IIsi vs se/30

[lowlytech]

I recently got a llsi and i got to thinking this system seems to do everything my se/30 does plus it has a color display. I dual boot system 6 and 7.1. Is there anything the se/30 has over the iisi that i am forgetting? Other than 128mb of ram and the cool all in one form factor?

 

[finkmac]

SE/30 has two ADB ports

 

[David Cook]

Stock comparison

IIsi over SE/30:
Color
Higher resolution screen
32-bit clean ROM
Faster (20 MHz vs 16 MHz)
Microphone input
Easier to open
Up to System 7.6.1 (vs 7.5.5)

SE/30 over IIsi:
8 memory slots
Two ADB ports
68882 FPU
More compact
Starts at System 6.0.3 (vs 6.0.7)
Cachet

Both are lovely machines from the golden 68k era.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

SE/30 is a much more iconic machine (possibly the most iconic of the generation) It’s the machine most Mac enthusiasts either had or wish they had during late 80s/early 90s. IIsi is none of those things.

 

[finkmac]

realistically, the SE/30 is a silly limited meme machine, while the IIsi is way more practical and looks cuter as a bonus

 

[Snial]

SE/30 is a much more iconic machine (possibly the most iconic of the generation) It’s the machine most Mac enthusiasts either had or wish they had during late 80s/early 90s. IIsi is none of those things.

I disagree. To me, even though the SE/30 was great, it always seemed like a powerful 68K Mac, horribly constrained by it's casing: it wanted to get out and run Photoshop or Solarian in glorious colour but was trapped by its iddy-biddy screen.

Whereas the IIsi ushered in a new era of affordable Macs. I loved the clean lines of the evolved design language; the reduced chip count; the bay-window; the compact NuBus capability. I never had one (my first actual Mac was a Performa 400 (AKA LC II) /4Mb/40Mb in mid-1993). But look, here are the 3 Amigos that made Macs less niche !

 

[ObeyDaleks]

realistically, the SE/30 is a silly limited meme machine, while the IIsi is way more practical and looks cuter as a bonus

I find it odd that someone on a vintage computer board would call an ancient computer a “realistically, a silly meme machine” and declare a much later model superior based on its “practicality”??

 

[Crutch]

Yeah, I think it’s pretty weird to trash the SE/30. Aside from the fact that they are expensive – which indeed they are — the SE/30 is by far the most powerful and expandable Mac ever produced in the original all-in-one form factor. So if the original form factor appeals to you – which it does to many people! – you will probably think the SE/30 is a great choice, as many other people do … which is precisely why it’s so expensive!

The IIsi is awesome machine too. I don’t have one, but I’ve often thought about getting one. They do have a nice look to them, and color is great! That said, using a IIsi has less novelty, to me anyway, then the SE/30 form factor provides, which is why my personal most frequent choice for vintage Mac use remains the SE/30. (The performance specs are close enough to make almost no difference in practice, unless, of course, you care about color. But then again, there are many accelerator options available for the SE/30, and of course external color monitors are an option, too, for a price.)

 

[Chopsticks]

personally the se/30 is my favorite mac from the whole 68k era, probably why i have more then one of them..
im sure most of the people on here who have an se/30 don't use it for its raw performance but do so because of nostalgia, or maybe it was the machine they dreamed of owning back in that era etc.

i wasn't really going to add anything to this forum threat but like @Crutch said I too find it weird to trash a vintage mac on a vintage mach forum.
ive got more powerful 68k macs and ppc, intel etc but. color displays and all that but i'd argue everyone on this forum has a particular mac or two that's special to them for different reasons..

regardless probably the most important/significant difference between the se/30 and IIsi in daily use is likely going to be the 20mhz bus. it wont be a massive difference but it'll help. and nubus (or PDS cards with the right adapter) will appreciate this slight bus increase. the other being a color display output as standard on the IIsi.

