What's your restoration 'philosophy'?

[displaced]

Hello!

Having wandered around various vintage communities, I've realised there's a wide range of opinions on what a 'proper' restoration is, with different attitudes prevailing in different communities.

Bearing in mind that if you own it, you can do what you want -- in the grand scheme of things, it's really not that important... but I'm curious: what's your restoration 'philosophy'?

Personally, I have a few preferences:

• No Irreversible Case Modifications. Most electronic modifications are reversible or are simply modern equivalents of long-unavailable components. But no-one (with a few rare exceptions) is making replacement cases for old systems.
  
  
• Quality-of-Life Upgrades. I always add modern mass-storage solutions, as large as the system will handle. Same for RAM -- upgrade all the way!
  
  
• Contemporaneous Hardware Upgrades. I like upgrading a machine to be as good as it could be as was possible in its lifetime. So overclocking, CPU upgrades -- in principle, fine. But I'm not personally a fan of upgrades which change the nature of the machine. A big example for me is the CT60 upgrade for the Atari Falcon. The board takes over so much of the original hardware and runs at such an increased speed that it doesn't quite feel the same machine. It's more a "CT60 with Falcon I/O" than an accelerated Falcon.
  
  
• A/V and Peripherals. I try to get an RGB video output and line-level audio where possible. The reason being, I have all my machines connected via a 16-port VGA/Stereo KVM switch. The output of that goes to an OSSC and then into an AV receiver and large TV. Where possible, I try to add some sort of wireless keyboard/mouse/gamepad too. I like to make them as quick and as convenient to use.
  
  
• No Retrobrighting or Painting. Not a strict rule, to be fair. I'll stick a yellowed machine out in the sun to brighten without peroxiding, which is slow but works. And I have a Mega STE whose previous owner botched a retrobright attempt and left it mottled and horrible. I am sanding, priming and respraying that machine -- pretty much the only way to get it anywhere close to looking nice again.

I'm also wondering what criteria people have for their collections? "I just think they're cool, and want them" is absolutely fine! I started off with "firsts, lasts and oddities". So I have Atari's last computer, last console, first handhelds; Commodore's odd CDTV. But then I ended up getting machines simply because they're cool -- the Mega STE, Mac SE, C64C. Does anyone else have a rhyme or reason?

 

[Eric's Edge]

This is pretty close to my philosophy. I’ve considered doing a mod that is somewhat reversible. I have a PowerBook 520c with a BlueSCSI drive. It would be convenient to have a SD extension accessible from the outside but I do not want to mod the case. However, if I can find an extra battery port cover, it could me modified to look like a SD card module - something like the stock PCMCIA module. Restoration to original appearance would be as simple as removing the modified cover and extension cable.

 

[aradiogurl]

This is really close to my restoration philosophy also. If the case has no or minimal damage, I clean them up and enjoy them as is, yellowed or not. I avoid irreversible mods/changes, unless it's already damaged or super common. I love period aftermarket upgrades, especially ones for the early 68k Macs. I like to keep one machine stock then upgrade a second, it's fun comparing the performance and stability. What's really important for me is making the machines functional again, if I have to use modern components and accessories for it, I will.

Criteria for my collection used to be, "Is it on my bucket list? Is this a system I always wanted to learn about or use?" But in more recent years my philosophy has become, "Can I keep it from going to trash?", "Would I be able to fix this?", "Do I know someone that wants/needs one?", and "Does it have parts I could use for other systems?"

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Generally speaking, if the box is working fine and doesnt have some horrible external flaw/damage, I try and not modify working machines that physically changes the exterior of their case design. I like to maintain an external stock case whenever possible. Internal componentry is however fair game - an example is I did ad some jumpers to a 733mhz QS daughter card to adjust +/- clock multipliers. I do not consider the addition of PCI cards or a new GPU a modification to the machine. I consider these choices to be upgrades that bring better performance, improved i/o etc., utilizing a pre-engineered slot designed exactly for this.

In regards to retrobriting, I take no issue with it personally but do not bother with it. I am a fan of old, vintagey, antiquey, shabby chic stuff, and as such, enjoy the patina of age. I leave the yellowing on my old boxes.

 

[Patrick]

Internal componentry is however fair game

question, adding jumpers, or cards is one thing...

What about swapping out the logic board?
or just sticking a intel Mac mini in the case.

I'm good either way. just curious. it SOUNDED like you were gonna be fine with doing ANYTHING inside the case. but then only talked about common upgrades that people would have done with their computer.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

If the box is working, I do not dump its guts for something different but with that being said, I have no problem with enthusiasts swapping cpus, lobos, psus, flashed gpus etc. It’s part of the fun. I’ve swapped parts on a number of my Powermacs to improve their function and have a couple empty cases (dead guts) for future PC. Builds. In lieu of Jobs focus of combining technology and the humanities to make a beautiful machine, the design asthetic was very intentional and a favorite part of Jobs/Ives era Macintosh for me so I try to keep that aspect of the box intact whenever possible.

