Video on a Mac IIci

[Ed in SoDak]

I have a Mac IIci, which ought to work but I'm not getting any video.

I "borrowed" a couple of the RAM boards from it to get a Mac Classic II working. That wasn't the issue with the Classic, but I left the IIci's RAM in it. Being lazy, I just installed the old RAM from the Classic into the IIci, they worked, but were a different form factor and higher speed.

I know the IIci uses RAM for the video memory. Is the oddball RAM giving me grief? Just hoping to find out before I have to drag out the Classic and disassemble it again just to swap back the RAM between it and the IIci.

I have a feeling I broke some RAM organizational rule.

Thanks!
-Ed

 

[olePigeon]

It could be a number of things. It could also be timing/sync issues with the display. What type of display are you using to connect to the IIci? And was it working before, or is this the first time you've plugged it in?

 

[Ed in SoDak]

Thanks for the reply! I got it with some other old Macs several years ago. I had it running then to check it out, but I had no use so I parked it. Now I'm just trying to check status before moving it on or deciding what to if it doesn't work. It had a Radius full-page vertical display. I have the monitor cable, looks standard issue. If that Radius monitor came with it, it's either buried in the shed or gone now, so I'm just trying various Apple multisyncs I have around and various cables/adapters.

It also had no hard drive, so I'm trying some boot floppies or a hard drive from a different system like a drive I removed from an SE30. I can hear it boot and once it's finished, I can push the power button and it will beep, then shut down when I hit return, which is normal behavior, so from that I'm assuming I get it to boot to a desktop, just no video as of yet.

Since the major difference between when I got it and now is the two swapped memory modules, so that's where I'm aiming The Pointy Finger. If that's the likely reason for no video, that means the Classic II must come all apart again just to find out for sure. Hoping to avoid that if RAM type/speed doesn't matter. I have so many projects going at once, I didn't have room for disassembling yet another one right now.

It reached critical mass today, so I began the task of clearing the work room. I just parked the IIci back out in the shed with the others and will delve into it again when I clear the deck a bit.

At least I managed to clear off the chair so I can sit down to print some stuff!

-Ed