also worth mentioning is that while the IIsi doesn't have a fpu, most expansion cards for that machine have a socket for fpu on it. im not so sure what 68k software of that era really needs a fpu but its worth making note of. the 128mb max ram on the se/30 sounds great on paper, but regardless of it you buy ram simms or make your own, its a little costly and for 99% of use cases theres no real use for having so much ram on a system 6/7 era machine with a B/W display. It's probaly more useful for A/UX or perhaps if installing linux...

regardless both are great machines and if youve been enjoying your se/30 then im sure you'll enjoy using the IIsi.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

I disagree. To me, even though the SE/30 was great, it always seemed like a powerful 68K Mac, horribly constrained by it's casing: it wanted to get out and run Photoshop or Solarian in glorious colour but was trapped by its iddy-biddy screen.

Whereas the IIsi ushered in a new era of affordable Macs. I loved the clean lines of the evolved design language; the reduced chip count; the bay-window; the compact NuBus capability. I never had one (my first actual Mac was a Performa 400 (AKA LC II) /4Mb/40Mb in mid-1993). But look, here are the 3 Amigos that made Macs less niche !

View attachment 57533

Sounds like you entered the scene a bit later. At the time the SE/30 was released, black and white graphics on a 9 inch monitor were the norm. Sure, you could play color games on the Amiga etc, but if you wanted the most modern OS, word processors, integrated peripherals, printing, etc, the compacts Macs were the only game in town. These Macs were considered the pinnacle of modern technology, and I don’t believe anybody at the time thought “I wish this had color” or “I wish the screen was bigger”. All Mac software at the time was black and white, and some also supported color mode for Mac II/x. There was no Photoshop, etc. I know, this is all weird to think about now.

I do agree that when IIsi and LC were released, this allowed color to become more mainstream. But even afterwards, many people continued to use black and white Macs. Our school, for example, upgraded all their old SEs to Macintosh Classics (still b/w).

My dad actually had a Macintosh II for work, but even having experienced that, I still never thought the SE/30 was in any way limited by its screen. These were different times.

 

[s_pupp]

They certainly were different times. The only things I wanted that my Mac Plus didn’t have were more speed, more RAM, and a hard drive. I was spoiled by the SE/30 I was using in the chem lab. When the college obtained Mac II computers, my mouth dropped. Color?! Amazing! Being an impoverished student, however, I used my Mac Plus for nine years before I was able to upgrade to a Performa 475.

 

[Phipli]

Our school, for example, upgraded all their old SEs to Macintosh Classics (still b/w).

How come, thats weird? That's a minor downgrade? The classic is a cost reduced SE, with the only practical difference being the loss of the expansion slot.

 

[volvo242gt]

As someone who grew up using Apples and was around when the SE/30, etc, were new, the IIx and IIcx seemed more impressive to me than the SE/30 was. Yeah, the SE/30 was/is the most powerful original-style compact Mac, but the II series was more capable. Then, when the IIci came out, that seemed even better.

Of the '030 PDS Macs, the SE/30 is more capable, with respect to memory, etc. Add an accelerator and a 32-bit clean ROM, and it'll blow the case lid off the IIsi. The one nice thing about the IIsi is that the M1212 14" Macintosh Color Display's stand seems designed for it. Fits the case lid perfectly, whereas, on a IIci, it's a little too wide and curved, of course. I've personally chosen the IIci as my '030 Mac... No, it's not as fast as a IIfx, but it takes up less space, while being better than both a IIsi or an SE/30.

IIci pros over IIsi:
25 MHz
8 memory slots
68882 FPU on the logic board
runs 6.0.4 and 6.0.5, in addition to 6.0.6, 6.0.7, and 6.0.8, plus all the 7.x variants
two ADB ports
three Nubus slots - add a sound card, if audio input is important
Cache card slot
normal speaker connection
More powerful power supply available from the 3-slot metal case Macs, like the Centris/Quadra 650, etc.

