Considering a Mac II...

[LC_575]

Although I already have a functional LC, I recently discovered a whole lot of old Mac II's and some others in the basement of my school. As part of a computer club meeting i got to test some out, but sadly it seems that they're dead.

Here's what I found:

*A Mac Plus w/ keyboard (dead, sad mac + garbled display on boot)
*A Mac IIx (dead, does not boot/power on at all)
*A Mac IIcx (dead, same as IIx)
* Two Mac IIsi's. I tested one - first boot it started repeating the startup chime infinitely, then it acted like the IIx. A little later I tried it again and it seemed to boot up more normally.
*A Performa 6300Cd, booted fine, unfortunately
*A Apple IIc, hasn't been touched yet.
*And, for the sake of mentioning it, a IBM PCjr.

I'd like to take a few of them home (probably the IIc, Performa, and either one IIsi or the IIcx), but I'd like to know if this "stone-cold deadness" can be cured w/ a new battery. I heard a lot about these Mac II's having cheap power supplies - could that be the problem?

I also don't have an Apple monitor. I found a VGA converter here on the Headgap store:http://stn2.headgap.com/resale/FMPro?-token=13594679&-db=ProductsC.fp3&-lay=WEB&-format=items.htm&-sortfield=SortID&-Max=40&category=monitors&-find it's the third item from the top; would that work fine for the Mac II's?


BTW: I ripped the FDD from the IIx, as I prefer the auto-inject drives, and installed it in my LC at home using a rather convoluted install method - I actually had to make a custom drive sled for it. Works fine!

[techknight]

speaking of dead mac II stuff, i got a sony trinitron mac II based monitor that was paired with my LCIII I picked up on craigslist.

I am gonna have to recap that monitor soon as its not fairing too well with age. severe horizontal distortion until it warms up.

So if you pick up any of that, your AT THE VERY LEAST in for a recap job. so learn electronics while you can. there are some members here in this forum that offer recap services, and there are several threads in this forum where cap replacement tutorials/techniques have been discussed.

Enjoy.

[Strimkind]

If they have been in the basement for along time it is possible that a lot of the II's have a leaky battery and/or leaky caps. That is the worst case scenario. Maybe they just need to be plugged in for a bit too or, as you said, install a new PRAM battery.

I suggest that you take them all home if you have space. If they are really dead, I am sure the RAM, Hard drives, and floppy drives will be of good use. Maybe even the PSU if they are good and would be good for ebay or recovery of another II.

[H3NRY]

The battery powers a relay to start up a Mac II / IIx, so a dead battery will certainly kill one. I believe a IIcx is the same.

[Unknown_K]

IIx are kind of rare, took me years to snag mine.

[LC_575]

Hopefully it's only a dead PRAM battery. I've never soldered, but i'd actually like to learn how. I have a friend who could probably help me out w/ a new cap.

Anyways, on the 17th my school has it's open house; I should be able to bring home most of the Mac's. I plan on the following:

Apple IIc - Ebay
Mac IIcx - Probably keep this one
Mac IIsi - Take whichever one that works
Mac IIx - I've already taken it's floppy drive, it's more or less useless b/c it's ROM module is missing. At least i'll get a few Nubus cards out of it.
Performa 6300cd - Why would anyone want a Quadra 630 with a cruddy PowerPC logic board? It doesn't even have SCSI for it's hd.
Mac Plus - IDK, it's dead but not worthless.... At least I have the keyboard.

[Unknown_K]

The IIx ROM should be the same as the SE/30 I think, probably have one around here somewhere. Soldering in the batteries should be easy enough (I think my IIx's have been upgraded to battery holders).

Check the dead IIsi's for Nubus or PDS adapters (hard to find) or cards. My IIsi was originaly used as a server and had 4x16MB SIMMs installed. Should have superdrives as well if you need to snag one for the IIx.

[LC_575]

Actually, both IIsi's have NuBus adapters.

[techknight]

grab it all man. because whatever you dont want, you could toss up in the sale/trade forum right here and someone will probably get it.

[Bunsen]

^ truth

[Gorgonops]

grab it all man. because whatever you dont want, you could toss up in the sale/trade forum right here and someone will probably get it.

Don't forget the PCjr. Believe it or not it's one of the more "interesting" things on your list.

Heck, if it didn't involve shipping I'd give you $10 for it. ;^b

[Dog Cow]

Heck, if it didn't involve shipping I'd give you $10 for it. ;^b

Not so fast, bub. We need to check eBay first to make sure if that's a good deal.

[Gorgonops]

Heck, if it didn't involve shipping I'd give you $10 for it. ;^b

Not so fast, bub. We need to check eBay first to make sure if that's a good deal.

Snicker. I do believe I know what thread that's a reference to. Not touching that with a ten meter cattle prod.

[Dennis Nedry]

To jump-start a Mac II that has bad batteries, take a good PRAM battery. The normal 3.6V 1/2 AA kind. Connect a wire from (-) of the battery to a metal part of the case of the Mac II. Then momentarily connect a wire from (+) of the battery to the sense wire of the power supply. It is on the edge of the connector and it is a different color than any other wire. This should fire up the power supply, boot the Mac II, and keep running after you disconnect the battery. (Leave the power supply connected to the logic board when doing this.)

This is a VERY GOOD diagnostic tool and worth remembering.

[Dennis Nedry]

It's the WHITE wire. The yellow wire is +12V, but it would have no effect though because the power supply is off at the time.

[LC_575]

I'll be sure to remember that when I bring them home in a few weeks. I don't really care for the PCjr; my friend want to take it for electrical parts, so he can have it.

[Dennis Nedry]

You may be better off selling the pc/jr on eBay and using the money to buy new parts. Everything in it will be very very old.

I thought the pc/jr was worth a pretty penny for some reason, it's worth checking first.

[Gorgonops]

I'll be sure to remember that when I bring them home in a few weeks. I don't really care for the PCjr; my friend want to take it for electrical parts, so he can have it.

I'm not saying this to be rude or anything, but I have to admit I detect a touch of "situational hypocrisy" when someone who posts on a "retrocomputing" forum says in reference to a machine which fully qualifies as such "oh, since this isn't what I'm interested in it's perfectly ok to just gut it instead of offering it to someone who might enjoy it first."

(not to say that this is exactly aimed at you, but... after seeing so many posts where people fly completely off the handle because some guy on the internet gutted an original Mac and made it into a fish bowl or toilet paper dispenser... it sounds "off". PCjrs are rarer than any compact Mac, and from a strict "history of computers" standpoint they're arguably more interesting than all but the original.)

I honestly don't know what the going rate for a PCjr is. There is a small cult group of retro DOS gamers that use them and Tandy 1000s to play games on. (the Junior had enhanced graphics and sound compared to the IBM PC and many games took advantage of it.) Just keep in mind that group on average is just as poor as most of the people on this forum. Outside of that if it's in really nice shape it *would* qualify as a collector's item, but if you eBay it there's no guaruntee that a collector will be looking that day, so... frankly you may or may not beat my off-the-cuff $10 offer by much. But... frankly, anything beats ripping it up without giving it a chance. There is very little inside a PCjr that could be easily reused anyway. Maybe the RAM chips, but you can still find 64k chips easily enough I don't see the point of cannibalising a rare specimen for them.

But, hey, whatever

[Unknown_K]

It is funny how people who collect macs do get annoyed when somebody guts a working one while they will not hesitate to destroy somebody elses treasure for a couple parts (namely old PCs). I collect old Commodore/Mac/PC/etc and see this happening all the time.

The PCJr was a flop, but is collectable by a few diehard users who spend a bunch of time and money upgrading them. I prefer the Tandy 1000 series (a clone of the PCJr introduced after the Jr died), and have a few I use for old games.

Before you trash something you don't want it might be worth your time trying to trade it to another collector who has junk macs he doesn't collect, that way everybody wins.

[LC_575]

I'll see. I'd rather he take that instead of the Apple II, or perhaps I could sacrifice the IIx instead.

I have not told you all that I happen to have two manuals and a set of application disks for the PCjr, which I found right next to my 575 when I discovered it at the curb a few blocks from my house. I see what you're saying, Gorgonops, and you make a good point.

I'll ask him.

[Bunsen]

What parts is your friend after?

[LC_575]

I have some great news. I have successfully liberated the first of several Macintoshes.

I decided to take home one of the IIsi's and it's matching Apple Extended Keyboard II. My method for transport from school to home: backpack.

Yes. I carried the IIsi and keyboard like they were textbooks. I placed my actual books in a separate bag and made the 1.5 hour long trip via bus to home. It wasn't fun, the IIsi is no PowerBook.

I tested the IIsi without a monitor (my DB-15 converter hasn't arrived yet) it's outlook is good, getting progressively better after each boot:

Boot 1: Mac II chord followed by the Chimes of Death a few moments later. What do you expect for a computer that hasn't awoken in at least 10 years?
Boot 2: Mac II chord followed by hard drive noise and no death chime. I left it on for about a minute - the hard drive didn't sound like it was loading anything and at one point shut off and then turned back on.
Boot 3: I inserted a boot floppy at this point, but the Mac insisted on an HD boot, producing the same results as Boot 2.
Boot 4: This time it read the floppy (Gamba's SuperBooter) and apparently loaded from it. Eventually I heard an error beep - probably the system-not-shut-down-properly message.

I think it's safe to say that at the very least the motherboard is healthy, although the HD may be dead. I inspected the motherboard - there's nothing very obviously wrong with it, all the caps look fine. Even the .5AA battery hasn't leaked. This IIsi has what I think is a custom PDS riser card installed - at first I thought it was the NuBus converter but it has, connected via ribbon cable, an RJ45 port and some other unfamiliar ports that are placed on the back where the NuBus card's face would be. Yes this card, whatever it is, still has a NuBus or PDS slot on it. Interesting.

[Osgeld]

I can assure your friend that nothing will be of use no matter what you give him ...

apple // = LS-TTL chips requires a bunch more current than what is out there, and modern HC stuff wont drive it (though cmos can be driven by ttl), and all chips combined your looking at about 15 bucks in parts outside of the LSI parts
pc-jr, same

anything newer, smd and LSI, so if he really wants to desolder a 140pin qfp marked 1988 apple with zilch on what it does or how to even connect it ...

aside from that, pennies worth of resistors and diodes with unuseable short leads, bunch of 20+ year old caps that are probally mostly rotten and maybe a fist full of 1 foot wire segments and some old motors

they would be much better off by buying some surprise boxes from electronic goldmine if they are serious about doing something other than ripping apart old boards (and there are plenty of vcr's and alarm clocks down at the thrift store)

[Bunsen]

Truly, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this case, literally.

[LC_575]

All right, i'll stop him from taking anything.