A Tale of Two Quadras: 950 and WGS 95

[Concorde1993]

Drove to Bolton today (which is about half hour from Brampton) to pick up these machines:



Both work, but are unfortunately missing their keys to control the lock mechanism. The 950 has 45MB of RAM and I believe the WGS 95 has 16MB of RAM. The seller included an Apple NuBus video card, and a hard drive running 7.5. I also picked up some Apple technical books (Programmer's Introduction to the Macintosh Family, Inside Macintosh Series, and Programmer's Introduction to the Macintosh Family), and an AppleColor 13" High Resolution monitor (case is in excellent condition). 

More pics of the 950 and 95:





















I'm not entirely sure what I am going to do with these two. There are numerous scuffs and scratches on both machines (the 950 is by far the worst with a cracked foot), although both motherboards and their respective interiors are quite clean. I was thinking of building one good machine (using the WGS case) and keeping the electronics of the WGS as spares. 

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Get that Maxell battery out of there right now.

 

[Concorde1993]

He's gone, don't worry. 

 

[Carboy7]

 I was thinking of building one good machine (using the WGS case) and keeping the electronics of the WGS as spares. 

Yes, that seems like a good idea. But are the cases basically identical, apart from the nameplate?

 

[Concorde1993]

Yes, both cases are identical. Front bezels, etc. are swappable. 

 

[danpoarch]

I wanted those. ; )

If you cast off any parts lemme know.

 

[Concorde1993]

If I do cast off anything, it'll likely be just the case from the 950. Where are you located? 

 

[finkmac]

Use the WGS 95 with what it was designed for, A/UX.

 

[Concorde1993]

I do have an A/UX drive for a IIci, but recently I've been receiving the message: macgetty is not executable; launching getty instead, and then it asks for a login prompt. The drive was partitioned to run 7.0.1 and A/UX 3.The HD is on its way out (Quantum Pro-Drive with a loud worn-bearing noise), but if there is a way to resurrect the A/UX software, I'm all ears. 

 

[james_w]

Man I love these monsters... if I only had the space... I've passed up a few 900s in my time...

 

[mietek]

Does either of these include the WGS 95 Pisces card?  Are the cache slots on the card populated with cache chips?

I’m would love to find these, in order to complete my WGS 95.

661-0791 SRAM SIMM 128K -17ns 68-Pin -WGS95
661-0792 SRAM SIMM 256K -17ns 68-Pin -WGS95
661-0793 SRAM SIMM TAG 48K -14ns 60-Pin -WGS95

 

[olePigeon]

Ooo, NIH asset tags.  Too bad they didn't have any Symbolics stuff in them.

 

[jsarchibald]

I saw someone posted a link a few months ago to a place selling NOS lock and key sets, if you are so inclined.

 

[LazarusNine]

Drove to Bolton today (which is about half hour from Brampton) to pick up these machines

Another person in NW England! Good to know I'm not alone out here. =P

Those are fine examples of each machine. I've lusted after the 950 - and, let's be honest, the WGS - for quite some time.

 

[finkmac]

Pretty sure Concorde1993 is talking about Bolton, Ontario (in canada).

 

[LazarusNine]

Pretty sure Concorde1993 is talking about Bolton, Ontario (in canada).

Ha. Yes. The mobile version didn't display his location. Interesting that there's a Bolton and Brampton so close to each other in both locations. People were so unoriginal back in the day when naming places...

 

[Concorde1993]

Good to see that this thread was revived. I've been busy with other things, so I'll provide a detailed update soon. Here are the fine points in the meantime:

(1) I sold the Quadra 950 tower (just the case; no electronics) and the WGS 95 bezel as they were very scratched up/broken in certain areas. So now I have the WGS body sporting a 950 bezel (and yes, I kept the tape drive).

(2) I swapped the key lock from the 950 tower to the WGS, which was left at the "ON" position. I do intend to get a key at some point, but right now it's not a priority.

(3) The computer crashes on shut down and restart. More on this later.

 

[jeremywork]

(3) The computer crashes on shut down and restart. More on this later.

I'm curious to know what you discovered regarding this symptom. I have several 950s and only one of them has this issue, across multiple OS versions. More interestingly, when running from a 601 upgrade card, they symptom disappears.

It's the only one I have running at the full 256MB of RAM, so I've meant to remove some to see if that's the issue (256MB does cause errors in the RAM disk function on Q950s, again except when running from PPC- so both issues are related to the 040 ROM it seems, as the PPC card contains its own.)

 

[Concorde1993]

The Quadra has been dormant for sometime so I don't have a proper diagnosis to offer. I recall wanting to test out another HD to see if I could replicate the issue but I never bothered. If I get to it I'll update the thread.