 

[Snial]

Sounds like you entered the scene a bit later. At the time the SE/30 was released, black and white graphics on a 9 inch monitor were the norm. .. the compacts Macs were the only game in town. .. I don’t believe anybody at the time thought “I wish this had color” or “I wish the screen was bigger”. All Mac software at the time was black and white, and some also supported color mode for Mac II/x. There was no Photoshop, etc.

It's possible my background is a bit skewed. Actually, my first experience with Macs was with Fat Macs (i.e. 512k classic Macs) as a CS undergrad ('86-'89) at the University of East Anglia in the UK, where the Climatic Research Unit is based (re: 'climate-gate' pseudo-scandal in 2009).

Honestly, these early Macs revolutionised my perspective of computing: they were a massive, sudden leap into the future (a bit like owning an EV today), not least because I found it hard to grasp how a person could realistically write a program over 64k long; or how GUIs took so much computing power that a 16/32-bit CPU would struggle; or how a usable OS could be so buggy we were advised to save our documents every 30 minutes under System 2.x.

We also had experience of the relatively new Mac II computers in 1988-1989 for which we wrote some colour 3D graphics, using I believe an early MPW based Pascal compiler.

And of course, I still have a Mac Plus 4MB, which worked the last time I used it (to write a Mandelbrot application), and this year I wrote a Morse code trainer for a Mac 128 using MacAsm ;-) !

OTOH I couldn't afford one myself for another 4 years after Uni (my 68008 based Sinclair QL was still going strong). So, really I did think even these compact Macs were great, I loved the sharpness of the monochrome display (even if the image did bend when you selected loads of text), and UEA had lots of Macs in the late 80s.

All I'm claiming here is that the power of the SE/30 made the screen seem small.

I do agree that when IIsi and LC were released, this allowed color to become more mainstream. But even afterwards, many people continued to use black and white Macs. Our school, for example, upgraded all their old SEs to Macintosh Classics (still b/w).

Indeed. And this thread is about comparing a IIsi with a SE/30, so I think it's fair in this thread to look at the SE/30 from the perspective of the end of 1990, rather than early 1989. And by that time, more colour applications had been released, such as Photoshop (Feb 1990), PowerPoint 2.0 (1988[1]). PixelPaint 1988 [2] . Solarian and 512x342 mono was looking more constrained, especially compared with expectations in the rest of the industry, where 640x200 (or 640x400) x 16 colours had become the norm[3] (even though the DOS / GEM / Window 3.0 UIs sucked).

[1] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/40196-powerpoint-2-0
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PixelPaint
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512

My dad actually had a Macintosh II for work, but even having experienced that, I still never thought the SE/30 was in any way limited by its screen. These were different times.

And I'd agree here too, I would have been honoured to have had an SE/30 in that era - I would have thought it could do anything, even synthesise transparent aluminum ;-) . I was impressed with even the Classic 1 in November 1990, it would have been the Mac I was most likely to have bought then if I could have bought one then (and it had System 6 in ROM :-D ).

 

[ObeyDaleks]

How come, thats weird? That's a minor downgrade? The classic is a cost reduced SE, with the only practical difference being the loss of the expansion slot.

I am not sure, schools in the US were weird back then. I believe Apple was providing massive discounts to US schools. Perhaps just the floppy drive upgrade was worth it. Remember, all the students were saving their work on floppies and carrying them around, so being able to use 1.4MB floppies was a big deal. They also upgraded our printers to StyleWriters. I’m assume this was a pretty common setup across the US middle/high schools. Perhaps someone else can chime in with their experience.

 

[Phipli]

I am not sure, schools in the US were weird back then. I believe Apple was providing massive discounts to US schools. Perhaps just the floppy drive upgrade was worth it. Remember, all the students were saving their work on floppies and carrying them around, so being able to use 1.4MB floppies was a big deal.

There were upgrades for the SEs to do the same, a new machine would have to cost less than 3 chips and a new floppy drive (plus labour).

Is there any chance they were Classic IIs? That would make more sense. Same case, but a 16MHz 030 processor.