 

[reallyrandy]

I try to restore the machine to it's original glory. Original OS, hard drive, etc. I load the drive with the software that was popular at the time of original purchase. That being said, I do have a few with SCSI2SDs and FloppyEMUs on them. I do retr0brite on severely yellowed cases that look nothing like the original but try to keep it to a minimum. I've seen a few Mac 512s that were almost white and that just looks weird. I also try to match the keys/mouse to the Mac, original model and color.

 

[Daniel Hansen]

Great question! I think my general philosophy is very similar to @reallyrandy - to try and restore to as close to original spec / appearance / operation where reasonable. Which to me means:

• Retrobrighting noticeably yellow / brown plastics. I'll also paint / fill Apple II cases that are brutally marked or damaged. But I avoid making permanent mods to cases
• OE media or networking solutions, unless suitable replacements can't be easily found (e.g. I'm not going to pay $200 for a 2.5" SCSI drive, so BlueSCSI it is, or RaSCSI - also for its DaynaPort emulation which is SUPER sweet and DaynaPorts are impossible to find). I enjoy the constraints and materiality of physical media, despite the inconvenience (actually, most of the time the inconvenience is kind of the point).
• Same with video solutions... but again, I can't find a reasonably-priced RGB monitor for the IIGS to save my life, so I'm using the GBS upscaler with the ESP266 mod in the meantime).
• Same with power solutions... I prefer to repair PSU's and repack batteries to OE spec, and avoid newer solutions (exceptions are the Meanwells I installed in the Pluses that have accelerators, and LiFePO for PB100 batteries).

As for criteria... I could have answered that clearly a few years ago, but now I'm not sure. It feels right now like I just keep acquiring things, randomly... I started collecting because of nostalgia and an appreciation for the technology and design. Then I started repairing them, which opens up a whole other (and vast) area of interest and motivation. Now I seem to collect things simply in order to repair and restore them, and it doesn't much matter what it is as long as it's vaguely interesting.

But so far I've limited my activities to Apple products of the 70's, 80's, and early 90's, and a few items 1998+ (G3's, G4's... ), simply because that's where I started and it's what I know - not for any Apple fanboy reasons. I keep looking at other systems because I am indeed interested in them, but then I remind myself that I realistically won't ever use them (I already have difficulty using or working on the machines I DO have, just because of time), and candidly I should focus more on other things around me, like working on my house or my other interests. But here I am on a Sunday, commenting on a tinkering forum lol

 

[Mu0n]

I don't have a billion machines like some of you, but I have enough to cause some concern about time limits and the unreacheable level of perfection that exists out there.

In a nutshell, it'd be: function over form.
Which is ironic considering we're talking about Apple machines, but here we are though, in a tinkerer forum!

My most important machine is my childhood Mac Plus. I need it to boot and run the stuff I have, either through the regular disk drive, or my FloppyEMU. I want a working channel of data from my development PC machine to it. If it started dying on me for mysterious reasons, despite all my repair efforts, backed by this wonderful place's advice (and others'), I'd be very sad. At (almost) all costs, this thing is my main focus even if it means neglecting other machines. It's why I bought a 2nd Mac Plus (platinum instead of beige, 4 MB instead of 2.5 MB) back in 2005-2006, because it meant I could breathe easier, knowing I had a plan B.

This didn't prevent
-Platinum machine suddenly had a rare happenstance of faulty ROM chip, which led to buying ICs and the TL-866 ii programmer everyone seems to have
-Beige machine finally had its video out due to cold solder cracks forming

As I gain more and more knowledge about repairing, these specific issues are now trivial for me, but I wonder what other tricky problem might arise later down the road.

-Oddware commercial upgrades to max the machine? Not really interested - I'm not maintaining illusion at finding those at sane prices and I'm not out hunting around in retro festival meetups
-Pristine look with retrobrighting? Deep cleaning? I can clean a PCB fairly well (without an ultrasonic bath) now but I feel like I want to invest time more into software making than making the 'form' look better. Function over form. Maybe I'll use passive sunlight next summer for one machine, if I think about it.
-Oddware makeshift upgrades? Yes, if it serves a specific purpose. I want to add a RGB2HDMI, which might imply soldered wires directly of the logic board of a machine. I view it as a failsafe in case the CRT gives the ghost - nice to have around and getting a W when you solder someone's PCB project is ALWAYS fun.

 

[RetroViator]

Sounds like many of us approach this similarly: Make it a computer you would have been proud to own when new.

Clean it, repair it, take life-preserving measures, and stock it with quality software and peripherals of the era. Oh, and retrobrite or paint only when necessary to avoid distracting from its original aesthetic.

 

[Patrick]

and load it up with stuff i never could afford at the time.

large hard drive

max ram

....

weird scanning doohickies (thunderscan for image writer II)

 

[Cameron_Talley]

I like to try and use the machines as-is. I'll upgrade Ram to the max, but I prefer to keep hard drives spinning if they keep on spinning. So far I haven't needed a FloppyEMU or BlueSCSI. (knock on wood).

I do like to cosmetically restore machines if possible, but so far I haven't ventured into Retrobrite land. Mainly just general cleaning and gluing old plastics.

I will say, however, that I enjoy seeing crazy things that other people do, even if I personally don't agree with them.