Brilliant or Blunder? The 20th Anniversary Mac - A Love Letter & Restoration - iiiDIY

You can be an early iiiDIY Supporter here!   / iiidiy  

The Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) was a fascinating design concept brought into full production in 1997. Apple's Industrial Design Group had conceived of a new all-in-one computer for the masses... but their marketing department had other ideas.

Released as a $9,000 USD ($17,513.94 adjusted) luxury item, along with rumoured white-glove limousine delivery service, the TAM was a commercial failure. Less than 12,000 were sold. But thanks to its striking design and some upgradability, the TAM developed a cult following.

Love or hate its aesthetic, the TAM's limited sales has made it into a collector's item for Macintosh enthusiasts. Unfortunately, like almost all 1990s electronics, the capacitors now threaten to destroy this slice of history.

So today, we get to crack one open and save it from a corrosive end! Of course, this being iiiDIY, mistakes are made along the way, but we'll learn from them together :)

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Thank you to PCBWay for sponsoring this video. You can check them out at https://www.pcbway.com/

CREDITS:

Thank you to Grant from Mac27.net for the excellent TAM disassembly guide (and for being an early supporter of this channel!): https://www.mac27.net/tam-disassembly

A million thanks to ‪@THEtechknight‬ and Nickposting. Without their help and patience, this TAM would be dead. You can find Technight's wealth of repair knowledge here:    / @thetechknight  

Thank you to ‪@ComputerHistory‬ for letting me use an excerpt of Rober Brunner's talk. I HIGHLY recommend watching the whole presentation if you're interested in Apple design history!    • Apple Industrial Designers Robert Bru...  

Thanks to John from ‪@BigBadBench‬ for entrusting me with his PowerMac 6500 for some b-roll. His Saturday streams are delightful!    / @bigbadbench  

Last, and arguably least, thanks to ‪@65scribe‬ for "loaning" me his sad music cue :) If you're watching my videos, you should already be subscribed to his genius-level Macintosh-related channel:    / @65scribe  

Finally, you can watch the most uncomfortable keynote ever here:    • Видео  

Music:

Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, BWV 1007 - I. Prelude, by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Yoed Nir

Capricho Arabe, by Francisco Tárrega, Yuval Vilner

La Source, Op. 44, by Alphonse Hasselmans, Ada Ragimov

Memory Lane by Vox Portent

Chapters:
00:00 Apple in 1996
01:34 Concept & Launch
03:40 CD-ROM Tour
05:15 In The Wild
05:45 Discontinuation
06:30 Life After Death
07:19 My TAM & Issues
07:55 Disassembly & Cleaning
10:16 Power Distro Board Recap
11:23 Logic Board Recap
12:39 CD-ROM Recap
13:35 Signs of Trouble
14:26 Flex Cable Repair
16:24 2 Flex Cable 2 Furious
18:06 Cleaning & Reassembly
18:32 Sponsor
19:02 Reassembly & Test Boot
19:32 More Trouble
21:19 Another Test Boot
22:00 Final Assembly
23:11 Wrap-Up


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