LazarusNine's Acquisitions

[Apache Thunder]

I'm pretty sure it was a Performa though.

It was definitely not a G3. It looked more like the 5xx series. If not the 575, something older in that line perhaps. It could have been a 580 if those were around in the USA. They look very similar to the older 5xx series. It would make sense if it was an upgraded 5xx series. The fact they still had them in in 2012-2014ish means they had a limited budget, so they would not have gotten a full on PowerPC machine. I distinctly recall running Graphics Calculator on it, so it had to have had a PowerPC in there somewhere.

It had MacOS 7, I'm thinking somewhere in the 7.5 family of MacOS (or perhaps 7.6 if the GUI was the same). But was definitely MacOS 7. MacOS 8+ had a distinct look that I don't recall that machine having.

I think it was late 90's when I first went to school there. '97 or 98' and even then that machine was probably outdated. (and that's ignoring the fact they still had Apple IIe's. )

 

[LazarusNine]

It was probably a PPC 5xxx. A lot of schools had those. I remember the school my mom taught at had a 5200 LC, which I believe were only sold in the education market. I remember it had a 75Mhz processor, though we all know now how gimped the 5200 series was except maybe the 5260.

Anyway, here's another recent acquisition. It's intended to be an always-on file server for my classic Macs. OS X 10.4.11 is great, because it is the perfect bridge between OpenTransport on System 7x and modern OSs like Yosemite. Up until now I was using a MDD, but I disliked having to boot it up every time (and it's not exactly a machine you'd like to hear running 24/7, not to mention the electricity draw!).

Mac Mini G4, 1.25Ghz, 1GB RAM

 

[LazarusNine]

Purchased yet ANOTHER LC 475 today (that makes 3). I have total buyer's remorse about it, because I don't need it, but with so little time left on the auction, I was afraid it might end up in a waste pile if it didn't sell. It was complete sans HDD for £12 (+£9 shipping).

 

[LazarusNine]

Just thought I'd take a couple snaps of (part of) the collection. There are a few things missing, including the Colour Classic, LC III and later PPC G4 towers.







The laptops are a 600Mhz iBook, the original (300Mhz) iBook and a Lombard PowerBook (400Mhz in a 333Mhz case).

I realise the screen ratio on the second SE/30 is off. Just haven't had a chance to get in there and sort it out. I'd also like to give it the Retr0brite treatment like I did with the other SE/30.

 

[MJ313]

That SE/30 in the first pic looks darn nice. Is that a custom built shelf unit for that stack?

 

[LazarusNine]

It's not a custom-built shelf, just really good Tetris work. =P

 

[LazarusNine]

So, I'm pretty pleased with this eBay find. The Wacom ArtPad II for Mac. Ever since I missed out on getting a tablet alongside my 7100 acquisition, I've been jonesing for one. This was 'new' old stock. Pretty cool!

 

[LazarusNine]

So, a few members on another forum pointed me in the direction of an eBay listing for Newer Technology's PowerPump, a unique accelerator card that increases the clock speed of the 68040 CPU on Quadra 700s, 900s and 950s. It also increases the speed of a PPC 601 processor upgrade.

I was going to post some photos here of my new acquisition, but decided to just make a video instead. If you're at all interested to see how this interesting little adapter works, have a little peek at the link below:

VIDEO: Newer Technology's PowerPump Accelerator for Macintosh

 

[LazarusNine]

My most recent acquisition: Macintosh IIci. I replaced the PSU (even after a recap, it was blowing the electrics in my house!). The logic board has been fully cleaned and recapped and I went through the trouble of cleaning the floppy drive and adding RAM; it's now at 20MB.

I've lusted after the IIci since about 1992 when I first caught sight of one at the school where my mom worked. The IIcx/ci/Q700 is quite possibly my favourite form factor. The only one I'm missing is the IIcx, but given that I have a IIx, I'm struggling to see the point.

 

[olePigeon]

I wonder if they ever had plans to make a Macintosh IIi.  Though, I can see how the label would be confusing.  Kinda like the SEx became the SE/30.

 

[EvieSigma]

If x means 030, then what does c mean? Compact? And if so, what does the i in IIci mean? So confusing.

 

[finkmac]

Seriously?

IIx. II with 030.

IIcx. Compact II with 030.

IIci. Compact II with Internal video.

 

[CC_333]

Based on that chart, what would IIfx be, then? A II with a fast 030?

c

 

[Carboy7]

I would assume so... the IIfx was known for being the fastest computer Apple sold at the time it was released.

 

[belgaonkar]

Sounds like Ferrari's mentality with the "812 Superfast"

Apple would call it the Macintosh IIsf

 

[Bolle]

The IIvx and IIvi stand for "very slow 030" and "very slow with even slower internal video" then? }

 

[LazarusNine]

If x means 030, then what does c mean? Compact? And if so, what does the i in IIci mean? So confusing.

I'm with you, Vince. Even if the "i" refers to "integrated graphics", the logic of Apple's naming scheme quickly falls apart. As others have pointed out, the "v" series makes little sense and the follow-up product families demonstrate that Apple gave up on a logical approach to their sequential numbering schemes: Quadra (040), Centris (middle of the line) and Performa (uh, fancy name for "entry level"?).

 

[ScutBoy]

Seriously?

IIx. II with 030.

IIcx. Compact II with 030.

IIci. Compact II with Internal video.

I know this is a very old and worn-out joke, but by that logic why wasn't the original form factor with an 030 the "SeX"?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

IIRC, the "i" denoted something like Cache/PDS Slot. There's some differentiation between the slots of the IIvx and IIvi, LEM isn't very helpful, didn't check everymac, you'd probably need to hit the DevNotes to figure it out.

The Performa line was invented out of thin air for the consumer and education distribution channels. The plethora of bundles/model designations we find so ridiculous today was done intentionally so as to make "same model price beat" claims by vendors possible and comparison shopping by consumers impossible. It was a very evil era in the appliance and consumer electronics marketplace.

 

[LazarusNine]

So, I've come across another machine. I actually bought this system for its Apple Extended Keyboard. I usually stick to 68k machines, but I've been branching out quite a lot recently, as this thread reveals!

Anyway, I've never owned a G3 desktop and was pretty pleased this one came with the monitor and some extra midi peripherals/adapters. What's weird to me is that both the monitor (~1993) and the keyboard (~1990) do not fit this era of machine (~1997). I bought the whole lot off the previous user who was quite attached to the machine; she had bought it off someone else in the early 2000s. I'm just curious how the monitor, desktop and keyboard all ended up in the same place together for so long!

I stuck a spare ATI Rage 128 16MB GPU in there and will likely install a PCI USB card. I swapped out the 4GB HDD with an IDE-to-SD converter. The new 32GB SD card is partitioned at 7GB for the system and the remainder for everything else.

Eventually, it's going to need a good clean, but baby steps!