Mac II Shortage?

[Scott Baret]

486's still are around because they can be scrapped for a few parts. I've junked a few that I've taken in for floppy drives, CD-ROMs, ethernet cards, and sound cards. I've also found uses for the keyboards, mice, hard drives, and even the monitors. All of these can make good quick fixes.

And I agree about DOS gamers. Ever since Underdogs came around there seems to have been a renewed interest in it. DOS games seem to be treated like NES games to a degree. An old 486 is sort of like an NES on the market...yet better as you can always part it out if the mobo or power supply conks out.

 

[equill]

What is more disquieting to think about—to give me the cold horrors, in fact—is the number of interesting but no-longer-available add-on cards and peripherals that must go straight to the dump or landfill. Because they are hidden in machines that are considered to be of no value, or separated from the machines that they enhanced, they are accorded no significance by the unknowing.

de

 

[Unknown_K]

That happens all the time. A guy in AZ who was moving had a garage full of machines he was ditching in a hurry. I managed to snag a free Amiga 3000 full of cards (thanks to cory), but (2) Mac IIfx with the rare 68040/33 Accelerators (the type with RAM sockets) were eventualy junked before I could get my hands on them.

I would think thousands on compacts with various accelerators have been junked along with plenty of 950's and mac IIs with audio/video cards. Even if the cards do not get junked all the software, manuals, and cables end up lost forever.

 

[Charlieman]

What is more disquieting to think about—to give me the cold horrors, in fact—is the number of interesting but no-longer-available add-on cards and peripherals that must go straight to the dump or landfill.

Mea culpa. In 2000 I passed a 486 PC to the scrapper, without realising that it contained an ISA DecTalk card. I kicked myself a few years later when I came across the disks and documentation set.

 

[Charlieman]

On the other hand, any sort of laptop (486, broken etc) or LCD screen (eg completely dead ones) seems to get snapped up almost instantly.

Old laptops with serial ports are popular with electronics amateurs and radio hams. A few years ago, I met someone who was looking for a cheap and cheerful laptop that could be used to re-program the engine in his racing saloon in the paddock at a racing circuit. Any old PC laptop would have done the job, as long as the battery would run for fifteen minutes.

 

[Unknown_K]

I hear people used to get old machine with serial ports so they could program their satelite dishes.

 

[Charlieman]

True - do IIs really have any value as collector's items though?

Not a lot at the moment, and I doubt whether any would be a good long term investment. There are still lots of them in the hands of Mac collectors (or just stuffed in the attic). A possible exception is the original Mac II -- 800KB floppy drive(s), original ROMs -- which has a lot of historical interest. Most Mac IIs were purchased by people who would upgrade at any cost, so original spec machines are rare. If it were boxed and complete, an original Mac II would sell for *lots*. I might even put in a bid myself.

 

[The Macster]

Old laptops with serial ports are popular with electronics amateurs and radio hams. A few years ago, I met someone who was looking for a cheap and cheerful laptop that could be used to re-program the engine in his racing saloon in the paddock at a racing circuit. Any old PC laptop would have done the job, as long as the battery would run for fifteen minutes.

That is true - don't all those things for programming through cars' OBD ports use serial connections? Is there a reason why they don't use USB? My laptop does actually have a serial port, but they do seem to be dying out now on the latest (and smaller) laptops.

 

[FunnymanSE30]

True - do IIs really have any value as collector's items though?

Not a lot at the moment, and I doubt whether any would be a good long term investment. There are still lots of them in the hands of Mac collectors (or just stuffed in the attic). A possible exception is the original Mac II -- 800KB floppy drive(s), original ROMs -- which has a lot of historical interest. Most Mac IIs were purchased by people who would upgrade at any cost, so original spec machines are rare. If it were boxed and complete, an original Mac II would sell for *lots*. I might even put in a bid myself.

IIfxs havent dipped below $30 for a long time now, and ram for them seems to sell fast, so i assume that there's some sort of following for them.

 

[The Macster]

$30 including or excluding shipping though, as shipping one of those things is going to be astronomical isn't it? Hmmm, maybe I'd have tried to get that IIfx that I saw last year if I'd thought I could sell it on for a handy profit...though the idea of dragging one of those across town from wherever it is isn't exactly appealing...

I guess with those sorts of machines getting them can be a bit of a lucky dip, as I could have got it and found it had masses of that super-rare Ram that they take, or I could have got it and found it only had 4 MB of Ram or whatever was stock, and so may be "wicked fast" but can't even run OS 7.6!

 

[Quadraman]

True - do IIs really have any value as collector's items though?

Not a lot at the moment, and I doubt whether any would be a good long term investment. There are still lots of them in the hands of Mac collectors (or just stuffed in the attic). A possible exception is the original Mac II -- 800KB floppy drive(s), original ROMs -- which has a lot of historical interest. Most Mac IIs were purchased by people who would upgrade at any cost, so original spec machines are rare. If it were boxed and complete, an original Mac II would sell for *lots*. I might even put in a bid myself.

IIfxs havent dipped below $30 for a long time now, and ram for them seems to sell fast, so i assume that there's some sort of following for them.

Or people hoping their value continues to rise and they can make a nice profit on them later. There's not a lot of RAM sticks for those machines left out there since they were only used on that particular model.

 

[heebiejeebies]

Why would you want to run 7.6 on it? I thought the whole novelty would be running 6 or earlier and getting "wicked wicked wicked" fast speeds from it.

 

[Quadraman]

Why would you want to run 7.6 on it? I thought the whole novelty would be running 6 or earlier and getting "wicked wicked wicked" fast speeds from it.

