1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,760 I'm very excited to show you this. 2 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:08,640 It's the original Macintosh, the computer that paved the way for how we use computers 3 00:00:08,640 --> 00:00:13,200 over the last 40 years. I can't believe I have one. 4 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:17,640 Now the last time I took it out, it did all work, which is pretty impressive for something 5 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:21,560 this old. The question now is, does this family heirloom still work today? 6 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:26,240 Well, there's only one way to find out. Okay, moment of truth. 7 00:00:26,240 --> 00:00:29,240 Okay, made the sound. 8 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:34,600 Oh, it needs a disk. That's right, these didn't have hard drives, so the operating system, software, and all 9 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:37,080 your files were stored on a floppy disk. 10 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:46,200 It's broken. Oh, this is disappointing. I was hoping to show you how this works, but it's a little haggard. 11 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,880 The disk drives need a fix, and kids have drawn all over the case. 12 00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:54,360 I hope that's it. 13 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:58,120 I see a nightmare in front of me is what I see. What? 14 00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:03,800 Seriously? The one guiding me on this journey is David Murray, whom you might know as the 8-bit guy 15 00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:09,240 on this very website. If you're like me, you've seen him restore yellowed and tired old technology back to 16 00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:12,640 their original glory, which is exactly what I'm hoping to do. 17 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:17,800 Yeah, I'm not real fond of working on those. How many Macintoshes have you fixed yourself? 18 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:21,200 Of that particular style? I don't know, four or five? 19 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:25,560 Not a whole lot. I kind of avoid them like a plague now, just because everyone that I've tried to work 20 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:32,760 on has ended up being a nightmare. Not exactly confidence-inspiring, but there is a reason why I reached out to David. 21 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:36,400 How did you get into fixing these old computers and what do you love about it? 22 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:40,640 Well, I don't always love it. Sometimes it can be extraordinarily frustrating. 23 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:47,160 I do like collecting and playing on the old computers. It is very satisfying when you manage to fix one or restore one that was not previously 24 00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:55,680 working. I have my work cut out for me is what you're saying. I got a lot of my skills for repairing computers when I worked at a computer store for many, 25 00:01:55,720 --> 00:02:01,560 many years. And not only did I gain a lot of experience in actually repairing, but I also learned 26 00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:06,120 how to clean them and things that I would originally thought were impossible to get 27 00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:10,520 rid of like, you know, sticker residue and permanent marker and stuff like that. 28 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:13,560 I learned how to clean all that stuff off so that we could put this stuff back on the 29 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,440 shelf and it would look presentable again to the customer. 30 00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:22,360 You know, when my Mac broke, I was like, I know who to call, so I appreciate you helping 31 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:27,320 me out with this. I'm both a bit intimidated, but also inspired to do this. 32 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:29,080 So it's exciting to see how this goes. 33 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,080 All right, here we go. I'm so nervous. 34 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:42,800 I have to work around a CRT screen, which apparently is magic and full of lots of volts. 35 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:46,400 And I have to somehow remove the disk drive. 36 00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:50,640 So one of the things I'm probably most worried about is opening it up because I'm a bit of 37 00:02:50,640 --> 00:02:55,680 a delicate soul and I don't want to break anything. So what should I know about, you know, opening the computer up? 38 00:02:55,680 --> 00:03:00,080 Okay, so the number one challenge on an old compact Mac like that is you're going to need 39 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:03,360 what we call the Mac Cracker. It's a Torx driver. 40 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:07,120 It's a number of T15, but it has to be really long. 41 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:10,680 What about like getting in the plastic and like splitting it apart? 42 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:14,000 Once you get the screws off, it won't be a problem. Oh my gosh, check this out. 43 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:19,680 This is really cool. These are original Macs. They had everyone who worked on the project sign in the plastic casing. 44 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:23,920 Old technology like this is delightfully mechanical, but of course that means there 45 00:03:23,920 --> 00:03:27,360 are more parts and points where things can go wrong. 46 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:30,880 It also means I need to figure out how these old disk drives even work. 47 00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:35,760 So we got this logic board on the bottom. This is the motor for moving the head. 48 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:40,720 This is the motor for the eject mechanism. Oh, well that went in. 49 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:44,560 You think it was just like, it was just so dirty that the whole reason I can't get disks 50 00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:48,200 in here is just because it just got grody and I just need to clean it? It's possible. 