Inauguration of Mac Plus on desktop!

[Macflyer]

Just wanted to announce that F7274XTM0001A is back to active duty officially today, April 9th.

I picked it up in Canada a while ago, and stored it until yesterday. I was always looking for a compact to use actively as a backup writing station and thought this Plus will just do it. Came with 40MB external HD, a bunch of MS Word and Excel versions. No printer so far, but considering a stylewriter rather than laser.

Yesterday somehow I had time and tinkered with it, installed Claris Organizer I had on disk, threw in a new battery and started composing a document with Word 5.1.

I started to feed Claris Organizer with my schedule and plan to continue doing so. Since I´m´very low tech when it comes to portable gimmicks (palm and co just doesn´t work for me, I even type numbers on my cell from memory by hand rather than looking them up) I´m considering printing a weekly or monthly sheet to put it in my wallet. Such time tracking won´t fail.

So, basically, this Plus is not just a recovered one, but back to duty!

Just a pity that the case is broken (plastic missing) on the upper left corner. If anyone has a spare part, I would love to replace it since it is a very nice unit, no yellowing, clean, no scratches.

Should I take any other precautions to prolong the life? To me it seems that this Plus never saw heavy use during its heydays but the occasional document to print.

The only problem is with the keyboard. The "v" gives me troubles and doesn´t react properly. Any hints?

Thanks!

 

[MultiFinder]

/me pets the Classic II on his desk

Always good to see another compact back in everyday action!

As for prolonging life, recall that your little beige toaster there has no fan inside it. It's prone to overheating unless everything is just right. NEVER block any of the vents on it, and if possible, position it where it might get some decent airflow (in the light breeze of a celing fan would prolly be nice). You could poke around for one of those old System Savers on eBay if you were so inclined. Also, boot it up often. Don't leave it be for long periods. Not only is a good stretch as good for your Plus as it is for you, it'll keep it from getting lonely :beige:

Anyway, glad to hear and see another compact in daily use!

 

[Macflyer]

Multifinder, thanks for the welcome.

I do operate under a ceiling fan and I think it should just be fine like this.

Maybe I even get one of those retro desktop fans to give me and Mac some more air.

If it wasn´t for advanced internet, I could make do with it forever, I guess.

BTW, I never was an original classic mac user, it was way beyond my financial possibilities, I thought.

But considering how much money I left on electronics lane between 1987 and 1996 just to be able to write and print a document and still not getting satisfactorly results, and seeing in 2008 what I already could have done in 1987 or earlier, in the end I would have saved a bunch.

Well, making up for this now......

 

[Aoresteen]

Congrats! Keep 'em working!

How much RAM does it have? You should bump it to 4 megs if it's not there already.

Also use a screen saver. I use Pyro but there are lots other out there.

As for the keyboard it is reapirable. Most likey it just has crumbs in it. You can GENTLY pry the key cap off the switch. Watch out for the spring. Use canned air to blow crap out. If that doesn't help use an electronic spray contact cleaner. Keep workining it with the cleaner and it should pop back to life. If not you can salace a key swithic off a junk plus keyboard if you are handy with a soldering iron.

I'd get a larger hard drive - 160mb to 500mb SCSI are available cheap on ebay if you exercise patience. You can use the case you have or get another one to ease the backup & transfer process.

Good luck!

 

[stevep]

Just a pity that the case is broken (plastic missing) on the upper left corner. If anyone has a spare part, I would love to replace it since it is a very nice unit, no yellowing, clean, no scratches.

I have a Plus case in the garage but it is a bit off color. Is it the front bezel that is broken on yours? I could strip the bezel off if you want it - you'd need to cover postage from Canada though.

 

[Macflyer]

Congrats! Keep 'em working!
How much RAM does it have? You should bump it to 4 megs if it's not there already.

Also use a screen saver. I use Pyro but there are lots other out there.

I'd get a larger hard drive - 160mb to 500mb SCSI are available cheap on ebay if you exercise patience. You can use the case you have or get another one to ease the backup & transfer process.

Good luck!

It has already 4 MB. So, this worry is less. It came with Pyro.

I´ll look into scsi disks. Although 20,30,40 MB seems again so much now....lol......

 

[Macflyer]

I guess I will continue posting on a day by day (week by week basis) how things are going and developing with me and Mac+.

Appreciate comments and hints along the road.

