1st time vintage Mac buyer

[Macflyer]

Hi guys,

I'm looking into buying a Mac Plus/Se/Se30 or Classic and a Laser Writer or similiar for some productivity tasks, esp. word processing.

I've never owned a classic Mac but I like the idea of a very compact and cheap system, easy to backup and doing what I want it to do without crashing on me, like my Windows brick does at least once or twice a day.

I do own a Panther 2004 iBook, but sadly the internal harddisk died and I would have to use the external backup disk to run it but I don't like the idea of tinkering around with the backup of important stuff. Exchanging the drive is out of question since 300 bucks on top of the price for the ibook is ridicolous.

So, I'm in for a vintage Mac and printer, first because it's cheap and second it's a small setup and of course I love the design.

What would you say which Mac is the best to get?

I would love the silence of a Plus but I also know that a SE/30 causes less headaches when it's time to get software installed I downloaded by PC.

I know that some people do surf with their machines but is Explorer 2.x or Netscape good enough to surf around like on a windows machine? If yes, I also would like to use it as a backup for email [gmail] and internet.

What laser is the best to go with? And what market prices am I expected to pay for a flawlessly working and excellent looking setup? [i don't mind yellowing but I hate cracks, dents, deep scratches]

Thanks a lot.

 

[The Macster]

A Plus is slightly too slow and limited for real use - they have no internal hard drive, can only read 800 kb floppies, and can only take up to 4 MB Ram, which is not enough to do much with (even running Mac OS 7.x will be a bit of a struggle on one). It is also very difficult to get one networked, and they are too slow for the web anyway. Classics are also similarly slow, although more modern than the Plus. Most people here would say an SE/30, because it is by far the most upgradeable Compact Mac (they have an expansion slot eg for a network card, and can take up to 128 MB of memory) and has the faster '030 CPU. No 68k Mac will be good for web surfing though, it is a very slow experience and the browsers that will run on them (version 4 of IE and Netscape are the newest that will run on 68ks) are not compatible with many modern websites.

Do you definitely want a Compact? For the things you say you'd like to be able to do, a desktop Mac might be a better choice, even something like a PowerPC with Mac OS 9.1. A newer Mac is also of course more likely to be in better condition, and you will most likely find one in good condition for nothing or next to nothing, whereas Compact Macs are more scarce these days.

 

[JDW]

For word processing in black and white on a small screen, you really cannot beat a stock SE/30 running Word 5.1 and System 6.0.5 or 6.0.8. System 6 will give you more than sufficient speed for word processing, gaming, printing and utilities. I even run Canvas 3.5.6 on my System 6.0.8 SE/30 and it works great. So graphics apps will work too.

But because you mentioned email AND internet, you would need System 7.x for that. And once you start talking about System 7, you always can use more CPU power and a faster hard drive (because System 7 is so much slower than System 6). For that reason (I run System 6 & 7), I bought a DiiMO 50MHz PDS accelerator for my SE/30 which makes everything in System 7 all the more usable, including the internet, without sacrificing compatibility (unlike Daystar 040 cards that do kill some apps and cause crashes).

If you decide to run a setup like mine, I strongly suggest Netscape 2.0 for browsing. No "modern" graphical browsers available are faster than this. However, graphic browsing even on my accelerated SE/30 is still much slower than a PPC Mac. So I can only recommend a compact Mac for you if you really will do MOST of your work in Graphics or Word Processing, Email second, and graphic web browsing dead last. That order of priority is important. Otherwise you need to take the previous poster's advice and go with a newer Mac.

Currently, there are currently a few SE/30's for sale on EBAY. Prices vary wildly. I doubt you will fetch one in good condition for less than $80, and shipping will be on top of that. Also keep in mind that many SE/30 logic boards need to be cleaned at the very least with Ethanol alcohol, or better, have their capacitors swapped out with new ones. Soldering in new capacitors sounds like work, I know, but once you do it, it's done for as long as you're likely to own that machine (many, many years). I've done cap jobs on two SE/30 logic boards myself. New capacitors restore sound volume and fix crashing and booting problems. Almost all SE/30's need this kind of capacitor work in light of their age (and in light of the SMD capacitors that have leaked over time).

