So Much Vintage Tech Is Dying... Here's Why

ah the good old iBook G3 clamshell but I don't remember them smelling this much like vinegar and yeah a lot of old electronics are starting to die so let's talk about that I own quite a bit of old Tech and periodically I power up these devices to see if they were still functional this iBook has developed vinegar syndrome where the layers of the display literally begin to break down forming a rock hard substance that feels like concrete and according to my brother smells like the furniture section in Harvey Norman I think it smells very strongly of vinegar personally but does this display still work at all remembering that this very iBook had a near perfect screen up until very recently well it still displays an image with horrible imperfections but also doesn't seem to be able to read the hard disk anymore but is this something installing a clean version of Mac OS configs and when checking in the Disk Utility of the Mac OS installer it no longer detects the drive at all in fact you can hear the hard disk making a very distinct clicking sound some call it the click of death this is a real shame as removing the hard disk from one of these Macs is a very time consuming process with new iMacs for instance getting access to the failed hard disk requires the painstaking removal of the taped on display panel a very delicate procedure and if you're desperate you could try simply tapping the hard disk to get it unstuck this actually worked in this case after the iBook was not even detecting the hard drive it was now booting from it all thanks to a solid flick of my finger so this Mac is still functional albeit with glaring cosmetic defects I've also had success getting an ancient laptop hard disk working again simply by opening it up and moving the platters which got it spinning once more this stuff doesn't clean off either it's simply the top layers of the display literally breaking down this was stored in a cool dry place as well only a matter of time before this happens to more and more iBooks sadly but this kind of display damage isn't just limited to the clamshell iBooks neural Max are also suffering this late model iBook G4 has what appears to be mold forming under the display coding which will only get worse as time goes on I've also noticed the edges of my first generation MacBook Pro have started to turn yellow not only that the aluminum Palm rest is suffering from what I can assume is galvanic corrosion the material must have been acting as a sacrificial anode to the stainless steel watch band of the original owner and while we're talking about laptops I made a very successful video on an IBM Thinkpad from 1994. the display at the time wasn't very good quality but it was at the very least undamaged however now it's cracking and bubbling at the surface really badly it looks as if the top layer is separating which is a real shame and unfortunately the display doesn't seem to show any signs of life anymore not even the backlight has any functionality some consolation is the fact that the laptop itself does work minus the built-in display and has a headless laptop this is still pretty cool the next failing Tech I'd like to show you are the melty boys the rubberized casing of these phones have degraded to the point of a sticky mess strong enough to pick one of the other ones up this is sadly the Fate most rubberized products will eventually face it's even worse when the rubberized portion covers the entirety of a laptop it was a hugely time consuming job to remove all of this and make this notebook no longer sticky to the touch but it's not just rubber that's the problem Plastics that become brittle can lead to complete failures of some devices a single tiny plastic part rendered this Powerbook Duo dock completely useless until I had fixed it lots of moving Parts primarily plastic is a recipe for disaster a problem that plagues many old Apple Computers is their heavy use of plastics this powermac 9500 has almost completely disintegrated with much of the casing snapped off what's left is basically just the internals without the bottom part it's literally falling apart with next to no effort sadly this machine's frame is held together with plastic as well I can only imagine how badly damaged one of these would be if you tried to ship it but it is a real shame as I would love to have have a complete one of these again one that's not disintegrating ideally thankfully Apple moved away from this obvious attempt at Cost cutting it with future models while this Powerbook Duo laptop is still functional even with the horrible display which may have actually been this bad back in the 90s primary batteries and a lot of electronics are starting to swell and leak as well well over 10 years ago I placed one in a metal filing cabinet and yeah it isn't looking too good anymore now imagine all of this making its way through a laptop or computer if you can store your laptop batteries outside and away from the laptop being sure to charge them to around 80 percent every three to six months good battery care can get you pretty far my 2012 MacBook Pro has over 1 500 Cycles used and an impressive 88 Health Dominican Facebook posted the results of a Max P Ram battery leaking in a machine he opened up truly devastating results I have a Macintosh classic lying around as well so let's see if it still has its pre-ramp battery shall we it also appears to have a failing analog board set deadly we'll get to CRTs and their failings later in the video in earlier Macintosh models such as the 128k and the plus the pram battery would simply be under the store but for the Macintosh classic models you've got to dig in a little bit deeper after removing the long screws I wiggled their two halves apart with all connectors removed for logic board can be slid out and thankfully the pram battery had been removed at some point in time one of Luke Fletcher's Max suffered much worse he sent me these photos on Twitter this shows the huge Devastation a small battery can cause if you've got old computers lying around at the very least remove the clock batteries if you can this one from 1989 was somehow still intact but it's not just batteries that can leak and cause problems capacitors in old electronics have a tendency to leak and damage the surrounding circuitry and it's not just really all computers that can suffer either this Pentium 4 power Dell has caps that are bulging and starting to leak and it's those problematic capacitors that may have ended the life of this old CRT monitor this Gateway gaming screen from I guess the late 90s shows no signs of Life whatsoever not even an indicator light comes on which is a shame since screens like this are becoming harder and harder to acquire a working CRT is honestly a joy to use for retro Computing if ever so hard to record on camera without shutter speed issues sticking with a now problematic nature of old CRT displays let's take a look at a few old iMac g3s that I've never tested or powered on before these Macs will feature in their own video at some point so let's see what the first one does it has no problem booting into Mac OS 9. it's truly a time capsule of the late 90s complete with a pokedex a Pokemon movie tie-in application [Music] next up is an original revision a Bondi blue iMac from 1998. this one running Mac OS 8.7 but with some issues I can see this iMac has a failing display it's often a problem with a component called a flyback Transformer the obvious signs this Mac is showing are the frequent pinging noises with a momentary flicker of the screen itself the last iMac shows no signs of life at all what could possibly be the cause well straight away I see signs of rust on the ram cover door not only did the door itself actually fall off there is a lot of corrosion this foam has soaked in lots of powdery goodness this is surprisingly not the fault of the pram battery which is still intact so while I've got the chance let's remove the battery from the original Bondi blue iMac the single scroll on the bass was already missing then you've got to pry up on the plastic without snapping it ideally but this can't be good rusters formed around the edge but this Mac is still mostly functional getting further into one of these original iMacs requires the unplugging of rather conventional looking display play and data cables it honestly looks like some kind of Unfinished prototype but later iMac G3 models are far more integrated but also require much more to disassemble and surprisingly the rust is almost entirely localized to the metal shielding with the little israeli-made battery looking undamaged but of course I'll remove it anyway this may have become this bad due to moisture building up however once again Luke Fletcher on Twitter wasn't so lucky his early model iMac ended up badly damaged thanks to the Little P Ram battery and if you're stockpiling a lot of vintage Tech with the idea of making some money I would honestly suggest selling it on very soon because what worked a few years ago you might find no longer functions at all I've seen many machines fail over the years even when looked after and stored properly and as we know nothing lasts forever so enjoy the check you have while it's still functional so there we have it a look at the inevitabilities of old electronics and if you are storing any of this stuff at the very least remove all the batteries if you can store them in a cold low humidity area as well anyway I hope you've enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Psivewri

Views: 1,548,227

Keywords: psivewri, 4k, eucalyptus, oil, australia, tech, apple, vintage, computers, ibook, g3, clamshell, broken, IBM, thinkpads, rotting, failing, melting, computer, old, machines, battery, storage, guide, tips, macintosh, capacitor, leak, corrosion, destroyed, g4, classic, plastic, breaking

Id: EX6t0g8uBJQ

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 20 2023