Oddly enough, Apple tech support is quite helpful to the technically-minded person.
Back in the day, before Apple started asking for money to use
1-800-SOS-APPL, I acquired a
Power Mac 8100 motherboard. I was moments away from stripping off the cool little
Peltier thermoelectric heat sink, when I decided to try to power the thing up. A co-worker suggested that I call 1-800-SOS-APPL and try to shake a tech down for power supply pinouts. Forty-five minutes of
Disney music on hold later, a tech answered my question.
After soldering an old PC
power supply's output to the connector, I powered the contraption up. With headphones plugged in, I heard the telltale
Apple bong of life. The thing worked! Over the next week, I called the Apple techs back repeatedly, trying to weasel out even more free pinout info. Soon I had everything worked out, from the odd Applevision video connector to the proprietary external SCSI.
I can't help but feel that I was responsible for their decision to start charging for service.