Hope this helps.

 

[MacMan]

The SE/30 is the favourite in terms of speed and performance, however if you're going to be using the machine for simple productivity tasks like word processing then pretty much any compact will do the trick. The Macintosh Classic is a very good machine for this as it has the 1.4MB floppy drive, (thus can use PC floppies), and Classics are much more readily available on the market cheaply.

I use my Classic for word processing and spreadsheets and I find I get much more work done on it than any newer machines simply because it is simple with fewer distractions. System 6 is a very clean operating system and a basic install will normally boot in about 10 seconds on my Classic. They are solid little machines and seem to soldier on no matter what.

 

[alk]

FWIW, if you have been quoted $300 to replace the iBook's hard drive, you should look elsewhere or look into doing it yourself. A little time spent on your part can save you at least half that amount. I don't know about the newer iBooks, but older Mac laptops were very easy to get into.

I recently bought a 120 GB hard drive to upgrade my Pismo for a mere $90. So $300 is way too much...

Peace,

Drew

 

[dbraverman88]

Unless you require greater portability, I would recommend a LCIII. The LCIII has a a very nice setup internally. Everything is in a single layer making working on it very easy. Everything is accessible. Replacing the hard drive or adding additional memory are very easy tasks. They can also be hooked up to a variety of monitors, everything from a 14" color to an black and white Appple Portrait Display. The APD allows you to have an entire page of text visible at once, very much like turning a 17" LCD flat panel on its side.

I do not recommend a novice working on the internals of a compact mac.

Compact macs were not designed to be user maintained.

1. The case needs to be "cracked." Cracking the case of a compact mac requires a long torx wrench or a homemade tool. It can be done with care, but it is easy to damage the case.

2. The internal CRT can carry a very high electric charge. You don't want

to be shocked by it. To be safe, the CRT needs to be discharged.

The LCIII can run system 7.x very well. For productivity apps I would recommend MS Word 5.1a and MS Excel 4.0. I would not recommend browsing the internet on either a SE/30 or a LCIII (though it can be done). If you wish to browse the internet, please consider a PowerPC based computer at least G3 or higher.

Performance wise, the LCIII runs faster than a SE/30 and can be had for much less money. An LCIII can be pruchased without minitor for $15 to $25. Sometimes you can find one WITH a monitor for that.

For a backup device I recommend an external SCSI Iomega Zip 100 MB drive. They can be had for $10 or so. You can then use the disk to transfer data to a newer Mac. I find them to be easier to work with than floppy disks.

Good luck!

David

 

[Macflyer]

thanks so far for all the answers.

I don't mean to replace my systems running entirely. Most of the internet will be done with this ThinkPad whereas I always preferred doing my wordprocessing on my iBook with Appleworks 6 or OpenOffice.

But the issues with the iBook and Mac OS X also not starting up always as it used to do, I was dreaming of a much simpler system and I happen to love the compact mac design. Form follows functionality, if you want. :b&w:

Of course, the question is, will a used vintage compact Mac die in a few months when it sees daily use or is it good enough to go another 20 years or so [] ]'> .

I would like to be able to use the internet in case the windows brick doesn't want anymore one day but it's not meant to be a surf station per se.

Maybe one day I would like to try out some Midi since there are some great programs still available and the compact macs plus is their easy and space saving setup.

The same goes for writing. Let's write the letter in the living room instead of the office or even in the bedroom: no other PC besides a laptop is being set up within 3 minutes.

So, I def. love the design. Since I come from Amiga, I know what a 68k can do and won't.

Would you think a Plus with 4 MB and Harddisk is good enough?

Which version of ClarisWorks would you prefer? 2.1 or 4.0 or anything different?

Thanks.

