An old friend

I am a retro computing enthusiast and over the years have mostly focused on Amiga machines as well as classic Mac hardware. However lately I have had the bug to revisit some computers that took me back to my childhood in the early 80's which were the Commodore 8-bit line of computers and the Apple II.

I decided to go for it and keep my eyes peeled for an Apple IIgs that was fairly low priced and build up a nice machine, bit by bit. It didn't take me long to find a decent deal on a stand alone IIgs - ie. just the computer, not even a power cord. This seems to be the most common way you can pick one of these awesome 16-bit computers. It seems as though as soon as a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and floppy is added to an auction the pricing gets outlandishly out of control. When all is said and done I plan on sinking some cash into this project - but for some reason dropping $500-2k on a setup all at once, it is something I couldn't stomach. I am going to just take my time, clean up this baby and add as I go, for me that seems like half the fun.

I need to develop a plan of attack with my future IIgs setup and I will think about it more but right now - no time for that, the IIgs arrived several days early. I just tore open the box and this is what I have before me, warts and all. :)

Ehhh... not so bad. Obviously some yellowing and oh man... what is that on the top of the case!?!? Coffee? Soda? yikes....

Well it turns out that I am ok. I cracked open the case and other than some of this nasty goo on the front top and bottom of the machine its really just effecting the casework.

Judging by the missing slot covers on the back there were some cards installed but at one point but essentially this is a stock Rev 1 IIgs circa 1987/88. The motherboard is clean and free of dust and the psu looks clean.

I held my breath as I looked under the power supply to see if there was battery leakage..... nope - still doing o.k. and zero leakage. That's good news - but I certainly need to deal with this soon. (adding to my mental list)

In looking at the back of the machine to familiarize myself with the ports available I see some interesting stickers applied... braille.

Ok now on to the "goo" and my first order of business - removing that gunk. :) 'Harder work than I thought and still have some work to do. Using some Q-tips and 91% Isopropyl alcohol. I am likely going to have to use a small brush as well.

So yeah more work ahead of me in getting it a bit cleaned up. After making sure the alcohol evaporated totally I grabbed my trusty 19" LCD TV and used the composite video-out from the IIgs to the AV input of the TV. I plugged her in and and flipped the switch... I heard the beep, green power light lit on the computer and instantly I had video output. Looks like she's good to go. 

Thanks for checking out my first post. I have a few things on order that I have to wait on still as well as sorting out what I am going to do for mass storage/hard drive and monitor and many more things. I also am not sure if I am going to retro-brite this machine initially, but I am will be revisiting that idea in the future.