List of what you are working on!! Vintage Hardware Fixes/Ida

[uniserver]

What are you working on? Give us 68kmlaer's an idea of what projects you are working on or have planned.

- if its just to take apart a machine to check for Cap leakage or Battery leakage.

- if you plan to add ram into your machine one day

- if you are re-capping something right now, or plan to.

- remedial or super advanced

- A Jerry Rig or a OEM replacement, let us know what your doing, nobody will make fun of you in this thread.

What i have planned:

- Re-cap my IIgs, the big round cap is leaking and crusty.

- REtrofit a LC PSU board into an Apple II PSU , just to see if it will function with out -12v

- Diagnose or replace the Voltage regulators in my Macintosh Portable to fix hard drive spin-up issues running from battery.

- Fix My Caddy External SCSI Apple 300, it plays music cd's but will not read data from a stamped or burned data cd.

- Install my retro fit LC PSU in a Beater Apple II i have in the the garage,

- Glue 2 keys from some broken keyboard to the missing stubs on my apple II beater

- Test Super Serial Apple II card to see if it will work with out -12v ( highly doubtful )

- Over Clock my Quadra 610 board from 20mhz to 25or28or30Mhz +maybe More, (need 12.5mhz oscillator for 25mhz) (need 15mhz oscillator for 30mhz)

once over clocked check cooling, check for complete functionality, including serial ports and Booting From floppy.

- Change oscillator in my IIci just to see what happens, Maybe get more speed out of the cpu?

- OC my Quadra 700

- Install the Japanese keyboard from my not working Japanese PB160 into my PC170, Paint the Powerbook 170 to match SE PB 170 released in japan only.

- Replace the Sound IC's in one of my IIsi's that has a Very odd and strange sound output issue, diagnosed by mcdermd.

- take my (2) 5260's out of my closet and throw them in the yard nobody wants them, drive over them with military truck for fun

- Downgrade my upgraded 128k, to original, or maybe figure out a 128k/512k jumper toggle set up.

- install a harddrive in my LC575, Find a rear IO plate for it as well.

- install mac os 8.1 on my LC475, then take the hard drive out and install that in my Color Classic, See if the LC575 board will work, and allow me to use native rez of the CC unmodified tube.

- Try to fix my LC-III the one that suffered a massive battery explosion. This one will require massive amount of time. off the bat needs 8+ traces re-run on the PCB

- Turn one of the nifty PowerPC CPU Peltier coolers I got from Trag, into an actual beer can cooler! Good one for the upcoming warmer weather

- Try to install higher capacity RAM chips in BANK A of my IIsi - Idea from JT.

- On the idea of ram chips, Install more ram chips or higher capacity ones in my LC - Idea from OlePigeon

- Work on ROM Modification , for my LC475 /w added ROM SLOT, from Mcdermd

- Motivate Mcdermd to get the (battery exploded) LC-I board I sent him for Ram Slots Removal for CC_333's SE/30, Working again, - will still work w/o ram slots,

and then pester him to also try and upgrade the ram chips on board, for the fun of it (I think he is in the market for a hot-air-re-flow tool) * wiggles eye brows *

 

[volvo242gt]

Pulled the motherboard out of the 660av, the IIcx, and the G4 DA to have them recapped. Had the analog board for the 512Ke worked on, so that computer could go back together and be put into use eventually - need to pull the analog board again, so I can reinstall the brightness knob.

On the G4 MDD, got the drives from the DA installed, along with the Radeon 9700 and the USB card. Tried to get the 9800 card I had for the machine working, but suspect that it hasn't been reflashed with the Mac firmware. All it does, after having the resistors removed, is to turn the monitor on for a second, then drop it back into power save mode, with the computer sitting there, doing nothing else. Going to source one that has been flashed and modified already. Also am going to be swapping out the dual processor module for a single 1.25GHz module. May also get a 360 watt power supply with the upgraded fans, so it'll be more along the lines of the DA, noise level-wise. It's not bad with CHUD installed and nap mode enabled, but could be better.

Going to soon be upgrading the Mac II to a IIx. Picked up a IIx board that had nasty-looking caps and a IIfx ROM SIMM.

-J

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Apparently . . . I've been doing more borking than deborking of late . . . so . . . no comment. :-/

 

[jongleur]

Just finished resurrecting/rebuilding a G5 PowerMac, so now to move from old, back to retro(ish).

Resurrect WallStreet, and replace dead HDD with SDHC->IDE adapter, install from original disks, then install QuickTake software and connect up my "brand new" QT150 camera.

Just received a QT150 in box, with camera case, battery extender, original software, external power supply, but missing manual and serial cable. Manual as PDF no problem, but I'll have dig though my box of cables looking for a serial cable.

Interesting thing is, this camera, and 2 others (cameras only) I've aquired, show that they have photos in memory, which is interesting, as all came without batteries, one supposedly non-working, which was just a faulty/sticky power switch.

It'll be interesting if I can retrieve these photos, and somehow identify when they were taken, to see how long they've been lingering in the unpowered memory, as I doubt there'll be any exif data with the photos.

