Liberation or Highway Robbery . . .

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . . you be the judge!

I was upset after finding out that a really nice USB KBD that I'd found and tested with HP_Mini at the Thrift where I liberated my 21” Graphics Series Viewsonic CRT was . . . ”not for sale!”

So I dragged my sulking self (drove actually ) across the street to the only Thrift in the area that's EVER had a Mac for sale since the Goodwill Stores in the area stopped accepting computers! =8-P

Whatever! : I nabbed a Dell Clickety-Clack-Board with Windows Keys/PS2 connection and those wonderful Alps Mechanical Key Switches for $1.99 to soothe my jangled karma! That's a user I'll keep intact for the ubuntuGIMPboxHack which received its first shot in the arm today in the form of a certified DEAD, full size ATX MoBo and a brand new 300w PSU. I'll be working out the standoffs/backplane conversion and wiring runs on the DigitalStation Box (DEC Pentium somethingorother) any day now . . .

. . . but that's a story for another thread! [] ]'>

. . . and the $1.99 Gateway KBD I got is a parts donor for another, top secret, HackProject! [] ]'>

Enough irrelevant B.S. Already, jt! :

The real story began when I told the cashier I was dropping the KBDs off in the trunk and I'd be back to look around some more. I found a cart full of all kinds of goodies! The one that really caught my eye was one of the less attractive PowerMac Boxes, IMHO. It was a clean 7600/120 with a DB-15 connector hanging outta' one of the PCI Slots. There was an Apple Color OneScanner and what might have been a couple of Mac monitors sittin' right next to the cart, so what the . . .

I asked how much and the cashier said about $35, so with just $18 cash left in my pocket, I rolled my eyes just a bit and told her that I was a collector, it was pretty old, and was worth only about $10 or $15. Before leaving, I asked her if her manager was in. She said he wasn't and asked me what I'd offer for the ugly brute.

I offered the $18 I had left and said that had to include the tax . . . and . . . she said OK!

Got it home and it fired right up into 8.6 driving the 21” ViewSonic off the MoBo at 16 bits worth of 1152 x 826. Checked the System Profile out and it's got an 80 MB SCSI Drive, no biggie, but the 80 MB of physical RAM ain't too bad and I confirmed that the DB-15 did indeed connect to a PCI VidCard w/128 MB of VRAM! Hooked that one up and it booted up into the same res at 24 bit!

So what the he . . . erm . . . ck is a Twin Turbo 128+ anyhow? :?:

. . . and who robbed whom? :?:

. . . and dare I go back to get the OneScanner? It'd look a lot better on top of my maxed out IIfx than the Epson sittin' on it now! But were they really very good for anything as compared to a modern HP all-in-one with sheet feeder?

Oh yeah, the 7600's got Office '98, Ofoto & OmniPage already loaded! I have a licensed copy of OmniPage already and I couldn't care less about that dreck from mordorsoft, but it seems like a pretty nice system setup, eh?

Will my 9600 ProcCard work in this sucker? :?

 

[Bunsen]

Original 9600 CPU cards will only work in a 9600 or 8600. That said, any other PCI series daughterboard CPU will work in the 7600, including G3/G4 PCI series upgrades and dual 604s from a 9500 or third party. You should be able to pick up a single 200MHz 604e for next to nothing. Some reports are that the 7200 G3 that goes in a PCI slot even works.

The Twin Turbo was at the time a high end PCI graphics card - standard issue with the 9500 IIRC. There are no OS X drivers.

Nicely scored in my opinion!

 

[JRL]

I'd say you should take the scanner because you can use it with said Power Macintosh 7600, and I think it'd be a nice accessory.

Anyways, nice find!

 

[LCGuy]

The Twin Turbo 128+ has 128MB of VRAM? :O But that thing was made back in the mid 1990's....i can only imagine how much that would have cost! (keeping in mind that I remember Dad paying $120 for a 16 MEGABYTE 72 pin SIMM for the LCIII in 1996) I always thought it was called the 128+ because it had a 128 bit GPU, and assumed it had maybe 4 or 8MB of VRAM. Either way...very nice score on the 7600.

