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Rummage Sale Score: Macintosh Performa 550

After noticing that a school here in Portland (Oregon) was having a fund raiser for charity, I stopped by to see if I could pick up anything nice, and make a little contribution. I ended up leaving with a 14 year old Macintosh Performa 550. And I must say, she’s a beauty.

As I walked into the gymnasium, I immediately saw a table filled with old computer equipment. Clearly they were trying to get rid of the stuff so they wouldn’t have to deal with the waste, and non-recyclable materials. As I walked over to the table I noticed this horribly beautiful yellowish tone shining through the black plastic. As I walked closer I could see the colorful Apple logo and thought to myself. “Wow, I can’t believe I just stumbled upon this.” — Moments after I started checking out what kind of shape it was in, a friendly woman at the school looked at me and said, “You should’ve come earlier, we had an old Macintosh laptop that we just got rid of.” I asked who bought it and she said a mom for her son, so some of the sting was gone.

The computer is 14 years old, and in pretty good shape externally. There’s a few dings and some permanent marker from the school’s management. But, overall it’s in good shape.

I talked to the “IT” guy who was helping clear out old electronics and he said that the computer was working last week. But it blew a fuse, so roughly $12 should get it up and running. I asked him if he had any idea where I can get this “fuse” but I don’t think he heard me.

Just to refresh your memory, the sales pitch on these things was: “The Apple Macintosh Performa 550 features a 33 MHz 68030 processor, 5 MB of RAM, and a 160 MB hard drive in a relatively-compact all-in-one case with a 14″ color display.” I’m thinking after I fix that blown fuse, l’ll do some heavy duty video editing with it. Unless of course I make it into a flower-pot.

In essence, the Macintosh Performa 550 isn’t really an incredibly unique “older” mac. The education version was the LC 550, so I’m sure there’s a lot of these floating around elementary school storage units. But, the entire experience of randomly walking into the school’s rummage sale and stumbling across this old beauty made it entirely worth it. They gave me the machine for free, and I left a donation for the charity on my out.