it's 5 a.m. and i can't stop computing

Alright, I needed to make an update on apples and oranges, or, well, Apples and ThinkPads in my case, because I have too many thoughts and ideas, and at some point you just gotta start writing those ideas and thoughts down to properly process them and see the bigger picture. Writing, btw, is a very helpful way of thinking through your ideas, refining them, and organizing them.

The Apple computers

First and foremost, I need to talk about my Apple computers. In order to process the "loss" of one of my iMacs that I bought for $50 ($40 + $10 in gas).. the thing was an awesome old 2009 27" iMac with a DVD drive, a bunch of ports, upgradeable to 32gb of ram (I never knew that) 3ghz core 2 duo processor. But it reaked of cigarette smoke every time I turned it on and it heated up, which sucked because I really wanted to keep this thing, just because it's a really cool design and teenage me wanted one. It came with my favorite wireless Apple keyboard in good condition - the A1314, which takes 2 AA batteries ($17 value current eBay prices) and it came with the original wireless magic mouse in good condition ($15 value current lowest eBay prices). So right there I've at least gotten $30 of value out of this thing without touching the iMac. Then we have a 1TB hdd that I discovered inside the iMac, which I harvested and consider a $10 value. So that right there is my $40 worth, I'm just sad that I broke this thing.

Yes, I broke the 2009 iMac I paid $50 to retrieve back in August, when I went to clean the entire inside of it with isopropyl alcohol, to hopefully neutralize the cigarette tar smell which prevented me from using it anyway. I didn't even break it in a catastrophic way, either - no fried parts, no liquid damage, which is what bugs me even more. The display works fine, the display cable is fine, the COMPUTER ITSELF works fine and I could connect another monitor to it, but that defeats the point of an iMac.. What broke off is the flippin' display cable CONNECTOR that's soldered on the logic board. Apparently this is quite common, so common that they sell display cable connectors in 2 packs online for $12..

Yes, I'd either have to pay like $30 for a new logic board or $10 for a new connector and hope I can solder it on correctly. Forget all that jazz. That'd be fine if I had no other projects to work on and had a bigger budget for computing, but like, if you're an old machine that's only worth $40 in perfect working order, there's no amount of money I'm going to pay to fix you outside of doing it for fun, and this device is not even "fun" to work on. It's the worst device I've had to work on yet. First of all the glass is held on by a dozen magnets, which all forcefully attract your screwdriver and the screws you need to take out when you're removing the display, and the display is connected by like 4 short wires to fragile connectors on the logic board, and the logicboard is tied to two giant heatsinks, and the logic board has like 10 more connected wires once you're inside, it's insane in there and I hope I never have to try to work on another one.

That all being said, I'm a little disappointed that it broke, even if I got my $40 worth in a harvested HDD and peripherals. I have it listed for $20 on marketplace with a description about its current condition.

The MacBook(s)

Then there is the MacBook. I have an old 2013 MacBook Pro 15" Retina that my dad bought me for college. My dad has since passed away, and this device is, well.. I want to keep it around as long as possible. It was the lowest specced late 2013 15", the cheapest we could afford and it was still stupidly expensive. Today they're worth $90, but I'm gonna soak up every bit of value from this thing that I can. It had a 2ghz cpu, integrated graphics, and 8gb of ram, and I was curious about how I could upgrade this to future proof it. Turns out, you can swap out logic boards, logic boards are cheap, and it's compatible with mid-2014 logic boards. I found a maxxed out mid-2014 16gb, i7 2.8ghz, GeForce GT 750M logic board for $50.88 after taxes and shipping. Swapping it wasn't difficult, remove power from the battery, keep track of the screws and cables, take out the old one, put in the new one, reconnect all cables, reconnect battery cable, power on.. bam. "About this Mac" now says it's a mid-2014 MacBook. I think it was worth it.

Now while figuring out what to do with this, I've been interested in setting up a home server. This isn't something I've ever done before, but because I make content, I do a lot of file swapping between devices, and because I'm become privacy/security focused, I want to stop using Google drive or Discord for moving files off my phone and other devices to my editing rig. I figured a home server is finally warranted. I also have some old 1TB and 2TB western digital passports formatted for macOS, which I rarely use. That's a lot of storage space to not use when I have a good use for them. So I've been thinking about giving my old MacBook a new purpose. Something about that made me a lil sad tho, because I don't want to just retire my old MacBook to the closet to be a fulltime server. I still want to take this device onto the couch with me, or out to a cafe or when I go travelling.

Something clicked, tho, because I had also been wanting a use for the old, perfectly functioning logic board with the i7 and 8gb of ram. I had originally felt a minor conflict about ewaste - yes, I wanted to preserve my MacBook as long as possible, but the old logicboard would still be ewaste and it'd be good to do something with it. Well, that would make a perfect server, and I'm going to admit this outloud: I really like janky utilitarian open air systems, something cyberpunk about retrofitting tech trash. The only thing it really needs is... a magsafe power connector port thingie, some fans, and a display, plug in the two USB hard drives and we're golden for a server. Well... maybe not. I'm just now realizing I'll need an apple SSD for this thing (see what I mean about writing your ideas and thoughts down? I wouldn't have thought about the SSD until I was too invested).

