My condolences to the man and his family. We all know how it feels to lose a beloved machine. An evil conspiracy of an ex-girlfriend and, hopefully soon, ex-mother, have sent my collection of Apple IIe's to the dumpster. All that scaped were the manuals.

That's horrifying. You should buy her a 1984 Bordeaux for her birthday, then throw it away the next week because it's so old.

Of course what is lost is lost, but can't you buy one? I bought an Apple //c for $10 off eBay, as a "temporary replacement" for the one that I grew up with but had to leave at home in India.

Did you get a chance to play with the Apple archive I sent you?

I am still procrastinating it to death for no reason whatsoever! :) Thanks for the nudge dude.

My mom found the computers I hid in the attic and shipped them to me.

Not sure where to put this vic 20.

The problem with 2.2Mb of data to back-up?

Can't fit it all on a single floppy disk. No wonder he didn't back up for 20 years.

You know, given that this is 1980's tech, a quick refresher in circuits, a steady hand with iron and multimeter could probably identify the faulty component since he can physically see it with his eyes and even replace!

Never give up!

My Laser 128 can't read floppies ever since the magic smoke came out of it. Wonder if I could fix it.

In the eighties I bought a C64 for the price of a beer from a guy who said it was a total loss - there had been smoke coming out of it! Turned out it was just a blown fuse. The same thing happened again a few years back with a pinball machine, which also worked fine once I replaced the fuse. So check for fuses :)

Well, it can't get much worse now, so go ahead and try!

"Finally"? He must have abused it somehow...mine is still running fine. So are my SE and SE/30. I just wish new equipment had the same lifespan.

I have a //c that was purchased in 1985 that still works but it is rarely booted these days (not even once a year). I also would expect it to last basically forever because it doesn't have a hard disk. My floppy disks might demagnetize but I've got them all backed up so the data will never be lost.

Is the battery still on the motherboard? It will lose its charge or worse, corrode, and damage the motherboard.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a battery. No need since it doesn't have a clock.

My SE/30 monitor burnt out completely after a few years of heavy use. It was a sad day, seeing the old thing go.

The only computer I've ever worn out was my first "real" box, a Mac Plus that I acquired in 1993. After a few years of faithful service, a design flaw reared its head (no fan => hot computer) and killed the power supply. Fortunately, replacement power supplies were easy to come by back then, so a quick swap made everything good as new. That computer continues to function even today, albeit more as a curiosity than a workhorse.

Anyone know what software was on this computer that couldn't run in a newer OS? Anytime I hear that I just feel baffled. Couldn't a newer machine at least emulate the older OS?

My BBC B+128 is still alive. My father bought it in 1985. Just last week I managed to hook up a brand new 3.5" drive and format a disc in single density (FM).

My wife had a mac from that era and it was toast. I got it running again with a logic board from the same model which I found in the back room of weird stuff for $20. I love that back room. We got the data off and now I have the data backed up like crazy.

Weird stuff is -the- place to find old hardware.

I'm feeling nostalgic now. I think I might go get my Amiga 500 out from under the house and see if it still works. Anyone got a spare 1084 monitor? I went "PC" when it broke back in 93.

condolences, man...

bummer.

My Apple ][c is still kicking!