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CadetStimpy · Mar 17, 2004, 12:24 PM

Greetings!

I just recently purchased a mint 20th Anniversary Mac on eBay for my Mac collection. I must admit, it was a stellar addition. I'd never seen one before in person till mine arrived this week.

I was up late last night installing a fresh OS and getting it connected to my wireless network at home, and I was just wondering how many other folks might have one of these. I was also amazed to find that the G3/500 processor upgrades are still available for it!

If you have one; do you still use it much? If so, what kinda stuff do you do with it? I loaded up a fresh copy of OS9.1 and installed Office and some other goodies - and it seems like there's a lot of good life left in it.

Any other TAM users out there? Might be nice to have a few folks to swap tips and tricks with.

Immortal K-Mart Employee · Mar 17, 2004, 01:20 PM

Oh gosh, it looked cool mostly the neat colour but that is one old machine. I can't imagine using it for anything other then listening to music, surfing/emailing and word.

Chinasaur · Mar 17, 2004, 04:41 PM

Regardless of what anyone says..that's still a great looking machine. And a 500Mhz upgrade makes it usable.

Enjoy

Immortal K-Mart Employee · Mar 17, 2004, 05:25 PM

ya it looks totally awesome. It had some major downsides when it first shipped like a slow CD drive because it was vertical and you had to add that hump to the back for some upgrades. It was also a top of the line computer on the outside and price with low end insides.

The biggest downside was the $10,000 price tag. When they were dropped to $2000 they sold ok.

SSharon · Mar 18, 2004, 03:06 AM

how about some pics of the TAM? and congrats on the purchase.

Arkham_c · Mar 18, 2004, 02:41 PM

Originally posted by SSharon:
how about some pics of the TAM? and congrats on the purchase.

http://tam.axon.net/

DeathToWindows · Mar 21, 2004, 01:47 PM

cool... a steamrollered laptop.

gimmee

CadetStimpy · Mar 29, 2004, 11:45 AM

I'll try to post a few pics of mine this evening. I've got it setup in my den, and it's already become a pretty nice conversation piece. And I like the 'steamrollered laptop' analogy.

I think the coolest feature is the remote control. You can power it up from across the room, and then turn on the TV. Ultra cool.

Waragainstsleep · Mar 29, 2004, 12:40 PM

Dunno if its the same as I'm thinking, but my Performa 6200 had IR on the front, and when I put it in the same room as either of my two (Sony) TVs, it used to roar to life whenever you turned the TV on or off.

The startup chime used to scare the hell out of my Mum.
LOL

Immortal K-Mart Employee · Mar 29, 2004, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by CadetStimpy:
I think the coolest feature is the remote control. You can power it up from across the room, and then turn on the TV. Ultra cool.

Cool but you could do the same with the much cheaper performas.

tonywong · Mar 31, 2004, 04:40 AM

Yeah, I got one for my mom about 5 years ago...still working great with a 500MHz G3 upgrade in it. I just replaced the RAM yesterday in it, I think the G3 upgrade was slowly roasting the top DIMM. She uses it for browsing the web and printing digital photos from her canon A40...

Still have to fix the speaker buzz though, haven't had any time to do that lately.

chasg · Mar 31, 2004, 08:50 AM

Cool, another TAM owner!

I got mine about a year ago, for free (believe it or not) from a client who had just thrown it into box in frustration 'cause of the buzz. She'd upgraded to a TiBook, and I was in setting it up for her. She mentioned that she'd an old machine, and I offered to take it off her hands. You should've seen my eyes bug out when she hauled that TAM out of the attic!

I even told her what it was, and what it might be worth (I didn't have a clue at the time), but she still just wanted to get rid of it.

I brought it home, set it up, and yep, there was the buzz. I took much of it apart, cleaned some contacts (particularly speaker contacts), and no more buzz. "Cool", I thought, "new sound system!" (I never really planned to use it as a computer, it was far outclassed even by the iMac my kids use). I piped the sound from my desktop machine through the TAM, and also used the TV feature quite a bit.

About 4 months later, the buzz returned. The TAM's remained off since then, and really only takes up desk space. One day I'm going to crack it again, snip off those sub-standard cable connectors and solder the heck out it, that'll fix that buzz once and for all! (then I'm gonna sell it).

Here is a good website for you (things are slow these days, haven't been there in months, myself...):

http://tam.axon.net

Here's one on fixing the buzz:

http://www.cardboard-box.com/fixtambuzz/index.html

Enjoy the TAM! (mine isn't in the best of shape, but if yours is pristine, keep it that way, it's sure to be a serious collectors' item in a few decades :-)

Chas

CadetStimpy · Mar 31, 2004, 12:22 PM

Thanks, Chas. That's a great story. I would imagine that was quite a surprise when she just gave you that TAM. Thanks for the links - I'll check them out.

Mine had the buzz, too, pretty reliably, when you'd leave it on for a couple of hours. Just so happens that I had seen an auction a couple of days earlier for a new base unit on Ebay (seems to be quite a few of those most of the time) and I picked it up for around 50 bucks. I thought it'd be a good idea to have a spare base/power unit just in case the original went on the fritz.

Well, it came in yesterday, so I put the old one in the box and hooked up the new one. Imagine my surprise to find that it cleared up the buzz. I left the TAM on all last night, letting it sleep, and checked it this morning - no buzz! Perhaps it might have been something in the power unit. Anyhoo, might be worth picking up a new base unit and see if it fixes yours.

It sure is an attention getter, though. Every one of my son's friends who comes in asks about it.