 

[Franklinstein]

If you're hell-bent on a Plus, then there's not much anybody can say to dissuade you. However, without a considerable amount of effort, a Plus will not go on the internet. There are people here who use them as web servers, but it's more of a novelty and to say, "Look what I can do with a 20-year-old computer!"

I don't use my Plus for anything besides exceedingly ancient programs that reside entirely on a single floppy (including the system software). I have Microsoft Works 1.0 or something for it, and I use that when I'm feeling particularly retro.

As for ClarisWorks, you probably won't be able to run anything higher than v2 on a Plus, and you'd need the external hard drive to store the installed program. If v4 works, however, I'd still be more apt to use v2 (or earlier). The only possible problem may be the fact that v2 won't open documents saved by v4. It's been a while since I've used any version of ClarisWorks, so there may be an option in higher versions to save a file in an older format, but I can't say for sure. This won't be a problem if you only have the one computer running it, though. As long as any files you transfer onto your Plus (via its 800k Mac-only floppy drive - don't try to use a PC-formatted disk) are in .txt or similar plain-text format, you shouldn't have a problem.

Like everybody else said, an SE/30 would probably be your best bet if you want 'net access. They've still got almost the same case, you know, unless you really don't like the horizontal lines on the later models. In addition, the SE/30 can read and write to PC floppies and use a Zip drive with no problems, plus they (usually) have internal hard drives that are greater than 20MB.

 

[tomlee59]

I do not recommend a novice working on the internals of a compact mac.

Compact macs were not designed to be user maintained.

1. The case needs to be "cracked." Cracking the case of a compact mac requires a long torx wrench or a homemade tool. It can be done with care, but it is easy to damage the case.

2. The internal CRT can carry a very high electric charge. You don't want

to be shocked by it. To be safe, the CRT needs to be discharged.

See http://lowendmac.com/tech/crt_danger.html (disable stylesheets if their ads obscure the text). There is no reason to be afraid of opening up a compact mac. Just leave the HV bits well enough alone. Don't bother them, and they won't bother you.

Also, it is easy to open up a compact mac without damaging it. Just search this forum for any number of excellent, time-tested methods (e.g., the "shake vigorously with the screen a few inches above plush carpet" method).

The SE/30 is a *great* machine for doing what you want. It's the best compact mac ever made. I do like the LCIII as well, but it's not an all-in-one, so it doesn't meet the criteria you specified.

 

[Macflyer]

It's not that I'm esp. in love with the plus, its just that I might get my hands on one easily.

I've been looking around for a Se/30 but couldn't find anything affordable.

Some ebay prices seem to be beyond the moon.

 

[equill]

I have two SE/30s. The SE/30 is the best and most accomplished Compact AIO ever made.

But, and I only whisper this in case my SE/30s are listening, for serious on-screen text work, they are not within cooee of a IIci with Portrait Display and Apple/Radius 24X or XK card, or equivalent, and 256 greys. Also up to 128MB of RAM. Three NuBus slots, so it is not greyscale or ethernet, but greyscale and ethernet. 25MHz. Upgradeable to 50MHz with PowerCache card, or a modest fillip with an Apple cache card. With a JackHammer card, even SCSI-3 is possible. But I'm getting carried away ...

And the IIci is so underrecognized that it goes for a song.

de

 

[tomlee59]

If you're willing to look at something other than an AIO, then equill's suggestions merit serious consideration.

If you can get your hands on a Plus for free (or nearly so), then it may be worth a try. As a word processing machine, a Plus does a superb job (only seconds from first power-on to entering text). No internal hard drive, but an external one is easily connected. A Zip drive does perfectly serviceable duty as a hard drive replacement, and can often be scavenged for free as well. The combination is pretty quiet, so if noise is a consideration, this is about the best you'll do.

A Classic II can often be obtained for much less than an SE/30, so if you can find one, that's another possibility. Its narrower bus means that it's inferior to the SE/30 in speed, but the mere fact that it's an '030-based mac means that it will handily outperform a Plus or SE, to say nothing of the larger universe of software that you can run on it.

