Goodwill store finds

I purchased a 1200s new in the late 90's and still use it today. SCSI scanners are nice, especially ones that are Mac/PC.

The LaserWriter isn't doing so well. First off, there's no toner. Second, the paper cassette is horribly jammed. I put all my weight into pulling it out (which isn't very much) and it wouldn't budge. However, I can see from the back that there is quite a stack of paper in it. When I power it on, it appears to go through a test cycle, but none of the lights stay lit. Would this happen if there is no toner in the machine?

I haven't had a chance to play with the scanner yet.

The machine will not work without toner. Unfortunately, toner is relatively rare for LaserWriter Select machines.

Enjoy your Goodwill while it lasts. Eventually they will build a ComputerWorks and all the neat computer stuff will be crushed. Your local store will have nothing and your ComputerWorks will have overpriced outdated PCs and ridiculously priced G4 towers.

Thanks! Any ideas how to fix the jammed paper cassette?

I don't think that Goodwill store will be closing anytime soon. There were a ton of people in there.

Is this the Goodwill in Carpentersville?

Is this the Goodwill in Carpentersville?

Click to expand...

Nope, Lake Zurich.

Very nice. I have a UMAX Astra 2100U, but it is USB only. I prefer my Epson Perfection 1640SU, because it has both USB and SCSI interfaces, and can scan negatives. I even have that accesory, as mine is the photo variant.

Though right now, my main scanner is my all in one, our new HP J4680. Works well enough, but can't scan negatives. Not that I ever used that feature anyways.

. . . erm . . . almost everything I wear, sit on, cook with or store almost everything in has come from my Goodwill sweeps and visits to the other wonderful Thrifts I've found since my move to NC.

. . . not to mention a few technical doodads & a veritable pile-o-Macs-n-peripherals. 8-o

jt: frugal beyond belief. :I

I have more luck at other thrifts then Goodwill.

. . . erm . . . almost everything I wear, sit on, cook with or store almost everything in has come from my Goodwill sweeps and visits to the other wonderful Thrifts I've found since my move to NC.
. . . not to mention a few technical doodads & a veritable pile-o-Macs-n-peripherals. 8-o

jt: frugal beyond belief. :I

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've found goodwills here in NC are usually pretty decent, I've picked up a few nice mac monitors as well as a couple of SCSI peripherals. It's dissapointing though, the one in the town where I live (washington) completely rejects any tech stuff ever - before you can get in the door they shove you out if you're trying to donate, say, a printer.

Got a toner on eBay last night for $18 shipped.

Ahh, I passed up a LaserWriter Select at a thrift shop a few months ago. They wanted $20 for it, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend that much. I should have bought it.... :-/

Toner probably shipped today (I would assume) and is coming from IA, so it should only be a day or two. I opened it up today and discovered that the 8 MB RAM stick inside is of the same type as the 16 MB RAM stick from my Performa 578, so I put the max 16 MB RAM in there.

I was also able to unjam the paper tray.

goodwills / the one in the town where I live (washington) completely rejects any tech stuff ever - before you can get in the door they shove you out if you're trying to donate, say, a printer.

Click to expand...

Yep, Raleigh does that too.

Update on the LaserWriter. I bought a genuine toner (NOS, never opened) on eBay and installed it. I was able to print a test page and found that the printer only had 3050 pages printed! The printouts are pretty dirty however, with toner lines on the right side of the page.

Did you clean out the printer when you swapped the old toner out? Don't use a vacuum cleaner since the toner is small enough to get through filters.

Nope, I did find out however that the fuser probably needs to be replaced (the paper out light sometimes stays on; search shows that fuser is probably to blame).

There are quite a few issues with these LaserWriter Selects that may lead to me getting rid of it, possibly in favor of a 16/600 or similar. Brand new toner in box might be a good selling point for one of these printers.

Found a Yamaha SCSI CD Burner today for $2.99. Manufacture date says "SEPTEMBER 1999". It's an internal, so I'm going to pop it in my 9500 and see if it works.

I <3 my 16/600

It's always on and prints from any computer on my network...

