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Bringing back a 6100 to life

BarnacleGrim

Well-known member
I'd like to get started on one of my recent finds. It's one of the keepers, being the first PPC Mac. It's missing its hard drive, I guess I could borrow one from a Performa. I'm just worried it may have been gutted for a reason. That's why I don't feel like spending money on a display adapter from eBay, not to mention the shipping to Sweden. Has anyone tried soldering a DA-15 port to it? I found a link on kan.org/6100, but unfortunately it's dead.

 

BarnacleGrim

Well-known member
I just opened it up to have a look. A DA-15 connector won't fit without modifying the case, and then there's the issue of fitting the DA-15 to the HDI-45 holes. I suppose the cheapest and easiest solution would be to make a small DA-15 pigtail just hanging out of the case. Someone might curse me for making the mod down the line, but I doubt anyone will miss the HDI-45, and the whole point (IMO) is to have the computers up and running so you can have fun and play with them, not keep them in a bookshelf.

I also powered it up. It bongs, that's a good sign. I gave it a Mac install floppy, but it didn't say which version, probably too old. It made a couple of floppy grunts and then nothing, didn't eject it.

 

beachycove

Well-known member
What it wants, what it really, really wants, is an angle adapter and a PDS video card, which is fast in these because of the PDS technology involved. The high end card from an 8100 is what I'd go looking for. Alternatively, you could simply find yourself an HDI45 to DB15 adapter. In fact, I could sell you several of them. I think I have five.

I'd personally go for PDS video, as the onboard video is pretty crap.

 

Bunsen

Admin-Witchfinder-General
Agreed. About the only thing that makes the onboard video bearable is 1MB of cache - and the easiest way to find that is onboard a G3 upgrade. Once you've got one of them (which doubles as a PDS riser), you might as well add an HPV or AV card, both of which have standard Apple video ports.

The best way to add a DB-15, IMHO, would be to mount it on the back above the HDI-45, and jumper the pins to the appropriate solder points, or piggybacking onto the internal HDI-45 leads.

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
I have 2 6100's. A PDS video card is the best way to go since it is fast, has much more RAM for color depth and video resolution, and it has the more common mac video connector. One of my 6100's has a PDS video card, the other has the Apple 486 DOS card along with an adapter and octopus cable to get it all to work.

While I don't love the 6100, I don't dislike it enough to junk it or give it away either. The form factor is kind of neat I guess, and I like the DOS card setup.

 

BarnacleGrim

Well-known member
That's nice, but I'd like to see if it works before I spend a lot of money on it. I have other Macs that I want to fix up too.

I remember reading a how-to on building your own connectors when no off-the-shelf parts are available. If nothing else I could stick a DA-15 connector on a breadboard and see what happens. Then I'll think about upgrade cards, port change or adapters. A DE-15 connector could fit in the hole, but does anyone know how that DIP switch package on Mac-VGA adapter is wired?

 

Nathan

Well-known member
The HDI-45 to Macintosh Video adapter is not all that uncommon. I have one for my 6100, which has a DOS card in it. I also have a Mac-VGA adapter I use with it and an old CRT VGA monitor. It's a nice enough computer, at least compared to my LC II. It's not particularly practical, but just steal a HD from another Mac. I tried my LC II's drive in the 6100 and it worked just fine despite being only 80MB. I'd vote for soldering or other wise attaching inside the computer for a native macintosh video connector (DA-15, I guess).

 

BarnacleGrim

Well-known member
So, what's the procedure?

Off the top of my head, maybe replace the HDI connector with a ribbon cable and screwing a DA-15 socket where the NuBus card would normally go?

 

johnklos

Well-known member
Just FYI, you can use a PDS video card in the 6100 without a right angle adapter. Of course you can't put the top back on with it that way, but it'd certainly be fine for testing, and PDS cards are pretty darned cheap. If it works, you can get the adapter (which is a little harder to find).

 

Bunsen

Admin-Witchfinder-General
And if it turns out the 6100 is dead, you can sell the adapter. Not so with a solder hack.

You could possibly get away with a VGA socket on breadboard as you say, then use test jumper clips to attach to the relevant lines on the back of the HDI-45 - non-permanent and no solder.

Apart from that, the cheapest test is going to be the AV or HPV card direct in the socket, as johnklos says, and a Mac-VGA adapter.

NB, the 6100 needs a motherboard battery to boot, IIRC. (1/2 AA 3.6V lithium, non-rechargeable) You can try the quick double-boot trick to see if you at least get a startup chime.

Check that the internal speaker is attached, and remove any socketed RAM. Switch it on, leave it powered up and attempting to boot for an hour or so, then very quickly switch it off and back on. That should leave enough charge in the PRAM circuit to boot it, all else being good. If that doesn't work, try leaving it on for a couple of hours, then overnight.

Getting a chime out of it should be your very first test.

 

BarnacleGrim

Well-known member
Living outside the US means I'll always be paying a great deal for shipping.

Either way, first order of business is testing it, the breadboard method. I can also clip a variable power supply set to 3.6V to the battery terminals. I'm also planning to recap a SCSI enclosure, then I can have a known good boot disk handy as well. Once I'll have a working system I'll think of what upgrades I'll treat it with. A G3 upgrade will give me a good video card slot, and if I max out the RAM it could be a capable Mac OS 8.5 machine instead of the less interesting 7600.

 
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