So now I'm on the hunt for parts to make my Apple TrashBook server a reality. That name is not a dig on MacBooks, it's just.. I'm building this from eWaste. And I recently found a lot of MacBook parts for $20 on Facebook marketplace from a local eBay parts dealer. One of them looks like a shell + display for a 15" macbook pro. My iMac 2009 has a lot of usable parts that could be parted out and sold on eBay. I asked him for an identifier to see if it's the right MacBook for my needs, and if it is, I'm going to offer him my broken working iMac for those $20 of MacBook parts... Wish me luck on that model number!

The ThinkPads

At some point in the process of working on and learning about these ThinkPads, I thought it would be a great idea to make a YouTube channel about creative computing, lol. I spent a whole week working on a 50 minute video about how I flashed custom firmware to my ThinkPad T430. By the way, I have a ThinkPad T430 now, which I'm not sure what I'm going to do with yet, and I have the ThinkPad X220 I mentioned in my last listing photographed and listed on eBay. It already has 3 watchers, it will go down by $10 for the buy it now price every 3 days until it sells, it really needs to sell so I can buy parts for the T430 and another incoming laptop that I couldn't afford but it was just in too perfect of a condition at a good price to avoid. And by perfect condition, I don't mean aeshetically or functionally.

One of my issues right now is that I started a YouTube channel, and with YouTube Channels, you're always thinking of ideas for videos with interesting premises, and this X230 I saw for $39.20 shipped and taxed is one of those ideas. It was in actual pretty good condition - I could see someone buying it as-is for $100 - but the password to the BIOS was lost, so it's "BIOS locked". That's why it was so cheap. I'm pretty sure one of the only ways you can get around that is by flashing new firmware to the motherboard. Guess who knows how to flash new firmware to motherboards now? This guy. And "Can we save this BIOS locked Thinkpad?" sounded like a very compelling title for a YouTube video. Soo... I bought it.

I also bought it because it's a huge potential earner. The X220 and X230 typically are, because you can buy them cheap and customize them for very specific purposes. I've already bought one X230 for $50, put maybe another $40 into it, and sold it for $220 very quickly. The X220 I put about $120 into (including the cost of purchase) and I'm hoping to make a $100 profit minimum from it. The T430, however, the margins are slimmer, which is interesting because it's overall more modular, way tougher, and more powerful. Granted, it's also heavier, larger, and more difficult to work on, and it doesn't have the cool factor of a tiny little 12.5" X220/X230. I have a lot of ideas for the T430 as far as video content goes, but I don't think I'm going to make a $100 profit off of it. The X230 I know for sure I can make a $100 profit minimum with.

Also, sad to say, but I broke the 1997 ThinkPad 760XL. Not completely, but the keyboard's contoller board is broken. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong. Someone told me to check the old battery inside, because it leaks battery acid and destroys the controller board via corrosion. I didn't want to the controller board to break from battery acid corrosion! So I took it out and broke it myself instead. There was some minor corrosion, yes, on one of the contacts for the battery connector, and that part came off really, really easily with a little bit of white vinegar. What also came off really easily, with a minimum amount of contact, is the speaker connector for the right side speaker. Now, as a genius, I decided it would be too difficult for me to solder that connector back on, so I decided I would cut the speaker wires and solder the speaker wires directly to the contact pads. Despite something telling me not to, I went ahead and did it anyway. In the process of doing this, I keep screwing up the soldering while working in my 20F (below 0 for you celcius people) garage, and the wires got shorter and shorter, and my frustration got higher and higher, and somehow I managed to break the other speaker's connector off. This time, out of impatience, I tried soldering THAT connector on, and it turns out that it's a lot easier to just solder the connector back on than I thought.

Anyway, when I think I've finally fixed the thing after like 6 hours of my own chaos that I take full responsibility for, I tried booting the ThinkPad back up after reinstalling the controller board. We get into Windows 98 and it works just fine. I notice the palmrest isn't going down completely, though, so I turn it off and try to fix that issue, at some point maybe bending the controller board too far, I'm not sure. I know that after I reassembled it again, this time without the bulge in the palmrest, it will not boot past the Windows 98 loading screen - it just shuts off. It also sometimes shows me error codes that point directly to a trackpad/keyboard issue. Everything else? Working fine. It gave me options to test different components, and the only one that failed was the keyboad/trackpoint. However, I can also use the track point and the keyboard in these little diagnostic screens (which are pretty cool tbh). So who knows, I have no idea what's wrong with it or what I broke, but it's a big bummer because I had already taken photos and listed it on eBay for $250. It was competing for about a week with another 760XL at the same price, and I think that one actually sold. I had $80 tied up in this thing, I guess I could sell it for $120 in parts and get the $80 back after shipping, taxes, eBay's fees.. But I really just wanted to clean it up and prevent corrosion from affecting the future owner's new retro computer. This was a direct hit to the ThinkBalance.

As far as the ThinkBalance goes, I just haven't taken the time to calculate it recently. I know we're still in the negative. The last ThinkPad we sold was in December. Could've been January if I hadn't broken the 760Xl. Fingers crossed on the ThinkPad X220 so we can move into more exciting territory. I have so many mods and ideas I want to try, but I can't do that with no ThinkBalance.

If anyone has any spare late-2013/mid-2014 Macbook Pro 15" parts, or a spare controller board for a 760XL, let me know!

-Onio