"Market" for old macs?

SE/30s are people's favourite Classic Macs because they're small and pretty zippy for the time (16MHz '030). You can put a crapload of RAM into them and a nice-sized SCSI hard disk and turn it into a lil' file server. I've seen SE/30s crammed into closets doing AppleShare print services, for example, and on my old LocalTalk apartment network, my SE/30 served boot blocks for the IIgs systems to netboot. They run NetBSD and Linux superbly well. As a result, they are getting harder to find since people tend to hoard them. They'll fit anywhere you can find room. The IIci is my favourite but they're not nearly as "cute" and so they're pretty common. I like them because they have a PDS slot, three NuBus slots, can take up to 128MB of RAM, and can accomodate a full-height SCSI drive. They also stack really well and are easy to open up and service. The 25MHz '030 is quite decent, and they also run NetBSD and Linux nicely too. And most places are getting rid of them cheap -- my last set of IIcis was 3 for $1. The LC is a nothing Mac IMHO, useful mostly only as a collector's completist piece. They didn't do real well against the rest of the line even when they were new. They're also pretty common and cheap for this reason. Similarly, 603-based Power Macs sort of live in a grey zone as most of them were Performas and so, frankly, they sucked. There's a few PCI-based ones but most of them were NuBus (if that) and had seriously compromised hardware designs. I'd pass on these. If you want an old-school Power Mac, get a 7300, 7500 (upgrade to a 604 or better as soon as you can, though), or a 7600. All of these have CPU upgrade paths, PCI slots, lots of space for RAM, multiple drive bays and one of the nicest cases to work in ever created. They will also run OS 9 and with a little cajoling, can even run some versions of OS X. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I don't care who you are, stop walking on the water when I'm fishing! <>< --