Released in 1990, the Quadra 700 would have been a competitor to the Amiga 3000.
Me, in 2020:
Over the years I've upgraded my Quadra 700 about as far as it can go considering it doesn't have very many expansion slots.It can be used vertically as a tower or horizontally depending on your preference and space needs. The entire machine can be deconstructed in about 2-3 minutes with only needing to remove 1 single screw. Everything (PSU, speaker, hard drive caddy, motherboard, etc.) just pops or slides out using simple pressure latches. I can literally remove the side (or top) of the case and remove the motherboard in less than 2 minutes. It’s amazing.
- DayStar 040 40 Mhz accelerator card (it shipped with an 040 in 1991 at 25Mhz)
- Maximum RAM of 68MB
- 2MB VRAM upgrade
- Radius Prism video card, so I can run dual monitors and an LCD at 1024x768
- Floppy Emu, so I can install disk images I get online easily and hassle-free
After talking to some friends and doing a little internet searching, I discovered that one of the gears in the electronic ejection module was created using a very brittle plastic by Sony, the manufacturer of the drive. I'm not sure why they did this; one theory is this weaker plastic created smoother and/or quieter function. Regardless, the drives failing due to this one tiny gear is extremely common. I had no idea...
Thankfully I discovered this excellent video of an 800k drive being completely disassembled and restored. It's not the same drive, but it looks almost identical - my drive is a 1.44 superdrive. But the ejection mech is identical as is the overall drive design.
In any case, I soon learned there is a seller on Ebay who creates fantastic 3D-printed replacement gears. Yesterday, I pulled the old drive and opened up the ejector mechanism.
After putting everything back together, it works GREAT! Such a nice feeling to have hardware win.