None of the sellers were original owners, so tracking down the original taker(s) of the photos will be an exercise and a half in itself.

 

[JRL]

I have:

-Three LC 1 boards to recap + fix broken traces on two of them

-Two IIci boards to recap

-Two clicking IIci power supplies to do the repair on

-4 dead LC series PSUs to recap

-Two SCSI HDs to get termination resistors for

-Non-working (very dusty) Superdrive to clean and non-ejecting Superdrive to replace the motor on

-3 PB 1xx passive matrix screens to recap

 

[markyb86]

I need to find out if my EtherMac SE card is dead or not, and then get this bad boy on IRC.

Snow leopard running FTP server and 8.6 using fetch has been working beautifully, and I hope to carry on the success into 7.0.1.

 

[uniserver]

bad boy on IRC.

sounds like a plan,

the 68kmla IRC channel is pretty cool!

http://68kmla.org/wiki/68kMLA:IRC_Guidelines

 

[CC_333]

Hi,

Well, I got these a couple days ago, and:

I have copied all old files and restored the OS to factory on the Graphite iBook, which is working quite well. I still need to clean it up some and find a CD-ROM bezel for it, though.

Eventually, I have to overhaul the Indigo iBook, which will be a daunting process, because I don't know how to get the parts (none seem to be available on eBay right now).

But first, I am attempting to fix up the PowerBook. I have already determined that it boots and appears to work normally, aside from the broken screen, and that a top case and keyboard I have in stock will work fine in it, even though they come from an earlier model (they appear to be completely compatible, and I have confirmed that the keyboard works properly), but I am still uncertain about the LCD. The main data connector looks the same, but I have to do some more dis assembly before I can be certain that everything else will work.

And then, of course, there's the ever present need to clean up and organize my heap of stuff :-/ .

c

 

[tecneeq]

I'm playing a lot with my iMacs lately. One will be restored to original (32mb ram, 2mb vram, 4gb hdd, 8.1), decapped, cleaned and put into long term storage.

The second iMac will be beefed up, i already got it to 6 MB VRAM and 2 x 128mb ram (my 256mb PC100 SODIMM stick is seen as 128mb only, damn). It runs 9.2 very smoothly now. I found a 6GB IDE drive, which is a lot faster than the original 4GB. I believe i should try the IDE to CF card adapter that runs Win98 in another computer right now. I need to get a bigger CF card though, maybe 4 GB, the 512MB i have is a bit small for 9.2.

The third iMac is broken. It's CPU card only accepts one ram stick. Also the picture sometimes falls into a thin line for a few moments. Either i sell it or i'll make it into a tiny server rack. There should be enough space in there for three laptops (at home i use Thinkpad X61 laptops for servers, they don't eat much energy, are cheap and come with their own UPS, yet have dual cores, plenty of ram and support proper virtualisation), power distribution, switches, DSL router and all that.

I just received a 20 MHz crystal and am ready to get my Q650 to 40 MHz. It's ram is already maxed out, but i could use some larger disks and more vram. I'm also on the lookout for a cdrom and the proper bezel.

A lot more needs to be done of course, but i have only so much time for it.

 

[olePigeon]

I plan to Retr0Brite everything this summer.

 

[mcdermd]

That sounds familiar. I have a stack of boxes waiting for a lightening dip.

 

[Gorgonops]

I need to get back to cleaning/restoring my TRS-80 equipment. Cleaned up the external drive boxes for the Model I but the capacitors on the power supplies in two out of three of them look like unexploded ordinance so that's the next thing that needs soldering iron love. The Model IV is still in its plastic bag cocoon, need to crack that and clean it up.

Been distracted by my latest toy, a Tandy Model 100. (It was an impulse buy at the last Ham flea market.) It's an interesting piece of nostalgia; I've never owned one before, but I distinctly remember playing with one in a Radio Shack when they first came out... thirty years ago. It's handy as a vintage thing you can just stuff in a bookcase and pull out when you want it, and it has the best laptop keyboard ever so it's sort of addictive to poke at. It's also amusing to set it next to an iPad or Android tablet and ponder just what's happened over those thirty years. When it comes to hardware projects associated with it I'm vaguely considering getting a Bluetooth->RS-232 module for it so I can do data transfer without wiring up. (I also need to put together a "proper" data transfer cable. The one I'm using now is cobbled together from three different switch console/terminal/null modem adapters. A single piece would be nice, and I don't think the hardware handshaking is *quite* right as-is.)

I might be getting another IIgs to replace the one with the bad keyboard controller. In theory at least I probably owe it to the broken one to make a token attempt to fully diagnose it/rule out it's something fixable. Not too optimistic but you never know. Eventually I want to drag out the mini logic analyzer and puzzle some more over the spurious video RAM corruption issue I've seen on a couple of my Commodore PET motherboards. It's... mysterious, and will undoubtedly be super-fun to track down. Perhaps poking at the IIgs might be a good warmup. (The difference of course is the PET is actually repairable once the problem's nailed down.)

