The collected works of Irinikus

I managed to get my hands on a Tezro.

It appears to be a reasonably specced machine, but I will only have enough time to take a good look at it in about the next month or so.

I will definitely do so!

Very cool setup!

Make use of eBay's Global Search and you will see it.

Here is a screenshot of the listing.

Cool!

For those who don't already know, items can often tend to get "lost" on eBay!

Even tough may you think that you are carrying out an eBay-wide search, when you are searching for something using eBay's normal search function. eBay is divided into regions and often items listed in Europe don't tend to show up.

I have bought many systems from Germany at incredibly good prices, as they were not visible to people in the States, using the normal eBay search function.

The use of eBay's "Geo-ship.com" search shows up absolutely everything on eBay.

HurricaneJames,

I have no experience with the Onyx 1, so I can only speak for the Onyx 2.

They can be rather difficult to get going, but see it as a project or a work in process!

If you have the money for it and you're in the area, I would say GO FOR IT! Once you have the machine then you can go through the process of fault finding and getting it to work.

Speaking of myself, Iv'e always found it harder to get my hands on a machine than getting it to work. This machine's in good cosmetic condition and its very heavy, so if you are in the area, nows your chance to get your hands on it.

Plastics that are in good cosmetic condition are generally hard to come by, so in my opinion, this machine's a very good deal.

If you scan eBay you will see that there are parts available for these machines

If I lived in the US, I would have already bought it!

And it's gone!

Some lucky person just scored himself a very clean machine!

Its true that it might be missing a panel, but the panels that are there are good!

Im pretty sure that most of the components in that machine are in good order, judging by its cosmetic condition!

Apple Machines at the moment:

2x iBook Clamshell G3's
Powermac G4 Sawtooth
Powermac G4 Quicksilver
Powermac G4 Mirror Doors
Powermac G5
Mac Pro 2013 Trash can (currently in daily use)
27" Cinema Display
iPhone 4s
iPhone 6s+ (currently in daily use)

All machines are spotless cosmetically speaking.



It was the Powermac G4 that first sparked my interest in Apple and it's the reason why I collect computers today!

You do get surface-mount Tantalum capacitors and they are bi-polar, so they do tend to blow if they placed with the incorrect polarity across them!

Surface-mount Tantalum caps look very similar to the ceramic ones, but their cases are usually made of plastic.

The DEC AlphaStation 255 has a common fault, in that there is a Tantalum capacitor in the circuitry for the PS2 mouse port that tends to burn up, just like the one you've pictured. On later motherboards for the 255, the cap was placed the opposite way around, therefore it appears that the original silkscreen on the motherboard was incorrect, leading to the polarity across these caps being reversed and therefore causing them to blow.

To fix my AlphaStation, I simply placed another tantalum cap of the same value in that position, with the correct orientation. (opposite to the silkscreen on the motherboard)

I am not saying that the cap in question is placed incorrectly on the board that you have photographed, but these can be replaced rather easily.
Its easier to repair SMT technology than you think. If you have the right tools at your disposal. (hot air pencil)

My did my first SMT repair on the R12K 400Mhz CPU module for my O2.

To my horror, some of the ceramic caps on the module were cracked when I received it. The seller was dishonest and had removed the heatsink from the chip, probably to take a look at it and had replaced the securing bracket the wrong way around, when he re-assembled it! The securing bracket placed stress on a few large caps at the back of the CPU module and cracked them as a result!

I took a chance and used some of the ceramic caps off a spare R10K O2 module that I had lying around and I managed to repair the module in this way.

Now it works perfectly!

johnnym wrote: Nice. Did you actually buy them new when they were current and took much care to preserve them? Or were you lucky to get the machines in pristine condition?

I wasn't lucky enough to have the pleasure of using one of these machines when they were current! These were my "Dream Machines" when I was younger!

Besides my 486 which I've had since new (my first computer), the G4's were the first "vintage" machines that I collected.