51 00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:55,280 Okay, so this one, that one's working actually. This one is not because if I push on this, oh, there we go. 52 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:58,560 Okay. This one's really stiff. The other problem is the disk drives. 53 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:05,640 Almost every one of them is broken. There's one particular gear in there that over a time, just with age, it becomes brittle 54 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:09,480 and breaks and so the disk drives don't work anymore. Yes. 55 00:04:09,480 --> 00:04:12,800 It turns out that mine drives don't even use those problematic gears. 56 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:16,640 They're the old 400K drives with a completely different eject mechanism. 57 00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:19,880 But we did order the gears anyway, just in case. 58 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:26,000 I found three options on eBay from the sellers Retro Shopbox, Happy Gesture and Steven Lowles. 59 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:30,320 And they sell for between $12 and $15 for a three or four pack. 60 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:35,320 So which one works? It's hard to say because I actually don't need to use these, but I think the best looking 61 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:39,360 one is from Steven Lowles, which are the white ones on eBay. 62 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:47,880 Everything needs to be re-graced. That's all there is. It's all just stiff and goopy, old, and that's just what happens. 63 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:52,640 Let's screw this back together and see if I have made a difference and fixed my own 64 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:58,960 drive. I'm not going to push it all the way in because then I need to get it out. 65 00:04:58,960 --> 00:05:04,560 I'd so tempt it to though. You have to. How else are you going to know if it works? 66 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:07,560 Great. Now it's stuck. You did it. 67 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:13,800 It works. I always have anxiety for like doing things like this because everything's new and I'm 68 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:20,320 so afraid of doing something wrong, but there is, you know, a satisfaction to kind of figuring 69 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:23,840 things out. You kind of feel like a genius. 70 00:05:23,840 --> 00:05:26,880 Well these aren't going in nicely. Why? 71 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:33,480 Look, okay, I'm going to have to take it apart anyway. So I'm just going to put it in just lightly, lightly, tightly. 72 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:35,120 It's time to try the disc. 73 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:46,360 Okay, let's actually see if the disc drives work from like a writing and reading perspective 74 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:50,000 and so that requires setting this thing up again. 75 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:55,360 So all the discs I actually have for this Mac aren't available, so we have to make discs 76 00:05:55,360 --> 00:06:01,360 and so I bought a set of these floppies from eBay and you can't just buy any floppy from 77 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:10,800 the store. The old style DD style floppy, which I hope works, and then this is the floppy emu. 78 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:15,480 So what it does is it emulates an external floppy drive like this into the Mac and it's 79 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:21,200 one of the only ways you can get any data in and out of the Mac outside of using Mac 80 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:27,960 formatted floppies. So hopefully we can reformat these from DOS floppies into Mac floppies and upload the 81 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:34,360 software. Hopefully this just works. Now all I have to do is plug this in the back and this in the here. 82 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:37,560 I should probably read the manual first, shouldn't I? 83 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:42,360 It doesn't. Let's just turn it on and see what happens. Oh, that's cool. 84 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:45,360 It lit up. FEMU. B-WOW. 85 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:48,360 Binary. I haven't seen binary. I was a kid. 86 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:51,360 That's not true. I didn't see any binaries. A kid. 87 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:53,360 Look. It works. 88 00:06:54,360 --> 00:07:02,960 Okay, I'm going to try and open up a version of the Macintosh operating system. 89 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:06,360 System 1.2, system 2, 1.1. 90 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:11,440 Okay, let's just open up system 1.1 since that's sort of like what the original was 91 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:14,800 and see what happens when we put a disk in. We got image writer. 92 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,280 We got font mover. We got a clipboard. We got fonts. 93 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:24,200 Look at that. And what I want to do now is I want to see if I can format this disk in the Mac system 94 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:27,640 and then maybe like put the software on. 95 00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:31,200 Look at, I mean that was in its plastic wrap. 96 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:35,080 After how long? It's so new. It's in French. 97 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:38,840 If I format this with the French operating system, is it going to format in French? 98 00:07:38,840 --> 00:07:42,120 Let's try it. 99 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,960 It's working. I can hear it making disk noises. All right. 