I just bought a TAM!

[Rick Dangerous]

I never thought I would get one of these...for a quasi-reasonable price anyway.

Listed for $999 on ebay, put in a best offer of $900 and won it.  Looks to be in great shape I may just need to re-do the speaker covers and leather on the keyboard at some point (certainly isn't terrrible now.)

Will be keeping an eye out for the UPS man this week!

Now................what to do with/on this thing?

Original listing:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Twentieth-20th-Anniversary-Macintosh-TAM-Mac/282459152220?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

 

[reallyrandy]

Awesome! I've always wanted one too. Enjoy

 

[Macdrone]

Its basically a powermac 6500 with a laptop 3400 screen.  Its neat but spindler plastic so maybe ask for lots of peanuts and box inside a box packing.  I received mine with 2 breaks shipped but was pretty repairable where the breaks occurred.

 

[omidimo]

Not a bad deal, keep an eye out on the fat backs with corresponding adapters for PCI & Comm Slot. Finding those is not as hard as getting a compatible USB/FW card, those are turning into unicorns. 

 

[Macdrone]

the pci risers can be from the powermacs, its the comm slot that is the hard to find, but with the pci riser and a pci ethernet your all set, that with a usb card and it with do most anything you need.  Firewire is ok I guess but not much need unless you have that one firewire iPod you want to use with it.

 

[Byrd]

Nice one!  Looks like a TAM that'll clean up nicely.  They're a really versatile machine and it'll soon become your most used vintage Mac.  The leather palmrest can be replaced with same (it is only stuck on with a thin layer of contact adhesive), and the speaker covers could be cleaned dabbing soapy water onto them (don't rub the speaker cover material too harshly as the fabric will tear).  Blast out any dust inside using compressed air.

Essential, inexpensive upgrades would be to max out the RAM to 128MB and install a larger faster HD or 2.5" IDE to CF card.  Note the optical drive isn't great reading burnt media so you might want to install software using a faster external SCSI optical drive, should you have.  I've found Mac OS 9.1 to be the sweet spot for the TAM, upgraded CPU or not.  Most games and apps from The Macintosh Garden will work well on it bar late 90's games designed for G3s.  It might take you six months of searching but the G3 upgrades and the "fat back" could be sourced relatively cheaply by keeping a search on eBay.  The single slot riser isn't hard to find.

Don't count on getting the CS slot riser - I've been looking for one for years   I now use a USB 1.1 card which has an OS 9 compatible USB Ethernet adapter.  Seems the simpler the USB card, the more likely it'll work - others I've tried with 3 USB ports and reportedly OHCI compatible do not like working in a TAM.

JB

 

[EvilCapitalist]

Welcome to the TAM owners club! 

Echoing what Byrd said, the internal optical drive (even in perfect shape) is very picky about burned CDs, best to use an external SCSI drive and save the wear and tear on the internal one.

As for USB cards, the one below is exactly what you want.  I seem to recall some 3 port cards with NEC chipsets that played nicely but they're harder to find.  The OPTi FireLink cards are cheap, plentiful, and work just fine with the Apple USB drivers.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/292063174042

Once you have the USB card if you want to add ethernet you'll need to pick up the adapter below (SMC2208USB/ETH).  They're just as cheap and plentiful as the USB card above and it includes OS9 drivers on the driver CD.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172848409587

I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a combo USB/Firewire card that works (aside from two that are known to work but hard to find) and the short version is apart from the two hard to find cards there isn't a newer one that plays nicely with the TAM.  Unless you've got a Firewire hard drive or a Firewire iPod I'd stick with the USB card and call it a day, it's not worth the trouble.

What absolutely is worth the trouble is finding a G3 upgrade.  There are plenty of folks on here still looking for the elusive 500MHz G3 that Sonnet made (Crescendo G3/L2-500MHz) but you'll be just as happy if you find the 400MHz version.  If all you can find is something between 250MHz and 350MHz I'd hold out for one of the faster ones personally because the 350MHz and under ones aren't going to feel all that much faster than stock.  Even without the G3 upgrade the TAM is a perfectly reasonable machine for its time and as built-in speakers go the Bose sound system is surprisingly good.

