So.
My dad visited me from far enough away and brought me our old Macintosh LC 575! :DDD
It is the very computer which ignited the spark of my "addiction" to computers and Internet. It is the computer I was using when AskJeeves, Lycos, AltaVista were cool search engines. When ICQ was teh thing. The computer on which I played my first games (which are still awesome). The computer on which I made my first drawings, typed my first documents, etc. Many fond memories are attached to it, the typical weird nostalgia inducing memories like the startup beep and the sound that the hard drive makes when the heads position themselves as the drive spins up : *Tac tac tac tac traaaaaaaaac*
Unfortunately, the old SCSI hard drive is showing signs of hardware failure. At any time, I will hear the sound of the heads positioning themselves 3 times and then the computer will hang.
For obvious reasons, I do not want to throw the whole thing into the trash and just use an emulator, nor do I want to get a more recent classic mac, so I have to find a replacement for the hard drive.
The drive is SCSI 50 pins.
I have a few options :
- A new SCSI hard drive ($58) : http://kdsdrives.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=1437
- A SCSI memory card reader ($62) : http://a4000t.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=180
- A SCSI CF card reader (9,900¥) : http://artmix.com/CF_AztecMonster.html
I am not sure yet what I want to do. It would be more simple to order a
new hard drive, but I don't really trust sending a hard drive in the
mail as these things are fragile and may very well arrive broken.
Right now I only want to back up the drive and use it until it dies. I am waiting for my SCSI ribbon cable to arrive in the mail to plug the hard drive in my PC to back it up and then...
RETRO GAMING TIME!
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ReplyDeleteI have so many fond memories tied up in my Performa 575, which - as you know - is almost identical to the LC 575: It was my first computer, it introduced me to Myst and gaming in general, it was where I developed my obsession with tweaking and modifying things to perfection and finding all manner of utilities to address niche needs, it introduced me to the narrative of Apple and its history, it went with me on driving vacations, and so on. I loved that machine. And I had all sorts of stories, drawings, and other creative works on it - honestly it contributed to some of my most creative years, relative to my age. They're all lost now, so I consider it extremely lucky that you still have your early forays into nerdiness intact!
ReplyDeleteSigned, Sagan (Would've been on the first post, but Google Chrome for iOS seems to have some bugs with text editing.)
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