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Recent Macintosh dealings

Yzzerdd

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
1,292
Location
Boston, MA
I sold an early 128K off eBay yesterday. I feel like we both got a good deal. The case was cracked, yellowed, and scratched, and the unit didn't work. I was going for $50. Anyhow, traded it for a Macintosh SE. He upgraded it from a 1/20 to a 4/40 (4MB RAM, 40MB HDD). I already had a full set of manuals and disks for the SE, which is why I wanted it. Even have a carrying case for it. He says I can have included a kit to turn it into a SuperDrive unit, once he digs the stuff up. I'll end up giving him a 400K external drive for an 800K external drive. Also, got a keyboard, and mouse. Like I said, I feel like we both got what we wanted, and like it was a pretty fair deal. Any thoughts?

I've also got a very early 512K Hyperdrive, made in week 50 of the first production year. They started shipping in September, this one was made in November. It needs a new 400K drive. I have a keyboard, mouse, and number pad for it. What is a ball-park figure the system is worth? He's wanting to trade a Macintosh Plus system for just the 512K, no accessories. Eh, for that, I feel like I'm getting the lower hand. The Plus is supposed to be in very good shape, I believe with keyboard and mouse. But maybe I'm over estimating the value.

Also, I've got a Macintosh Portable here. It needs a battery, has the case, original PSU, and the manual. I feel like it's worth at least $150 as is. Is there any way I can jumper onto the computer's main battery connections with an external PSU, or otherwise directly connect them with the power lead for the regular PSU? Its my understanding, and the manual implies, that the computer will not work with a dead battery.

--Ryan
Oh, go figure the 40MB drive in the SE quit working. LED light stays on during attempted boot-up. Once I boot with a floppy disk, the light goes out. The Utilities disk does not recognize that there is any drive hooked up. Ideas? Probably just a bad HDD.
 
I had a Mac Classic that gave weird hard drive problems most of the time, but one out of maybe 15 reboots would boot from the hard drive. After placing it in an external enclosure, it would boot first time, every time. It seemed to be a problem with the drive providing termination power -- the external enclosure provided it. If you've got an external SCSI box, I don't suppose it would hurt to stick the 40 MB drive in it.

As to the battery in the portable, I often connect laptops without power supplies to my variable bench supply with no ill effect. However, if you then power the system from its external supply, it might try to charge the "battery," so run it only from the battery terminals. From the Internet, it seems the Mac Portable uses a 6 V, 5 Amp-Hour lead acid cell -- if you don't have a bench supply, you can use a 6 V lantern battery. Just be sure to observe polarity!

Low End Mac has a guide for replacing the lead acid cell with a new one from Allied Electronics. The only difference seems to be the terminals on the new cell. You can find that article here: http://lowendmac.com/pb/portabattery.shtml
 
Yes, I've seen the Low End Mac article. I do plan on buying a new battery for the Mac after I test functionality with a bench supply. I do not currently have one, though. I'll see what I can do with a lantern battery.

I've tried booting this drive several times. It makes a noise, hard to describe, that doesn't sound right when attempting to boot. The guy I got the stuff from told me he'll let me have an 80MB drive to install, and he'll bring it when he brings the Superdrive kit, and we'll install it all then.

Once I install the Superdrive kit(including ROMs), will I be able to read/write to an external 800K drive, or will it be a strictly 1.44MB computer?

--Ryan
 
Well, got the SE going again. We upgraded the motherboard to a SuperDrive model, and of course installed a SuperDrive. Also, the HDD was upped from 40MB to an Apple-branded 100MB drive. Later this week, we plan on upgrading the RAM to 4MB(the 800K board had 4MB, but for whatever reason, we can't get the new Superdrive board to read the 4MB, but instead reads 2MB. I'm thinking about putting the SuperDrive ROMS onto the early 800K board and seeing if it'll work that way). Also, we're going to put in a second SuperDrive AND have the 100MB HDD. So looking forward to it. Also, with the 800K external drive, I am pretty set for backwards compatability. Now to find a CD drive to add forwards-compatability (lol, anyone else here watch Homestar runner? "Surely my 8-track is forwards-compatable...")

Also, I now own a Platinum Plus. I was offered a beige Plus, but personally I like the Platinum better. Plus, it's in pristine condition. 2.5MB RAM. Works like a charm. Also got a Platinum mouse, but do not have a Platinum keyboard. For now, I have a 512K keyboard and number pad to use, but I'd like to get the original keyboard for the system. Been a great day.

--Ryan
 
Are you looking specifically for an Apple CD-ROM? If not, I've got several old SCSI CD-ROMs, most of which use a CD caddy (I don't have extra CD caddies, but I do have one to confirm the work).

I forgot to comment about it in the last post, but what's the matter with the broken 400K drive? I've repaired many of the 800K and 1.4M auto-inject drives, and in most cases the problem is mechanical.

Sometimes the density of the RAM you're using makes a difference in the specific card it's being used in. For example, RAM SIMMs with 3 discrete chips absolutely will not function correctly in a Mac Classic's expansion board, but but 8-chip 1 MB SIMMs work fine. Either type will work in a Classic II though. You may be encountering one of these differences with the 800K vs SuperDrive board.
 
I'm not sure what the issue is. When I booted it up, there were alot of white pixels all over the screen. I got the familiar floppy disk with a question mark. It would not boot off of my 400K disks. I ended up trading it for a pristine Macintosh Plus with 2.5MB RAM and with a Platinum Plus mouse.

I am using 8-chip RAM. 3 of 4 Simms are exactly the same. The fourth has a different manufacture. I have the 3 same ones in bank 1, 2, and 3. The different one is in bank 4. I should have AT LEAST 3MB of RAM. Assuming the parity check goes bank 1, 2, 3 not bank 1, 3, 2, 4 I should have 3MB. Actually, I suppose if it read 1, 3, 2, 4, I would still have 3MB, assuming it checks bank 4 last. Anyhow, I am certain that the 800K board read the RAM as being 4MB. The 800K board had the resistor clipped, and the SuperDrive board is jumpered to the 2MB/4MB setting, not the 1MB setting.

I would much rather have an Apple branded CD-ROM, however, if I could get ahold of an aftermarket CD-ROM with software, I'd be interested. I believe I have Apple CD-ROM software in one of my disk cases.

--Ryan
 
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