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128keaton

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 13, 2013
2,029
419
Guys, I am so tired and I have a splitting headache, but I thought I'd share something with you guys. After I bought my Performa, I set it up, played with it, and cleaned it. Then it sat. Recently, I went though it hard drive and found a ton of documents, some ranging back from 1995, which was when the machine was bought apparently. Anyway, the seller's name was Anthony, and the hard drive contained letters for school, school projects, drawings of friends, and it had financial reports for his business from last year. Just shows how capable these machines can be. Imagine using the same computer everyday for almost twenty years. Honest to god, I'm surprised its lasted this long. Anyway, thanks!
 
I try to not be too nosy, but can't help but be sometimes.

My Quadra 700 was a recent addition, and I'm actually in the process of cleaning the owner's documents off of it. I am dumping them onto a ZIP disk, and will then burn the contents of that onto a CD that I'll then give over to the owner. I have no use for them and really no business having them, plus I need the space on the 160mb hard drive.

The Quadra was built in 1991, and I'm pretty sure the person I got it from bought it new. There were documents on it dating back that far.

The most recent was his Christmas letter from 2010. That wasn't just a single document, either-there were regular documents up through this time.

This is despite the fact that there was a newer G3 sitting on his desk next to it, as well as an eMac on the other side of the room.
 
The Macintosh Classic II I got from e-waste was FULL of documents. There were financial things for car commercials, beer commercials, etc. (and then letters and documents of the like). This guy had some production company and all his budgets for film shoots were on there. We all try not to be nosy, but it's so interesting to see! I made back-ups on floppies just because I feel it's history that has to be preserved. I know the name of his production company too, which I have looked up. (I choose not to share it though). Anyway, the floppy back-ups are (literally) behind lock-and-key; I'm making sure to be responsible with this stuff. My Macintosh SE was also of documents, but the seller was aware---the lady worked for a tour company and had all these flyers and such; they were very elaborate and, obviously, professional. I saw documents from 1987-1997, although I may have seen a few from the early 2000s.

Edit: I also remember when I got my free (Indigo) iBook, and how it had some documents on it... one was titled "Hentai Lemon", and luckily, it was only a few sentences, and (I am assuming) hadn't been completed.

I have gotten Macs from a teacher before, so those have always had some cool things on them. I saw a document one time from a kid who I knew of. Lastly though, when I bought a Rev. B iMac G3 from a thrift store, it was loaded with several classic games. (which I am assuming were from the Macintosh Garden). I had fun checking out Wolfenstein 3-D for the first time, as well as a few other games.
 
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Wow. I'm glad you guys have similar stories. Its just incredible..
 
I picked up a IIci many years ago that had budgetary information for the state's gaming industry. I also received an SE/30 that had tons of very bad erotic fiction files mixed in with some schoolwork for their kids. All such information was deleted, but it is scary what you can find on old hard drives.
 
Only three of mine had not been cleansed. One a clamshell iBook with the previous student owner's university work all over it. Ditto an iMac G4, which traced the progress of its student owner to a practising doctor and a Wallstreet, which was just full of turn of the century pr0n.
 
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