100 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:49,200 It's copying. Little progress bars even back in the Mac days. 101 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:53,840 So I guess when we were complaining about it on the iPad, we're being unfair. 102 00:07:53,840 --> 00:07:57,760 We're going to do one more disk. I want two disks because then I can see how the other drive works. 103 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:02,280 Okay. So I'm going to now turn the computer off. 104 00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:05,360 We're going to unplug the flop email. We're going to plug this in. 105 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:15,320 This was causing you the most grief. Put this down here, put this in here. 106 00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:23,520 What? I can't read this disk anymore. Is it all the disks I made have forked? 107 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:30,680 It doesn't like them. Oh yeah. I should admit with the disk drives, I have two disk drives and right now if I make a 108 00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:34,360 disk in one drive, it won't work in the other and vice versa. 109 00:08:34,360 --> 00:08:37,760 So I don't know what's going on there. It's a head alignment issue. 110 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:41,400 If it, I've never seen that in a three and a half inch drive, although I can't imagine 111 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,280 why you couldn't have that problem. 112 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:52,760 Oh, that's not a good thing. And I don't have any proper Macintosh disks at the moment, so I can't verify which drive 113 00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:53,760 is out of alignment. 114 00:08:56,760 --> 00:09:00,880 So I have to clean the computer, which I actually think is going to be the most annoying part 115 00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:04,000 because it's tedious. 116 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:10,320 And I'm not sure if I want to do a retro break, but as you can see, it has yellowed somewhat. 117 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:14,120 Actually quite a bit. The dust bunnies. 118 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:21,480 One of the things that I get most anxiety about when like fixing or cleaning things is that 119 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:25,760 sometimes I feel like when you fix something, you make it worse because you're getting in 120 00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:30,200 there and messing about with stuff and you may have fixed one thing, but you jostled 121 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:33,240 something else. That's what I'm worried about. 122 00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:36,240 And now I will clean. 123 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:40,000 I think the biggest concern for you of getting all that pencil and stuff off of there, if 124 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:44,400 you haven't tried wet baking soda yet, I would recommend giving that a try. 125 00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:49,920 Just sprinkle baking soda all over it and then spray it with like water and then just 126 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:54,480 scrub it with either like a scrub brush or just a folded paper towel or something like 127 00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:57,520 that and just really work, work it in there. 128 00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:00,640 I bet that will get that cleared up pretty good. 129 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:06,600 Like all the dirt that gets ingrained into the grain of the plastic is out, which is 130 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:13,360 actually really satisfying to see. But if you want to make the plastic lighter, you have to do what's retro-bright, which 131 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:20,360 is submerging it in a hydrogen peroxide solution out in the sun for multiple hours in the heat. 132 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:26,160 So that's a different step. This is just everyday sort of like domestic dishes. 133 00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:32,200 What about like in the, in the great, the little like kind of louvers and the greats 134 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:36,480 and stuff like that? Yeah, just use like a, like a toothbrush or something like that to get in there real 135 00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:40,480 good. And of course, be prepared. You're going to need to rinse it, rinse it off afterwards. 136 00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:44,720 But I found a number of occasions where baking soda, like I thought something needed to be 137 00:10:44,720 --> 00:10:48,840 retro-bright. And then after I did baking soda to it, I kind of looked at it and I'm like, oh, everywhere 138 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:52,440 I've scrubbed it, it's much brighter now. 139 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:57,800 I'm really pleased with how this turned out. The baking soda for the win. 140 00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:02,520 Also, I don't think I need to retro-bright the whole computer. 141 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:07,080 Just the keyboard. Look, the keyboard's a little bit yellower than the Mac. 142 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:11,920 If you compare the inside plastics to the outside plastics, if they're the same color, 143 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:17,600 chances are it probably does not need to be retro-brighted. It's usually when they yellow, it's only going to be on the outside. 144 00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:23,040 If you can find a crate big enough to submerge the whole thing under liquid, then I would 145 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:29,520 go that route. You're far less likely to wind up with streaks or marbling effect or anything like that. 146 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:32,520 Hi, are you retro-bright expert? 