This weekend offered two contrasting vintage computer adventures: a failed Apple IIe road trip yesterday, and a successful classic Mac pickup today.
Yesterday I drove to London, Ontario, to pick up a pair of Apple IIe computers I'd won for pocket change on Ebay. The seller was an Ebay brokerage house called Auctionsharks.
I'd already paid for the computers, and had arranged to drive to London to pick them up at the Auctionsharks shop yesterday. Their Saturday hours are from 10AM until 4PM.
I'll be documenting the whole road trip in the Road Trips section of my blog as a companion to my first Apple IIe road trip, but the short version is this: I drove 5 hours round trip only to find a locked door. Ignoring my appointment, and not at all concerned about the length of my drive (or the value of my time, for that matter) Auctionsharks had closed up shop early because it was too warm outside.
Auctionsharkssucks.com might not be available too much longer.
Today's pickup was much more successful. I'd spotted an ad in the tor.forsale newsgroup about a bundle of free vintage Macs. The lot included a IIci, which I've been wanting to nab because I think the IIci is the best System 6 computer Apple ever made.
aside:
Some people would argue in favor of the SE/30 as the best System 6 Mac, but I think the IIci's 32-bit clean ROMs, expandability, and faster CPU and bus tip the scale. I do really want to pick up an SE/30, though, so if you know someone with a nice clean one hanging about let me know. By the way, I'm partial to the Mac LC475—AKA the Quadra 605—as my overall favorite 68K Macintosh, but it cannot run system 6. I know you care, you really do.
end of aside
I picked up this collection of late-80s beauties this morning. The experience was exactly the opposite of the Crappy Auctionsharks Ebay Crapfest of Crap. (Here, Google Google Google! Come here boy! I've got a juicy phrase for you to index!) The friendly vintage Mac giver-awayer was a fellow named Patrick, and when I showed up he'd already moved everything down by his front door and neatly boxed the cables. And this was for stuff he was giving away for free.
He also has a Commodore 64 and drive he wants to give away, so if you're a C64 fan let me know soon and I'll hook you two up.
I'm very much looking forward to sifting through them to see what I want to add to my own stable of vintage hardware and what I'll try to find another home for.
Fun times in the nerdhaus.