What model was the OneScanner? A few months back I picked up a Colour OneScanner 600/27, and I'm amazed at how good the quality is...despite being made in 1996 the quality is just as good, if not better than my Epson multifunction printer/scanner/copier from 2006. If it was a later model Colour OneScanner like mine, I'd seriously go back and grab it...they're a great scanner, not to mention that imaging devices of any kind that run on old Macs are always handy things to have around.

 

[Mars478]

Very nice find, and your post was almost like reading a story. :beige:

 

[Macman756]

The Twin Turbo 128+ has 128MB of VRAM? :O But that thing was made back in the mid 1990's....i can only imagine how much that would have cost! (keeping in mind that I remember Dad paying $120 for a 16 MEGABYTE 72 pin SIMM for the LCIII in 1996) I always thought it was called the 128+ because it had a 128 bit GPU, and assumed it had maybe 4 or 8MB of VRAM. Either way...very nice score on the 7600.
What model was the OneScanner? A few months back I picked up a Colour OneScanner 600/27, and I'm amazed at how good the quality is...despite being made in 1996 the quality is just as good, if not better than my Epson multifunction printer/scanner/copier from 2006. If it was a later model Colour OneScanner like mine, I'd seriously go back and grab it...they're a great scanner, not to mention that imaging devices of any kind that run on old Macs are always handy things to have around.

No, Twin Turbo 128+ have 8MB of VRAM. Still a nice score! My iMac trayloader of 1998 had 6MB, so this ain't bad.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The Twin Turbo 128+ has 128MB of VRAM? :O But that thing was made back in the mid 1990's.... ...very nice score on the 7600.
What model was the OneScanner? ...they're a great scanner, not to mention that imaging devices of any kind that run on old Macs are always handy things to have around.

No, Twin Turbo 128+ have 8MB of VRAM. Still a nice score! My iMac trayloader of 1998 had 6MB, so this ain't bad.

Thanks for the info, I saw 128 in the system profiler and ASSuMEd it meant VRAM. MY bad . . . :-/

Dunno the model of the OneScanner or even if the monitors were Apple, I didn't want to show too much interest and, as I said, with $18 in my pocket , there was no humongoid conquest in store for THAT trip! [] ]'>

That said, I'm very happy with the, mid-level, conquest of the first Mac I've scored in YEARS! [] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Very nice find, and your post was almost like reading a story. :beige:

Thanks, comrade, when I sit down at a word processor offline, I enjoy the process of composing, hopefully, an amusing yarn or one of my . . .

. . . erm . . . (interminable?) . . . technical postathons. [] ]'>

 

[Mars478]

Off topic; Where did your name come from Trash80toHP_Mini?

 

[quinterro]

My guess would be the TRS-80 was his first computer or something similar. Trash-80 was a nickname for that system. The HP Mini is one of his current machines.

If my handle was like that it would be AdamToPC.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

My guess would be the TRS-80 was his first computer or something similar. Trash-80 was a nickname for that system. The HP Mini is one of his current machines.

Quite right, comrade!

My first experience with computing was an adult ed course, programming in Basic, that I took with my lovely young wife at the local middle school . . .

where my son, as yet not even a thought, later graduated as valedictorian! [] ]'> poppa mode>

The machines we used were indeed TRS-80 model III's for the most part, IIRC. That was the year that the KayPro "Portable" was released. The dominant operating system of that bygone microcomputer era was CPM, but the Apple II was probably beginning to come on strong in non-business, but serious circles, by that time.

I enjoyed coding a little loan amortization program (for paying back the Mother-in-Law) so much that I bought myself a brand spankin' new Commodore 64! The wife bought me the 5.25" FDD for my birthday, in an era where almost everyone else was using a cassette tape drive for I/O!

When I enlisted in the MLA, I chose the name Trash80toG-4 to let the lil' chillun' runnin' the show that I was an old codger and to reflect the first computer I'd ever used and my latest acquisition: a brand new 466 DA.

