Getting a Macintosh Plus 1MB! I have some questions

[sega dude]

I am getting a broken Macintosh Plus 1MB for $5 from Craigslist. They say it makes the start up tone, but the screen doesn't work. From the research I've done, this is a common problem. I've read that you can whack it on the left hand side and they might fix it. I also read that it can be caused by cracked soldering joints, but I have ZERO soldering skills. What exactly do I need to take the computer apart? I am aware of the shock risks. Also, I have no way of reading or writing 800k floppies. All I have are 1.44MB floppies. Is there a way to use an 1.44MB floppy as an 800K floppy? I have mac specific 1.44MB floppies if that makes a difference. I need to be able to so I can use an operating system and other software. I will also need a keyboard and mouse. Unfortunately, people on eBay take advantage and sell the keyboards for $80+. The cheapest mouse I was able to find is $9.99.

Thanks in advance!

 

[markyb86]

as far as 800k floppies go, there are two solutions you can try other than obtaining actual 800k floppies.

first and the most temporary (has about a 50% success rate) is to tape over the hole opposite the lock hole on a 1.44mb floppy and format it as double sided.

the other method is to find some 720k pc floppies and format as 800k. this has a higher success rate.

 

[Brett B.]

My advice, if you seriously want a Compact Mac, would be to practice your soldering and redo the joints on the analog board and yoke connector. Fix it to where you get video, clean it up, and sell it on eBay. Then buy an SE, SE/30, Classic (II), etc. My old Plus was neat but I don't miss the quirks and super expensive peripherals.

 

[onlyonemac]

first and the most temporary (has about a 50% success rate) is to tape over the hole opposite the lock hole on a 1.44mb floppy and format it as double sided.

I have had more than a "50%" success rate with that. I have done it about five times with no trouble. I've made boot disks like that, made installer disks, run softwrae off of them and everything. I haven't used a disk like that for more than about a month at a time, but I've never had a problem with it.

 

[sega dude]

I have had more than a "50%" success rate with that. / I've never had a problem with it.

How did you make these boot disks? I have 4 macs, the oldest being a 17in iMac G4 capable of running OS9. I also have a USB floppy drive, but IDK if it's capable of reading/writing 720k disks.

 

[markyb86]

Unfortunately USB floppy drives only write to 1.44 (as 1.44mb) disks. They might read 720/800k but its spotty. I have the TEAC USB floppy that matches the bondi imac and it is strict on 1.44mb floppies :-/

 

[RickNel]

The best bridge from an iMac G4 17" to a Plus is to use SCSI - either an external HDD or best is a SCSI Zip drive. Zip 100s are plentiful and cheap, and very versatile for that sort of thing. Use your iMac to set up a Zip disk with a compatible OS. Opinions vary but I think MacOS 7.5 is the best utility version. Also add Disk Copy and images for a system disk, which you can download after some searching. Move the Zip drive to the Plus, then boot from it. Then you can make your new system floppy on the Plus, using the resources on the Zip.

By G4 17", I'm assuming you mean the Lamp. It has no internal floppy drive and in any case you are much safer to make the disk in the actual drive that will be using it.

The problem with free stuff is you often have to spend something to make it work 8-o

Rick

 

[danda]

Hi,

Just in case... ...have you checked that the brightness knob underneath the screen is turned up? I thought my Mac Plus was dead but it was just low brightness!

If you have a slightly newer Mac, like the Macintosh Classic, then you can transfer files from a newer mac with Mac OS X onto the classic via 1.44mb Floppy, then onto 800k disks to the Mac Plus.

System 6 is available from Apple here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ta48312?viewlocale=en_us&locale=en_us#system

Andrew

 

[sega dude]

I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. Turning up the brightness will be the first thing I'll try. I was thinking about using a Zip drive. With 100MB of space on a zip disk, I could basically use it as a hard drive. Would this work? I don't currently own a Zip Drive of any kind but I feel like I can get one cheaper than an External SCSI hard drive.

 

[markyb86]

Heck yea it will work! I use zip drives as hard drives on my SE and Plus. They never point me in the wrong direction. I also used a jaz but it has failed me twice so I don't recommend it as a boot disk.

