Old Mac Computers- Performa 430, IISI

[riverdragon]

Cleaning out my old stuff and was curious if either of these computers are worth doing anything with?

Should have all their cords and were working when put away. I do have the factory boot discs for at least one of them Have been stored inside in a climate controlled environment. Not looking to make a fortune on these, just want them to go to someone who could enjoy them.

Thanks in advance.

[Steve W]

I wouldn't think they'd be worth anything. You could always donate them to a charity, or look online for a computer recycling company to drop it off at. Or, you could go into thrift stores, buy up a bunch of other older Macs, and build some kind of sculpture with them all. Or maybe some furniture!

[riverdragon]

Thanks for the answer! As appealing as Mac furniture sounds, I am trying to make space not take up more of it ;) I am probably going to put them up for free on craigslist, in hopes that someone will use them.

[Ed Oscuro]

The first place you'll want to go for pricing information on older Macs is EveryMac.com (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/stats/mac_performa_430.html), although this one is old enough that they aren't tracking it anymore. In other words it's "just for gamers" at this point - there's literally no other use for it that I can think of (aside from perhaps accessing old files that weren't kept in current formats). Even so, I would keep it in anticipation of the day that people will be searching far and wide for classic-compatible gaming Macs (then again, I have a few old Macs around for gaming).

About two years ago and earlier there were occasionally Macs at the local thrift - they usually asked about $30 for the complete system. That was too much, to be honest.

The 430 or LC II isn't a terrible system for when it came out - though the "LC" is usually thought to stand for "low cost." It's more powerful than the original LC, but many classic Mac games won't play on it very well (at least not the ones I'm thinking of). Still, if you can find software from 1993 and earlier that'll run on it, it should be a good performer, probably not with any 3D games though (I'd be surprised if even Spectre VR runs really well on it).

By the way, you got screwed on the price - the original Performa 400 was $1180 in September '92, and the Performa 430 was $1500 in the less than a month (!) from October 18 '93 onwards it's listed as having been current, but all you got was a slightly larger 120 MB hard drive.

[NayusDante]

I'm hurting for an old Mac (mainly to play Pegasus Prime), but I need CD-ROM and a decent set of specs. Otherwise, I'd make an offer.

Still, what kind of gaming are we talking about on these? I currently have an ancient PowerBook sitting in my closet, but without CD I'm clueless as to what I could do with it.