I’ve been watching eBay closely for a 512K and haven’t seen one go for under $150 in weeks. I missed one auction the other day by just a few bucks. It was just as well, because it didn’t boot and needed repairs. In the end, I managed to score this complete working system for only $57 bucks. A steal!



Looks pretty clean huh? Not so fast. Flash can be deceiving. This thing is pretty yellow. The 512s weren’t the same “platinum” color as the Mac Plus or SE. They, like the 128s before them, were beige. The underlying beige color makes the yellowing that much worse.

Sounds like this puppy is going to be taking a bath along with my new Macintosh Classic.

The Peripherals

The keyboard is in pretty good shape. Just dirty with some yellowing....



...and some missing feet.



The mouse is pretty dirty and discolored.





Here’s what they both look like compared to my Mac Plus keyboard and mouse. Granted, those two are platinum, but I think you get the picture.





Now for some close-ups

Got soap?











Hey, it boots up right? Who cares how dirty it is? The important thing is that there are no chips, scratches, or cracks. This thing is going to look awesome once I clean it up and dip it in peroxide/oxy.

The Interrupt/Reset switch is broken. I don’t know yet if I’ll bother replacing that. Maybe if I see one for dirt-cheap. I’ve noticed over the years that people have a tendency to overcharge for these. I’ve seen them go for $20 a pop on eBay. (Plus shipping.) What a rip. I’ll probably grab one if I see it for $5 or so.



The seller was nice enough to secure the floppy drive with a System disk. System 2/Finder 4.1. The floppy drive does has some problems ejecting and reading disks, but if you ask me, it looks like it’s just a little misaligned. It’s not like it’s totally dead, and it does try. With some luck, all it’ll need is a small adjustment. I’m hoping it don’t need to replace it. In the meantime, I connected one of my external 800K drives and it booted up without any problems.



What a wonderful addition to my collection!



UPDATE:
I couldn’t resist.... It was only $10 bucks. Guess you gotta grab ‘em when you see ‘em. I was looking for a new battery anyway. Might as well.