Anonymous Freak
Veteran Member
That's the FPU socket, yes. I always found it odd that the socket wasn't on the main logic board, but basically EVERY IIsi-specific expansion board had that socket.
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Wanted: Macintosh IIci System, NuBus Ethernat Card, and AppleTalk Adapters
- Thread starter NF6X
- Start date
NF6X
Veteran Member
Thanks for looking! I don't think the IIsi interests me much.
From what I recall the reset button on the back can be twisted to restart on reboot or not.
You have a nice Ethernet card that probably works in a SE/30 making it very desirable.
NF6X
Veteran Member
That would be the power button. It can be pushed in and turned 90 degrees, thus locking it in and making the system power back up if the power fails and is then restored. If it is not locked in, then the computer will stay off if the power fails and then is restored.
Many Macintoshes had internal reset and interrupt buttons, which could optionally be made externally accessible by clipping a plastic "programmer's button" assembly. From what I found today while researching the IIsi, I don't think that it has that option. The IIci does, though.
My Macintosh 512k should be showing up in the next day or two. I didn't see a programmer's switch unit pictured with it, but I plan to print one up on my 3D printer.
NF6X
Veteran Member
Good news for me: I found a local IIci via Craigslist which I should be buying tomorrow evening. No monitor, unfortunately, but it has a keyboard and mouse. I don't know if it'll have an ethernet card inside. For now, I'm assuming that I will still be looking for a VGA adapter, AppleTalk doodlies, and a NuBus Ethernet card. It looks like the programmer's switch whatsit is installed, which is oddly important to me for some inexplicable reason probably related to being mildly obsessive. You might dispute the "mildly" part, but I'll pretend not to hear you. 
There's also a local-ish G3 desktop with monitor, but the price is unknown, and it appears to be listed by a weekdays-only dealer in an area which may make it a bit inconvenient to pick up. If you were familiar with the congested, under-construction freeway I would need to take to get to where it is, you would understand my reluctance. The monitor pictured with it has speaker grilles on either side of the screen which make it look a bit unattractive to me. It's not as hideous as an all-in-one "Molar" Macintosh G3, but it still looks a bit like a male orangutan to my fickle eyes. In case it is not obvious, I am enjoying the heck out of fabricating strong, arbitrary opinions about old computers I've never used. It's said to not have an OS installed, but I wouldn't be particularly perturbed even if the hard drive was casters-up. I figure I'll use solid state drives such as SCSI2SD cards in place of original SCSI drives for operational longevity. I wouldn't trash the original drives; I'd just unplug them and use something with no moving parts for daily use, just like I've done with my Amiga 3000.
There's also a local-ish G3 desktop with monitor, but the price is unknown, and it appears to be listed by a weekdays-only dealer in an area which may make it a bit inconvenient to pick up. If you were familiar with the congested, under-construction freeway I would need to take to get to where it is, you would understand my reluctance. The monitor pictured with it has speaker grilles on either side of the screen which make it look a bit unattractive to me. It's not as hideous as an all-in-one "Molar" Macintosh G3, but it still looks a bit like a male orangutan to my fickle eyes. In case it is not obvious, I am enjoying the heck out of fabricating strong, arbitrary opinions about old computers I've never used.
It's said to not have an OS installed, but I wouldn't be particularly perturbed even if the hard drive was casters-up. I figure I'll use solid state drives such as SCSI2SD cards in place of original SCSI drives for operational longevity. I wouldn't trash the original drives; I'd just unplug them and use something with no moving parts for daily use, just like I've done with my Amiga 3000.It's pretty Jobsian, when you look at it in the right light. Apple saved a couple square inches of pcb space by forcing every add-on manufacturer to waste the same.
Excellent! Now I won't feel guilty about hanging on to it, to test the rather large stack of IIgs and later drives that I have.
While I have no conscious memory of the button thing, after I hard powered it down I did find myself compelled to put a thumbnail in the slot in the power button and twist, to see if it would pop out. So I guess my subconcious might have had an inkling.
Yes, I thought the ethernet card was pretty comprehensive. Looked like it had 10 Base T, 10 Base 2 and AUI. I can at least test two of those, though testing the 10 Base 2 might prove difficult - it's decades since I had any operational 50 ohm gear.
Speaking of the SE/30, I found the motherboard for one of those, yesterday. No idea where the rest of it might be, or even if I have it.
I remember those, on compact macs. A rectangular deal, with two panels that were 3/4 cut out and had pointy sticks on the back.
Tell us more about your printer. Not that I'm planning on hitting you up for parts that are otherwise unobtanium, but I might.
Congrats on the local IIci find!
NF6X
Veteran Member
Tell us more about your printer. Not that I'm planning on hitting you up for parts that are otherwise unobtanium, but I might.
Congrats on the local IIci find!
It's a MakerGear M2. I'm still getting the hang of 3D printing, and I'm still a clumsy amateur at it.
Another collector has helpfully shared a CAD model of a 3D-printable programmer switch for the 512k Macintosh that I should be receiving in the mail in the next day or two:
http://synack.net/~bbraun/mac3d/
GiGaBiTe
Veteran Member
The expansion slot in an IIsi is not a Nubus slot, it's a PDS slot. You need a special right angle adapter board to get a Nubus slot, which is why the rear expansion card cover is parallel with the motherboard.
Back when I had an IIsi, I was really lucky to find one at a local Goodwill with a 68882 preinstalled in it. It must have belonged to an Apple engineer because it had "APPLE CONFIDENTIAL ENGINEERING SAMPLE" stickers plastered all over it inside a plain white box with "NOT FOR RESALE" stickers on that. Despite being an engineering sample, I never had an issue with it.