When they let me outta my little padded room, I wanted to get back online, but only at free WiFi spots so as to get me out and about to socialize every day. I spotted HP_Mini just three days after I was released. That lil' Black Beauty with the docking port and 92% KBD reminded me SO MUCH of what a modern rendition of my beloved PowerBook Duos ought to be, that I bought one after reflecting for just one lap's worth around that BIG@$$ Open Shopping Center.

I re-upped with the new handle very soon thereafter because I couldn't remember, or find, my password . . . :

. . . and the G-4 seemed VERY dated by then! [] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . . I'm off on another hit-n-run mission against a certain Thrift all the way across town after stoppin' by at the bank.

Mission Statement: capture some mid-nineties Apple Logo bearin' Peripherals from the unwashed gatekeepers of Macintosh Loot!

}

 

[Mars478]

. . . I'm off on another hit-n-run mission against a certain Thrift all the way across town after stoppin' by at the bank.
Mission Statement: capture some mid-nineties Apple Logo bearin' Peripherals from the unwashed gatekeepers of Macintosh Loot!

}

Go get em! Report back comrade!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . erm . . . sorta . . . :-/

I met the enemy, infiltrated his supply trains (the electronics staging room in the back) and made off with a large pile of the enemy's equipment, enough that I needed to commandeer one of their vehicles (a shopping cart) and still needed to hump one large crate (original packaging) back to the LZ (my parking space) by hand!

There was so much loot that it wouldn't all quite fit into the trunk (boot? =8-D) of my Honda Accord! Mission completed with an expenditure of only $26.66 worth of ammo (American Greenbacks, tax included!) and a little petrol for my SpecOps Vehicle . . .

. . . the aforementioned Honda Accord. [] ]'>

Loot in ascending order, by price:

$.99 - Got a really nice, if a bit dog-eared, coffee table book: PHOTOGRAPHY Barbara London Upton with John Upton, Fourth Edition, “ADAPTED FROM THE LIFE LIBRARY OF PHOTOGRAPHY” circa 1989, it's got a GREAT shot on the cover. A cutaway view of a large format View Camera, with the lens projecting a spectral type image onto the plate, as if seen on the focusing screen in a top view of a prism-less Nikon F3! Dunno the original price, but it's still got a bookstore (clearance?) sticker on it for $34.30 . . . SWEEET!!!!!!!!!!!

$2.99 - snagged yet another Gateway KBD, however this time it has the PowerBook Gray Key Caps that had me lusting for that not for sale USB KBD across the street two days ago! The square tube/wedge type key switch interconnects to the top plate are slightly different than the beige/light gray key capped Gateway KBD from two days ago.

The top acetate flexible circuits (the bottom flex circuits don't matter) both use good old fashioned edgecard/wedge connectors! The “beige-n-gray's top flex circuit has only 8 traces, while the “PBgray” KBD has ten top flex circuit traces/connections, still no biggie! With a little scissors work and one layout/etched PCB and . . .

. . . I'll be closing in on my best KBD hack EVER! [] ]'>

$5.00 - grabbed a 1U “3Com SuperStack II Hub 10,” dunno if it's a router, hub or what, but it's got RackMacHack written ALL over it! It was supposed to be a freebie, but I think the cashier didn't understand that . . . so I “wasted” a bit-o-the-green on it, but then again, when I strip the 3Com logo off the front bezel there's a PERFECT lil' flat spot on the curvy side panel to glue on a rainbow Apple logo!

$5.00 - nabbed a GREAT hunk of Mid-Tower pop-riveted (my all time fave for hacking purposes) sheet metal work for the ubuntuGIMPboxHack! All I thought I was actually liberating was a simple pop-riveted (easily removed/re-attached to another box) 7 Slot ATX BackPlane . . .

 

. . . but this pile of sheet metal is a freakin' gold mine for the ubuntuGIMPboxHack!