 

[sega dude]

Got it today and it works great! The video is a little squished horizontally but after adjusting the brightness it works perfectly. Luckily the guy had the mouse, but not the keyboard. There was also a 6.0.3 System Tools disk in the drive (not the original unfortunately) so I can boot it. It's actually a HD disk with the 720K trick done. All it has on it is 6.0.3 and MacPaint and MacWrite. It was very dirty and full of dirt, so I cleaned it off with a Magic Eraser. No clock battery and the contacts look corroded but it didn't seem to do any damage as the computer works fine. Maybe bumping it on the door as I brought it in did some good...

 

[uniserver]

i think you did quite well.

a trip to radioshack will get you basic stuff you need for low cost. wont hurt to go over and re-flow those joints on the A/B board.

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=19844&start=0

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=19970

Plus is a great machine!

check to see how much ram is in it... maybe it has 4 megs, been upgraded?

A SCSI Zip 100 drive does work good as a boot drive, i use it all the time to boot up vintage macs!

you can post a NEED ad in trading post for a Keyboard + Cable for that.

Also maybe keep an eye out for an external 800k floppy drive for that.

It can be handy having dual drives

And why not, try to post a want ad on CL for a keyboard and external SCSI zip drive,

just make sure when you get the zip drive, look on the back for Termination Power and DEV ID switches.

if it does not have these switches its not a SCSI version and will not work for you.

 

[sega dude]

Thanks to everyone who has helped me in this post. I really appreciate the help. I'm a pretty big programer. What kind of development tools can I get on it to write programs? Of course I would need to get a keyboard first.

 

[Mk.558]

A Plus is neat for being able to run down to .97 (or .85, they say), but beyond that, they're kind of short on usefulness.

A SE with dual 1.44MB floppy drives, max RAM, an accelerator and a hard drive shoehorned in is a massively better computer.

A SE/30 is better still, but you won't get dual FDDs.

A IIsi almost entered into my possession. Neat machine.

A USB external floppy drive will never be able to read 800K or 400K MFS disks. Not even the Imitation SUPERDISK drive can read them, as described here.

Networking is described in detail concerning LocalTalk (usually PhoneNET) and Ethernet, as well.

 

[sega dude]

So I basically have no way of getting software onto it with out a newer older Mac? Is it possible to set up an Appletalk network between my iBook G4 running Tiger and the Macintosh Plus?

 

[Mk.558]

The link in my signature explains all this and more in detail. The Chart will be of relevance, and depending on what setup you'd like to go with, there are various limitations of each method.

It is possible though, to get a Plus hooked up to Tiger, but you're not going to like the setup procedure if all you have is a Plus and a Tiger machine.

 

[Macdrone]

I have a scsi to ethernet adapter, but no idea if the driver can be used on a plus. I know I moded a plus to use an apple external modem years ago and ran aol in black and white on it to make dialing up to the internet easier. Although I had an external hard drive also as the floppy did not have a start up system. Maybe a zip can work as that like already mentioned.

 

[Brett B.]

If you really want to keep it and are dedicated to using it (and if so, that's awesome!) I'd look at getting another cheap-o beige Mac to use as a bridge. Anything will work, really, but the Road Apples are going to be your cheapest bet. I'd even recommend something like an LCII, x200 series Power Mac, etc...just something small and very basic that has easy Ethernet capability. Some sort of external SCSI storage for the Plus should also be quite high on your list - a Zip drive or external hard drive are excellent choices.

Stimkind has a SyQuest 135MB SCSI drive for sale in the classified section that may work well for you, the cartridges are a bit obscure but performance is pretty good. I have one hooked up to one of my SEs and I like it a lot.

 

[Mk.558]

If the PowerBook supports 10.2.8 or 10.3.x, then an AFP bridge can work just fine.

A companion Mac as others have said is a really good idea. An internal drive and Ethernet are pretty much all you'd really need, but a working internal CD drive is also handy.

I would be partial to a G3 beige minitower or outrigger. GeoPorts, internal drive, internal DVD drive (some), upgradeable to a G4 processor, IDE, can boot OS X, expansion options, etc

It's not mandatory, but a source for 6.0.8 install disks (800K) and System 7 on 800Ks (not an option from the factory) plus all the software needed to make it work would be the minimum. It all really depends on how the final setup is desired.

If you end up liking it, a IIsi or similar would make for some more fun times as it can boot System 6 natively and thus speak MFS fluently, has color and (optional) ethernet support.