Druid6900
Veteran Member
Glad to hear that you found one locally. It should save you a bundle not having to ship something that heavy around the country.
ClassicHasClass
Veteran Member
Replace the caps if it hasn't been done already. IIcis are notorious for leakage and all of my systems eventually needed a recap.
NF6X
Veteran Member
I bought the IIci tonight, and it looks nice. I don't have means to plug in a monitor yet, but that should be taken care of in a few days or so. I'll go through it thoroughly before applying power, and I'll plan to re-cap it soon based on your suggestion. I'll specifically check for any of those incendiary Rifa paper-dielectric EMI suppression caps and replace them immediately if found. I've already had one of those light up on me in my TRS-80 Model 12, and now I replace them on sight. The guy I bought it from said he was the original owner, and his wife has been on his case to get rid of the old thing for ages. I bet she was glad he didn't throw it away when he got home with the cash from selling it tonight... even if he only showed her half of it! :D
I expect to pick up the 512k Macintosh from my postal box tomorrow morning. I understand that there's probably at least one of the Rifa caps in it, and I'm setting my expectations for encountering a horror show of corrosion in the backup battery compartment. I sure hope it didn't live with a smoker.
My dad says that he has a bunch of old PhoneNet adapters, so if he has a 9-pin one and a DIN one, then I should be all set for AppleTalk! He says he probably also has a VGA adapter; though I also have a couple different cheap ones on the way from our Amazonian friends. He used to have a IIci, many Macs ago. He almost threw away the PhoneNet hardware when he found it all in a box recently, but luckily he kept it.
I'm still looking for a NuBus Ethernet card for the IIci.
I can probably do just fine without also getting a G3 to bridge AFS stuff over to my modern Mac. If I can eventually FTP files onto the IIci, then serve them up to the 512k over AppleTalk, that will be pretty slick.
I expect to pick up the 512k Macintosh from my postal box tomorrow morning. I understand that there's probably at least one of the Rifa caps in it, and I'm setting my expectations for encountering a horror show of corrosion in the backup battery compartment. I sure hope it didn't live with a smoker.
My dad says that he has a bunch of old PhoneNet adapters, so if he has a 9-pin one and a DIN one, then I should be all set for AppleTalk! He says he probably also has a VGA adapter; though I also have a couple different cheap ones on the way from our Amazonian friends. He used to have a IIci, many Macs ago. He almost threw away the PhoneNet hardware when he found it all in a box recently, but luckily he kept it.
I'm still looking for a NuBus Ethernet card for the IIci.
I can probably do just fine without also getting a G3 to bridge AFS stuff over to my modern Mac. If I can eventually FTP files onto the IIci, then serve them up to the 512k over AppleTalk, that will be pretty slick.
HoJoPo
Veteran Member
If you have a Raspberry Pi or other Linux box that can run the 2.X version of Netatalk, you can use your Linux box as a file server for your IIci, and with your IIci as a bridge, for your 512k.
Anonymous Freak
Veteran Member
Except it was a few years after Jobs was ousted! The Classic was a "return to Jobsian" - *ZERO* internal expansion, unlike every other compact Mac.
NF6X
Veteran Member
Thanks! That sounds like a good thing for me to look into. I will probably try building it on my Mac Pro first. If I can't get that working under OSX, then I might run it in a Linux VM, or dedicate a Pi to the task. I have a Linux VM that I use for DECNET, so it wouldn't be the first time I set up a virtual bridge on my Mac Pro.
I've begun checking out the IIci's innards. The RTC backup battery is dead, but it hasn't leaked. The power supply has a few of the Rifa safety rated paper dielectric caps in it, which I will replace with poly film caps of similar ratings. The two 470pF ones are only available as paper dielectric caps at Digi-Key, but I think it should be OK to fudge the value to 1000pF to substitute poly film safety rated caps. Exact replacements are available, but I don't want to have to replace them again in 20-30 years. The insides have the expected decades of dust, but otherwise look good.
I haven't examined the aluminum electrolytic caps on the motherboard yet. The bus routing on the top layer of the motherboard is quite lovely.
ClassicHasClass
Veteran Member
The IIci is definitely my favourite 68K. Very modular, expandable and stackable. For awhile you could find them very cheaply though that buyer's market is now receding.
NF6X
Veteran Member
I can see why it's your favorite. When I was studying the Macintosh model timeline the other day, it didn't take long for me to settle on the IIci as being the one that I wanted.
Hmm, I wonder if Netatalk would build and run under Solaris 8? That would give me another excuse to turn on the Ultra 60!
Hmm, I wonder if Netatalk would build and run under Solaris 8? That would give me another excuse to turn on the Ultra 60!
HoJoPo
Veteran Member
Since the Mac has it's own built in AFS support, Netatalk would probably conflict. It should work fine on your Linux VM though, especially with a bridged, not a NAT, virtual network adapter.
I've been buying the batteries from Amazon in a five pack, for my herd of LC systems... I need to get the ADB KVM setup on those, so I can get my LC II / LCIII / Performa 630 and one other system setup...
HoJoPo
Veteran Member
Hmm, I wonder if Netatalk would build and run under Solaris 8? That would give me another excuse to turn on the Ultra 60!
With the GNU toolchain, it might... but it depends on whether it has the NIC support. Looks it it should work, here's a how to install the 1.6 version on Solaris 9 (should work on 7 or 8 according to the page): http://bloch.anu.edu.au/chris/netatalk/netatalk_sun.html