147 00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:37,040 Yeah, don't. Why? So here's what happens when you retro-bright, okay? 148 00:11:37,040 --> 00:11:41,160 It will go back to the original color and then two, three, four years down the road, 149 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:44,720 it will be twice as dark as that. Really? 150 00:11:44,720 --> 00:11:48,160 Yeah. Also, you're better off by actually using a heated solution. 151 00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:54,040 But what if it's out in the sun? The water's already warm. Well, if it's out in the sun, then it's going to heat up the hydrogen peroxide. 152 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,920 Yeah. That's what my plan was. But you're saying this is a bad idea. 153 00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:03,800 Retro-brighting in general, I'm not a big fan of. So the problem is it's not that bad, this yellowing. 154 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:08,160 And so I only need to retro-bright, the only thing I need to retro-bright is this space 155 00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:11,400 bar at this top, and I guess this a little bit. 156 00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:15,840 Otherwise, it's fine. All right. But you're now making me scared. 157 00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:19,720 Well, you're not going to destroy it. But this is my beloved computer. 158 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:22,720 Well, that's my cute exit. 159 00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:39,600 So I got the computer done. 160 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,600 Look at it. It's beautiful. It looks very good. 161 00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:47,160 Congratulations. It really does. I wasn't expecting this transformation. 162 00:12:47,160 --> 00:12:51,640 For years, I've put off cleaning this old Mac mainly because of how tedious it all seemed. 163 00:12:51,640 --> 00:12:58,280 And it is tedious. But seeing it right here, right now, I can tell you that it's certainly worth it. 164 00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:01,480 I guess what would you say to people who might be in a similar situation, who might have 165 00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:07,000 an old computer and maybe don't know if it's worth anything or if it's worth fixing? 166 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,440 What should they do? Well, I guess a Google search would be one thing. 167 00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:16,160 Obviously, I always recommend reaching out to various social media groups that are focused 168 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:20,920 on that particular computer. It doesn't matter what kind it is, whether it's a Tandy or an Apple or a Commodore or 169 00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:25,040 whatever. You find a community of people like that and just ask. 170 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:28,600 Did you have any sort of heirlooms that you've restored over the years? 171 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:34,400 Unfortunately, not really because everything that I had back then was essentially lost 172 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:40,840 to time. And I've reacquired similar machines, but they're not the originals that I had. 173 00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:44,160 Do you wish you still had the originals or was it like it was perfectly fine just getting 174 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:52,520 the, you know, taking advantage of it? Well, yeah. I recommend who I knew back at that time, but he still has his original Commodore 64. 175 00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:56,880 And I'm kind of jealous about that for a couple of reasons, one just from the, like 176 00:13:56,880 --> 00:14:05,160 you say, the heirloom aspect of it. But the other thing is he still has all of the disks with programs that he wrote or programs 177 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:08,360 that he typed in for magazines and things like that. 178 00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:14,200 And I don't have any of that. So I had written all these programs back in the 80s and they're all lost. 179 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:19,200 And so, yeah, I would love to be able to look through these old disks and look at, you 180 00:14:19,200 --> 00:14:24,200 know, programs I wrote when I was six, seven, eight years old, I don't have any of that. 181 00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:28,560 So that's, that's what I really wish I had more than the actual computers themselves. 182 00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:31,560 The content. Yeah. No, totally. 183 00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:34,680 It's so hard to know like what you're going to want to keep when you're cleaning out, right? 184 00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:38,040 So I'm really pleased with how this turned out. 185 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:41,360 It looks and feels far better than the day I got it. 186 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:45,600 A small old computer like this is perfect for putting on display, just like you would 187 00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:50,720 with any other antique, only this is better because you can turn it on, use it, and wow 188 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:54,720 your friends. Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it. 189 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,960 Thanks for restoring this Mac Address back to its original glory. 190 00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:02,240 If you're big on decorating your home with antique computers, give this video a like. 191 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:05,360 And if you only care about new computers, well then I guess you can subscribe. 192 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:10,240 Now I'm curious who of you has an old relic like this that needs some TLC? 193 00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:13,960 Comment below what it is, what needs to be done, or if you've actually fixed it, how 194 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:14,460 it went.