This Is The Way ... Buying Green Can Help Our Planet!
Too many computers end up in landfills to pollute the earth because owners
simply do not know how to keep them working or they consider them obsolete.
But I choose to
repair, and restore them. Then I'll give many away rather than see
vintage treasures go to landfills. I enjoy fixing and saving all types of computers!
My Goal: Richard's ComputerHobbyShop Makes Saving Computers Fun and Affordable.
ComputerHobbyShop is a place for
Vintage Computer Enthusiasts
and Retro Tech Hobbyists to enjoy their hobby. Here I restore, repair,
and upgrade computers and even make videos of some projects.
I'm a professional, but now I'm retired and don't have to work for big business anymore,
I consider it my retirement hobby to do all I can to help you enjoy computers like I do.
I made ComputerHobbyShop for
Computer Enthusiasts like me and tech users like you.
The only cost for winners is the smallest possible shipping fee and
you are protected as I'll never ask for your personal info.
Donations
Even after I sell some tech to help cover costs, this site is funded primarily through donations. If you enjoy it please help with a small donation. Thanks!
Other than updating this to the most current Mac OS Sonoma, and a previous
custom order doubling the RAM, here is one iMac 4K that I did not have to restore!
This picture shows one of three*
Apple Mac minis that I bought from SDSU Surplus.
In this project each upgraded Apple Mac mini has the Certified SDSU intial numbers,
clearly on the top and all have MS Office for Macintosh + common Apple software.
Each mini has a fresh macOS and I'm giving away one of these cool Apple Mac minis.
The exact mini won will be fully restored with everything that's in it working.
Each SDSU Surplus Mac mini is the last model of an Apple Mac mini with a built-in DVD
Drive. Each mini will come with an A/C power cord & upgraded memory to 16GB RAM.
I also upgraded the old style slow mechanical hard drive to a lightning fast 1TB SSD.
If you are curious how easy it is to win something here,
click this link.
Working Apple MacBook Pro Being Upgraded for a Mac Collector.
Pre-posting a product before it is even finished may seem crazy to you, but it is
my most effective way to judge interest in advance as it had 200+ views
before an interested collector made an offer and agreed that it...
I'm telling visitors, "All persons who donate anything or join me
here will be automatically entered into my next cool giveaway!"
I made this site for my Vintage & Retro Friends and Followers,
so any winner who did not join, will have to pay shiping costs!
(Maybe joining isn't such a bad idea after all).
When only a few subscribe to enter giveaways, or
join me on Patreon
I'll again sell some items to cover costs for giveaways, so if you are in
the few who clicked my links, odds to win can be very low as you'll see next.
As fun as my door prizes tend to be, imagine this... If only 5 people join my
Patreon Membership by my next computer Giveaway, the odds of winning
are 1 in 5. If only 6 people have donated by my PayPal link those 6 are
added to the 5 and the odds are 1 in 11. If you donate any retro computer
or even just a part, then I add you to the list and the odds are 1 in 12.
Someone who donated a PC part already won 1 door prize drawing!
Where else could you get that kind of odds? Not in other sweepstakes
I know of. So people can call me crazy, but as Steve says in the video,
"I just ask, ... most people never ask and that's what separates sometimes the
people who do things from the people who just dream about them."
When someone wins, an email will be sent to them.
I never ask for your personal information and only post secure links,
So if you received a Winner email, be sure it is a secure link.
A larger issue is not 'net security', but it is 'getting classic Macs online at all'.
I have seen some posts where people seem concerned and will not put an old Mac on
the Internet at all. Most Apple Macintosh Enthusiasts agree, the website called "Macintosh Garden" is...
... a "must-go-to-place" for classic Mac computers we try to save & restore.
That is, of course, if we've managed to even make old Macs go online at all.
But even if we could make them work, few bad actors care to hack old Macs simply because they are so old. Still, many hobbyists may worry about a possible home network attack, so I suggest a simple solution. Use a second device as a firewall between your primary home router and a classic Mac or whatever rare vintage device you are using. An inexpensive Netgear GS305 Switch will make it much less likely any intruder can compromise your network data security, because the switch acts as a physical firewall.
A WNR2000 will offer needed early WiFi protocols like 801.11g and even older 802.11b, as well as supporting somewhat newer 802.11n standards you might decide to use later on.
