Rescuing my Childhood Mac LC575 (And Upgrading the BEJEEZUS out of it!) Part 1

Invest in yourself! Use my link and check out the first chapter of any DataCamp course for FREE! bit.ly/3rrPggg
In today's very special episode, we have the Mac that got me into vintage Macs... literally. I bought this LC575 from a thrift shop way back when I was in high school, and I promptly ruined it while trying to upgrade it. Today, it has no motherboard, no screws, and no drives... and it hasn't been turned on in well over a decade.
Fortunately, thanks to Alex from @appleontheapex I not only have a new LC575 motherboard - but it has an INCREDIBLE PowerPC upgrade card on it!
Can we bring this Mac back to life? And if so, how far can we push it? Let's find out!
🍎 Apple on the Apex: / appleontheapex
Thanks to DataCamp for sponsoring this video.
══════════════════════════
💾 For more vintage Apple stuff, please subscribe: www.youtube.co...
💾 Support these retro computing shenanigans on Patreon! / actionretro
══════════════════════════
Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: www.amazon.com...
══════════════════════════
💬 Come talk about old computers on the Action Retro Discord! / discord
══════════════════════════
#Macintosh #LC575 #PowerPC

[@ActionRetro]

Invest in yourself! Use my link and check out the first chapter of any DataCamp course for FREE! bit.ly/3rrPggg

[@Angelgreat]

You should be careful to what you said about the Macintosh Color Classic, while it is the last one in the form factor, you forgot to mention the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh which may be the true penultimate all in one Macintosh! Also, revive the SuperMac S900!

[@blrryface]

@@coreyexelk99 what?

[@blrryface]

@@coreyexelk99 yes, like me. I wear glasses 'cause i can't see well

[@Astinsan]

I would want the original color classic and not the 575 transplanted version..

[@stpworld]

I have the performa 575 version of this and the original restore cd roms to. I also added eithernet to and got new clock batteries for mine.

[@DoctorUmbra]

Man, you took me down memory lane. I had this Mac when I was a child. It kicked the bucket 1 year ago until the keyboard died and finding replacements here in Chile is damned near impossible. Worked FLAWELESSLY for over 26 years.

[@mica7191]

Macs initiated general PC evolution... in 1984

[@appleontheapex]

I'm glad you're going to able to get some use out of the board, and I can't wait to see what kind of upgrades you have planned! Edit: I see a few people trickling over to my channel. Please know that I'm not as active as I used to be, but do post some cool old computer content occasionally. Thanks!

[@spykillergames8402]

"Please know that I'm not as active as I used to be, but do post some cool old computer content occasionally. Thanks! " no thank you for telling me not to bother checking ur channel out...i appreciate channels who say that they wont be active so i know not to sub..or to unsub if subbed

[@RetroBitTech]

@@spykillergames8402 well that's a little rude, your not going to even bother checking out their content? Not even what they originally made. You don't have to sub, but giving them some views wouldn't hurt, you douche.

[@TheMalMeninga]

On holiday at the lake, this and a coffee is a perfect way to start the day!

[@CoreyDeWalt]

You're living the dream, my man!

[@wojiaobill]

the best part of waking up is folgers in your cup

[@nticompass]

Coffee Lake is a way later CPU than this machine would support :-P

[@LazyBunnyKiera]

I love seeing your reflection in the screen at the start. Really happy it's all working as well as it is!

[@maestrodiogenesbillionaire870]

I think what is more interesting is the reflection shows possibly he is in a very small room against the back wall filming this.(correction garage)

[@ctrlaltrees]

I've heard of people using these boards to upgrade the Color Classic, glad to see an LC575 being restored and appreciated for what it is!

[@PatrickHamid]

The LC575 was the exact model I grew up with when I bought it for $10 from a mate when I was 10. I played Glider Pro and learnt HTML and Applescript!

[@appleinfl]

What a nostalgia trip, my elementary school was full of these and other 90s 68k Macs. I was preoccupied with the iMacs they were starting to put in the classrooms. I remember when the library got 10 indigo iMacs and seeing them all stacked in those huge boxes and being so excited 😆

[@alexdhall]

Yep my elementary school was all Macintoshes and Apple IIgs' until 1996-ish. They started buying Dell Optiplex's then.

