Mac’s On The Front Lawn.
Bill Soucy

I though I had gotten away from my hick upbringing. I went to college, got a degree, moved out of the small town that grew up in. I thought I was doing pretty well considering that when I was a kid, if you didn’t work on small engines, or have grease filled fingernails you were less then a man or a boy for that matter. Sure I dabbled in fixing lawn mowers, dirtbikes and even toasters, but it just never stuck to me. When I got my first car I needed tires, you know where we got them? “Out of the woods” my uncle would tell me, and sure enough you could outfit an 18 wheeler with the amount of rubber in them there woods we had. This is what I thought I escaped. 

Not so fast. So I don’t fix cars, I don’t have a snowmobile or a dirtbike, heck I don’t even have work boots! You know what I do have? Like my ancestors who prided themselves on the number of rusted cars, trucks, bikes and small dogs on their front lawns, I have about 12 Mac’s on my floor. You get it don’t you? I fix them, instead of cars. I got so many Mac parts that I could open a Mac convenience store. I have amassed these computers, parts, etc. over the course of 4-5 years, gee I’m only 26 I can’t imagine what my floor will look like when I’m 30! So I haven’t escaped, I have just evolved.

What do you care? You will, just read on. 

12 Mac’s is a bit much I suppose but I don't think so. Like any hobby you need something to gather and collect, what kind of hobbyist or hick can I be if I don’t have stuff lying all over the place? I think of it as rescuing them for a certain demise that can not be foreshadow. I purchased them all from a school, they had been sitting in a storage room for some time. Some longer then others. Some were in poor condition and some seem to be just fine. Maybe just dated but they all seem to work!

So here is the meat of this article. What we want to do is take these Mac’s and see what the heck they can do. We are not going to soup them up or keep restating the obvious. What we want to do is classify a few things we want to do and see if they can do it and tell you how we got it to work. I’m not the hardware guy here, I’m a software kinda guy so I will focus on that aspect. What we figure is that some one has got a poor Classic or a Centris sitting in their closet and we just think that's sad.

What we got to work with is this. Mac Plus, SE, Classic, Classic II, SI, IIci (maybe), IIcx, Centris 650, Duo 270c (I’m writing this article on it now!) 6100/60 and a Power Computing 120. That should cover most of the bases. I have a G3 too but that's boring.

We will pick some tasks that we want these guys to do and see if we can get them to do it. Such as E-mail, Web Browsing, Graphic Design/Digital Imaging, Audio, Thermo Nuclear Missal Launching, as well as others. This will probably evolve but it's a start. We will try to give you as much non redundant and obvious information as possible. Things such as machine specs and stuff can be found on great sites as Low End Mac and MacAddict’s fine series, This old Mac. We don’t want to tell what it “can” do we want to tell you what it does, period. Sure there are sites out there that will tell you that they have a web server running on a Mac Plus and a few clicks will get you to the Macquarium. We want to revive these fine machines and get them back to work, much like a rehabilitation program for fat lazy Mac’s.

Another thing that separates me from my ancestors is that while I have Mac’s on my lawn and they have car’s,  all mine work, lets see if they can make that claim!

So roll up your sleeves and clean your fingernails, this may get messy!

Bill Soucy
visit http://home.nycap.rr.com/drsoos/want.htm

Gang Xu
<gxu@wxumac.demon.co.uk>