The WNR2000 is old enough to talk to early PCMCIA WiFi cards in a Mac, (like in my Powerbook 1400c), or even early Airport Cards a Mac might need.
Stilll, there maybe many users rightly concerned that older WEP, WPA, and WPA2 protocols are known to be easily compromised, but if you have the Netgear GS305 in the line between your primary Gateway and your classic Mac, any chances of a serious attack are nill to zero, even if WEP is easily decoded by an attacker.
So the real issue in getting our oldest computers like classic Macs online is not net security as much as it is changing protocols the Mac actually works with.
Now that I'm retired, I have fun restoring vintage computers and posting YouTube Videos. Since I'm still sort of new there I like to also watch other creators already on YouTube. When fellow Computer Hobbyists might ask me, "Who do you follow", I tell them one channel
is @JDW- who makes some of the best vintage and retro restoration videos for hobbyist like me. I am not related to JDW, but I do recommend those in-depth videos. Click the pic to see more.
ComputerHobbyShop has a brand new recreated SE/30 Logic Board.
Update: The boards are now here and more details + a rebuild video link is posted below.
My Retro Time Machine takes you back to cool things ... there and back again ...
Just like the Good Ol' Days, enjoy fun and exciting tech projects!
A True Story: 1983 at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma I was a Fire Inspector there, where a WIMS Team was based.
As I have no pics of the classified Wang Information Management System,
or WIMS, (see this unclassified off brand terminal shown below).
Tinker ran a multimillion-dollar test to decide how the US Military would use Wang computers, as distributed at many offices on Tinker Air Force Base. The original Wang Company Programmer came over from Japan to program the test systems on the base. He brought his 17-year-old teenage son, who spent his time on 32 green screen games that he put on the system. That was how they used to test computer responsiveness. It was rumored after he left the base that the games were all still there. We accidentally discovered them and how to play.
One day, while entering in Inspection Reports a friend was frustrated and hit the keys "ZZZ". After I saw him get into it, I thought if he could find this with just "ZZZ", I decided to try "YYY". Sure enough, up came "32 Big Beautiful Games". While he played Hang Man, I played Star-Trek!
Luckily, my friend and I did not get demoted for hacking, but the Wing commander called up our office. He said to the Master Sergeant in charge, "Several Generals and a couple of Full Bird Colonels who flew in to oversee the systems tests just remotely watched terminals playing HangMan and StarTrek on our newest multi-million dollar U.S. Air Force test system!"
Coincidentally, this happened before the movie, "War Games", 1st seen, June 3rd, 1983. It was not an outside attack but occurred in a U.S. Air Base where amazingly, 2 Airmen almost started a war!
START OF NEW QUOTED POST by my little sister, (Patty on Facebook)
"AUGUST 12, 1981 | IBM LAUNCHES THE FIRST PC On this day, the first Personal Computer was released by IBM. Also known as the IBM Model 5150, the first PC was a revolutionary microcomputer that used an Intel 8088 processor, Microsoft MS-DOS operating system, and an open architecture allowing 3rd-party peripherals and software.
Nerdy Fact: The first IBM PC had a distinctive sound when it was turned on, which was generated by the speaker on the motherboard. The sound was composed of three tones: a low-pitched tone of 440 Hz for 300 milliseconds, followed by a silence of 100 milliseconds, followed by a high-pitched tone of 880 Hz for 300 milliseconds. This sound sequence was designed to indicate that the power supply and the speaker were working properly. However, some users found the sound annoying or [even] alarming, and some even tried to disable it by cutting wires or covering it with tape" END QUOTE
I found a modern use for older Apple Cinema Displays, (especially the 30" model & version similar to the picture below). These use Dual Link DVI, and the Apple Dual-DVI Video Card will drive these monitors in machines the way Apple intended. But did you know you can get the display to work with many modern Computers? This includes PCs when you use an Active Adapter like the Club 3D CAC-1510 USB Type C to DVI-D DUAL LINK Active Adapter. It has to be an Active Adapter like a Club 3D for the DVI-D DUAL LINK video signal.
Note: I have the Club 3D and have connected the Apple Cinema Display via USB C to send the correct signals even from my Samsung Galaxy Book2 (with SnapDragon 8x CPU and Windows 10). A pretty cool use for an older Apple product and of course it works with newer MacBooks too.