[@MichaelAStanhope]

LC575, one of the best compact macs Apple ever made, also one of the best LC's they made. I found my 575 on a scrap pallet at the Salvation Army in Mechanicsburg. I saw it sitting there, so I took it. The Color Classic was a piece of crap machine. It was underpowered, the screen had a dumb resolution (which has to be modded to work with the Mystic upgrade), and is generally slow. The Color Classic II was the better machine, but those are rare in the US. Glad you are giving your 575 some love! I will love mine again once I get my board back from Steve, so likely around 2023! Im not planning on upgrading mine as you did, but I do want to put a 68040 on it in place of the LC040.

[@ActionRetro]

😂

[@DanielMarkstedtR]

+1 -- kudos to Sean for bravely calling out all the IMHO undeserved love for the Color Classic! I recall thinking even back in the day that it was a pretty useless machine, little more than an LC in a different form factor, a machine released 3 years prior, hampered by the same awkward 512 x 384 resolution and RAM limitations. It is kind of sad to learn that so many 575s gave up their lives to give a slight speed boost to arguably inferior machines!

[@alexdhall]

Yep lots of memories of these LC575's, those pizza box LC and LC II Mac's, and the all in one power Macintoshes. Good times...

[@RowanBird779]

Kinda like the Macintosh classic (68000 in 1990?)

[@darkwinter6028]

Get an electric heat gun; either at Amazon or Harbor Freight. They don’t get hot enough to set fire to the heat-shrink or melt the insulation, but it will very nicely shrink the tubing. I think I spent all of $9.99 for mine.

[@fbelard]

“you could do a brain transplant on this mac without even using a screwdriver” … “also mine is missing all the screws”

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Now you're making me sad about some of the vintage hardware I gave up many many years ago.

[@MattExzy]

My Mac LC II, Quadra 605, Quadra 660AV, Classic II, PowerMac 7100 all come to mind. Long gone, all of them, sigh :/

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

@@MattExzy *sigh... We were young and stupid.

[@lavavex]

Finally, a good lc757 video!!! Just picked one up and nobody has a good video on it!!! LOVE YOU

[@friedpancakes266]

I still have a Macintosh plus, my dad used it for over 20 years

[@OctavioGaitan]

I practically grew up being surrounded by LC 500 series computers and loved it. If I got my hands on a working one I'd restore it in a heartbeat; if I got a broken one with a goner motherboard I'd probably try modding it to work as a sleeper gaming PC.

[@alexdhall]

I remember using these Mac's in elementary school in the 1990s. My school used a mix of these and newer all in one power Macintoshes into the early 2000s...

[@nebelwerfer-itwerfsnebel]

This was my childhood mac i got from dad, and i spent countless time messing around with simcity2000. I vividly remember how i had to get its memory upgraded from its original 8 mb ram, to then massive 20mb edo ram by buying a 16mb module to replace the original 4mb, JUST so my cities still rendered properly without horrible slowdown when the cities became full.

[@CodingItWrong]

Regret is actually what got me into vintage computers. My college was giving away old hardware including an original form factor Mac (I don’t know which). I didn’t have space to pack it to drive it home, so some friends and I smashed the screen and threw it out. My dad was mortified, like “that’s a piece of computing history!” That phrase rang in my head and it’s why I asked a friend to help me find an SE to buy to atone for my mistake.

[@dossen]

Idea for a scsi2sd mount thing: make it hold a ribbon cable sd card extension flush with the back panel to make the card easy to swap?

[@WillmobilePlus]

I gave my Performa away to my sister for her kids back in like 2003. I totally regret it! Today, that thing would have a whole corner devoted to it......So you have that over some of us. I have a working Mac Classic in the attic, though.

[@selzzaW]

Love those old AIOs. Great design.

[@LTC_Tiger]

So excited to see a Tanner Bros. Farm bag! I grew up not far from there. I used to go there with my parents in the summer for their homemade ice cream and to watch the cows graze!

