After 20 Years, Maryland Mans Mac IIci Finally Dies

Apple rightly has a reputation for making quality gear. The company doesn’t make junk that breaks down in a few months, or even years. Or even 20 years.

MacMedics, a repair shop in Millersville, Maryland, recently serviced a Macintosh IIci, which was on the blink after two decades of faithful service.

Introduced in September 1989, the Mac IIci is one of the most popular early Macs. It was the first to have color video, three Nubus expansion slots, and a 40 or 80 MB hard disk. It originally sold for $6,700.

The machine was putting up funny patterns on the monitor. The client thought it was the screen, but it was actually the main logic board. He’d been using the machine for 20 years — 20 years! — and had no interest in upgrading to a modern Mac.

The client had some software that HAD to run on system 7.0.1, so MacMedics set him up with an old PowerMac 5200 (circa 1995). The 5200 features a blazing fast 75 MHz PowerPC chip, a whopping 8 MB of RAM, and a 500 MB hard drive. It comes in an attractive  all-in-one beige case that includes a 15″ color monitor.

MacMedics had to rescue the customer’s data. He’d not performed one backup in two decades. And here’s the best part, he had only 2.2 MB of data to rescue.

“Here’s a tip,” says MacMedics. “Don’t wait 20 years to make a back up.”