Vintage Macintosh Computing

I have been using Macintosh computers for 32 years and have accumulated over 50 Macs from the 1985 Mac 512k to a 2-year-old Mac Mini. If I had purchased all of these, I would have spent over $140,000 and probably be single. Friends have given me most of them. Recently, I decided to clear out some and refine my collection. I’m finding out that many don’t work anymore, most due to failed hard drives, power supplies or other electrical components. I have also accumulated over 800 floppy disks of software and data, again many of which are failing.

In this discussion, I will present my methods of dealing with this old technology. I will review my techniques of archiving old floppies, creating image files to restore from and managing the collection to find what I have. I will also discuss some new replacement hardware such as a floppy disk emulator and a SCSI controller that can store thousands of floppy images on a micro-SD card and replace the failed drives. In addition, I will provide information on methods to repair the old failed hardware and Mac OS emulation.

In addition, if there is time and interest, I can discuss my similar efforts with the TI 99/4 home computers.

• Hardware
• Other