[@AshenTechDotCom]

thanks for the PTSD, those old POS mac's from that era... most of the mac's of that era that schools got made the official(at the time) "road apples" page... because they had, as the page said "peformance and reliablility issues" having to reinstall them regularly was... a chore... a teacher of mine took a "mac kill disk" for the powerpc model that evolved from these, and older, she stared at it for all of 15sec walked over to a mac, and, booted it, installed the plugin, rebooted it... and watched it burn itself out... like... totally dead... the district mac guy, tried to fix it and had to replace the board... she did this till he let her sell the macs in the lab to the music dept.... whos teacher loved them even though he knew they were even worse then the win9x pc's the school had... that were...pretty bad honstly... she hated those things, no network support, the a-hole installed on-guard that locked out saving and printing so one teacher spent HOURS on a document for class only for us to have to bring the principle down, to see the mess, to call the guy who refused to give us the password or let people use the disk drive, save to the hdd or print... for security.... yeah... the principle told me to just get it working properly again and the software wouldnt return, do the same for all teachers systems...

[@JimmyDoresHairDye]

I've always liked these machines, even though my only experience with them was at middle school (and by then they were embarrassingly slow). Nice to see one fixed up a bit.

[@upintheclouds1337]

Part 2, please.

[@juxxtapoz]

This is the exact model computer I learned to type on in middle school in the 90's. I bought a working one a few years ago off Ebay and put it away to hopefully do something with it in the future. About a year earlier I plugged it in and it wouldn't turn on anymore. The caps probably needed changing years ago but I didn't have the skills to do it myself. I ended up selling it in non-working condition. It was crushing 😔

[@motionsick]

This was one of the first true multimedia computers with the stereo speakers and controls on the front. I got this from my dad in high-school and it completely changed everything. Learned photoshop 1 on this machine. Used to buy the MacAddict just for the CD and install every demo on the disc and nerd out for days on end. Those were the days. Mine was Labeled the Performa 575 and had a sticker on the upper left that said "Power PC upgradable"

[@half-fast-tech]

I applaud your passion to bring this machine back to life. I will second Goo Gone for removing stickers. I had two 15" Studio Display monitors with very old and crusty stickers plastered on them. I dripped some Goo Gone on them and let them sit overnight. They slid right off the next morning.

[@SatanicMac]

My favorite thing about my LC575 &520? Lifting them out of the closet gingerly in one piece at the expense of my back health.

[@alextirrellRI]

I love these! The computer lab for my 6th grade was LC575's, on the internet in 1997! We would do research and play games like Oregon Trail and The Incredible Machine! I've been on the search for one, but for now I've settled with an LC475. The Power Macintosh 5x00 Series was the successor of the LC5x0 line and also very cool machines, especially the ones with TV/Video In. I regret letting go of mine.

[@RicardoRamosRetrocomputacao]

I think it would be more appropriate to have disassembled and checked the power supply visually for bloated or leaky capacitors, rather than simply plugging it into the outlet.

[@3rdalbum]

I had an LC520. I was envious of LC575 owners, but then, after working hours I had access to my Dad's Quadra 840AV so I wasn't really hurting. I used to be able to play Marathon 2 in the absolute lowest quality settings, interlaced, in a tiny window. Haha.

[@DanielMarkstedtR]

Not even Wolfenstein 3D runs particularly well on 68k Macs, even the high end systems. No way to get consistent framerates without decreasing the window size! Regardless, I also played the heck out of Marathon 1 & 2 on my mom's Performa 630 in a tiny window and interlaced graphics. :)

[@bricklearns]

I think the "Power Mac G3 All-In-One" (molar mac) is a more true final version of the all in one mac

[@OrganistAnthony]

Thanks for sharing! I recently acquired a Performa 575 myself and broke the same tab on the front bezel. Somehow it magically stays in place when I push it back up and in. I ended up using a ribbon extension cable to extend the the edge adapter to the SCSI2SD without soldering. Also, I've personally had success with adding a 128MB stick of RAM. I'll look forward to any future videos that include this machine!

[@ersafeguard]

Our family first computer was a mac, Performa 577. It was the same form factor as that one!

[@jay1185]

21:41 I love the googly eyes on the ZIP drive lol. Awesome video. You have a new subscriber!

[@demerzel7]

Tanner’s! I used to go there with my Nana when I was a kid. That brings back some memories.

[@dennisud]

THIS video made me subscribe and I'm lookimg for more of this computer.

[@flashfrozen64]

Man, my family's first computer was a performa 550, so very similar to this machine...I totally feel you on this!