 

. . . muahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [] ]'>

 

 

For all you 68k ONLY types: the following info/specs are a bit off topic, but interesting in a PC kluge kinda way: [] ]'>

 

. . . so feel free to skip ahead, I'll be pasting in pretty much the same .TXT with piccies when I post the ubuntuGIMPboxHack thread!

 

Well, the Mid-Tower didn't fire right up on the first try, soooooo . . . I scratched my head, thought for a bit and then tore the PSU out, only to find that the connector was ProtoATX, just four pins (?) shy of a straight flush . . .

 

. . . . so I ripped that useless sucker (read POS) to nibbles-n-bits! }

 

execrable crud found within:

 

Turned out to be some Missing Link sorta-kinda-maybe Proto ATX MLB with an early AGP Slot, (cover plate intact - never used) four PCI Slots . . .

 

. . . and 3 freakin' 16 bit ISA Slots! 8-o

 

Dunno WT . . . Heck that MLB is . . . the only hints are: “650B Rev 1.2” printed on the MoBo and that had been covered over by a sticker that read: P I I – 3 1 0 0 E! Looks like an “Intel PCIset” bridge IC and there's an AWARD PCI/PNP 686 BIOS circa 1998. It seems VERY strange not to find a copyright notice (easily) on a MoBo and the solder side just says:

 

CADAC CMVO - I

9913 E77755

 

I/O & Storage:

 

Non-Descript IDE HDD

Non-Descript CD-ROM Drive

Non-Descript 3.5” FDD

 

Attached to MoBo:

 

1 (non-parity) DIMM stick labeled: Compaq 140132-001 & YUNDAI PF168032-10

 

P II CPU Card w/ZIF Socket for a 370 pin PGA Package CPU

 

Intel Celeron w/“128 SL 36 C” and '98 printed on it . . .

. . . along with the usual indecipherable gobbledegook . . . :

 

8 bit ISA Card:

“USRobotics Sportster” Model 0460 MoDem

 

12 bit (?!?) ISA Card:

“ESS AudioDrive” Sound/Gameport Card hooked up to the CD-ROM-Drive

 

16 bit ISA Card:

“3Com EtherLink III” NIC

 

PCI Card: might've hit paydirt on this one, comrades . . .

“MATROX POWER GRAPHICS IS-STORM R2” circa 1995

w/25 pin header interboard connector and M/F DaughterCard Interconnect Setup . . .

prolly won't be much good for anything other than throwin' GIMP's toolbars. palettes etc. onto a second monitor . . . even IF it works . . .

 

. . . but you NEVER know! [] ]'>

 

SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST!

 

$10.99 - was marked $15.99, but I checked inside the original box WITH the styrofoam end protectors! for the different transparency adapters . . .

 

. . . but found they were missing. [] ]'>

 

However the “main transparency tray” was intact and once I get the specs I can make my own 8x10, 5x7, 4x5 etc. transparency adapters for the Behemoth of Flat Bed Scanners, the MICROTEK ScanMaker 4! Actually, the adapters were optional, so I could very well find them NIB on eBay or elsewhere . . .

 

. . . but I got the cashier to knock off the sawbuck she mistakenly nailed me for on the 1U Rackage!

 

It is, as yet, untested: too little time and waaay too much PC offal gumming up the HackWorks ATM!

 

IF IT WORKS! It'll do an 8.5x14 reflective scan or an 8x10 transparency scan at 36-bits worth of 600x1200 dpi!

 

That'd be about two metric craploads of pixels from the 4x5 negatives and almost a metric crapload from the 2x2 negatives in the 1923-1950-60 something archive of shots of the OldTimeApple and its storefronts & signage from the Sign Company back in NYC . . .

 

. . . that I had to leave behind. :'(

 

. . . but I'm feeling MUUUUCH better NOW! court> :lol:

 

. . . and it was a GREAT DAY today! No Apple Logos on my loot . . . YET! But a very nice lot of captured equipment made its way back to the lines of the 68kMLA today!

 

[LCGuy]

Very nice haul, especially that scanner! Not a great fan of the ESS AudioDrive though - I had one once...piece of crap.

