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Mac misadventures

T

tezza

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
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Location
New Zealand
I’ve been having fun(?) with baby Macs this weekend.

First I was given a Mac SE on Friday. Case is in good condition but the screen was initially just vertical wavy lines and (after a few on/offs) it didn’t go at all. I pulled it apart and resoldered connections as advised in a few diagnostic guides off the Internet but to no avail. I’ve put it to one side for now. I’m not sure if I can be bothered to replace the suspected faulty caps or diodes just at this point in time. It’s hard to work on as it’s so grimy inside! Is this typical of Macs? It is fairly vintage, so I may have a go later on when I feel more motivated. Or I might just sell it as a broken unit.

Are SE’s significant from an historical or collectable point of view?

Second, I did some work on my other Mac, the Classic II. This is an ex-school machine with a copy of “At Ease”, a security program to stop little hackers dabbling with the System. This is fine, except when the admin password had been lost, in which case it is a pain in the arse because you can't actually DO anything!

Anyway, I had what I thought was a good 2-disk copy of System 7.1 so I reformatted the hard drive and re-installed the DOS. Problem was, the 2nd disk turned out to be faulty, giving me an unknown error -#192 before completing the install. I found I could only install a minimal version of the DOS, not the full one (grrr).

I found a copy of 7.1 on the Internet in .sea.hqx format. Anyone know how I can turn this into 1.4MB Mac install floppies from a PC? I’m picking it won’t be easy.

I also tried to install Lemmings on this machine. I had the disk but the installation insists you find pieces of info in the Lemmings Manual to install properly. I had no manual of course. Anyone know where I might find a Mac-version manual on the Web (I have looked but no luck).? Alternatively, a cracked Mac version where no such manual info is required?

Hmm..when I look back on what I’ve written, not a terribly successful weekend vintage-computer wise.

The baby Macs are kinda cute though!
 
I've got a dead SE too. It is second priority on my imaginary "to fix" list. Only reason is because I have a crapload of stuff for it, including original manuals, and the rare-to-find original book packet that came with it, with a different disk on every page. Want a pic of it? It is pretty cool, and has all the disks with it.

I think with that format, you need a mid-90s power mac, or an LC. A Macintosh II could do it as well. But hey, I will be nice. I've got "Disk 2" here at the house. I wanted to do a fresh install on my Classic II, but I am missing one of the disks, the "tidbits" one. If you make a copy of your tidbits disk, I will do the same with my "Disk 2." Then we can send them to eachother. The ProDos 1.1 disk I sent awhile back seems to have survived the mail alright, so I'm sure these 3.5" disks will too, without a special envelope. I've also got System 7.5 update 2.0 here at the house, and I could make copies of that too. You have to have system 7.5 installed to begin with, which I didn't know when I got them. My Classic II is a school machine, too! My SE is second owner, though, me being the second. Do you know if that PSU is good in your SE?

--Ryan
 
The SE was one of the major turning points in the Mac, as it was (along with the simultaneously-released Macintosh II,) the first Mac to have a built-in hard drive. That said, they are *VERY* common, and not worth very much unless they are mint with all original packaging. A standalone one that is in decent working shape, but with no packaging is worth maybe $10-$20. (In other words, not worth paying for shipping.)

You can bypass At Ease by just holding down shift on boot. That is the equivalent of 'safe mode' on Windows. Another option would be to boot from your system floppy that works, and just remove the At Ease control panel and extension from their respective folders on the hard drive.
 
Yzzerdd said:
I've got "Disk 2" here at the house. I wanted to do a fresh install on my Classic II, but I am missing one of the disks, the "tidbits" one. If you make a copy of your tidbits disk, I will do the same with my "Disk 2." Then we can send them to each other.
Click to expand...

Done! I'll PM you about this.

Yzzerdd said:
Do you know if that PSU is good in your SE?
Click to expand...

No absolutely sure but the hard drive spins up and seems to boot. I can't see what it does of course.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
You can bypass At Ease by just holding down shift on boot. That is the equivalent of 'safe mode' on Windows. Another option would be to boot from your system floppy that works, and just remove the At Ease control panel and extension from their respective folders on the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Yea, I had tried both those options. Whoever installed it had covered both those bases...it just kept reverting to the admin screen and asking for a password.

Anyway, it's gone now. A reformat nuked it. I just need to get a full System 7.1 on the Classic II now.
 
I had a SE, (HD, Superdrive, mem maxxed out) but, it worked, so, I didn't bother to open it up before selling it on FleaBay for (drum roll please) $27US. Cost more to ship it to Texas.

Now, if it's like the 128 and the Plus, etc., the video card is mounted vertically, letting the flyback hang out there in space.

Try removing the solder and re-soldering all the pins on the flyback (I'd do it one at a time or the flyback falls down into the bottom of the case LOL) and see if that solves the video problem. There may also be a cement power resistor on the board, do the same thing to that.

I don't know how many horizontally mounted flybacks I've had to do that to, but, it was a quick, simple and profitable repair revenue stream.

Tony, if the flyback in the Osbourne is horizontally mounted (it's been a long time since I've been in one), that may be your problem too.

The weight of the flyback, going through the heating and cooling cycle of use, eventually and inevitably, cracks some solder joints.
 
The flyback is the deal with the cable, and a suction cup-looking thingie, stucj to the backside of the CRT, right? On mine, it's mounted inside a cradle holding it up, the coil-looking piece on the other end of the suction-cup ;)

Dang technical, ain't I? "Suction-cup-looking-thingie"

hehehe....