[@tilen3266]

5:20 look at the reflection in the yellow mac (professional description )

[@drewfranklinaustin]

You should see if pcb way can print a replacement front cover

[@nena_nezali]

Love to see the love you give old machines ❤️

[@areb8579]

My first Apple Mac was an SE30. I bought it 1994 for the price of £500. The machine was cute and easy to carry.

[@HaddaClu]

That form factor brings back memories. My family's first computer was the Macintosh Performa 520 that my grandmother bought new for my mother. I spend hours playing Monopoly and Kid Pix , and Mahjong on that thing. Edit - What really comes to my mind when I remember that old 520 was that the CD drive used the old CD Caddy loading system. We had and used that computer up to 2001ish. When My mom got a new computer - another preforma ( one of the flat ones with a separate monitor) the 520 became my sisters computer and when she got and Emac I got it for a time and it worked for basic word processing and we had a style writer II printer ...

[@darrelltaylorjr.5775]

that's the first non apple II I had!!! later got the PPC upgrade board but it broke still have it need to fix traces one day :(

[@encycl07pedia-]

I'm not sure what exact model of Mac I (or more specifically, my dad) had. It was a System 7 on that closely resembled an LC 575. The difference is it had a very unique CD drive where you had a floppy-like cassette/caddy that you put the CD into, and the caddy was inserted into the CD drive. It had a long metal door where it opened just like you'd open a floppy to see the actual disk. I've never seen another caddy or drive like it. I think it may have been a Performa model from either 1993 or 1994.

[@j.m.7580]

My first Mac was a Performa 580CD - love that machine and I still regret selling it years ago. Those all-in-one LCs and Performas didn’t get enough love - true, they were kinda odd-looking, but the slide-out logic board, the sharp Trintron CRT, CDROM… made for a useful, accessible fun machine.

[@knghtbrd]

Who else was half expecting a 575 motherboard from PCBWaaaaaaaayyyy? Wait, that's Preifractic's schtick. I mean, if someone can source the parts, they'd totally make the board for you. 😁 Also, the Color Classic is the PENultimate (last but one) all-in-one classic Mac, because the LC575 is the ultimate all-in-one classic Mac. 😛 ETA: Yoke rotation and alignment… Seriously wanna see it done with this machine, but … also want to see you be safe Sean. If you don't know how, get in touch with Adrian or someone who does this kind of work and make sure they explain what you need, how to do it, and what to not touch while doing it.

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Glad To See Your Child Hood computer Working again Did Not Know You Could Upgrade That With the G4 Very Cool Sean

[@SnipE_mS]

I had one of these when I was maybe 11 or 12. Bought it at a flea market for like 50 bucks back in 1998 or 99. Didn’t have an OS and I never used a Mac before this so I had to figure out how to make it work. My mom found a guy locally that had a bunch of Mac stuff and helped me get it working. I played a ton of Warcraft II on it and learned how to use Macs pretty well. Loved that machine. I sold it a few years after that for a fraction of what I paid for it. Should have held on to it!

[@elm.0]

I'm really liking your collection of jaz drives. Also happy 23.7K subs :D

[@RikerJoe]

I am running 128 MB of RAM on my LC 575 board, installed in my Mystic Color Classic of course 😁

[@ActionRetro]

Oh niiiice!

[@maxbecker5459]

Use Aceton for broken plastic pieces. A few Drops on the Brake and then press it together. Becomes rocksolid again.

[@aboy1983]

I wanted one of these so hard when they came out

[@AMPTechGrade]

I agree 100%, this was a WAY BETTER MACHINE

[@kelvinlammh]

Just gorilla glue 2 small neodymium magnets to the cover.

[@ActionRetro]

Woah good idea

[@nickwallette6201]

I’m restoring a Power Mac 9500 that must have been trapped in a sauna for a decade. Haha Anyway, same story - every tab had broken off in shipping or the first time I disassembled it. My solution is to design replacement tabs with a small flat base that I can acetone-glue to the existing plastic. Basically I will cut off the entire existing tab, and instead of being a sharp perpendicular protrusion, I’ll have a small flat rectangle pad of new plastic adhered to the old thing, and a new pliable protrusion extending from the new pad. I don’t have a 3D printer, I just send stuff off to Shapeways to have it made on their nicer stuff. It’s in production now so we’ll see how it goes. I also had to make a brand new optical drive carrier because the original had lost every single one of its interlocking tabs, and when I ordered a new one on eBay, it came in two big pieces and a bunch of small ones. Haha Gotta love late 90s Macs.

