMD caps (I'll order a new set pronto, ofc). There's only a light pretty even coat of dust everywhereas is normal.

Tests done so far:
1) plug in power chord, flick switch, push power on button on a keyboard - get a burst of power, see a blink of the green LED in the front, then shuts off
2) wait 3 hours with the power cable plugged in, let the switch be on and power it back with the keyboard then, I got a chime and a sustained sign of life and an image on the CRT!
3) terrible sounds from the internal hard drive (big woop!)

The image is dim, not very focused, but since the damage is scary looking in the case, I suspect some fine and not so fine tuning have to be done on the CRT. (image and boot sequence on the next post)

 

[eric]

Well, damange could be worse! RE: HDD, the one in my CC had some electrolytic caps (that dont look like electolityc caps) and fried my analog board. Also faintness of CRT - could just be a bad seating of the logic board - I had this happen recently when moving things around and just a re-seat of the logic board took care of it.

 

[This Does Not Compute]

How did they package it? Was it just wrapped in bubble wrap, or did they use the expanding foam blocks? Either way if I were you I'd consider filing a claim with Buyee about it.

 

[Mu0n]

How did they package it? Was it just wrapped in bubble wrap, or did they use the expanding foam blocks? Either way if I were you I'd consider filing a claim with Buyee about it.

expanding foam blocks:

 

[Mu0n]

BlueSCSI steps:

Using the 40 MB 7.5.3 hda that can be gotten from Mac Garden, I brought these things from the Apple Recovery CD (copied via an emulator) to another bigger hda used for shuttling stuff:
-system 7.1 install imgs
-color classic system 7.1 install imgs
-system update 3.0 (meant for system 7. 1.x)
-Disk Copy 6.3.3 in order to mount all of the above.img files.

I installed a leaner and meaner system 7.1 successfully. The update 3.0 ended up being necessary or it would complain it was too old and not boot at all.


Screen:

There's no problem whatsoever with the brightness. The focus isn't 100% sharp but it's comparable to other CRTs I've lived with.

Readiness:

I'd like to understand which part in the analog board forces me to keep it with the switch on while after a shutdown. After a few hours with the switch off, it will produce the 8 tone sad chimes. A few hours of switch on will restore back to working condition. Do people know if it's a specific cap doing this and which one it is?

 

[Mu0n]

It's a color classic II after all, with a logic board swap in its past!


It was hinted at without strong confirmation in the yahoo Auctions description, but the translation was a mess. Here it is (highlights of the parts I find the most funny by me):

It has been decorated as the guardian deity of the study for the past 30 years.
I will try to sell it with the remodeling.

I've been working on a Mac for a long time, from Karakura to Performa powerMac and the current model.

When I suddenly noticed, I had discarded the ADB keyboard and could not confirm the operation.
Therefore, it will be exhibited as a junk.
Well, I don't think anyone is bidding for a job.
I think it is positioned as an object.
It's a shame because I wanted to see it move before I let it go.

I was playing with it a long time ago, so my memory is ambiguous.
I had two models equivalent to Karakura before, <I think one was performa275?
I think that one of them had replaced the board with another one with a slightly better performance.
I think this was probably the case
Now that I'm afraid to remove the screws and check the inside, please understand that the exhibition is as it is.
I'm sorry I haven't cleaned it.

There is a note in the image, but there is a black one in the upper corner.
The time has passed and the rubber on my feet is melting. <I was surprised to find it.
I think it's exchangeable, so I think it's okay.

I was worried about what to do with the price because there are few listings that can be used as a reference.
I will start at this price for the time being.
Well, if there is no successful bid, I will keep it as it is.

Hopefully a McDonald's person will take care of it.

 

[jajan547]

It's a color classic II after all, with a logic board swap in its past!


It was hinted at without strong confirmation in the yahoo Auctions description, but the translation was a mess. Here it is (highlights of the parts I find the most funny by me):

Nice now all you’d need is a ccii badge and it’s basically complete.

 

[Mu0n]

Someone told me on twitter that it's probably a LC550 board with enough vram to enable thousands of colors (which I did try out successfully)..

 

[Mu0n]

Current status:

-pictures of the received box + clear shots of the damage that can be x-referenced to the original auction's shots, sent and claim filed to buyee
-caps ordered for logic and analog boards
-stored away and not powered again until this is done