Post PPC Challenge 2025 finds

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phunguss

Active Tinkerer
Dec 24, 2023
347
308
63
Stillwater, MN
Last week I found a couple Craigslist items and was able to pick them up this weekend. A pile of misc parts:
15 hard drives (10 Sata, 3 IDE, 1 SCSI, 1 SSD), some had Intel cMP trays on them, a couple G5 video cards, an RX570, some other misc PCIe cards, and a serial Wacom tablet. Even a 3.5 floppy cleaner!
drives.jpg

The other pickup was a Centris 650 and PowerMac 7100, no accessories. I opened up the c650 and found the case and drive screws missing, two sticks of ram floating around inside. I secured the drives and case with zip ties for now, as I had no matching M3.5 screws. Pretty clean mobo.
c650-mobo.jpg

PSU was super clean.
c650-power.jpg

Installed the RAM and reassembled the case. I don't have an Apple 15 to VGA adapter on hand (If I do, I can't locate it)... so I just plugged in power and pressed the button on the back. It chimed! Both are in need of an external cleaning and retrobrite. Not sure if the orange stains are rust seeping though or some other biological residue.
c7100-sundamage.jpg

On to the 7100. Missing the retaining clip for the PSU, but I 3D printed one.
PSU-retainer.jpg

Ram slots full.
7100-ram.jpg

Has a standard x100 series video card that could use some 68pin SIMMs.
c7100-video.jpg

Front says 7100/66 but has the AV card as well.
c7100-avcard.jpg

Both batteries measured 0v, neither had bombed.
c650-bats.jpg

Reassembled, plugged in power, got a chime! Time to build my own video adapter while I wait for eBay to deliver another. I started with a VGA extension cable and a Parallel port.
DIY-adapter-start.jpg

Sawed the Parallel port in half. Removed some extra pins, and bent over the shield/cover.
DIY-adapter-halved.jpg

Then I used this pinout and soldered it up.
DIY-adapter-done.jpg

C650 did not boot, added the BlueSCSI 25 external, still no boot. Removed the power from the internal SCSI and then it booted, 16MB RAM.
c650-info.jpg

BlueSCSI and fugly video adapter.
7100-blueSCSI.jpg

And the 7100 had a 2GB SCSI hard drive (blank) in it, with 104MB of RAM.
7100-info.jpg
 
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