Byte Knight
Well-known member
I love anything with the old Apple logo on it, so when I found a cheap dead Apple HD 20SC on eBay, I had to have it. And I'd been looking for something to put my MacSD in, thinking that this would be better as an external device so I could use it with both vintage Macs and Apple IIgs.
I had never retro-brighted anything before, but I found this premixed Retro-Brite gel which just applies with a paintbrush. I kept it outside all day in the autumn MN sun, applying new coats every couple of hours, and after only one day it looked great! Here's the before and after.
After removing the giant 5.25" dead HD, the MacSD screwed right in with the included 3D printed bracket. I hooked up a 20mA ultra bright green LED to the corresponding pins of the Expansion Port with some jumper wires for the drive activity light. An SD extension cable runs out of the bottom of the case since you need access to the SD card in order to add CDROM images etc. And because the MacSD needs no external power, the power supply is really just there for weight and if you get nostalgic to hear the fan running.
Everything works well with my vintage Macs, and I've been able to get it to mount some 32MB ProDOS HD images on my IIgs, but I haven't been able to get a CDROM image working with the IIgs yet. The IIgs recognizes that a CDROM is connected, but it can't read the CD. However, I've only been able to test the Deluxe Ware CDROM image from Brutal Deluxe since I can't find any other IIgs CD images...
I had never retro-brighted anything before, but I found this premixed Retro-Brite gel which just applies with a paintbrush. I kept it outside all day in the autumn MN sun, applying new coats every couple of hours, and after only one day it looked great! Here's the before and after.
After removing the giant 5.25" dead HD, the MacSD screwed right in with the included 3D printed bracket. I hooked up a 20mA ultra bright green LED to the corresponding pins of the Expansion Port with some jumper wires for the drive activity light. An SD extension cable runs out of the bottom of the case since you need access to the SD card in order to add CDROM images etc. And because the MacSD needs no external power, the power supply is really just there for weight and if you get nostalgic to hear the fan running.
Everything works well with my vintage Macs, and I've been able to get it to mount some 32MB ProDOS HD images on my IIgs, but I haven't been able to get a CDROM image working with the IIgs yet. The IIgs recognizes that a CDROM is connected, but it can't read the CD. However, I've only been able to test the Deluxe Ware CDROM image from Brutal Deluxe since I can't find any other IIgs CD images...