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What I got for ten bucks

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Bungo Pony

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I found a fantastic thrift store the other day. It seems that most thrift stores filter out what they deem as total garbage, but this one doesn't! There's tons of recorded cassettes, miscellaneous wires, connectors, and pretty much anything you can think of. Some of it is caked in dust as it's been sitting for years, but that's the magic of a store like this. I figured if I was going to find a vintage computer, I would find one here. I've been mainly after TRS-80 stuff, but I've been coming up empty-handed.

After a bit of searching, I came up with a solitary Macintosh serial mouse (are they serial? Sorry, not much of a Mac guy.) I've been needing one for my original Mac and have been searching for at least the last 3 years. I was happy to have found one.

Just as I was ready to leave, I came across this big black bag on the floor...

macse1.jpg


Oooh! Let's see what's in it!

macse2.jpg


YAY!!!

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In the bag is a total of 3 serial mice and one bus mouse. They let me throw in the extra serial mouse I found for free :)

macse4.jpg


A Fanny Mac? Cute. This thing plugs into the carrying handle on the Mac. Not sure how well it works since there's no vent holes there.

macse5.jpg


The bag even has a place to stuff your keyboard. There was an extra keyboard cable shoved in there too!

macse6.jpg


And this is everything I got. There's like 6 power cables there too for some reason. There's only one problem here... This is a Mac SE. The keyboard and 4 of the mice are made for the original Mac. It's all good though since I have a couple of original Macs (and a couple of SE's along with peripherals). I mainly bought this thing for the lovely luggable bag. I'd never seen anything like that! How we suffered when computers weren't yet portable. All of it cost me ten bucks. The SE works too!
 
this black bags were very commun, with or without a mac logo

model number of the serial mouses ?
 
Man, I may have to take a road trip to that place. :) Nice finds. You'l certainly have no shortage of Mac mice and power cables now. And a nice SE you found too. Have you powered it on yet to see if it'll boot?

Does yours have the programmers buttons on the side? If so, (and I'm not sure if they're required) you can try out some easter eggs on the new SE on the block.

Can't wait to hear more on it.
 
I can't tell you how much Mac crap I've lugged home. I even have a Mac-compatible laser-disc player, complete with Mac software. It's weird because I'm more of a Commodore guy. Surprised I haven't found a Lisa yet although there was one available at the computer recycler a few years ago.

The SE does have the buttons mounted on the side. I was wondering what those things were for. I don't think my other SE's have them. Perhaps programmers needed tons of incompatible serial mice for their programming needs :p

The SE boots up fine. I think I've only had one of these little macs not work, and it was due to a bad picture tube.

I'm actually kinda tempted to try the music software it came with. Is the 15 pin connector on the back a midi interface?
 
Bungo Pony said:
The SE boots up fine. I think I've only had one of these little macs not work, and it was due to a bad picture tube.
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They are pretty tough little machines.

Bungo Pony said:
I'm actually kinda tempted to try the music software it came with. Is the 15 pin connector on the back a midi interface?
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If you look close you are probably looking at a 19pin connector, which is the floppy port. Unless its a 15pin in the little knock out opening about 3 inches to the left of the power port, and then it COULD be MIDI, however my money would be on ethernet AUI port. MOST mac MIDI suites used a serial to MIDI adapter on printer or modem ports. With a photo of the port most of us mac folks could probably answer that one for you.
 
My booboo. It is a 19 pin connector. Shows how often I see 15 pin ones :)

A midi port (or adapter) would be a nice touch though. I've got a piano with midi ports on it.
 
Bungo Pony said:
A Fanny Mac? Cute. This thing plugs into the carrying handle on the Mac. Not sure how well it works since there's no vent holes there.
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SCOOOOORE!!!!!! Congrats :)

The fan thing is for a Mac Plus, the model that came with one megabyte of memory and was beige. I think you plugged the computer into the fan, which pulls hot air from the top of the inside of the case out through holes that are mostly hidden by the handle, and the fan had the on-off switch and plugged into the wall. Not usable on other models.

Sean
 
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