 

[bibilit]

Interesting thing is, this camera, and 2 others (cameras only) I've acquired, show that they have photos in memory, which is interesting, as all came without batteries, one supposedly non-working, which was just a faulty/sticky power switch.

I got mine a couple of months ago, and some pictures were also there... apparently, the QT150 will keep pictures in memory for a year, even without any power.

I am trying to find some new toys to play with, so will be looking for non-working hardware (probably any LC or an Apple II)

Also will try to find a cheap Logic Board for the tangerine Ibook.

Right now nothing much to do, should try to sell some stuff first.

 

[bbraun]

Gorgonops, your keyboard issue kinda sorta sounds like a problem I had with a //c that ended up being the character ROM being bad.

This kind of seems more like a blog listing more applicable to the Lounge than hacking, but hey.

For my projects, I've mainly been working on getting the AppleTalk over IP project up and running, with a hosted DDP file server, complete with per-user public_html directories. And speaking of the QuickTake, I was using one recently and had a ball dragging photos directly from the QuickTake to my afp mounted public_html directory to make them publicly accessible on duh web. All from a PowerBook 540c over wireless using the Netgear WNCE2001.

Just sitting on the couch with the pb540c on wifi, plugged the QT150 in, dragged the pictures over, and boom. iPad accessible.

I had originally started working on the http disk/cloud7 (which actually works quite well on 7.6.1/OT right now, but beware on <= 7.5.3 I think) because of the wifi pb540c. Modern access points don't pass appletalk, and this netgear bridge thing certainly doesn't, so I was looking for a network storage solution that was classic macos friendly. I think I've found it with the appletalk over ip + hosted file server.

I just got TylerEss' Turbo040 and have been investigating 1) how to make the romdisk work with it (I don't have promising news in this area), and 2) figure out just how that thing does what it does. I've mostly been using it in a Performa 600 at this point.

I've made a couple contributions to MESS. I got networking happy on OSX, and I think I've got the mouse way happier by exposing the absolute mouse position via a pseudo-nubus card, and then wrote an INIT for MacOS to keep the mouse cursor in sync. It's a much more usable native OSX app for me now.

I went through that pile of two dozen compact macs cleaning them up, lubricating the floppy drives, fixing any obvious problems like the all too common cracked solder joints on the analog board connector, and creating a bit of an inventory. With some minor repairs all but about 2 work well (boot, working floppy, screen is usably clear). I've also gotten a silly little appletalk app working so mouse/keyboard events from one are fed to all of them over appletalk. Which is convenient for 1) bulk testing on all at the same time, and 2) I only have one keyboard/mouse combo for 2 dozen compacts.

Found a nifty little diagnostic mode built into ROM on at least the IIx, IIci, IIsi, presumably what is used by TechStep devices (I don't have one to verify).

So, working on that kind of stuff. I recapped a 6100, Classic, Color Classic and maybe one or two others in there too. I'm kind of thinking my next big project will involve HyperTalk. It just seems so applicable even today.

 

[Gorgonops]

Gorgonops, your keyboard issue kinda sorta sounds like a problem I had with a //c that ended up being the character ROM being bad.

I dunno, it seems very consistently related to keyboard input (IE, what it does is fully reproducible and follows a pattern which is unrelated to screen position) and I'd think if it were the character ROM there would be corruption on the control panel, self-test, and other screen content unrelated to user input. I've also figured out that within, for instance, the control panel I'm getting that "first time you hit the key it's wrong" thing. Just doesn't smell like a character generator to me. Did you post any threads/blog entries about your //c problem?

 

[bbraun]

Looks like I did the //c stuff 4 years ago now.

 

[Gorgonops]

Looks like I did the //c stuff 4 years ago now.

Ah. Okay. So, yeah, a problem with the *keyboard* ROM would indeed probably roughly match what I'm seeing. Unfortunately on the IIgs there is no separate keyboard ROM; instead there's a microcontroller with 3K of ROM built into it that controls the keyboard and the ADB bus. If that's the problem I know of no other source for that IC other than another IIgs and getting it off would require surface-mount rework skills I don't have.

(In theory the microcontroller was available as a "generic" part from Mitsubishi and the ROM image is in the wild, but you'd have to find an EPROM-programmable version of it in a compatible package, program it, desolder the old one...)

In my mind the only hope is if there's some external problem that might be causing the keyboard controller to "flake out", IE, reset, perhaps?, because it's receiving insufficient voltage, or something else along those lines.

 

[onlyonemac]

I stopped doing it when I discovered the "double-flick trick", but I used to have a voltage regulator wired into the PRAM battery socket. This setup was powered by either a 9V battery or an external transformer (the Mac was used with the case open in the latter case :O ).

Just a thought...

 

[tecneeq]

Gorgonops, that reminds me, some keyboards have capacitors inside. Could be that the power distribution is slightly off because one of them died.

OOM, neat trick. I just have one good battery that i take out if i'm done playing. It should work for years to come .