RetroChallenge 2012 - Winter Warm-Up

Am I cursed or something?

Since my last post, the power supply on my Apple II web server blew up. 
And because I'm basically an idiot I had it and RetroNET running off the 
same power strip with no intervening surge protection... result: one 
randomly rebooting LC 575.

Fortunately I had a spare LC 575 that I could theoretically raid the PSU 
from... unfortunately it belongs to my wife and is in fact her office 
computer. I wrestled at length with the implications of pulling a fast 
one, but in the end decided to play it safe in the hopes of keeping 
my dangly bits attached.

After some careful deliberation (and very little research), I decided that 
an LC 475 was probably "close enough" to a 575 to be a potential 
surrogate... so I swapped in the 68040 processor and hard drive from the 
original RetroNET machine, crossed my fingers and toes, and flipped the 
switch...

Hallelujah! The bloody thing works... albeit 20% slower than the 575, but 
I can live with that.

Needless to say I haven't accomplished much else in the last two weeks, 
but that's how it goes when you're playing with crappy old computers.

Fate saves my bacon once again! Whilst shovelling a small pile of detritus 
away from the IIgs, I accidentally tripped over the power cable... the 
hard drive made a sound like mating Cylons and then whirred to life. I am 
happier than a pig in shit!

...but a start nonetheless!

I've got as far as unpacking the DMS diskette that will [hopefully] be the 
lynch-pin of my RetroChallenge effort this year. I also managed to exhume 
the Apple IIgs that was interred under a steadily growing stack of unfiled 
papers sometime around August. Sadly it looks like the hard drive might be 
wgoodfed, so I'm sure to waste valuable time dealing with that and not 
doing anything even remotely interesting... not that I'm giving up yet, 
mind you, I just don't want anyone to get their hopes up ;-)