Recent content by H3NRY

For BEST compact Mac, I'd vote for the SE30. For FAVORITE compact, I have to go with my 128K first Mac, the one that got the Dr. Dobbs 512K upgrade, the one that I developed the 1 meg RAM board for and the internal SCSI hard drive for. That machine was sort of responsible for starting three...

For OS 10.5 up, there's the CLI "memtest" and the GUI front end for it "Rember". http://download.cnet.com/Rember/3000-2094_4-52452.html?tag=mncol;1 Here's a version for earlier OS X (shareware $1.39): http://download.cnet.com/Memtest/3000-2094_4-32926.html?tag=mncol;5 Nearly all benchmark...

The easy way to put a hard disk emulator in a Mac 512 is to add one of the SCSI-equipped upgrades and Mac Plus ROMs. From there, add a notebook SCSI drive like I have in mine, or use a SCSI-IDE adapter and a CF card or something like that. You can even beef up the analog board enough to run the...

Thanks for posting those pictures. Now there IS documentation of an MMI mechanism available. I guess I should post pictures of my old disk drives for reference too. That big list covers some short-lived drive manufacturers, even a couple who never reached production. Different from today with...

The issue with large SIMMs (over 1 MB) in Mac II and Mac IIx is the video cards. 4 Mb chips added a new test mode, and it happens that the TFB video card would cause signals on the buss which would lock RAM into this test mode. Therefore, 4 MB and larger SIMMs for Mac IIs need a PAL or other...

Early Apple displays don't use the same scan frequencies as PCs did, so many multi-sync monitors don't work. A few which were compatible with the IBM PGA card (anyone remember the Professional Graphics Adapter?) would stretch far enough to cover Apple's Toby and other cards. Most LCDs are too...

Excellent! The "slowness" is due to the serial baud rate, it looks like. To get the REAL feel of a remote log-in to a mainframe in the '70s, set your baud rates to 110 or 300 baud. 300 baud was the fastest Ma Bell (the monopoly phone company back then) allowed on her wires. You had to have...

Dang! Somebody actually used P-Shooters? I figured that was the most obscure gadget I ever worked on. P-Con never got beyond the 2 guys in a garage stage. Perhaps the "CEO" licensed the design to some Australian firm. My personal record for LocalTalk was 10,000 ft of cat 2 twisted pair. We had...

The video problems are probably on the analog board. Check out the electrolytic capacitor at the top of the board - I forget what it's labeled, but it's the one which always overheats and fails. A search here will probably turn up repair advice. There may be other analog problems if sound is...

Routers and bridges were available to connect LocalTalk to Ethernet and Token Ring ranging from the Shiva FastPath down to little ones like the Farallon or Dayna Mini-EtherPrint that I use to connect my LocalTalk segment to Ethernet. Routers set up separate zones for each port. Bridges like the...

"Just like Steve Jobs did with his display back in 1984 (at least according to LEM)" Yeah, there isn't enough room in 128K for MacSpeak to say something as long as Mac's first speech. Steve would have had to cut a lot. I well believe he had a Fat Mac. Andy Hertzfeld confirmed the story. Have...

The Chooser let you choose a device which wasn't connected directly to your Apple. (Don't forget the Apple II.) It began as a LaserWriter interface, though it had been partially developed even earlier as a LAN within Apple's Fremont factory where Macs built Macs. AppleTalk was a breakthrough in...

SOunds like the power supply voltage is fluctuating with load, as in floppy running or not. Caps are likely culprits, and the whistle may be from the flyback. Most usual problem there is cracked solder due to heat cycling. Reflow the solder on all the transformer joints and other hot parts in...

Nice find! Yanno if ya hadna mentioned the RAM here, nobody'd know it was upgraded. Just yer own little secret, and yanno what? It'll run a lot better and crash less with 512K, just between you n me. ;-) Very few 128s with good analog boards and working floppies these days. Most need a fair...

It's a very nice-sounding CD player (Philips mechanism) but a slow 1st-generation CD-ROM. Most buyers were PowerBook owners who needed a battery-powered portable CD-ROM drive. Good find, especially with all the extras!