T
 
Umm, yeah, ok.

Yes, I believe you have the right piece of equipment located. The bracket is usually just attached to the board with a twisted tab and will do nicely for the "life" of the unit, but, the stuff we're talking about is in it's second "afterlife".

Even if the frame is soldered to the board, it's joints can give up the ghost too.

Whenever I'm fixing a "no video" problem with a horizontally mounted flyback, resoldering the FB is the first thing I go for. I'd say, between 85 and 90% of the time, that was the problem.

YMMV
 
Druid6900 said:
INow, if it's like the 128 and the Plus, etc., the video card is mounted vertically, letting the flyback hang out there in space.

Try removing the solder and re-soldering all the pins on the flyback (I'd do it one at a time or the flyback falls down into the bottom of the case LOL) and see if that solves the video problem. There may also be a cement power resistor on the board, do the same thing to that.
Click to expand...

Yea it does hang out there. Those pins were the first things I paid attention to. However, I didn't REMOVE the solder, I just melted it and let it reform. If it was the problem I figured that should that have done the trick ....or do I really need to remove all the solder and add some more?
 
Ok, this SE is starting to glare at me from the "broken junk" corner of my hobby room. I should try to fix the thing...

This document I got off the web suggests it's a few dead components, but there is no sign of blasting, popping or damage whatsoever.

http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~shamada/fullmac/repairEng.html

The screen does not go at all. It's completely black. No raster. However, the first time I switched it on it WAS going with no image but wavy lines. Verticle ones I think, but there was an off-centre vertical on that was brighter than the rest. I

've tried reforming the solder on the flyback. I could replace all the components suggested in the documents but it's a big job. Is there anything I could do with a multimeter which would help isolate the fault?

Of course it could be the flyback itself. Any way to test this?
 
Well, it's not so much a test for the flyback as it is for the presence of high voltage to the CRT, but, turn it on and run your hand over the screen. If you feel static, then you have high voltage, if you don't, you don't. Much better then sticking your tongue on the 2nd anode LOL

I've found that completely replacing the solder is best because it oxidizes over time and that oxidization flows to the "outside" of the solder when you just re-melt it. This is knowledge garnered from a 3 day "learning experience"
 
Well, after some more resoldering, testing, peeking, poking, looking and reading I've come to the conclusion it probably is the flyback transformer itself that's faulty in this little baby.

I'll tuck it away in my "broken.-will-fix-if-I-stumble-on-some-parts" corner of the room for now.

It's the only thing there at the moment but not for long if I keep carting free stuff home.
 
Ok, I just saw a Mac SE/30 at a buy-now price for $US16, working, with software. It's local so I can pick it up.

Couldn't resist it, so I guess the SE I've been poking around with will now just be a parts-machine forever, unless a Fly Transformer or a replacement analogue card somehow lands in my lap.
 
Make it into a MacQuarium! Be the only person down there to have one! Hehe. BTW: I got the disk you sent, thanks! I hope the one I sent gets in soon. Too bad it murdered my system...

--Ryan
 
I've picked up my Mac SE/30. Wow, blazing speed compared to my Mac Classic II!

A nice tidy little unit to add to my collection.

Hey guys can you take a look at the keyboard I got with it? Is this a standard "typical" keyboard released with the SE/30 or was it be the wider version with the cursor key cluster? (I've got one of those with the broken SE so if so, I'll just swap them).
 

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I may be mistaken, but I think that is the right keyboard. My Macintosh SE came with one, but on the other hand, my Classic II came with one like that as well. I just went to Everymac.com, and they seem to show the SE with that keyboard, as does Mactracker, a program you may be interested in.

I envy your SE/30,

--Ryan
 
tezza said:
Hey guys can you take a look at the keyboard I got with it? Is this a standard "typical" keyboard released with the SE/30 or was it be the wider version with the cursor key cluster? (I've got one of those with the broken SE so if so, I'll just swap them).
Click to expand...

I believe that keyboard is the ADB Keyboard II, which is a later version, release with the LC series.
 
Thanks for that info. guys.

Ryan, my Classic II also came with the same keyboard that graced the SE/30. I guess it's indeed the one for the baby Macs.

I read on the web the SE/30s were sometimes used as servers. I can believe it. Its the fastest baby mac I've had the pleasure to handle. It has 6.1 installed so I guess the overheads are lower than the 7.1 on my Classic II....but it's mostly the faster processor I imagine.

Now I just need to figure out how to get the 6.1 installation disks off the Internet somehow. Time for some googling.
 
tezza said:
Well, after some more resoldering, testing, peeking, poking, looking and reading I've come to the conclusion it probably is the flyback transformer itself that's faulty in this little baby.

I'll tuck it away in my "broken.-will-fix-if-I-stumble-on-some-parts" corner of the room for now.

It's the only thing there at the moment but not for long if I keep carting free stuff home.
Click to expand...

Now that I've got more experience poking around hardware I had another look at this lonely "stored-in-a-corner" baby Mac tonight.

After testing many bits and pieces I've come to the same conclusion. The CTR isn't getting high voltage power. Transistors, diodes etc. seem ok though and I've rereshened the solder. No difference.

Probably flyback BUT I'd like to prove it wth a more systematic look. Does anyone know of a SE 30 technical manual on the web which contains a circuit diagram, at least of the analog card? I have the SE/30 manual but that's pretty basic and it doesn't show the circuitry.

Tez
 
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