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Comment by peteretep | Hacker News Reader

Description of fixing a broken Mac

> "As I was looking in it I saw capacitors that were broken. I had soldering guns there and I had radios and alarm clocks, so I took parts out of my father's radio alarm clock and I soldered them into the circuit board."

Were computers that repairable back then, that you could swap in bits of old alarm clocks to make them work?

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In a different story that Mac later runs Windows 7:

https://kuulpeeps.com/2018/12/14/freddie-figgers-meet-the-29...

But there was no capacitor, it was just taken apart 5 (or 6) times. Not abandoned here either, just a crack-addicted mother.

From the same article: " “In late 2008, I started developing “Tracker”, a software program that receives GPS signals to determine the location of any cell phone, whether it is turned on or off."

How is that possible?

It's not.

Wow. In that article he wrote his own operating system and sold 600 copies, but had too many compatibility issues with Windows and so had to abandon it.

Huh.

Electrolytic capacitors are quite prone to failing over time and aren't difficult to replace, even on a motherboard. They are most commonly through-hole components, probably because they aren't compatible with reflow soldering. One of the features of high end motherboards is high reliability capacitors.

Based on reading the article and folks comments on this thread, though, I wouldn't trust anything this person claims.

Maybe? Depending on which Mac he's describing here this process is technically possible, but unless he's referring to anything post-1990s it would probably require flowing the board and stepping outside most people's comfort zone, even among hobbyist electricians. I won't outright deny his story, but the odds are definitely not in his favor here (and the dubious details don't help).

You can do that today if the capacitors are the right type and value. Components are components, they're used on all sorts of products.

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