Scott

tonywong · Mar 31, 2004, 02:02 PM

Yeah, my buzz was in the base unit. I'll have to solder it up too since cleaning didn't make a permanent fix. Looks like differential metal oxidation on the contacts.

chasg · Apr 2, 2004, 01:12 PM

My first buzz was in the base unit, definitely (that's what I cleaned). Also tonywong is right, definitely oxidation on the contacts (easily seen!). A new base unit with no oxidation would certainly clear up the primary reason for the infamous buzz.

I should point out that I actually had to take the TAM itself apart and clean the contacts for the speakers too (there was a definite growing buzz in the left speaker, even after I took care of the base unit). What a mess that thing is inside! I'd heard that the TAM was rushed out the door as Amelio's "legacy", and it shows, must be a mile of ribbon cable in there (they must've stuffed it in using a stick, it was a b*tch getting it back together).

A new base unit is a very good idea, I'd never really thought of that (who has a base unit and no TAM?). $50 is a great deal, nice one...a quick eBay search has found a base unit for 80 bucks (still a good deal, imho). I might go for it, if I can work out the international shipping issues (it's in North Carolina, I'm in London).

I have to say that the TAM is one beautiful piece of kit. I'm a designer and photographer by trade, and I wish I had the space to exhibit it properly, as the work of art it is. I remember the speculation surrounding the "new" iMac (the one that is now on the market). There were a lot of people who thought it would look like the TAM, and that was a good guess (I have to say that what did come out is pretty amazing too :-)

Later!

Chas

tonywong · Oct 29, 2005, 09:09 PM

Finally got around to fixing the buzz.

Took base unit apart and got the contacts, cleaned them with electronics cleaner, used a white eraser to skim off any stubborn oxidation, the used a product called "ox-gard", an anti-oxidant compound on the pins. Hope it works, it's put out by Gardner Bender and is ox-100b. Took away the buzz but we'll see if it keeps it away.

Better than solder imho, especially if a component needs replacing in the base unit.

Macpilot · Oct 29, 2005, 11:46 PM

I picked one up on eBay last year and it is a beautiful machine. It had been upgraded to ethernet and USB, and I wound up putting a G3 card in it and maxing the RAM to 128.

It performs very well as an OS 9 machine. Installing OS X is apparently dicey, although I have not tried.

I have no buzzing issue, but have heard of this problem.

An interesting bit of history about the TAM:

When somebody bought one of these when they first came out, a guy in a tux arrived at your home in a limo to deliver it and set it up! Pretty cool, and very Apple.

I think they were priced at $7500 at first, sold poorly, then Jobs came back and wanted them cleared out, and they dropped the price to $2500.

Definitely one of the coolest Macs in history. Part of my little collection.

crooner · Oct 30, 2005, 10:21 AM

No doubt... the TAM was a great example of Apple's design standards. I never owned one, but just saw one on an old re-run of Seinfeld. If you ever watch the show, Jerry always has a Mac in his apartment. It's kinda fun to see the different models he had through the years the show ran.

anthology123 · Oct 31, 2005, 02:55 PM

I have one that I put in a hi-tech looking corner computer stand and connected a 30GB external SCSI drive, put about 5000 MP3s on it and installed SoundJam under OS8.5. It is a great jukebox, although I do get that speaker buzz on the right speaker (after about 40 minutes- 2 hours). I'll have to do that contact cleaning, but I am afraid to take it apart.

Scandalous Ion Cannon · Oct 31, 2005, 10:05 PM

How much can you get one of these suckers for now?

Captain Obvious · Nov 1, 2005, 07:39 AM

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=8712772686

That is just not worth it.

Simon · Nov 1, 2005, 12:22 PM

It was nice to look at but such a dog. Performance-wise it was a huge scam. At that price point it was impossible to justify why it was using Performa interals. And we had a lot of them in for repair in the Apple shop where I worked at as an undergrad.

Scandalous Ion Cannon · Nov 1, 2005, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=8712772686

That is just not worth it.

HOLY CRAP! $800!!! That is insane. I'd buy one for $200 to show off but other than that forget it.

jcadam · Nov 1, 2005, 01:48 PM

It is certainly not a professional's machine. Looks like something designed for 'fancy lads' with too much money.

tonywong · Nov 2, 2005, 01:00 AM

Originally Posted by anthology123

I have one that I put in a hi-tech looking corner computer stand and connected a 30GB external SCSI drive, put about 5000 MP3s on it and installed SoundJam under OS8.5. It is a great jukebox, although I do get that speaker buzz on the right speaker (after about 40 minutes- 2 hours). I'll have to do that contact cleaning, but I am afraid to take it apart.

A laptop IDE drive can be placed in there for pretty cheap nowadays. I upgraded my mom's with a 20GB drive a couple of years ago, and 40GB and 80GB drives are pretty common now. Keeps the TAM looking nice without external boxes

The base unit is easy to take apart, the first time is always the hardest...

Thain Esh Kelch · Nov 2, 2005, 05:32 PM

I first saw one and touched it, at a big expo in germany 10 years ago, and it rocked so much. My dad loved it too, so he bought one a year after.

Lovely machine, he used it to show of the BOSE system and surf the web. We also had it running as a phone-answering machine with the Apple geoport. - Me and my friends mostly used it for playing Diablo I through VPC!

My sister got it after my dad died, and unfortunately it was stolen.

So, 1 out of 13 machines in Denmark (At least back when it was stolen) is a 'hot' item.