Toner is cheap too!

Found a Global Village Teleport 56Kflex modem, in-box for only $4! Invoice in the box says it was purchased on 9/26/1998. I also found a standalone modem of the same model for $1.99

Airport Extreme B/G w/ built-in Modem and power adapter - $4.99

Update on the LaserWriter. I bought a genuine toner (NOS, never opened) on eBay and installed it. I was able to print a test page and found that the printer only had 3050 pages printed! The printouts are pretty dirty however, with toner lines on the right side of the page.

Click to expand...

Well hopefully yours works out better than mine. I did the same thing a few years back (bought a NOS toner for my Select 360 off eBay) and the wiper blade was dried out and broken leaving streaks on all my pages. I gave up on it and got a reconditioned one for $45 and its worked great ever since. When I got my 12/640PS I skipped eBay entirely and bought a toner from the same site. I have a feeling those NOS toners on eBay are just too old by now.

Nope, it didn't. I'm not fond of remanufactured inks/toners, and they're expensive for that model too...The 360 has been unused for almost a year now - I'm getting rid of it at our garage sale next month. Trashed the toner a while ago.

Sorry to hear that. Wish I would have seen your thread sooner so I could have warned you about my experience. Good luck in your hunt for a new LaserWriter! Personally, I love both of mine (360 & 12/640) and have had pretty good fortune with them. I did trash my old LaserWriter IINT a few weeks ago, but that nasty old thing never did work right. If you do decide to get a remanufactured toner, here is a link to the site I used for mine. Nothing but good things to say about them. http://www.performancetoner.com/apple--toner-cartridges.html

Good luck in your hunt for a new LaserWriter!

Click to expand...

Bought a mint condition LaserJet 4100n (only 3k pages!) on eBay last month and couldn't be happier! It's fast! I used a LaserJet 4050 before that.

I did trash my old LaserWriter IINT a few weeks ago, but that nasty old thing never did work right.

Click to expand...

Loved my LaserWriter IIg, but it needed a lot of work.

Thanks! Any ideas how to fix the jammed paper cassette?
I don't think that Goodwill store will be closing anytime soon. There were a ton of people in there.

Click to expand...

(I know, a year late...)

What Mike meant is that Goodwill has been consolidating their used computer business in specialty stores called "ComputerWorks". They are still Goodwill. But what they do is take all the computer donations from an entire city and send them to one single store which is the Goodwill Computerworks store. The the Computerworks store crushes everything of any interest and puts out a little bit of PC crap at prices picked off of Ebay, so you might as well just have shopped at Ebay in the first place.

That's the way it is in Austin and San Antonio Texas now. Mike's in Houston so I imagine Houston is the same way as well. I wonder if Goodwill is organized by state. The Computerworks stores might not be nationwide, or might be confined to large cities.

The sad thing is that when Goodwill first did this, they had great Mac stuff. I got a bunch of Daystar cards and a 9150 and a couple of SE/30s and even a few Radius Thunder IV GX cards at Goodwill. Of course, the 68K donation were also more common back in that time frame.

And they had boxes of old Mac parts/cards/logic boards.

Now there's never anything Mac out except "recent" models, G4 and newer. I'm sure they still must get some donations of older material, but none of it is available and there's no way to get a look in the huge space behind the store.

Just did a quick look-up for one in NC, and there is one in Charlotte. They claim to have older computers and game systems as well.

http://www.goodwillsp.org/computerworks.html

I remember back in 2002, I found an old compact Macintosh complete with keyboard and mouse, external hard drive, printer, and a ton of software, all on floppies, for $30. I tried to get the money from my dad, but he, for some reason, had an extreme hatred for Macs and refused to give me the money. A couple of days later, my mom, who was doing her weekend drill for the National Guard when I initially found the computer, said she would buy it for me. Sadly, it was gone.

Goodwill does ask for volunteers to come in Saturdays to help take stuff apart. That's one way to see what's behind the warehouse doors. Another way is to volunteer to help with the museum. I keep intending to do that - one of these days :beige: