• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.
CircuitBored

CircuitBored

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  • CircuitBored
    Tiger, tiger, burning bright
    In the disc drive, out of sight.
    What immortal Mac of i
    could tame thy instability?

    What update could stabilise
    Unix system's fourth reprise?
    You will find yourself in heaven
    (Once you upgrade to dot eleven)
    CircuitBored
    OVERTEMP
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    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    @cheesestraws I am having defenestrative urges toward the Quad right now. It sure would be colder out there...
    Phipli
    Phipli
    Grumble grumble still no heating grumble.
    20231018_202321.jpg
    • Wow
    Reactions: joshc
    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    Well, it turns out that PC coolant has a shelf life of only three years. For some reason I thought the stuff I have would last five years. Ah well, time to completely flush and refill the Quad again... might be a good opportunity to attempt to cram a reservoir in there.
    CircuitBored
    It is now cold enough for the Quad to come out of hibernation! After a coolant top up and a bit of fan lubrication she is sitting pretty and ready for space heater duty.
    IMG_6916.jpeg
    CircuitBored
    After a very long hiatus I am pleased to report that the Pulsar lives again.
    IMG_6883.jpeg
    • Like
    Reactions: cheesestraws, SophieRose, macuserman and 1 other person
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    beachycove
    beachycove
    What was so unique about the second 604e card? Was it the configuration of the processor slot, or was it necessary to connect the two processors somehow above and beyond just plugging them into the processor slots on the logic board?
    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    @beachycove The 2nd slot has a custom pinout and the 2nd card has some custom logic on it to accommodate for the oddness that comes with having what is basically two CPUs wired in parallel. The 2nd "ASPD" CPUs are also flipped compared to a normal PCI PowerMac CPU so as to not block the first PCI slot. There's a ribbon cable that has to run between the cards too. The ASPD CPUs are insanely rare.
    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    The above is basically just what I've gleaned from contemporary magazine articles and such. There's also a little jumper cable that has to bridge the cards for dual-CPU mode. I'm fairly certain that both CPUs share data lines though.
    CircuitBored
    Just bought a PowerBook G4 Titanium while on holiday, demonstrating my absolute lack of self control when it comes to cheap, lonely old Macs. Luckily it has the exact opposite broken and roughed-up bits of my other TiBook so I should be able to meld them into one quite nice one and one utterly awful one.
    CircuitBored
    Sometimes a diode will simply decide that it is time for current to flow in neither direction any more.

    tempImageZDGkBW.jpg


    This is possibly one of the most bizarre component failures I have ever seen. The rectifier in this PSU failed and had created a dead short. It turns out that two of the diodes had split in half while the other two had simply turned into 0 Ohm resistors.
    C
    cheesestraws
    on average, they're still letting current through in the right number of directions!
    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    Better safe than sorry! The new diodes are significantly chunkier than the originals.

    IMG_6850.jpeg
    CircuitBored
    I finally gave this hunk of junk some love and, hey presto. It's alive! All it took was a whole new logic board...

    110MHz, 40MB RAM, and what I believe is the original 2GB hard drive, which is quite a "vocal" disk.

    IMG_6803.jpeg
    CircuitBored
    IMG_6650.jpeg

    The SE/30 Reloaded is alive! After months of chasing my own tail, so sure that there couldn't be a single bad solder joint or faulty component left to test, I finally had the brainwave of removing the CPU and putting it back in again. Sure enough...
    CircuitBored
    The reloaded SE/30 near completion
    tempImageNnBtXI.jpg
    CircuitBored
    17070013.jpg

    Low mood/energy week. Here's a photo I took while fiddling with a faulty old Pentax ME Super.
    • Like
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    CC_333
    CC_333
    It does look very early 90s— slightly out of focus with overly warm, somewhat washed out colors. Kind of like an old Polaroid photo.
    Durosity
    Durosity
    Yeah, it really does have that look!

    I have a QuickTake 100 camera. I keep thinking I should take some pics of my setups with it and try to make them as period accurate as possible
    MacUp72
    MacUp72
    the Pentax ME Super is actually a really nice camera, there are good lenses also for it..
    CircuitBored
    F3EBA6C2-C4AE-4349-BFC9-ACA913B6781B.jpeg

    4837B895-8857-4F8E-B7DB-8D797609237D.jpeg


    What a difference twelve hours in vinegar makes. Better, still not great...
    • Like
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    3lectr1cPPC
    3lectr1cPPC
    Yikes, good luck!
    Durosity
    Durosity
    What kind of vinegar do you use? (Is that a stupid question, I’m not actually sure what kinds there are!)
    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    @Durosity White spirit vinegar works best in my experience. Chemically speaking, there may be superior alternatives but I find the clear colour of white spirit vinegar helpful when it comes to seeing the changes on the board as they happen.
    CircuitBored
    I finally bought a G4 Cube so I am one happy fellah. Just a Titanium PB to go and the G4 collection is complete.
    • Like
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    3lectr1cPPC
    3lectr1cPPC
    iBook G4s don't officially run OS 9 at all. IIRC the early models can run it with the macos9lives installers but I've never tried it since mine is the last revision 1.42GHz model that can't in any capacity boot OS 9. Getting a good portable OS 9/Tiger machine is a bit tricky. TiBooks are the best performing laptops that could dual boot, but taking them everywhere will get them banged up real quick.
    3lectr1cPPC
    3lectr1cPPC
    A 900MHz G3 iBook would also perform well, but they're quite unreliable thanks to failed GPUs. A G4 upgraded Pismo might honestly be the best option, but that gets real expensive real fast! That's all if you want just one of course.
    CircuitBored
    CircuitBored
    @3lectr1cPPC I had feared as much. I do already own a Pismo, which I am very fond of. Maybe I should just use that for portable OS9-ing, the battery does work after all!
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