Macintosh Classic II

Might as well start with what's out in the open.

This Classic II has been sitting on my workbench with its guts exposed for so long, that I don't even remember what I was doing with it when I opened it up in the first place! I'm not even sure if it works...

First things first lets give it a visual inspection to see if everything is hooked up. Hmm... the motherboard is partially pulled out, but it looks like all the connections are hooked up... HD, floppy, power supply, battery is installed... A keyboard, mouse, and power cord are already hooked up, so lets see if it works...

Lo and behold, it fires right up! Looks like it has a ton of extensions loaded. After the parade of icons finishes and the desktop loads, I opened "About This Macintosh". This particular Classic II has System 7.1 loaded, with 4 MB RAM, and a 40 MB HD - that is practically full! The screen is exceptionally sharp and clear. There is software for sharing DOS files, Microsoft Word 4.0, FileMaker Pro 1.0, Hypercard, SuperPaint, and a few other apps loaded on the HD. It also has that little, annoying, over-grown, sweet-tart microphone holder glued to the front of it. I'm torn on whether to remove it. It looks stupid just sitting there, but I'm afraid of having a dot left on the front of the case either from the glue or discoloration of the rest of the case.

The Classic II runs on a 16 MHz 68030 processor. It was designed to replace the SE/30, but wasn't nearly as fast or expandable. This is one of two Classic II's I own. Sadly, the other one doesn't work... I don't exactly remember why... I'm sure I'll get to it in a future post. :) If I recall correctly, both of my Classic II's came from OldMacMartin, a local source of Mac's that I have done some IT work for numerous times. He gave me this one to replace the one that doesn't work.

For now, it looks like I'll be putting this Classic II back together - after I pull the battery - (hopefully, I can find the screws!), label it as working, and move on to the next.

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