Reliable Source for Old Parts, pre 1990s.

[Emmerage]

Hi All,

Not actually a first-time poster here, but lost my old account many, many moons ago with a job move (probably more than ten years back).

I'm looking for a reliable seller of parts (specifically batteries, RAM, hard drives, cables/power) for older Macs - SE, Classic, and PowerBook (180). I'm an academic who has recently moved to a large public institution in the US. One of the benefits of being here is that many people still have their old University-issued Mac hardware (which was typically top of the line at the time), and I've been able to hoover some of it up to be used for teaching students about the development of software and games (my speciality areas).

However, many of them do need a bit of work. I have some funds, but I'm struggling to find some basic parts, at least without a lot more deep-diving and eBay waiting than I realistically have time for at present. While I don't have a huge pot of cash for resources, it can be easier for me to pay a bit of a premium for something like a replacement mouse or battery, than to waste hours trying to get a good deal.

I'm wondering whether there are still any reliable sellers (either online or who I can call directly) who might be able to connect me easily with the parts I need?

Thanks all,

Em

 

[Berenod]

As far as I know there are no shops (anymore) specializing in that sort of stuff.

From what I read on the specialised forums, the very few which still were around have been shutting down in the last 2 years (corona/lockdowns might have had a hand in that).
I myself am very active in the vintage Mac scene, both the 68K scene (the Macs with CPU's from the Motorola 68000 series, which is the series you seem to be most interested in) and the less vintage PowerPC machines.
I am mainland Europe based, so obviously have different sources then the ones you would find in the US.

Best advice I can give, is to join the specialised forums, this is one of them, but over here much more geared towards the PowerPC and Intel Mac scene.

There are two you will have to join, namely https://68kmla.org/ and https://tinkerdifferent.com/
The first one, as the name suggests, is pretty much dedicated to the vintage 68k Mac scene, and is pretty active.
Most (but not all) members are US/Canadian based.
They also have a rather active buy/sell section, where people post stuff they are looking for, or are selling.
They also have a thread in that section where members post "Ebay" finds, interesting stuff for sale on Ebay but which they don't need themselves, and post so that others can find it easily!

Over here in Europe I find most stuff on local secondhand sites, as on Ebay more often then not the stuff is way overpriced (the "Vintage surcharge" as we jokingly call it).

I know in the US every so often you see working machines popping up on the Goodwill site, many times at real good price.

When you start out in this "hobby", after a while you start to get a nose for "untested" stuff showing up, machines not working anymore but sometimes easily repairable, or at the least with usable parts in it like memory simm's, floppy drives, harddrives (although working vintage SCSI ones as used in those Macs are starting to get rare, simply a case of old age).
Patience is a virtue in this hobby, when you "need" something urgently, you'll likely overpay, when you have a bit of patience, the looked for item will likely appear sooner or later at a correct price.

Another possible avenue for some things are the modern "replacements", such as SCSI2SD or BlueSCSI devices, they replace the harddrive with a modern SD card.
Floppy emulators can also be found...

You'll also have to learn of the weaknesses of those machines, so when you get your hand on for example a working SE or SE/30, you need to know you'll have to open them up ASAP and check for the battery (the explode when old, wrecking your machine), and for the SE/30 you'll need to replace the capacitors (a recap), as they start to leak their acid contents, also slowly wrecking your computer...
Fail to do this will let them continue on their "old age" path of selfdestruction!

Hope this put you a bit on track!

 

[m1maverick]

Apple Rescue of Denver

Might be a good source for you.