My school was running a little later and the computer room was mostly a mix of LCs and LC IIs, with... one LC III and a 475? Still had them in about 1999.

Fairly unusual over here in the UK, but they were replaced with the usual Wintel boxes sadly.

 

[cheesestraws]

this system seems to do everything my se/30 does plus it has a color display

There is, in retrocomputing hobby land, a slightly odd cachet attached to the SE/30 because it's the fastest compact, but it's not a deity the way some people seem to speak of it.

If you like the IIsi better, use the IIsi

I find my SE/30s interesting as hardware, partly because the combination of power and form factor is so quixotic, but they're not actually my favourite machines to use. That's OK. Use what you enjoy using.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

There were upgrades for the SEs to do the same, a new machine would have to cost less than 3 chips and a new floppy drive (plus labour).

Is there any chance they were Classic IIs? That would make more sense. Same case, but a 16MHz 030 processor.

My school was running a little later and the computer room was mostly a mix of LCs and LC IIs, with... one LC III and a 475? Still had them in about 1999.

Fairly unusual over here in the UK, but they were replaced with the usual Wintel boxes sadly.

Yeah, it is totally possible that they were Classic IIs. This was a long time ago and I don’t remember the exact years this all happened (could have been that 1 year difference). Nor did I pay attention to the exact model. I do remember the exact look of the computers, and obviously the classics all looked the same.

 

[jmacz]

For me, I started with the 512K, then SE, then craved the II and IIci, but by the time I could afford it, jumped to the Centris 650, then Quadra 700. So my stable currently reflects that progression (SE - the one where I really spent my early years with 68K, IIci - the one I craved, and the Quadra 700 where I did a lot of software development). Will pick up a 512K some day and skipping the Centris 650 as I never got attached to it.

But I'm also trying to understand the appeal of the SE/30. I understand the desire to have the most powerful machine in that all-in-one enclosure, but for me it was really the SE that went mainstream and was popular, can go down to System 3/4, and can run almost all of the nostalgic black and white games made for the tiny screen. I have 6.0.8 on it but it can boot early games via floppy with much earlier System versions. If I want more power then I jump to the IIci. I haven't found anything (yet) in that middle area where I want power but with the tiny black and white screen. So this thread is definitely interesting so that I can see other perspectives. Appreciate folks sharing.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

For me, I started with the 512K, then SE, then craved the II and IIci, but by the time I could afford it, jumped to the Centris 650, then Quadra 700. So my stable currently reflects that progression (SE - the one where I really spent my early years with 68K, IIci - the one I craved, and the Quadra 700 where I did a lot of software development). Will pick up a 512K some day and skipping the Centris 650 as I never got attached to it.

But I'm also trying to understand the appeal of the SE/30. I understand the desire to have the most powerful machine in that all-in-one enclosure, but for me it was really the SE that went mainstream and was popular, can go down to System 3/4, and can run almost all of the nostalgic black and white games made for the tiny screen. I have 6.0.8 on it but it can boot early games via floppy with much earlier System versions. If I want more power then I jump to the IIci. I haven't found anything (yet) in that middle area where I want power but with the tiny black and white screen. So this thread is definitely interesting so that I can see other perspectives. Appreciate folks sharing.

This is just a theory, but it’s probably the popularity of the original SE that made the SE/30 so desirable. The Macintosh II family was most likely out of reach for most people price-wise, but a LOT of people had the SE, and those machines did start feeling a bit limited eventually. Then the (almost identical looking) SE/30 came out that offered such a huge boost in performance while being “semi-affordable”, everybody was like “I want that!”

Like you, our first Mac was the SE (dual floppy), and I never thought that it was slow. But I also always wanted more RAM and was always trying to optimize the system to run lean etc. We had the Mac II but my dad was using it most of the time. When we upgraded to the SE/30, it was a massive jump. if I remember correctly, we upgraded to 20MB RAM which was insane for the time, plus an internal hard drive. Despite this, my most fond memories revolve around the original SE.