Bolles finds

[CC_333]

Yes, it would be neat to set some cards like this up in my IIfx or Q950, then I can record like it's 1992 and have a valid use for my vintage machines while I'm at it!

They supplemented this stuff with analog tape a lot back then, given the limitations in hard drive tech at the time, but guess what? I have a 1/2" 16-track!

Now, if only I could find a set of these cards that I can actually afford.... :lol:

c

 

[Bolle]

Snatched a nice 12" PowerBook lot from eBay for next to nothing:



Includes three base units, some keyboards, top cases, power supplies, a spare logicboard, display unit and a lot of small parts like RAM, airport cards, cables, screws...

One of the cases is pretty beat up. I think I can put together two nice maxed 1.5GHz ones from all those parts.

Might make a rat-look kind of thing from the worst looking one.

I fired up the two nearly complete good ones and they both seem to work ok. Now to figure out how to put those together again.

Gotta measure a lot of screws and sort them all according to ifixit guides to put them all into the right place.

 

[CC_333]

Good find!

I have a couple of these, but they're 1.33 GHz units. I've been wanting a working 1.5 GHz unit for some time now (I have one, but it's dead with a bunch of missing parts), so to that end, would you be willing to swap one of your 1.5 GHz units for one of my 1.33's?

Since it's a laptop, and relatively small, shipping overseas shouldn't be *too* exorbitant.

PM me if you're interested.

c

 

[Bolle]

I'll see if that spare 1.5GHz board works and I can send that one to you if you want.

Might take some time until I get to put my hands on those but I'll let you know.

My plan is to put a 1.67GHz 7447B onto the 1.33GHz board and see if I can make this one of the faster than normal 12" Books. :evil:

 

[Bolle]

Already a few weeks ago I picked up a nice Mac II from a fellow member:



It was only giving death chimes, turned out there was a broken trace that must have been cut when the batteries were removed:



That was one of the address lines... ROM, RAM, SWIM and soundchip were still connected to the whole address bus but VIAs, SCSI, SCC and Nubus was not resulting in the death chimes.

The solution was easy:



Now I got her stuffed already with goodies:





It looks like you need some kind of authorization to get the Pro Tools TDM mixer plugin to work to actually be able to use the TDM feature on those cards.

Pro Tools 3.4 free works with the cards if I remove the TDM piggybacks but with TDM it would be more fun as you can actually use the DSP farm for something useful.

Is anyone aware of a solution for TDM or has one of those authentication floppies to spare? :evil:

 

[Retro Rider]

Awsome! I got a Mac II also, the battery's dead. Did you just get another one that you solder in?

 

[Bolle]

I jump-start it and routed two wires out of the case so I don’t have to open it up everytime I want to turn it on...

Ain‘t putting any batteries inside my Macs :evil:

 

[Retro Rider]

I jump-start it and routed two wires out of the case so I don’t have to open it up everytime I want to turn it on...

Ain‘t putting any batteries inside my Macs :evil:

Can you send pics/instructions? I’ve really been hoping to get mine running again

 

[techknight]

I dont get what the Pro Tools stuff is for. 

is it like for multitrack recording or something? 

As far as authentication/authorization, might be the time to decompile the software and attempt to crack it. 

 

[Dog Cow]

I dont get what the Pro Tools stuff is for. 

is it like for multitrack recording or something? 

Yes. It's an industry standard for recording.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Sweet box! I'd ask the Pro Tools/DAW jockeys over at MacOS9lives about authentication issues. []

 

[CC_333]

Pro Tools is an interesting beast.

I've gotten somewhat adjusted to it's quirks on modern systems, but I'd love to set up an old TDM system like @Bolle is attempting, if only to say, "because I can". I'm not sure how useful it would be vs a modern system (plus 99.99999% of my effects plugins wouldn't work *at all*).

