I'm really excited!

[bd1308]

So I was trolling my email box, when a email popped up saying free SE/30 and LC to a good home. Usually I miss these and hit my head against a wall, but I got really excited and replied as quick as I could and sure enough, I was the first to reply. $60 and a few weeks later a SE/30 arrived at my condo. it has 32MB ram and a 2G HD. Boots to 7.5.3 (what a horrid release, i'm going to go to 7.5.5 ASAP). The *only* downside is that UPS absolutely trashed the case, there's a HUGE crack running down the front of the unit and it took a right hook to the frontal gills. And some damage to the back. I've looked on ebay, and getting plastic work from there is going to be like $96 per side so I guess I'm just going to enjoy this machine as-is (unless something pops up).

I'll post pictures as soon as I get them from my phone and I resize them in GIMP (they're sending now)

 

[fairchild]

Congrats! Was the item shipped with lots of packing foam?

 

[bd1308]

It was ... the unit was in two layers of bubbles and the box around the unit was filled with peanuts. Must have been dropped really hard. It's just the front that is bad though. I accidentally turned off 32-bit memory addressing, and now the machine wont boot though. :/

 

[coius]

Bummer. I had an SE/30. I loved it. Really fast even when I had it (1997) and the screen I had was crisp with no burn it. Wicked fast on Black and White stuff. Even played Spectre challenger in the old days on it (black and white) as well as Tetris.

I used to use a zip drive with it and a blueberry iMac, eventually using my (late) powermac 7200 with the apple utility to convert from ethernet to localtalk and got it on the net. (LocalTalk to IP?) Wasn't the fastest. I think I had 12MB RAM. It took 8 slots, and I believe it was 4x 1MB and 4x 2MB Ram sticks. It was a lovely machine. Then the caps went out, but I didn't know about all that. I sold it to a member on AppleFritter which when I put it together, it broke the back of the neck of the tube. That tube was nice and bright. It might've been ChristTrekker, since he is local. Not sure, he came to my house to get it.

 

[bd1308]

Is there a special way to zap the PRAM on this guy? Every other machine was apple+option+P+R but this chump just ignores it

I've tried doing the four finger salute as soon as I turn it on, after it beeps, after the screen comes up, etc no dice...

 

[bd1308]

heres a pic of it trying to load a website

 

[markyb86]

If that is internet explorer, I suggest getting the iCab browser for 68k's.

It will show up sites like this a lot smoother.

 

[bd1308]

Well the problem i'm having now is I can't even get it to boot.....

 

[markyb86]

Do you have any floppies?

 

[bd1308]

I made a Network Access disk using my 1400cs (I love that machine, too bad its battery is dead) and got the SE/30 to boot from it. Once there, I dragged the HD's extensions folder to another area, and rebooted from HD. Once *that* booted up, I was able to go into the Memory control panel, enable 32-bit addressing, and finally drag the extensions folder back into the System Folder and reboot. That fixed the problem.

Either you all are extremely patient when loading web-pages with these machines, or you all simply dont post from a 68k. Now the goal is to try to get the machine on my phonenet network (though a localtalk-to-ethertalk adapter) and get netatalk on my Xen machine running again so I can make a backup of everything.

From there, the plan is to figure out how to discharge the CRT tube (I'm literally afraid of opening my machine --- this is my first compact mac) and check out the board for its general status (capacitor leakage, etc.).

The picture tube seems a little dark, the brightness seems to flicker just a tad, but no burn in or anything to speak of.

One of these days, i'm going to try to buy one of those SCSI-to-CF adaptors so I can move to a future-resistant setup.

 

[markyb86]

I'm glad to hear you got it worked out. I'm scared to open these guys up too, but you gotta do what you gotta do...

 

[directive0]

That poor old girl looks pretty beat up, but hey, at least she boots like a champ.

All said and done, that's really the most important part!

PS: Highly recommend the CF adapter. It made my powermac actually usable.

 

[bd1308]

Well it (according to the guy who sent it to me for free) wasn't like that when he sent it, but I don't know anymore. It was a major bummer seeing it all cracked up. Most of the damage is in the front though, the back of the unit is still pretty OK. I looked on ebay for a SE/30 front, and they're horrendously expensive. So I'm just going to roll with what I have until I can spot a good deal on a front plastic case.

 

[markyb86]

I don't know how much time you want to spend on it, but epoxy-resin and sandpaper could bring that right back to life. You can even hit the dollar store for a $1 pack of emery boards to file out the vents. Then just a few light sprays of gray primer (for platinum) or just beige to match the rest.

 

[theos911]

To discharge the the CRT easily you can just let it sit for 3 days or pull the plug while the monitor is displaying something.

 

[bd1308]

I don't know how much time you want to spend on it, but epoxy-resin and sandpaper could bring that right back to life. You can even hit the dollar store for a $1 pack of emery boards to file out the vents. Then just a few light sprays of gray primer (for platinum) or just beige to match the rest.

Because the only front panel I've seen on ebay is $85 bucks I have plenty of time. Are you saying to glue the cracks together, straighten out the vents and then sandpaper/emory board the roughness out?

 

[markyb86]

Yeah. It will take a little time but it can turn out nice. 3m even makes a product for filling gaps and cracks in ABS plastics.