Of course, I let Mac doing things I easily could do with my Vista laptop or iBook, but the advantage Mac has is the boot and launch speed and the simplicity of the desktop ( I find every file immediately, no cluttered space like on my other machines).

Right now I`m keeping track of appointments and tasks on a day to day basis plus I started to record my expenses. Funny, this I never did before with continuity, so let`s see if I do it better now just to have a reason to tinker with the system. So far, I`m up for it.

In fact I consider to get my hands on Quicken. Which version is best for a 4 MB 68k running on 7.0.1? Ver 4 or 6? Both is still available. Don`t know about 5. Any alternatives (freeware)? The idea is really only track keeping and forecasts, no online banking or such unless it is still possible to do so with dial-up. I am a Checksfree user and I recall that Quicken allows for online payments in some form through Checksfree.

Any good freeware for car costs tracking?

Nice Sunday everyone

 

[Macflyer]

Haven´t posted in a while. Hopefully, everyone is fine and all Macs alive.

Well, my intention was to use this Mac as a writing tool for my various papers. I wasn´t able to aquire a laser or style writer, though.

Networking seems the only long-term solution. I read about configuring a System 6 or 7 Mac to print Postscript to a queue using CUPS on the Mac OS X side.

An even more low-tech solution would be to just open the Postscript file with Preview and print it.

I got a Fallaron Etherwave for next to nothing. It connects to the printer port. I installed the drivers. The Mac Plus can see the iBook in the chooser but refuses to connect. The iBook doesn´t seem to recognize the + at all.

I researched the problem and it seems I need tools like MacTCP and the filesharing extension from 7.5 to be installed under 7.1.

I was not able to locate MacTCP on the internet. Those files seem to be always updates for a clean MacTCP 2.0.6 installation.

Could anyone help out with this? Do I have to dig for old Mac magazines including the software?

Thanks a lot.

At the end of the day I really would love to netwrok this baby and I´m positive with these extensions it will be possible.

Opentransport btw is not an option for the Fallaron adapter.

Nice Sunday!

 

[porter]

Networking seems the only long-term solution. I read about configuring a System 6 or 7 Mac to print Postscript to a queue using CUPS on the Mac OS X side.

Mac OS X is running away from AppleTalk as if it was the plague.

A netatalk solution may be better using PAP.

I use a little PAP server that pipes directly into ghostscript.

 

[beachycove]

I very much doubt that 7.5 etc. is going to help you. Any localtalk to ethernet bridge, hardware or software based, will allow you to see even a X.4+ share, but connection to it requires a system version and a version of Appleshare client that a Plus just isn't going to run.

If networking is the goal, your best bet might be to find a bridge machine, a beige ppc Mac running MacOS9, because one of these CAN allow file sharing both to your Plus and to your iBook. You'd want to enable TCP/IP under the file sharing control panel on the beige bridge machine, and also install Localtalk Bridge on it. Files then sent to your beige OS9 machine from the Plus can be picked up from your beige OS9 machine by your iBook/ whatever. (Alternatively, you could presumably use a floppy and 'sneakernet' your Plus with such a bridge machine, assuming you have the right software on both machines to read the file. I find ClarisWorks 2, say, and ClarisWorks 4, say, works well.)

If printing is the goal, there is a convoluted but ingenious solution at http://www.vintagemacworld.com/osxprint.html , but I am not sure that this will work with the more recent versions of OSX.

Methinks a nice LaserWriter from eBay would be an easier option if all you want to do is print.... If you get one with both ethernet and localtalk, it will allow you to print from your newer machine/s as well as the old one/s.

 

[tomlee59]

Haven´t posted in a while. Hopefully, everyone is fine and all Macs alive.
Well, my intention was to use this Mac as a writing tool for my various papers. I wasn´t able to aquire a laser or style writer, though.

Where are you located (you said you picked up that Plus in Canada, but...)? If you're near Silicon Valley, there's a Stylewriter II waiting for you. So, too, is an original Laserwriter. Works great, but it was retired because it made squeaking noises. A little maintenance would take care of that.

Let me know.

 

[Scott Baret]

A good printer to pick up is the LaserWriter 4/600. It will run on the standard LaserWriter driver and while it's no speed demon its output is comparable with current printers. Look for one with low "mileage" (I got one with only a few thousand pages from a thrift sale about a year ago for only $15) and make sure you get a LocalTalk cable with it (all LaserWriters except the personal kind need it). Toner for this printer should be easy to find...there is a thread about it in the peripherals forum.