 

[Quadraman]

A 68000 Mac is more desirable as a collectors item than as a functioning machine that you will use every day. System 7 just runs too slowly on these machines and System 6 software won't be able to handle your every day computing needs. For a vintage machine that you will use every day, you would need at least an 030/040 based machine with higher resolution than the old black and white displays can handle and with more expandability than the compacts. A color classic with a Mystic or Takky upgrade and the VGA video mod would probably be the only exception.

 

[nahuelmarisi]

The plus is a great choise for word processing (if you can get your hands on one easily). I would agree with tomlee59 that a zip drive is a good replacement for a hardrive. They're much easier to get, more silent, more reliable (if the zip disk breaks you just get another one), occupy much less space and you can connect it to any other mac with a SCSI port.

The plus is virtually noiseless (as it has no fan), although this tends to shorten its life. I have 3 pluses, and the oldest one of them (a 512k upgraded) has been in use for about 4 years and it is still working.

I have to agree that the Se/30 is the best compact mac in terms of performance. I have two of them, but suprisingly I use them less than the plus simply because they're noisy by comparison. Of course, if you want to do anything else than word processing and / or running old programs then the SE/30 is the best choise no doubt. If you can't get your hands on one you might h ave a look at the classic II. It has the same processor as the Se/30 (although no expansion and a 16 bit bus, makign it a bit slower) and s far as I know a more robust analog board.

In all cases for speed I would run system 6.0.8, unless you really, really need system 7. System 7 should run on a 68030 mac with suficient ram quickly enough though (although nothing beats the magic of system 6.0.8 booting on my 128mb se/30 [of course i can't address all that memory though in system 6] )

 

[JDW]

I have to agree that the Se/30 is the best compact mac in terms of performance. ...I use them less than the plus simply because they're noisy by comparison.

Quiet your SE/30 fan with Silenx

And a flash drive substitute for a hard drive will bring the sound level down so low you'll think its a Plus!

 

[nahuelmarisi]

a flash drive on an Se/30?

 

[Mac128]

Yes, easy on an SE/30 with SCSI to IDE converters:

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=16747#16747

Somehow I don't think Macflyer wants to spend that kind of money though ...

A zip drive is an excellent solution for a Plus to keep things silent as you can pick one up for around $20-$30. You could even install it internally if you don't mind modifying the case. And yes I know the Plus doesn't have an internal SCSI port, but one solution back in the day was to run the ribbon cable through the SCSI slot and use an adapter to plug it into the external connector. But its light enough to velcro it to the case, too.

 

[dbraverman88]

I do not recommend a novice working on the internals of a compact mac.

Compact macs were not designed to be user maintained.

1. The case needs to be "cracked." Cracking the case of a compact mac requires a long torx wrench or a homemade tool. It can be done with care, but it is easy to damage the case.

2. The internal CRT can carry a very high electric charge. You don't want

to be shocked by it. To be safe, the CRT needs to be discharged.

See http://lowendmac.com/tech/crt_danger.html (disable stylesheets if their ads obscure the text). There is no reason to be afraid of opening up a compact mac. Just leave the HV bits well enough alone. Don't bother them, and they won't bother you.

Also, it is easy to open up a compact mac without damaging it. Just search this forum for any number of excellent, time-tested methods (e.g., the "shake vigorously with the screen a few inches above plush carpet" method).

The SE/30 is a *great* machine for doing what you want. It's the best compact mac ever made. I do like the LCIII as well, but it's not an all-in-one, so it doesn't meet the criteria you specified.

Thanks for the article. The examples given make sense. Every article I have seen prior to this one has taken the "oh no, don't even think about working on a CRT mac without discharging it" approach.

Thanks,

David

 

[tomlee59]

Yes, most advice found on the 'net (as well as that of most manufacturers, including Apple) is to discharge the crt. Unfortunately, as you undoubtedly found, this message is usually delivered in such a way as to discourage most people from performing any repair at all. Seems a shame to let old macs decay in a landfill when a simple fix could bring them back to life.

Thanks for actually reading the article. I do appreciate it!