In order to get the spotless example's I've got, I had to buy multiple machines and combine the parts to constitute cosmetically perfect machines. That was a rather expencive and time consuming task, but it taught me allot about the processes involved in restoring vintage machines and now I'm addicted!

Some of the donor machines were bought locally and some from the US. I very quickly found that there are loads of these machines around, but its hard to get one thats in good shape, so I had to choose my donor machines carefully!

As soon as I had finished with the G4's my eyes very quickly turned to SGI, as I had also seen an O2 and I thought that it looked interesting and that got me into collecting SGI machines.

You tend to learn a great deal about machines when you literally have to build them up from carefully selected parts, and I find it to be a very enjoyable learning experience!

guardian452 wrote:

Irinikus wrote: Mac Pro 2013 Trash can (currently in daily use)

Do you like it? I was planning to get one to replace my 2006 mac pro, but because they were never updated, the resale prices never really dropped, I couldn't practically afford a new one, and the prices on ebay got more ridiculous every month (I mean, the prices stayed the same, but the machines aged). Surely now if I really needed one I would buy new from apple, no question.

I see much more value in a machine built and sold in 2017 vs. a machine built and sold in 2013 even if the spec is the same. Call me crazy...

They'll probably be fairly rare in the future and maybe valuable to a collector? Probably on par with a G4 cube.

My experience with the Mac Pro 2013 has been a very good one, sure you can get a more powerful machine for less in the PC world, but just as in cars, there is far more to a car than simple straight line performance!

It's small and very portable, it's whisper quite and it has more than enough horsepower to perform the daily tasks that I require from it, and it''s extremely well built!

It's not the best for gaming under Mac OS, but it doesn't need to be! Get a PeeeCeee for that!

Unless you're into gaming, this machine has more than enough horsepower! you always find people on the net complaining about the fact that the tech in this machine is antiquated and in need of an update, but in my opinion, there haven't been significant enough advances in computer technology during its life to warrant an upgrade (the various revisions of the i7 have plateaued in performance from a "core for core" performance perspective - we need to see the Next-Gen core before a new Mac Pro will be necessary, logically speaking, as far as i'm concerned) - It performs beautifully!

The only gripe that I have with this machine is more of a problem of service from apples side, in that there have bee no GPU upgrades made available for this machine. GPU's seem to be the component in a system which becomes obsolete the quickest and an upgrade offer in this area would have been nice!

However with that being said, a GPU upgrade would only have real relevance to those who would want to game on the machine!

I would definitely recommend it, its been an absolute pleasure to use!

guardian452 wrote: But the GPU in this machine is at least competent when it was new. I think the bigger issue was using two weaker units instead of one bigger chip

I agree with you completely SLI and Cross Fire are both farces! Micro-stutter is a huge problem with these configurations.

Nowadays for gaming I make use of a large single GPU with loads of frame-buffer, and wouldn't suggest making use of anything else!

As far as the Mac pro 2013 is concerned, I was lucky enough to get the machine in January of 2014, so I managed to get good use out of it.

My machine has been very reliable.

I intend using it as a multimedia machine for music,series and Netflix in the future.

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer separate computer and screen configurations!

If your're happy with an all-in-one, then the i Mac Pro is your machine!

The R8000 seems to be an interesting chip! I would seriously like to have a system with one installed someday.

dexter1 wrote: Except that it is not actually a chip but a processor board with two MIPS CPU's, cache and glue logic.

That's an interesting card, very different to the other CPU options available for the said machines.

I'm already in the process of trying to acquire one!

If I manage get it, I will install it in an Indigo2 Impact machine, when I eventually acquire one.

Ahhh!!!, the seller is also selling an IP26 motherboard, I guess that I will have to buy that of him too then.

I suppose that I can install the motherboard and CPU my current Indigo2 then.

WoW! Thats a pretty awesome piece of machinery!

Here are some pics of some of my timepieces:

My daily driver:


My Romain Jerome Titanic DNA:



My Kern 400 day anniversary clock:


Other watches in my collection:
Cartier Ballon Bleu Black Chronograph


Montblanc Flyback: