Today is a good day to loot!
I spent several hours today fiddling around in the Physics lab with a bunch of friends diagnosing the problem on one old Macintosh (an LC 475, for those interested) and playing SimCity 2000 on another (an old Performa, now the property of one of those friends).
Since we had nothing better to do, four of us (Sam, Skippy, myself and a guy called Garrie), went in there in the morning armed with naught but our wits, an old screwdriver that Sam carries at all times, whatever we could Google on some nearby, working, PCs and far, far too much free time. We tried different monitors, scavenged from near and far, we poked DIP switches, we connected and disconnected hard drives, we argued over different methods of repair, we played Scalextric when we got bored.
In the end, someone searched for it online and we discovered someone with the exact same problem. Turns out, searching again now, that it's a relatively common problem; no battery, no video. I've just found the Apple page on the problem and they recommend that, having tried various things (we tried different monitors and nothing else), you should bring the thing into an authorised Apple repair centre to have the motherboard battery checked and replaced.
Well, we didn't do that. We found out that the battery could be the problem, borrowed a multimeter (an advantage of working in a Physics lab), discovered we were only getting a few fractions of a volt from the little thing and promptly went on eBay to buy a new one. With any luck, it should arrive by Monday along with some CD caddies so that I can finally get the thing working.
All present at the time of our discovery agreed that there was something wonderful about solving an elusive technical problem. Sure, it turned out to be nothing tricky, but it had been annoying us no end and the thing had been declared dead by the school. We found a way to give it life. Of course, in true techie fashion, we didn't want to just leave the matter there, but the lack of a soldering iron prevented the hooking up of several AAs we had.
No one else we talked to could understand our fascination with getting this old piece of junk to work. I'd be lying if I said that I fully understood it. Perhaps it was the thrill of doing something that others had said couldn't be done. Maybe, once we had started, we spent so long on it that finally finding a solution was like getting to the end of a long journey. It's possible that it was just a way to prove the geek credentials of which we are all so proud. Either way, we had set ourselves a challenge and we had completed it. And it felt good.
The rest of the day went by in a blur of half-understood card games played with Advanced Higher Chemistry students and conversations on Time Lords while games of rounders, which we may have been outside to watch, were played in the background. The day ended with my friends and I carrying out yet more bundles of old computer equipment. All in all, it was a good day.
Since we had nothing better to do, four of us (Sam, Skippy, myself and a guy called Garrie), went in there in the morning armed with naught but our wits, an old screwdriver that Sam carries at all times, whatever we could Google on some nearby, working, PCs and far, far too much free time. We tried different monitors, scavenged from near and far, we poked DIP switches, we connected and disconnected hard drives, we argued over different methods of repair, we played Scalextric when we got bored.
In the end, someone searched for it online and we discovered someone with the exact same problem. Turns out, searching again now, that it's a relatively common problem; no battery, no video. I've just found the Apple page on the problem and they recommend that, having tried various things (we tried different monitors and nothing else), you should bring the thing into an authorised Apple repair centre to have the motherboard battery checked and replaced.
Well, we didn't do that. We found out that the battery could be the problem, borrowed a multimeter (an advantage of working in a Physics lab), discovered we were only getting a few fractions of a volt from the little thing and promptly went on eBay to buy a new one. With any luck, it should arrive by Monday along with some CD caddies so that I can finally get the thing working.
All present at the time of our discovery agreed that there was something wonderful about solving an elusive technical problem. Sure, it turned out to be nothing tricky, but it had been annoying us no end and the thing had been declared dead by the school. We found a way to give it life. Of course, in true techie fashion, we didn't want to just leave the matter there, but the lack of a soldering iron prevented the hooking up of several AAs we had.
No one else we talked to could understand our fascination with getting this old piece of junk to work. I'd be lying if I said that I fully understood it. Perhaps it was the thrill of doing something that others had said couldn't be done. Maybe, once we had started, we spent so long on it that finally finding a solution was like getting to the end of a long journey. It's possible that it was just a way to prove the geek credentials of which we are all so proud. Either way, we had set ourselves a challenge and we had completed it. And it felt good.
The rest of the day went by in a blur of half-understood card games played with Advanced Higher Chemistry students and conversations on Time Lords while games of rounders, which we may have been outside to watch, were played in the background. The day ended with my friends and I carrying out yet more bundles of old computer equipment. All in all, it was a good day.
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:31 PM
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home