Centris 650 Won't Boot - "?"

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

Macintosh Garden - Wow, what a cool site! There is a literal ton of abandonware on that site! Thanks @joshc for mentioning it! I have some digging around to do.

Floppy Drive - I threw caution into the wind and washed (not cleaned) the floppy drive with 91% alcohol. What came out resembled muddy vacuum cleaner dust. I let the drive dry for a few hours and tried booting again. The computer didn't even try booting from those disks. It simply spit them out and would reset. This would continue in an endless loop.

Floppy Disks - In all of my testing and screwing around, I never really considered that I might have a crap floppy. Maybe I mentioned the idea in an older post in this thread. Anyways, I cracked open a fresh box of Maxell 1.44MB floppies and wrote the 7.5 image from David and Steve's Blog. You could have knocked me over with a feather - the machine booted!! I think in washing the drive and sloshing alcohol all over it I must have cleaned some positioning sensors and some part of the heads.

I don't know why the original floppies I was working with don't work anymore. Maybe

Memory - I spent about an hour booting and rebooting the computer with different memory configurations. All of them worked. The machine has 8 MB of on board memory. Then I added all four sticks, one at time, and checked my available memory in the Finder. It looks like I have two sticks 8MB each and two sticks of 4 MB each. These sticks plus all four sticks give me 32MB of RAM.

ZuluSCSI Mini - I got the tracking info today that says it should arrive by Wednesday!

Wow, what an adventure this was! I feel like I got a preview of everything that could ever wrong in the future! Hopefully the ZuluSCSI solves all my booting and repository issues. Otherwise, I'm afraid I may need to test the patience of the forum!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Good job and great perseverance! A Zuluscsi in there, CD and PSU recap and you should have a solid system.

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

Thanks, @3lectr1cPPC !

Quick question on CD drives ... I think the ZuluSCSI emulates CD drives if I copy the ISO image file and rename it. Is that true? If yes, then how useful would a CD drive be? I imagine if I ever got any CDs then I could make ISO images on my Windows machine and copy those images to the SD card in the ZuluSCSI.

I was starting to think the CD drive could work as alternate boot device if my ZuluSCSI should ever fail. The CD drive would be read only so I wouldn't be able to do much with it after booting. Would a ZIP drive be more practical as an alternate boot device and allow me to read/write files while my ZuluSCSI is out of commission?

I have a feeling it's unlikely the ZuluSCSI will fail but it's good to have alternate mediums to work on just in case.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I just think it’s a good idea to fix the CD Drive just because they aren’t exactly getting any more common, and plus, you never know when an old Mac application CD might come your way.
The Zuluscsi can act as a CD drive AFAIK, but you’d need to grab the card out of the machine each time you need to add a disk image (a huge pain). This is why I prefer an external PiSCSI for this purpose, since it has a web interface for everything.

 

[Phipli]

CD drives are really the primary bootstrap method for this age of Mac. It is worth using them. They really help when troubleshooting.

 

[joshc]

I threw caution into the wind and washed (not cleaned) the floppy drive with 91% alcohol. What came out resembled muddy vacuum cleaner dust.

Do try to get some 99.9% isopropyl because it will work better than 91%. I am guessing the other 9% in your 91% is water and you don't really want to leave water on the metals used in floppy drives/PCBs/etc.

The floppy drive acts as an air intake which is why they get so dirty. At some point Apple started putting a plastic sleeve around the drive to stop some dust harbouring there which did help, but most machines don't have the plastic sleeve.

Agree with the others that having a working CD drive, even if its an external one, is a useful thing to have, or use the CD emulation on the ZuluSCSI.

Wow, what an adventure this was!

The adventure never ends. I've been collecting on and off since 2003 and using Macs since 1995 or so, and I am still learning stuff every day!

There is a literal ton of abandonware on that site!

Yup, there are thousands of Mac titles available, loads of great apps, games, etc and the fun thing about Mac software for 68k/PPC machines is that there is a ton of shareware that was really great, not just big titles. There was a very large developer community for the Mac back then, so there are tons of apps to choose from.

If you're into games... (some of the recommendations in the B&W thread might be too old for a 650, and some in the 'favourite mac game' thread might be too new, but there are tons of options for System 7/OS 8 gaming)

Best games for my Mac?