[@Underestimated37]

Not with a CRT, it’ll likely mess with the screen

[@ActionRetro]

@@Underestimated37 Oh right, good point lol

[@tubularmonkeymaniac]

Your hand over the top hand gestures used to annoy me, but now I need them.

[@aa-au]

I used to like these LC575s, and I still do! I bought a lot of LC575s and LC580s from schools and sold many. In fact, I had so many of them I had to strip the logic boards, hard drives, CD-ROMs and floppy drives out of them, and then dump the rest. Fortunately, I still have the logic boards and are part of my first unboxing video.

[@SireSquish]

I have one of those, and it's one of the few that I didn't stupidly throw out.

[@X-OR_]

Someone needs to M1 a Color Classic

[@keedah]

someone needs to m1 a og mac

[@MechaFenris]

I have broken so many older plastic items... I have used everything from the superglue/baking soda to a good piece of tape. :) It's one of those things I say "I'm going to be more careful" but it's the plastic... not me (or you). Great video, btw! (Classic Apple engineering is always fun to watch how they made things work/fit so well).

[@draggonhedd]

I really miss the shenanigans we got up to on the Applefritter board. That place was really fun.

[@AiOinc1]

When I was a kid one of the only computers I had access to was a very poor shape Performa 475, which actually did manage to work for a while before it started acting funny and eventually I took it apart and either broke pieces or lost them, I don't remember. In retrospect it was probably very fixable and just needed a power supply but when I was probably 12 I had no idea.

[@lactobacillusprime]

Indeed an iconic machine. I was very aware of it back in the day and considered it unobtanium. Preferred it over the Color classic actually.

[@bradmccartney187]

You just made me drag out my Vintage Beige G3 Power Mac Gosimer with a 400 mhz Processor, to play with. Keep up the Videos and if you can get Adelie Linux installed on one I will definitely be watching. Thank You and Be Safe.

[@MrAlan1828]

I have a spare 475 & 575 mobo ...... oh you found one already

[@SupaCLUCK]

I wish my parents never threw out the old PC

[@mattrichardson4351]

Why aren’t you at 100k subs yet .. so much to watch

[@tyrvidar]

we had a bunch of these in our Tech class in the mid 90s, cool machines

[@MegaManNeo]

When you 3D print something for the SD Card adapter, I too suggest to buy a ribbon extension so you can easily eject, swap and backup your SD cards.

[@theLuigiFan0007Productions]

I love learning more about programming in Python so I'm going to actually poke around datacamp. Can't say I'l buy it but I'l definitely take their sampler and see what kind of info I can gain from it.

[@theLuigiFan0007Productions]

@Lil Yeet Main thing is it's easy to run on all my devices, I'm very comfortable with Python and have put a decent bit of effort into learning it the past few years. My Linux desktops all have Python, phone has native SL4A (Scripting Layer For Android Devices) bindings available, my IoT microcontrollers (ESP32, etc) run MicroPython and I generally need hardware level serial/network/GPIO access at the same time as high level libraries for a good deal of my projects. If I was to learn another language, it'd probably be C#.NET, as that's also open source, cross platform and good for heavy applications. Ruby is a great choice for lots of projects though, and thank you for the reccomendation.

[@ww21943]

I can’t wait to watch this later!!!

[@Natures_Intentions]

Very awesome retro mac.

[@drcarrot415]

I heard a Tenacious D reference. You have moved up many spots on my “favorite channels” list!

[@aytviewer2421]

I miss using the old pre MAC OS X systems.

[@sxymike12]

my grandparents had the performa, 2 years later they replaced it with the first iMac and it did not impress me a bit, I went downstairs and kept using the performa.

[@yorokobi9530]

This was fun, thanks! I had no idea these options were or are available.

[@Cortana_longfall]

I suggest a disk formatting tool called Lido. I have had the same problem you have demonstrated and it always gets the job done.

[@Firepulser]

This never got a part 2.... but it is in the Flappy Mac episode.

