Its amazing to me how the later Apple platinum color and aluminum make the original Mac look sickly green. I wonder if that was the intent of the platinum change.
Plastic cases often yellow over time due to flame retardants in the plastic, which is the cause of the sickly color. The Mac case was a originally a much more pleasant beige than it appears in the teardown photos. For more info on case yellowing, see http://hackaday.com/2009/03/02/restoring-yellowed-computer-p...
A hardware note: the iFixit teardown points out the "74LS393 Video Counter" chips - these are just plain TTL binary counter chips, not special video chips, so I don't know why it's pointed out as notable. The 6522 Versatile Interface Adapter (bottom center) seems much more notable.
Thanks. That actually answered my main question: how did they manage to remove the big scary red wire. It shows how to use a discharge tool connected to ground to discharge the anode wire. Even before doing such a thing, I'd do some more research on servicing CRTs before attempting such a thing.