Unfortunately, all the necessary hardware (cards, AD/DA converters, etc) for these systems seems to be rather hard to find.

c

 

[Bolle]

If I ever get this to work I will write a more in depth how-to kind of thing.

It looks like there are options to gain multiple authentications out of one working auth floppy by imaging the hard drive containing your fully authenticated setup, de-authenticating it to get the token back onto the floppy and then rolling back your image.

Sharing the authenticated image containing the full setup should be possible then as well. Discussions about that have been going on on MacOS9lives but stagnated at the point where it comes to those images actually being shared

I am probably never doing anything really useful on that system as all our recording/production needs are fulfilled by modern hardware.

 

[olePigeon]

Have you looked for a crack for the hardware/software?  I don't know what the laws are like in the EU, but here in the US there's an exemption to our copyright laws that lets you circumvent hardware dongles on older hardware & software if the company no longer actively sells/supports it.  So there may be a dongle emulator or crack for the software that will let you use the additional hardware.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Hearing about that exemption is some great info, THX!

 

[Bolle]

Just came back from a trip picking up a major haul. The lot did just about fit into my car:



Included are:

-2xPlus

-SE

-SE/30

-SE/30 with SE guts

-SE/30 missing logicboard

-Mac II with IIfx board

-Quadra 950

-Power Mac 7100

-Power Mac 8100

-Power mac 9500

-3xG3 DT

-iMac Rev A

-G3 B/W

-G4 Digital Audio with dual CPU card - missing PSU

-boxes with misc. stuff, mice, keyboards, cables, CDs...

It's getting crowded in my office...





I quickly went through all of them yesterday in the evening removing all batteries and looking for obvious points of failure.

The Powermacs, iMac and SE Quadra seem to work fine.

One Plus chimes but screen stays dark, the other one has a burned deflection coil connector on the analog board.

The II(fx) got hit by the Maxell plague:



Already started cleaning it up and it does not look too bad... the serial PIC, its SRAM and the SCC are gone. The RTC/PRAM also does not look too good.

I can live without the serial ports, I'll see what it does when powered on after completely cleaning it.

 

[Zippy Zapp]

NIce finds.  Maxell, more like Maxhell.  I guess it is not surprising that a media company doesn't know how to make batteries, if they even actually made them to start with vs relabel some cheap crap.

 

[Bolle]

Got that Maxell mess cleaned up.

Board does not want to turn on with the original PSU and jumpstarting so I wired up an ATX PSU and forced it to turn on and the board does at least chime.

With no RAM installed it just sits there after chiming, I guess the onboard cache is enough to pass basic POST but it stalls afterwards. The connectors on RAM bank A are corroded and putting in RAM there results in slow death chimes (is this a sign that it can't access RAM on all II-series? Only know the SE/30 does slow chimes with RAM issues)

If I put RAM in bank B it chimes and I think it passes the RAM check afterwards - getting a slight pop from the speaker which I heard before on a lot of boards after they passed the RAM check.

Does the IIfx work with only bank B populated? Would safe me the hassle of swapping sockets from bank B to bank A for now.

The SE/30s had nice video cards in them. I got one of those Formac cards already earlier this year with another SE/30.

 

[re4mat]

Nice haul! For the RAM slots on the IIfx, try spraying some Deoxit D5 on them. Same with those corroded pads/joints/etc. in that photo. I'd say probably also worth it to reflow all the joints in the affected area, though I'd do that after the Deoxit.

 

[Bolle]

Can't stand having Macs in stock configuration, so I got this little thing for the Mac Plus:



How do I go about installing this little bugger? Just solder headers to the 68000 on the logicboard and sockets to the accelerator and plug it in?

Can I completely remove the 68000 to save some space and make logicboard installation easier?

Anyone has any idea what exactly this thing is? Searching for the obvious doesn't turn up any useful information.

One of the jumpers is for selecting if it is installed in a Plus or SE.  The other jumper has one pin connected to GND and two pins going to inputs of one of the GALs.