Post of a History fact: The Weber State University original Macintosh Lab lasted a decade and a half and when the lab was finally retired, the systems all went into a dumpster. The surplus manager was retiring about that time, so he let a few of us Mac collectors reach into the dumpster and take out as much RAM as we could hold in our hands, all for just $1 per handful per dive.
Some of those sticks of RAM live today, and for a long time now I've done many upgrades to old Macs and still today have some of those rare sticks left over. Try not to laugh, but in memory of that day, I offer a graphical eulogy.
On a more serious note: Before I retired from professional a I.T. services career, I taught Apple Macintosh Seminars in over 70 US Cities, where I used my Bondi Blue iMac G3 to make my Seminar Presentations, but my
100+ Apple Specs History Collection was on my old SCSI drive. I had to upgrade my iMac with an SCSI add-in that I put in the secret mezzanine slot, (this mezzaniene slot was a Molex 52760-1609 connector hidden inside on the motherboard).
Here is just one example of what that strange slot was for. I purchased an SCSI card from a company in Germany called Formac. They called the card, "Formac iProRAID Ultra Wide SCSI" It cost me almost $200 USD plus shipping costs. I had a lot of backup files and old software, so it was very useful to get all my 68030 stuff into the G3 from my older Mac SCSI drives!
Subscribers to my Videos are interested in my fun Retro-Style Vintage Collectible Computers and my Money Saving Sponsored Modern Gaming Computer Upgrade Projects!
Subscribers who also become my Patreon Members help grow my cool projects where I collect and restore retro-style computers to giveaway in my non-profit computer hobby.
My goal for vintage and retro-style computers is to restore and upgrade and then give away as many as I can to support my mission...
This can help reduce earth's pollution and save vintage and retro-style computers for you to enjoy. Of course, to cover costs, I also upgrade modern computers to post at a very low prices to help my new members. I've already sold a very fast Dell Gaming PC, upgraded to be worth over $3,045.
What Happens When You Subscribe or Signup at Patreon?
You will help save computers from landfills and become a part of my cool
project of collecting and restoring vintage computers to give them away!
I give all subscribers "early access" to my Fun Computer Videos and my newest Posts, and help you find my upgraded systems and retro giveaways.
My site can be your contact for my exclusive deals and Giveaways, but if anyone doubts my sincerity, please read my Facebook response.
See what I restored and sent to the lucky winner in Japan by Christmastime!
For this Collectible and Retro Style Computer, the lucky winner paid shipping,
but my "Gold Planet Saving Patreon Members" pay no shipping in the lower.
I collect and restore vintage computers and I make videos about them, as too many owners do not know how to keep vintage computers working or they simply just throw out all old technology. But I would rather restore and give away collectible computers than see unique vintage and retro items end up in a landfill.
It's OK if you are not a geek and don't understand computers yet.
I can show you how computers do compute with RAM
.
My baby boomer generation was the first to grow up in a technology-dominated world, and us boomers have seen it all happen, from LPs to DVDs and from
Happy Days to BluRays.
It's a matter of history in the 70s & 80s, geeks like me gathered in User's Groups to have fun helping each other out with tech projects!
Since computers are my hobby, I repair and upgrade them to post here and on eBay for far less than normal and some I give away whenever I can because...
Happy new owner gets a free giveaway of a Commodore 128K with Floppy Drive & Printer all in the original boxes!
(That's cool, now ).
The lucky new owner in this giveaway took ownership of a classic Commodore system and did not even have to pay for shipping, (like my Gold Planet Saving Patreon Members).
Wait! Did you actually give a vintage Commodore 128 System away?
Yes and here is why I'll do it again.
I don't like that many old computers end up in landfills because owners do not know how to keep them working or they consider them obsolete.
Each tech sent in, no matter what it is, gives 1 raffle ticket entry for prizes.
I make sure that items are restored and go to a good home and not a landfill.
Of course I understand if you don't want to part with anything.
If you just want it fixed, email me to ask.
So if you do want to donate retro tech, unlike some websites,
I turn nothing legal away, then the magic happens!
When you send something in, it is a great way to help save vintage retro-tech and your name will be entered into my next free random tech giveaway.