Hi! I'm wondering what the best games are for a Performa 475 with its origianl 68LC040, no FPU, running at original speed, 256 colour monitor, 4mb of RAM, and no hard disk? Of course, bear in mind that, once I've loaded the RAM disk, I've only get about 900K of RAM left, but if there's anything...

68kmla.org

Best games/apps to showcase B&W mac?

I'm looking for suggestions on what games and apps best showcase a B&W compact mac. (This request is a bit different than subjective, personal preference.) I have a Classic II. Here's what I have so far: OS: System 7.0.1 (I like the bells and whistles with the newer versions, but I keep...

68kmla.org

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/your-favorite-mac-game%E2%80%A6and-why.42153/

Software...

Best software to include on an OS9 'bridge' machine

I have my own set of tools I've collected over the years but I thought it would be interesting to ask the community what things they think are essential or really useful/cool. Go ahead and include no-brainer stuff like the latest version of DiskCopy and Stuffit too. I'd like to see an all...

68kmla.org

Most of the apps/utilities mentioned there will work on System 7/OS 8 too.

There are probably lots of other old threads on here that list out software to look into, but I am struggling to find those right now. Mac Garden can be a bit overwhelming as its not very searchable and there is just too much stuff on there.

Some quick ones off the top of my head...depending on what you want to do/find interesting.

Any title from Claris is worth a look. ClarisDraw in particular.

Tons of DTP / graphics packages. Adobe, Macromedia, MacroMind, Aldus were some of the top names making those apps back then.

SuperPaint is still one of my favourite paint apps - it has a lot more features than MacPaint.

 

[Phipli]

What sort of things are you interested in @1200XL M.U.L.E.? Music creation, drawing, animation, 3D, games, programming, electronic design, video editing??

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

CD Drive - I was a little skeptical about my CD drive. The front had a white sticker on it that I removed and behind that sticker are opening for what look like a headphone jack, volume knob, and LED. None of those pieces are installed.



I thought maybe they broke off. Tonight I removed the cover of the CD drive and I saw these pieces were seemingly never installed!



Is that normal? I would guess yes since they are covered by the drive bay cover.

Is a fully open/exposed drive bay cover available that would allow CD drives with trays?

I don't have any blank CDs that I can write ISO images onto so I can't test the drive. My local Goodwill always has blank CD-R media for cheap. I'll have to get a pack or two from there.

Applications - I was hoping to install Excel 5.0a and other powerful spreadsheet programs to play around with large financial datasets. Yes, I know I can do it all in Google Sheets nowadays but I enjoy the challenge of working in a limited environment. It makes me focus more on what I want to extract from the data. It's kind of fun to try "punishing" an older system with an almost impossible task only to discover it can actually do quite well!

I also enjoy light gaming (dungeon crawlers, Kings Quest), journaling (a nice editor), playing Soundtracker and Screamtracker music, and some programming in BASIC, Pascal, and Python. Lots of dabbling. The 68k Mac ecosystem is all new to me so I will enjoy trying almost anything to learn more about the platform. I just want to play and have fun. One day I'll have to post a retrospective of my computing life because 68k Macintosh machines were so far outside my reality in the 80s and 90s.

 

[joshc]

Yeah that's normal. It's because the same drives were also available as an external unit which did have those features. To save money they used the same bezel internally but just covered stuff up.

Is a fully open/exposed drive bay cover available that would allow CD drives with trays?

Yes, a bit hard to find these days but someone on the forum might have one if you ask in the trading post forum - or you can 3D print your own, I think a model has been made for the tray bezel.

Another option is getting an external drive.

I'll have to get a pack or two from there.

Your mileage may vary with CD-Rs - some brands work better than others I believe. Write at a low speed, like between 1-4X.

I also enjoy light gaming (dungeon crawlers, Kings Quest), journaling (a nice editor), playing Soundtracker and Screamtracker music, and some programming in BASIC, Pascal, and Python. Lots of dabbling.

A 650 is perfect for all these. Hope you have lots of fun with it.

 

[Phipli]

The front had a white sticker on it that I removed and behind that sticker are opening for what look like a headphone jack, volume knob, and LED. None of those pieces are installed.

This is normal, they're all like this. There should be a bezel over the front which meant you couldn't get to the headphone jack, so costs were saved by not fitting one. There is one on the back of the computer for the whole system including cd audio.

