Retrocomputing often involves careful restorations, rare components, and white gloves. This story involves none of those. This is the story of two people who sought to answer one of the greatest questions in the universe: What does it take to kill a Mac SE?
The star of the show here is Crusty, a Mac SE that was found on the loading dock of a scrap company. It sat out in the weather for at least 6 months, complete with the original leaking NiCad battery.
Enter [RadRacer203], who is friends with the owner of this particular scrap company. [RadRacer203] and picked up Crusty, along with a few other classic Macs. He brought these machines to VCF East 2021, where our other hero comes in. [CJ] is something of a magician with CRTs and analog electronics. Trained under [Sark] himself, [CJ] has mastered the 5-finger exploding capacitor technique.
The battery had eaten through the mainboard and even into the chassis. But after a thorough cleaning, the damn thing booted up. Crusty was born.
This Mac was a survivor. Much like Top Gear and their Pluky Toyota Hilux, [RadRacer203] and [CJ] devised a plan to put Crusty to the test.
Click through the break for more!
Test 1: Bury it for 6 months.
[RadRacer203] lives on a large computer ranch. He took Crusty out to the back 40 and buried him. [CJ] is quick to mention they did remove the IWM chip before burial, as he and [RadRacer203] aren’t monsters. After 6 months underground, Crusty was dug up just in time to attend VCF East, still wearing his muddy attire. [CJ] immediately went to work. While the burial had rusted a few parts, it only took a bit of cleaning to get Crusty up and running again. The machine would not die. Obviously, this required drastic measures.
Test 2: Submerge it in a creek for 8 months.
Did we mention [RadRacer203] lives on a large computer farm? This includes a creek. He chucked Crusty in and walked away. Crusty was only retrieved 8 months later when the danger of a hard freeze put the CRT itself at risk. Rather than winter in the water, Crusty became a Halloween decoration and spent some time as the head of a rather dapper looking snowman.
At this point, Crusty was a bit of a celebrity, and his next appearance at VCF East 2023 included meeting and getting signatures from several notable YouTubers. Unfortunately [CJ] wasn’t quite able to get him working this time. The 1/8-watt power supply feedback resistors rusted right off the PCB.
[CJ] was undaunted. Fast forward to VCF Midwest 2023, and he was going to give Crusty the best possible chance of running again. [CJ] had everything he needed. Except cleaning supplies. Not a problem, as there was plenty of Old Bay vodka available. This was perfect for cleaning up the boards and made everyone around hungry looking for crabcakes.
Did Crusty live? We’ll let [CJ] tell the rest of the story on his page. We’ll just say we’re in awe of his skills in bringing old decrepit hardware back to life.
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- Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/01/23/crusty-the-story-of-the-mac-se-that-could/
