Cult of Mac :: After 20 Years, Maryland Man’s Mac IIci Finally Dies

Mac IIci

Ah yes, the venerable Mac IIci. Recently, a gentleman in Millersville, Maryland (maybe I could meet the guy) took his Mac IIci in for service because after 20 years the logic board finally gave out. That’s right – after 20 years, and this is the first major issue he’s had with his Mac. The next time someone whines and complains about Apple’s commitment to product quality, this would be a good story to drag out. Now of course, you can argue whether or not Apple has the same commitment to product quality that they used to have, but that’s another story entirely.

The old Macs and old Apple computers were rock solid, and I can vouch for this. I still have an Apple IIgs that’s sitting in the basement of my parents’ place that hasn’t been used for years, but every now and again I still turn it on and fiddle with it just for nostalgia’s sake – and it works just as well as the day it was the main computer of the house. I wish I could say the same for my poor Performa 6400/200 – which saw most of its failures in the first year of its life but ran solid from then to the day I donated it.

Here’s the scoop from Cult of Mac:

MacMedics, a repair shop in Millersville, Maryland, recently serviced a Macintosh IIci, which was on the blink after two decades of faithful service.

Introduced in September 1989, the Mac IIci is one of the most popular early Macs. It was the first to have built-in color video, three Nubus expansion slots, and a 40 or 80 MB hard disk. It originally sold for $6,700.

The machine was putting up funny patterns on the monitor. The client thought it was the screen, but it was actually the main logic board. He’d been using the machine for 20 years — 20 years! — and had no interest in upgrading to a modern Mac.

The client had some software that HAD to run on system 7.0.1, so MacMedics set him up with an old PowerMac 5200 (circa 1995). The 5200 features a blazing fast 75 MHz PowerPC chip, a whopping 8 MB of RAM, and a 500 MB hard drive. It comes in an attractive all-in-one beige case that includes a 15″ color monitor.

Absolutely fabulous. I love how they happened to have a 5200 lying around that they could set him up with, too.

[ Cult of Mac :: After 20 Years, Maryland Man’s Mac IIci Finally Dies ]

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