 

[protocol7]

Not a great fan of the ESS AudioDrive though - I had one once...piece of crap.

Yeah my first PC had one of those. Pentium 133, 16mb ram, 2mb CL gfx card, 1.3gb hd (how will I ever fill this??!11!) and the audiodrive.

Coming from two Amigas, I wanted a Mac as they were always like our big brothers, fighting the good fight against the evil Intelians. But the value just wasn't there at the time. Now I'm trying to relive my mis-spent youth through old Macs.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Not a great fan of the ESS AudioDrive though - I had one once...piece of crap.

Yeah my first PC had one of those. Pentium 133, 16mb ram, 2mb CL gfx card, 1.3gb hd (how will I ever fill this??!11!) and the audiodrive.

Coming from two Amigas, I wanted a Mac as they were always like our big brothers, fighting the good fight against the evil Intelians. But the value just wasn't there at the time. Now I'm trying to relive my mis-spent youth through old Macs.

I hear you, comrade, this is something like the third time that the wheel of life has landed me back at the 68kMLA! The first time around, I collected the '030 and '040 machines of my early nineties dreams.

Later on it was PowerBooks that I'd never been able to afford, along with a few more of the MicroQuadras, some NuBus PPCs and my beloved Radius Clone!

This time around I'm into almost anything, but most especially, I'm building the fastest setup I can for running all my licensed OS 9 software and interfacing it to all the peripherals I could never have afforded around Y2K. Like my Nikon CoolScan, the as yet untested, ScanMaker 4, a wireless KBD-n-Mouse coupled with the amazing multi-platform KVM rig I'd set up back in the day.

I never had much use for "PixelPlay" in the past, but I'm starting to explore all the possibilities. It's so nice to buy inexpensive playtoys out of love and curiosity as a hobby, rather than have to justify expenditures on a "bang for the buck/productivity/software availability/compatibility" basis as was ALWAYS the case for me in the past.

Luckily, my business was Mac-Centric, with some homebrew/garage level PC clones thrown in to add a little . . . erm . . . spice (more like vinegar actually) into the mix.

It really is "a wonderful life!"

peace,

 

[Bunsen]

$5.00 - grabbed a 1U “3Com SuperStack II Hub 10,” dunno if it's a router, hub or what, but it's got RackMacHack written ALL over it!

Terrific. Just so's you know, I once managed to squeeze a B&W G3 motherboard and heatsink, a 1U ATX (B&W compatible) power supply, and a 3.5" ATA hard disk, into a 1U rack. And it was a shallow rack too, not one of those 40-60cm deep rack server cases. One of them would have left room for a front mounted CD/DVD drive and second HD, amongst other things. Even with the shallow one, I was eyeing off the geometric possibilities for a slot-loading laptop CD drive Only the lack of a low-profile PCI right angle adapter to mount the video card prevented me from moving ahead to powering that sucker up. Good luck!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

$5.00 - grabbed a 1U “3Com SuperStack II Hub 10,” dunno if it's a router, hub or what, but it's got RackMacHack written ALL over it!

Terrific. Just so's you know, I once managed to squeeze a . . .

. . . I was eyeing off the geometric possibilities for a slot-loading laptop CD drive Only the lack of a low-profile PCI right angle adapter to mount the video card prevented me from moving ahead to powering that sucker up. Good luck!

You forgot a lil' something . . . I CHEAT! } . . . this particular 1U enclosure is a front mounted half depth unit that's screaming out:

"please, please get me out to the front of the TelCo Rack, jt!"

So, of course, there'll be just a bit of sheet metal added onto its tuschie, just to balance things out . . . :

. . . and a KBD drawer slung underneath to conceal a Big@$$, 2U bustle . . . [] ]'>

. . . which shall be VERY convenient, circumventing limitations to a 2 PCI riser/upside down 50MHz MLB . . . [] ]'>

. . . whatever, gotta let the ole' gray matter stew around a bit for an elegant, more creative cheat! }