Be sure to contact me 1st then simply mail your vintage computer items to:
Attn: ComputerHobbyShop
C/O Richard A. McFarland
P.O.Box 383
Saint Anthony, Idaho 83445
ComputerHobbyShop Makes Saving Vintage Tech Fun and Affordable.
Follow To Win
Care to follow ComputerHobbyShop and be listed in new sponsored giveaways?
Each donation, no matter how small or large, is like one raffle ticket for tech.
Donate as little or as much as you want via Secure PayPal by clicking on Spock!
Are People Really Making Millions with Virtual Real Estate & NFTs?
Coming Soon
!Future post, a Vintage Quadra 700 restored, upgraded with modified StartUp.
Reviews and News
An AMD Ryzen Review and recommended X570 ASROCK Motherboard.
Counting cores and straining to max CPU speeds is the familiar task for anyone needing more power at less cost. The good news is, the AMD Ryzen can check off all the boxes for the serious power user while staying far away from the higher cost of a Threadripper Workstation. You can save with compatible motherboards & the latest BIOS.
What modern CPU do I recommend? I give a 5 Star to the AMD Ryzen 7 3800X.
It is simply the best CPU this side of an expensive workstation. You'll get the most bang for your buck while still seeing shorter compile times and faster project completions, especially when matched with an X570 ASROCK Steel Legend. A 2700 with a B450M motherboard from htcgo worked great and a 3800X and X570 Motherboard gave us an added speed bump.
See the video clip by the indie youtube creator, F7GOS who used a 3700X when he upgraded from an ASROCK X370 to X570 Motherboard.
(Video sourced in sections from, F7GOS on YouTube)
If this review sounds like a commercial for AMD, they do deserve all this praise. All my tests made me happy to endorse the Ryzen 3800X. AMD has a real winning CPU here.
Want More ComputerHobbyShop and My Newest Posts and Giveaways? So you can be among the 1st to know, click the subscribe button below. Thank You!
My Intel Core i7, 12M Cache, up to 4.00 GHz CPU Gaming PC,
actually has an upgraded AMD 8GB Discrete Graphics Video Card.
The image below is a summary, click it to load the very long full image.
I spent the money shown above to make a better MacBook Pro for you.
Here's your chance to help the planet by buying a Green Earth & Eco-Friendly Laptop
Installing and updating Catalina went fast with the upgraded 16GB RAM.
Ports shown left to right are, 1 Magesafe Power Jack, 1 Ethernet, 1 Firewire 800,
1 Thunderbolt 2, 2 USB 3.0, a Camera Card Reader, & Headphone Jack
There is plenty of space left in this Brand New Western Digital 480GB SSD.
You'll love using the working DVD Drive for movies + moving music CDs to iTunes.
After getting the message below, I finished installing all current updates.
The lid opens and closes easily & the hinges work great.
In almost every review regarding the best laptops, this Macbook Pro is always the main challenger.
Supported by an Intel i5 processor with a speed of 3 GHz Boost and 2.5 GHz base, [upgraded with 16 GB] DDR3 RAM,
Intel HD Graphics 4000, and support for up to 2TB of hard disk memory this laptop is one of the best laptops of all time.
(Tech Reviews, Oct 29, 2020).
This MacBook Pro comes with a brand new Magsafe charger as shown below.
Besides coming with iTunes you also get Pages,
(Apple's app like MS Word)
Plus Keynote, another Apple app, (like MS PowerPoint)
And Apple's Numbers app, (a program like MS Excel).
You can use a power saving 4K TV,
or you might want to use any standard HDTV,
but you don't need it for the Mac laptop to work.
Refurbished for Richard's ComputerHobbyShop.com by
The seller is licensed.
See my great feedback below.
Fast & Free! Ships by USPS Priority Mail
(International buyers see eBay Global Shipping)
See the password info below for the buyer.
eBay item pricing does not consider upgrades and values fluctuate wildly on eBay & cannot be guaranteed.
In preparing ad, eBay posted this chart.
Below is an eBay search to compare price & value of 3 similar sold Laptops.
I'm rebelling against trends with my favorite way to surf the net. My PC connects to a large screen 4K TV and I didn't have to spend large on a second screen with a previous model 50" Vizio Family Home Theater/Game Room HDTV. It even supports a max of 1080p resolution. Surprisingly, it is as much fun to use as my newer 4K TV.
