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About to get my first Mac : a Performa 5200

I owned a 5200 once. It was a dreadful system even with 64mb ram and the Video/MPEG decoder cards. 8.1 was also even worse on it. The bus really does slow everything down.
I wouldn't want to brick my computer accidentally.
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You can't brick a mac that old through key shortcuts. If you want to try booting with extensions off you hold down the shift key. If you want to tell the system to boot off the CD you hold down the C key or at least, that's the appropriate key on the Mainstreet Powerbook.
I would only recommend your system as a stepping stone. It will drive you nuts how sluggish that design was.
 
Well, I can't invest too much in it anyway, since by summer I have no idea what will happen with my stuff (my room contract with uni expires then). Still, its a really nice alternative to running Mac OS in a emulator; and its got some interesting things too (like the keyboard-only power button, swiveling backpanel and sliding logic board).

Its pretty obvious that the machine is crippled by design but for a temporary, cheap computer, its okay.

EDIT: For some odd reason, it booted fine now. Alas, installing OS 8.0 to check it out (would try later versions too, but I've got no floppy drive to write the disk tools needed to repartition to HPFS+).
 
I got three 5260's for 20$ from my son's school several years back. I gave two of them away to people that wanted one (also several years back) and have kept one that has 64MB, 8.1 and the ethernet card. I use it to archive floppy's to disk images and to play a few games from that era. I really liked the slide-out logic board and for what I use it for, the performance is fine. The old Photoshops would be interesting to check out.
 
I could try to copy them but atm I have absolutely no imaginable way to copy stuff from the mac. The Mac's got a modem card, so I can't network it; I've got nothing with which to interface the parallel port (except for a dead printer haha) and I don't have any floppy disk drives around.

What's even more amusing is that neither the university has any computers with floppy drives.
 
I would suggest using a Linintosh server for file transfers, but you are missing an ethernet card. They are pretty cheap to get; there's some on the 'Bay.

I have one of these computers too. I installed a TV tuner card and A/V card in it. Makes a pretty good entertainment center. I remember using these computers back in first grade to take Accelerated Reader tests. I thought it was so neat back then that I could press a backwards "play" button and the computer would come to life.
 
BogdanV said:
Well, I can't invest too much in it anyway, since by summer I have no idea what will happen with my stuff (my room contract with uni expires then). Still, its a really nice alternative to running Mac OS in a emulator; and its got some interesting things too (like the keyboard-only power button, swiveling backpanel and sliding logic board).

Its pretty obvious that the machine is crippled by design but for a temporary, cheap computer, its okay.

EDIT: For some odd reason, it booted fine now. Alas, installing OS 8.0 to check it out (would try later versions too, but I've got no floppy drive to write the disk tools needed to repartition to HPFS+).
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funny you should mention the power button on the keyboard...i don't understand why anyone would like that. it just seems unnessicary to me and if you break the keyboard you cant even power the thing up...i'm not a mac guy so maybe i just don't get it, hey is there a way to power a 5200 up without the keyboard i'm not aware of?

also maybe mines stuck but i cant seem to open it up and get to the inards. i've taken the back panel off mine (and snapped all the tabs in the process) but i cant seem to pull the board out.
 
oblivion said:
funny you should mention the power button on the keyboard...i don't understand why anyone would like that. it just seems unnessicary to me and if you break the keyboard you cant even power the thing up...i'm not a mac guy so maybe i just don't get it, hey is there a way to power a 5200 up without the keyboard i'm not aware of?
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Look on the back of the computer, see if there's a button you can press somewhere near the power supply. Sometimes it's a push-and-twist (with a flathead screw driver) that will make the computer turn on the instant you plug in the power cable (or switch on your surge protector.)
 
Hatta said:
I have a G4 and an SE/30 (and a IIgs), it's kind of a leap from 16MHz to 800MHz, what should I look for to fill that gap?
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I would recommend a B&W G3. It's a great transitional machine with the best of both old and new world machine. It has USB, Firewire, and ADB ports; and for a few bucks more on eBay, a native serial port (great for ADT Pro or any other serial device.) No adapters needed. It can also natively run 10.4, 10.5 with a G4 upgrade. If you think OS 9 is too much of a hog, it'll run 8.6. Anywhere between 300MHz to 450Mhz, depending on the model.
 
I have anouther 5200 question and rather then start a new thread. what kind of RAM do i need exactlly? i know i need 2x32mb 72 pin RAM but anything in particular? will EDO work? I see alot of cheap 32mb EDO sticks on ebay.
 
oblivion said:
I have anouther 5200 question and rather then start a new thread. what kind of RAM do i need exactlly? i know i need 2x32mb 72 pin RAM but anything in particular? will EDO work? I see alot of cheap 32mb EDO sticks on ebay.
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The online RAM configurators call for standard 72 pin FPM Non-parity ram 80ns or faster.
 
The Performa 5xx0 line was interesting as it was the only AIO design of the Performas. I'd get one for collector reasons and it could be useful for weak software as the one in question was an early PowerPC Apple computer. I would get one just for the heck of it but don't expect to make much use of it.
 
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