[@JohnPorter4096]

thanks will check it out!!

[@Thanatos2996]

FYI, "penultimate" means "second to last", not the same thing as ultimate.

[@DanielMarkstedtR]

I assumed Sean was referring to the Color Classic II (or Performa 275) as being the ultimate compact Mac. :)

[@KnuckleHunkybuck]

"Penultimate" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means second-to-last. Therefore, your contention is that the Color Classic is the penultimate classic Mac, and the LC575 is the ultimate, or final, classic Mac. Great video, though.

[@darkwinter6028]

One approach to the sticker is to get somebody to laser-print it onto a sheet of glossy paper, laminate it, and spray some reposition-able adhesive on the back side.

[@mattruddick8919]

As a mystic owner i have no regrets!! I did do the 640x 480 mod as well

[@ActionRetro]

Haha nice

[@michaelperugini4199]

you can acutally use the same color of marker to remove writing, just write over the top of the existing letters and then wipe off while wet using cleaner

[@stuff31]

It is a beautiful beast.

[@AirknightTails]

Good Luck on the Build man. Hope we can meet again in the future

[@BiSq__-]

Love your videos and what you do keep up the good work!!!

[@maltoNitho]

Yaaay! Look at that heat sink 😍

[@UpLateGeek]

Interesting. My LC575 has a problem with the monitor, it's tinted purple and needs degaussing, so obviously the degaussing circuit isn't working. Hearing you switch yours on, it sounds like it degausses when you flick the switch, so it's evidently a function built into the power supply, rather than something controlled by the logic board. Mine was also super brittle. The clips holding the logic board cover on the back broke immediately, as did the one holding in the hard drive. I did buy some solvent to try and plastic weld them back on, but I wanted to practice plastic welding a whole lot before I potentially ruin my vintage Mac. I just wish I had the time to actually work on my vintage machines!

[@DoRC]

Penultimate is not a synonym for ultimate. It means second to last in a series.

[@jblars]

This. This so hard.

[@jdmcs]

🇺🇸Flailing Arms Man🇺🇸 🤣🤣🤣 + Cutting-Edge Special Effects 🤓🤓🤓 = Slack cut for your 16-year old self! (Yeah, we’ve all sold computers and computer parts that we later regretted.)

[@ActionRetro]

😂

[@tonybossaller4074]

I'd definitely agree that the LC575 was the penultimate 68K Mac. But I'd argue that the G3 All-in-One was the penultimate culmination from the original Classic line. Wish I'd kept the one I had but dumped it for my eMac. :(

[@austina3567]

LC575 was the first mac I ever used (that I can recall). I believe it was 5th grade? They were all new and shiny then. Countless hours of dying of dysentery on the old oregon trail.

[@Underestimated37]

Don’t forget that hard drive has a caddy attached to the bottom of it, you may be able to repurpose that to mount the SD adaptor

[@DanielMarkstedtR]

Sean, sorry for the deluge of comments, but watching to the end of the video I have one more pro tip: Check the speed rating of the DRAM chips on those VRAM sticks before testing them in your machine. I found out the hard way that 100ns is too slow for a 33Mhz 68040. Silicon Insider helped me work through troubleshooting and replacing the sticks I bought from him with 80ns parts (yet to arrive in my mailbox.)

[@ActionRetro]

Haha thanks! Just checked and mine is 60ns

[@juliawolf156]

Did something similar to my childhood Playstation 2. I added a hard drive, FreeMcBoot and just recently a quieter Noctua fan.

[@goqwertygo]

I remember our school had these Macs when I was in 2nd grade. Then they upgraded to the new bondi blue iMacs😄

[@mccrh7737]

Epic video thanks :) I had a LC 580 with a 5260/120 Mobo in it, great computer, started my programming career :)

[@nix123ism]

Did pretty much the same thing, these machines could accept , I think, up to the 6400,6500 boards with psu upgrade(?)

[@mccrh7737]

@@nix123ism Yeah with the PSU from the 5400 you could add the 6X series logic board :) For the LC 580 the 52X Series works just fine. Plus both boards use IDE and have identical pin-outs ;)

[@quarterofdisorder]

Part2?

[@wojiaobill]

damn that modular design is nice, better than anything we have today!