Olds go nostalgic for the good old days of tech

By the way, that is a touch-screen, rack-mounted Macintosh.

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I got a noisy portable cd/dvd drive. Itā€™s supposed to be quiet, but either the people saying that are much more noise-tolerant, or they have much better drivers for it, or something. Could a cloth-lined or foam-lined box quiet it?

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A foam-lined box or cover would probably help. Cloth might, if the cloth is thick enough.

Is the drive on a hard surface? If so then you might try setting it on something soft and see if that helps.

Yeah, I tried it on folded cloth, and on folded cloth in a box.

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A couple possibilities about the cause of that noise:

Does the noise occur with one particular disc? The disc may be unbalanced or warped. If so, then you may need a new disc. Unbalanced discs can occasionally shatter in the drive.

How old is the drive: has it seen years of use? Worn out bearings on the drive is another possibility.

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2 different disks, got the drive last week.

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If you canā€™t exchange the drive for another, then I would recommend a foam pad with maybe a foam-lined box (a Kleenex box or such) to cover it when in use. That should be better than nothing, anyway.

The Power Macintosh 8600. This was the most powerful Macintosh you could get in 1997. I bought in with the money I earned at Kinkoā€™s. It was the beating heart of my S-Corp. In the words of Han Solo ā€œIā€™ve made a lot of special modifications myself.ā€ But now, I havenā€™t used it since 2006. Itā€™s sitting in my motherā€™s basement. I always intended to bring it back to life one day. When Iā€™m there next week I will probably have to donate it to Free Geek Twin Cities.

I will be donating 3 computers. The PM 8600 (the God computer), An iBook from 2004 (never liked it), and an Intel iMac from 2007 (which I still kind-of use when visiting home).

We canā€™t let material possessions weigh us down. People are more important.

Free Geek will hopefully love me. I still have the system discs.

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I tried bubble wrap; the works reasonably well. Maybe proper foam will work better.

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omg, weā€™re TWINS.

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I also worked for kinkoā€™s in 1997, and wished for a nice Mac, but absolutely could not afford one for a few more years. In 2002, because of 9-11 the tech conference company I worked for went belly up. I wasnā€™t going to get my vacation time paid out so I said Iā€™d be willing to keep the Mac, a PC and the printer instead.

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Would you like this one? I would be happy to send it to a good home.

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LOL, I have a collection of Macs I no longer use, and barely have space for these. Thanks, though!

I do wonder if Iā€™ll ever do anything with my first Mac, SE I think? 1991-1995 and I can still hear it say ā€œI know you are but what am I?ā€ and EEEEP

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oh heavens, thank you, but no ā€“ my husband would kill me. i still have my old Power Computing mac under our bed, and in the basement i have 2 Mac Plusses and one SE, and an old TI-99, andā€¦ probably more. Last thing i need is another old computer lying around!

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@CleverEmi @Franko

Yes. Iā€™m in the same boat.

This is part of my clearing out my last possessions from my motherā€™s basement when I visit next week.

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Not to be contrary, but I got turned off by Macs back in the mid 80ā€™s for a weird reason. I was having trouble doing somethingā€“printing maybeā€“at the engineering dept. computer lab (all Macintosh). I was told by the help desk guy that I had to upgrade the operating system. He pointed at some lines on the screen and said I could tell it was the latest operating system because right here:
image

thereā€™s a pixel thatā€™s dark:
image
We bought a PC clone.

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iā€™ve never heard of this! if it was a thing back then, it certainly isnā€™t now, and hasnā€™t been for a very long time.

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I think it was soon after the first Macs came out. 1984ish? The school got a deal from Apple.

Early days!

Iā€™m not clear what youā€™re pointing out there.

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My first Mac was at my folksā€™ house until a couple years ago when I drove for a visit. Mom wanted that closet space back, LOL, and now itā€™s in mine.

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