BristolUK

The 20 greatest home computers – ranked!

This will probably bring a tear to the eye

Tweedpipe

This Mac 512k (Sept 1984 - April 1986) almost brought a tear to my eye, and for good reason.
I was given one four years ago, and unfortunately like many vintage components, someone had left the back-up battery installed. And like many, the battery had expired and leaked it’s corrosive acid within the battery compartment, over chassis components, and ‘horror!’ - over the motherboard.
Preferring vintage Mac laptops to work on, I’d never refurbished a desktop 512k let alone one in this state, but thought I’d accept the challenge. Needless to say it wasn’t easy.
Here are a few before/after photos of various components.









Due to complications with the motherboard, this project is currently on-hold and in storage pending completion of a few other of my Mac refurb projects.




A lesser-known feature of this model is that all the team associated with it - including Steve Jobs, signed their names, which were then transposed across to the casing during fabrication. When the cover is removed all the signatures are visible inside.

BristolUK

What did you use, pepsi/coke or something similar like we used to make pennies nice and shiny?

Tweedpipe

No. I asked on a specialist forum and was advised to contact a car-repair bodyshop and get the worst parts sand blasted. But eventually just bit the bullet and got stuck in using emery cloth and a lot of elbow-grease. Then a light spray from a silver aerosol can to finish off.

For info if there are any AppleMac fans here, a short while back after searching for years, I found and purchased a TAM (aka Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh), produced June1997-March1998, a very rare beast, and hoped that the internal battery was either removed or in good condition. Fortunately it was ok, and the computer fully functional - a big relief! Marvellous machine for it's day, with an astronomical price when released.
Shown below on the left:

Nutek

My Atari ST

Lion in Winter

Ancient PC porn

I didn't/don't own this, but it was the first computer-type thing I ever worked on, at a friend's house. The type was green and the most frequent and unhelpful message was "fatal error".

BristolUK

Nice computers in this

SpoogleDrummer

My first computer was the Commodore 16 with the separate tape deck. I probably spent more money on games and joysticks than the thing cost but it kept me entertained right up until the NES came out. You don't get games like Punchy anymore.

Nutek

The box set is sat under my TV.

SultanOfSwing

How did I allow myself to stay away long enough to miss this thread? I love vintage computing so much.

While I used the old Macs (and later Mac II), the BBC Micro and early PC's in school, I was only lucky enough to own 3 of those myself. I briefly had a 16k Spectrum long after they stopped making games for it, which was quickly replaced with a CPC 464 (the plus model), and then I got an Amiga 1200. I loved every one of them, and every hour I spent playing games on them.

Nutek

You just want my Zip Stick.

SultanOfSwing

Funny you should mention that because I just bought myself the USB version of the old Competition Pro joystick the Zip Stick was based off for emulation on my PC. I couldn't play old games like Sensible Soccer very well on my controller but they are so much more fun now.

Nutek

Oh, that’s excellent.

mikelincs

My first was the Sinclair ZX. I'd wanted one but been vetoed by my then wife, who wnet to the London Boat show, entered a competition and won. a Sinclair ZX.
I upgraded to the Amstrad 464 and kept the ZX for games.

SultanOfSwing

It really is. Not cheap of course, was about $40 on Ebay but it's made in Germany and the seller was in the UK so add a few bob for that. Can only get them from European sellers I think.

Worth it though, it feels exactly like the old Zipstick and the microswitches are solid. Works a treat for CPC and Amiga emulation.

Can't beat the old 8-bit machines. My daughter doesn't even know what a tape is let alone that games used to load from them, the poor thing

But she does play Minecraft, which has a very 8-bit feel, by design of course.