It also has VGA & Composite Video ports for older game machines. I've also used it on a Mac mini and
Mac Pro plus an Apple TV and my Gaming PC too. It has 1080P resolution and a newer Vizio has 4K.
(Shout out to Vizio! Sponsor a review here of your TVs to increase TVs sold as PC monitors).
Details are posted for my
MacBook Air that sold very fast for $300 less than normal...
Not to rub it in, but the savings missed was on a pretty 2015 Custom Apple Core i7 shown below.
ComputerPro2000
sold it very fast where eBay & PayPal also offer a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Wow, that last post for a green earth PC finished at 44 bids! When we work hard we'll want to take a break to play a few games too! Here is a nice DSi XL.
Honorable mention goes to naymare-7, who just purchased this on eBay. For him or anyone else interested, here's good news about this DSi XL. If you want to install a lot more fun stuff, I found a video with links to websites, that shows you how to mod it for root access. It seems a lot of people are doing that and you can essentially jail break it to load more games and unlock a lot more of it's features than was previously possible when softmodding this DSi XL console. Although I have not done this yet, it sounds like a lot of fun, which is why I built this hobby website to begin with. I'll see you next time. Won't that be fun!
In case anyone else wants to know, I received a question on my Dell Intel Core i5 with Fast SSD Drive.
eBayer kevigadsde_0 wanted to know, ... 'will your computer be able to hook up to my hdmi tv or [does it have to] be a computer montior?' I replied, 'No problem, you just need a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter. You could also adapt DVI to HDMI, but trust me, DisplayPort to HDMI is better ... the adapters are cheap, as found on eBay...' I have converted this PC from "BuyItNow" to an auction and it is at $9.95 at the time of this post.
What, you didn't get to bid? Sorry if you missed it! Don't want to miss out again? To be among the 1st to know subscribe below and if you like games, you're sure to have fun here!
I grew up on a farm & fought for the preservation of wild life. This attitude of a green earth was new to many people, but I followed it into my future work with computers and I just made a Green Earth PC Project for 2020.
12/30/2019: My last post on eBay for 2019 is where I upgraded a Dell Intel Core i5 with a Fast SSD Drive. It now boots faster into Windows using less power! I also has a new WD Black 1 TB Hard Drive for website graphics, data backups & maybe even a games library too. It was a lot of fun to refurbish. Click the image for more details. Happy New Year!
I think you would have liked how fast I made it.
So you won't miss out again, subscribe below and you can be among the 1st to know. This was my last carefully refurbished project from my last post in 2019. See you in 2020!
12/11/2019: Here's feedback from one I helped on the December 4th post, 'Refurbished Intel Core i7s'. (I think he meant to say, "transaction", but his main point is still clear)....
He bought 3 of my PCs from my post last week and he's very happy!
I'm glad, but so more people get a chance, in the future I'd ask followers to only buy once per post.
12/4/2019: On this date, I've been refurbishing used PCs & Macs just for the fun of it and
I've just finished 4 PCs and 1 Mac. See the Refurbished Intel Core i7s listed below.
Here an entire PC can sell for less than just the CPU might sell for alone.
What IBM geeks used to gather in User's Groups to help each other out with mainframe issues?
ANSWER ... SHARE was a 1955 group of aerospace industry users of IBM mainframes and is the oldest group still active. Most all of those once popular user's groups & club meetings have long since moved to the Internet as 'THE' source of help.
When I taught tech seminars, it was with all expenses paid as I had traved to teach a thousand + clients in the lower 48 states, Alaska, Hawaii + Canada. Traveling trainers get served by a lot of flight attendants.
I always enjoyed traveling, especially to share my best tech ideas. My success helping people has encouraged me to post on this site and share my expert skills!
Eventually, live seminars became less popular than the Internet and times changed.
More and more IT work was local and I'd get reviews like past and present ones posted below.
There, the real challenge seemed to be getting people to beleive in what they can do!
It was shut down when Covid-19 hit in early 2020.
For a future post, is there any retro Gamer's machine you'd like to hear about? Let me know by email.
Ready for more? Besides gaming upgrade projects, there's a lot more fun at ComputerHobbyShop.com!
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