 

[Phipli]

Soundtracker and Screamtracker music,

PlayerPRO 4 - Macintosh Garden

The incredibly awesome PlayerPRO by Antoine Rosset. Version 4.5. PlayerPRO is a complete music editing program (SoundTracker). PlayerPRO can load and play many music (and sound) formats. Version 4.5 contains the awesome 'Screensaver' and 'Full View' video modes.

macintoshgarden.org

MODPLAYER - Macintosh Garden

ModPlayer is a music program and it belongs to 'player' category. It decodes modules and allows you to play them in your own Macintosh. Modules (also called 'mods') are digital music files, which are made up of a set of samples and sequencing information. ModPlayer supports following file...

macintoshgarden.org

Sound-Trecker - Macintosh Garden

Sound-Trecker is a shareware MOD Player & Mixer, popular on the Macintosh in the early to mid 1990s. Plays MOD files and can output to AIFF & SND.

macintoshgarden.org

BASIC, Pascal, and Python

https://macintoshgarden.org/sites/macintoshgarden.org/files/apps/REALBasic_2.0.2_CD.sit

Chipmunk Basic - Macintosh Garden

Chipmunk Basic for Mac OS is an old-fashioned BASIC interpreter which runs on almost all Apple Macintosh computers. Chipmunk Basic uses a vintage traditional-style command line console. Features include support for a simple sprite graphics engine, sound, MacinTalk speech, MacTCP, AppleScript...

macintoshgarden.org

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/think-pascal-45 (I don't Pascal, so other versions of Think Pascal might be better suited)
Try this too : https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/hypercard-241

Excel 5.0a and other powerful spreadsheet programs to play around with large financial datasets

Microsoft Excel - Macintosh Garden

In what appears to be an irony now, Microsoft and Apple's early history was a symbiotic relationship that launched two great icons of computing: Microsoft Office and the Apple Macintosh.

macintoshgarden.org

I also enjoy light gaming (dungeon crawlers, Kings Quest),

Prince of Persia CD Collection - Macintosh Garden

This is a Prince of Persia CD Collection as it has been sold in Germany (Europe, to be clear). The edition available at this page comes with German PDF manual only (although the manual has been included in very poor print quality, so it’s nearly useless). This CD includes Prince of Persia 1 + 2...

macintoshgarden.org

Marathon Trilogy Box Set - Macintosh Garden

The first disc of this compilation includes Marathon, Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity (plus Pathways into Darkness and Gnop). The second holds over a thousand maps and add-ons for the trilogy. Also in the box was the Marathon Scrapbook, a behind-the-scenes history of Bungie illustrated with...

macintoshgarden.org

Ambrosia Software - Macintosh Garden

macintoshgarden.org

journaling (a nice editor)

BBEdit 4 - Macintosh Garden

The 1st download is BBEdit Updater 4.0.1 (CD image). The 2nd download is BBEdit Updater 4.0.3. The 3rd download is BBEdit 4.0.4 (CD image). The 4th download is BBEdit Updater 4.0.4. See also: BBEdit 2.1.3, BBEdit 3.1.1, BBEdit 4.5, BBEdit 5, BBEdit 6.5, BBEdit 7.1.4.

macintoshgarden.org

Nisus Writer 4 - Macintosh Garden

Nisus Writer 4.0 was finally released, with a great sigh of relief, in October 1994. The employees (who at this point numbered about 25) celebrated with champagne and took pictures of themselves with the UPS guy loading the first boxes into the truck. However, the excitement didn’t last long.

macintoshgarden.org

Claris MacWrite Pro 1.5 - Macintosh Garden

A very polished and capable word processor, MacWrite Pro 1.5 was the end of line for the MacWrite series from Claris. Top DL is the full install of version 1.5v1. - Second download is the full install of version 1.5v3.

macintoshgarden.org

ClarisWorks 4.0 - Macintosh Garden

This is version 4.0 of ClarisWorks, optimized for PowerPC and 68K. DL #1: ClarisWorks 4.0 (US English) as a floppy disk image install set in a StuffIt ".sit" archive.

macintoshgarden.org

Now to go back and see what Josh put...

 

[joshc]

WriteNow is one of my favourite word processors - very lightweight on RAM and opens quicker than Word.

 

[Phipli]

playing Soundtracker and Screamtracker music

This is my 650 :

 

[Phipli]

WriteNow is one of my favourite word processors - very lightweight on RAM and opens quicker than Word.

Have to admit I always used BBEdit or ClarisWorks, and used PageMaker for anything more complex. I realise I skipped over the whole more advanced WP thing.