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Thanks for the great advice everyone, much appreciate it.

I noticed in the system profiler screen shots from the auction that the RAM is already at 128MB, and keeping my fingers crossed the L2 cache is up to 1mb as well.

Will be getting the USB and ethernet cards/sticks off ebay, and will start keeping my eye out for other upgrades as well, such as the Sonnet G3 upgrade.

 

[trigf]

Its basically a powermac 6500 with a laptop 3400 screen.  Its neat but spindler plastic so maybe ask for lots of peanuts and box inside a box packing.  I received mine with 2 breaks shipped but was pretty repairable where the breaks occurred.

Yeah, mine came in about 50 plastic pieces, basically unrepairable, because the seller used almost no packing material.

OP, ask the seller to use LOTS of the larger bubble wrap around it, for impact absorption. You don't want to end up with one that looks like mine  

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/26549-tam-arrived-and-its-not-pretty/?hl=tam+arrived

 

[Byrd]

travis, going off the picture in the eBay ad your TAM has 2 x 32MB RAM and they've upped the virtual memory to give it 128/9MB in total RAM.  You can pick up 2 x 64MB DIMMs dirt cheap, check Macsales too for these.  More cache RAM will only provide a small performance improvement, the G3 upgrade you need to remove the cache installed anyhow.  Seems Sonnet G3 400 L2 512K cache are the easiest upgrades to find, and like the cache the 500Mhz part only provides a small increase in performance.

Did you repair yours in the end dbrewer?  If not can I be a vulture [ ] and ask if you have any spare parts for sale?

JB

 

[twocargar]

I've got a Sonnet 300MHz L2 G3 upgrade card if you're interested. It was in my 6400 and 5500. Make me an offer.

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Thank everyone, very useful info all around!  Will post some pics when it come in and I get is set up.

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Can't find the memory on Macsales.  Anyone have a link of where to find two 64mb dimms at 5v.  Thanks

 

[EvilCapitalist]

You can find it very inexpensively on eBay ($5 a stick, so $10):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/350479061255

I've also had nothing but good experiences with MemoryX, though they're more expensive in this case:

http://www.memoryx.com/20anmac.html

 

[haplain]

Throw a IDE>CF card adapter in there. The adapter and CF card I use are from Amazon. Like 45 bucks for a adapter and 32GB CF card.

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Thanks!  Just ordered two 64mb RAM dimms from the above link.  They will get here the 25th same day as my TAM

Haplain- Can you recommend an IDE>CF card that will work well with the TAM and specific size of CF (up to 120 with OS9.1 correct, so go for a 128GB and lose the 8GB as unreadable, or play it safe and stick with a 64GB?) 

 

[Byrd]

CF is pin compatible with the IDE standard, so any generic 2.5" CD to IDE adapter will work fine.  64GB will be more than enough to get everything you want on the TAM, short of a massive MP3 collection

 

[trigf]

travis, going off the picture in the eBay ad your TAM has 2 x 32MB RAM and they've upped the virtual memory to give it 128/9MB in total RAM. You can pick up 2 x 64MB DIMMs dirt cheap, check Macsales too for these. More cache RAM will only provide a small performance improvement, the G3 upgrade you need to remove the cache installed anyhow. Seems Sonnet G3 400 L2 512K cache are the easiest upgrades to find, and like the cache the 500Mhz part only provides a small increase in performance.

Did you repair yours in the end dbrewer? If not can I be a vulture [ ] and ask if you have any spare parts for sale?

JB

Never repaired it. I'm still on the hunt for a decently priced Bose base. No parts for sale at this time, sorry.

 

[omidimo]

I'm still on the hunt for a decently priced Bose base. No parts for sale at this time, sorry.

There was a time when a crap ton of Bose subs replacements were on eBay for $99... but that was a long time ago.  [] ]'>