I have to agree. I run 7.6.1 on some of my machines, but nothing with less than a full 040. I'm not sure I'd stick a fast 030 with System 6, though. The IIfx has the power to go a little further, I think.

 

[The Macster]

Nah, I've just never had a thing for running very old OSes that are far below what the machine can take. Also I imagine the IIfx can run 7.6 pretty wicked fast, and even 8.1 if you can be bothered with the hack - I always think of the IIfx as being soooo powerful, that it can do anything really fast, I guess it's just the way that review described it as "wicked fast" and also how much it cost when new. Then again, I think it has been said on here that the '040s smoke them, so maybe they're not as powerful as they are in my mind.

Actually didn't I hear a rumour that someone had installed the Leopard beta on one by using XPostFacto, and that it was actually pretty responsive? They had some rare powerful NuBus video card that they did some hack on to get Quartz Extreme to work, I think. NuBusExtreme, I think it was called. These things must be even more wicked than we thought

I would actually quite like to have a IIfx if I had the space, I reckon it would be an interesting machine to play around with, especially if you had some interesting cards for it. I would hate to get one with a small amount of Ram with no prospect of upgrading it though, as it would feel such a shame to have such a powerful machine but made almost useless by something like lack of Ram.

I have to agree. I run 7.6.1 on some of my machines, but nothing with less than a full 040. I'm not sure I'd stick a fast 030 with System 6, though. The IIfx has the power to go a little further, I think.

I always go with 7.6.1, even on my LC II I've never been into System 6, and 7.0 feels just like 7.6 but kind of not-as-good, so I always go for 7.6 on a 32-bit 68k or 9.1 on a pre-G3 PPC.

 

[heebiejeebies]

Then again, I think it has been said on here that the '040s smoke them, so maybe they're not as powerful as they are in my mind.

Exactly! So run 7.6 on newer machines and make use of the IIfx's power by taking advantage of its ability to run old systems.

And what the...How could anyone run a Leopard beta on a 68k machine? Where the heck did you hear that?

 

[The Macster]

And what the...How could anyone run a Leopard beta on a 68k machine? Where the heck did you hear that?

You didn't notice the four wink-smilies then?

 

[Quadraman]

Nah, I've just never had a thing for running very old OSes that are far below what the machine can take. Also I imagine the IIfx can run 7.6 pretty wicked fast, and even 8.1 if you can be bothered with the hack - I always think of the IIfx as being soooo powerful, that it can do anything really fast, I guess it's just the way that review described it as "wicked fast" and also how much it cost when new. Then again, I think it has been said on here that the '040s smoke them, so maybe they're not as powerful as they are in my mind.
Actually didn't I hear a rumour that someone had installed the Leopard beta on one by using XPostFacto, and that it was actually pretty responsive? They had some rare powerful NuBus video card that they did some hack on to get Quartz Extreme to work, I think. NuBusExtreme, I think it was called. These things must be even more wicked than we thought

I would actually quite like to have a IIfx if I had the space, I reckon it would be an interesting machine to play around with, especially if you had some interesting cards for it. I would hate to get one with a small amount of Ram with no prospect of upgrading it though, as it would feel such a shame to have such a powerful machine but made almost useless by something like lack of Ram.

I have to agree. I run 7.6.1 on some of my machines, but nothing with less than a full 040. I'm not sure I'd stick a fast 030 with System 6, though. The IIfx has the power to go a little further, I think.

I always go with 7.6.1, even on my LC II I've never been into System 6, and 7.0 feels just like 7.6 but kind of not-as-good, so I always go for 7.6 on a 32-bit 68k or 9.1 on a pre-G3 PPC.

Every machine has a point beyond which a newer OS starts to degrade performance. 7.6 was the first system in Apple's strategy to introduce Copeland features on a 6 month schedule. Optimizations for PPC mean many features available in 7.6 won't work on 68k machines. MacOS 8 includes even more PPC optimizations until you get to 8.5 at which point the entire OS is PPC native and 68k machines get locked out. There are hacks to get 8.5 and even 8.6 to install on machines with a PPC upgrade card, but I wouldn't think there are a lot of those in service anymore. I got one (the only one I ever saw on ebay) and got the impression after I got it that the seller thought he was putting one over on me because it had a serious overheating issue. I cut a little piece of tin and placed it between the heatsink and the CPU as a conductor (which tightened up the fit of the heatsink considerably) and attached a cooling fan and haven't had a heat related issue with it since. Back to my point, though, there are a lot of components that you won't be able to use in 7.6 because you don't have a PPC and a lot of software that works with 7.6 but won't work without the missing components. You might be able to run the core of 7.6 or 8.1, but they would be crippled, so is it really worth it??

 

[heebiejeebies]

And what the...How could anyone run a Leopard beta on a 68k machine? Where the heck did you hear that?

You didn't notice the four wink-smilies then?

No I didn't actually. I thought you'd gone crazy for a second.

 

[The Macster]

What components of 7.6 don't work on 68ks? The only one I can think of off-hand is Graphing Calculator, at least that one is installed by default and produces a message saying it can't run - are there others that don't even get installed on a 68k so I've never seen?

Regarding PPC upgrade cards, are these the ones where the original 68k CPU remains inside the machine but the PPC does most (all?) of the processing? How exactly do they work, as I would have assumed if it has a PPC processor it can run any PPC-only OS, but presumably the 68k CPU is still doing something which is why it's difficult to run 8.5? (and 9 doesn't work at all?)

 

[Kallikak]

7.6.1 is horribly slow on an LC II - I'd say unusably slow. An LC III can manage because of the additional memory, but still not a good choice. You can get most of the features from add-ons anyway - I'd recommend using 7.1 as the base. Have a look at TylerEss's website for a couple of articles about this.