In the December 2012 issue of Juiced.GS, staff writer Mike Maginnis documented his experience using the Retr0bright formula to de-yellow the aging plastic case on an Apple IIc he rescued from a neighbor. Mike's experiment can be summarized in this excerpt from his article:
The cases of most computers made in the 1980s and early 1990s were made of ABS plastic, which often included bromine, a flame-retardant chemical that, over time, causes that familiar yellowing in the plastic that all vintage computing hobbyists know of. Retr0Bright was developed by English chemist Dave Stevenson in 2008 as a way to counteract this yellowing process. Stevenson discovered that by exposing a hydrogen peroxide-based mixture to ultraviolet light, the yellowing could be reversed, and the affected plastic.
The black-and-white nature of Juiced.GS didn't provide us with an opportunity to complement the article with photographic evidence of the effect Retr0bright had on Mike's computer. So we offer this online photo gallery that Mike provided along with his original submission last November. You can click each thumbnail for a blowup and caption.
Although Retr0bright is only a superficial and temporary solution, it nonetheless is effective in restoring the natural color of our classic computers. Have you tried it? What has your experience been? Leave a comment below!
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