VC&G Collecting Tip: Remove your old computer clock batteries.

Right now.

I’m serious: do it. Despite my regular battery purges (done to avoid just such a situation), I forgot to remove the Mac IIsi PRAM battery you see above because the computer was buried under a bunch of stuff. The battery electrolyte leaked out and corroded everything it touched, ruining the logic board. Sometimes you can recover from battery leaks with extensive cleaning if the damage isn’t that bad. In this case, it wasn’t worth the effort. Bye, bye, IIsi.

While you’re ditching the vintage clock batteries, do yourself a favor and remove the main power batteries from any laptops in your collection. I typically store laptop batteries in a gallon zipper bag each. Even if the batteries are dead/bad (which they usually are), I save the plastic cases for re-use if I plan to rebuild the battery in the future.

As a good rule of thumb, never keep batteries (no matter how new) in any electronic device for longer than a couple weeks of non-use. Any longer, and you’re just playing Russian roulette with your gadgets.

Almost all batteries leak eventually. If your old ones haven’t leaked already, you’re very lucky. Focus on alkaline and NiCd batteries first, because they leak the worst; lithium cells can leak as well (as seen above), but it’s less common overall.

Regardless of the type, if they’re old, remove them now — even if it requires clipping or desoldering — and spare yourself the leaky battery blues later on.

So I bought this Atari Touch Tablet last year, right? (always an encouraging way to start a blog entry) It was new in the box, and I documented the process of opening it up via the magic of digital photography. The pictures languished on my computer for some time, anxiously awaiting their day in the sun. Well, their time has come: as of yesterday, they’re part of a slideshow on Harry McCracken’s Technologizer, authored by no one but the one known as myself, me.

If you don’t recall, Harry McCracken has some renown as the excellent former-Editor-in-Chief of PC World, a position he manned for four years. Anyway, this slide show has apparently been a pretty big hit on Slash-something-or-other, especially amongst the personally-grieved-by-everything crowd who are currently neck-deep in complaining that it’s presented on 14 separate pages (instead of all at once, like other slide shows).

Long story short: I thought you might enjoy checking it out.

I should be ashamed of myself. I do so much vintage stuff every week, but I’m usually too lazy to tell you guys about it — and I run a blog called Vintage Computing and Gaming. Well, maybe I can do more quick updates on my activities in the future. Here’s the first.

A few months ago, I visited a family friend’s house. She was cleaning out her attic, and I had long since promised to help her get rid of the numerous dusty computers her late husband had collected.

I came home with seven machines, including an Apple IIc and an old Compaq bearing a Post-It Note warning: “Do not get on this computer.” The note backfired, of course, as it insured that I would be getting on it post-haste.

Once atop the slumbering beast — some five inches off the ground — I booted the machine. Therein, I found a sluggish, hobbled-by-its-own-nature install of Windows ME and no less than 86 virii (this is not an exaggeration) intertwined with every facet of the operating system. As per my promise to the former owner, I formatted the drive with extreme prejudice.

Chief among the other spoils were a NES Action Set in a near-mint box; the aforementioned Apple IIc’s original box with all documentation; an Apple IIc color monitor and monitor stand, both in box; various boxed Apple II and PC software; a box; six PC clones of various vintage between an AT-class machine and Pentium stuff (no boxes to be seen); and an awesome, non-boxy Model 500 rotary telephone in stylish red and black.

Above all else, the equipment carried with it a priceless nostalgic element: I had watched my brother’s best friend use most of these items when I was a kid, so it was very familiar to me.

What you see in the back of the truck above would have met death-by-dumpster had I not gallantly rushed in to save it. Of course, now it’s cluttering up my house instead of hers. Despite the nostalgia rush, I’m starting to think our family friend got the better end of the deal.

[ Update: 02/11/2010 - Rick Conte donated this Apple I to the Maine Personal Computer Museum in 2009 ]

It’s not every day that an original Apple I goes up for sale. In fact, it’s not every year that an Apple I goes up for sale. In case you didn’t know, the Apple I is an exceedingly rare machine.

How rare? Well, various sources on the net say that about 200 units of Apple’s first computer were produced, and perhaps 30-50 survive to this day. To find out the truth behind these numbers, I checked with the designer of the Apple I himself, Steve Wozniak. But first, it’s time for a little history.

Apple co-founders Wozniak and Steve Jobs originally sold the Apple I for $666.66 (US) in 1976. With the help of friends, the duo built each and every Apple I by hand, although admittedly, there’s wasn’t much to the primitive machine. It shipped without an enclosure, keyboard, power supply, or display; the buyer was expected to furnish those parts. (Many people built them into briefcases, like the one seen here.)

[ Continue reading Apple I For Sale » ]

A couple weekends ago, I made the requisite annual trek to RARSfest, my local hamfest of choice, which takes place on the NC State Fairgrounds. You might remember my in-depth slideshow on a similar hamfest adventure two years ago. Well, this year I decided to take a few shots of the ‘fest again, and I thought you might enjoy them. So hop in the HamCar, and we’ll take a quick ride through RARSfest 2008.

[ Continue reading The 2008 Hamfest Report » ]