Hi, I've worked in IT since 1992 and have operated on several Macs from Pluses and Classics to iMacs and Power Macs. However, nothing has been as strange as what happened today.
Prior to today, the strangest moment was in 1993 when I fixed a Classic with a "dead hard drive" by unplugging a mouse. Turned out the mouse had a stuck button and was rejecting all disks--from known good 6.0.8 floppies through the internal hard disk. If only I had known about the internal ROM disk at that point. Until today, I thought nothing could get stranger than that Classic. Turns out I was wrong. Yesterday I started my final project as a school IT guy (I'm retiring in August). This project is to wipe the hard drives of all the Macs so they can go to a charity (the school will be 95% PC next year), and they called me in to do this since I was the last remaining Mac admin and had a few months left on my contract. One machine I tested yesterday was a IIcx. No power. Another was a IIci. Power but no video in either the integrated or the NuBus card I tried. I marked both as broken and went home for the day. That night I came up with the idea of putting the IIci power supply in the IIcx since they were interchangeable. Fast forward to today at about 11:00 AM. After lots of pushing and pulling (IIc series power supplies are a pain to remove) I got the big bricks out of both. The IIci supply snapped in nicely into the IIcx. I plugged in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and then turned the machine on. Nothing. I tried hitting both the triangle key and the circular button on the back. Nothing. Tried a few more times then I gave up, going instead to work on some 5200s. About an hour later I was working on a 5200 whose back was to the IIcx's back (the table was a square). I went around back to pull the hard drive and suddenly I felt a random burst of cool air. I thought "that's bizzare" and then was in for a bigger shock. The IIcx had turned on ALL BY ITSELF!!! I shook my head, thinking I was dreaming. Nope, the IIcx had indeed turned on all by itself. No startup chime or anything. I went around front to look at it. It started up fine. Wiped the disk and then shut it down. Tried starting it up again. This time it worked. So now I've got a working yet possessed IIcx. I'm debating about what to say to the guy who runs the charity. I now have it listed as "working and wiped". The only problem it has is a dead internal speaker. This explains why I didn't hear it. It works fine with externals. I am wondering if anyone has a rationalization behind this IIcx. I am normally a rationalist and swear by common sense, but this case is just like something out of the Twlight Zone. Scott __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- Vintage Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Vintage Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/vintage.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
