Mac SE with System 7.1J

[Marsu]

Ive been collecting Vintage Macs recently as a side hobby. Recently I got another Mac SE in that originally belonged to someone who spoke Japanese. The system was upgraded several times with a 1.4mb drive, 40mb HDD and the extra benefit of this Mac is that it has a Sonnet Allegro Accelerator with 16mb of Ram.

Main question here is,
1) The unit has System 7.1J on it, how can I change language settings or does it need system 7 reinstalled with the English version.
2) Is System 7.1J a version that's difficult to find and should I upload it for others to get ahold of before proceeding with whatever I need to do


Thanks in advance to those who respond to this thread

 

[Phipli]

I've never seen that accelerator before

Is it a 33MHz 68030? Make sure you back up the driver for the accelerator. Remember to wrap it in a format that protects the resource fork from damage.

 

[Phipli]

BTW, I think those memory SIMMs on the accelerator board are 4MB. With the right software (Compact Virtual) you might be able to get the SE using 16MB.

 

[Marsu]

BTW, I think those memory SIMMs on the accelerator board are 4MB. With the right software (Compact Virtual) you might be able to get the SE using 16MB.

Im pretty sure this system is setup already to use the accelerator, the system shows under "about this Mac" that it has 15,808Kb of ram. My knowledge base so far hasn't gotten to making disk images of the system or backing up software so lll have to learn how to do that.

When I purchased this the listing and seller noted that the program he was using for benchmarks noted 90MHZ. If true then great but the actual card is a Sonnet Allegro SE 30MHZ. I can gather more information on this system but I need to change the language to English first.

 

[Phipli]

Im pretty sure this system is setup already to use the accelerator, the system shows under "about this Mac" that it has 15,808Kb of ram. My knowledge base so far hasn't gotten to making disk images of the system or backing up software so lll have to learn how to do that.

So it does, I wasn't paying attention

When I purchased this the listing and seller noted that the program he was using for benchmarks noted 90MHZ. If true then great but the actual card is a Sonnet Allegro SE 30MHZ.

Yeah.... it isn't 90MHz

My guess is it is a simple benchmark that is saying it is 11.25x faster than an 8MHz machine... so it must be a 90MHz 68000!

It is probably 33MHz based on the clock on the board and the FPU being 33MHz grade.

I can gather more information on this system but I need to change the language to English first.

View attachment 50936

 

[Marsu]

So it does, I wasn't paying attention


Yeah.... it isn't 90MHz

My guess is it is a simple benchmark that is saying it is 11.25x faster than a ln 8MHz machine... so it must be a 90MHz 68000!

It is probably 33MHz based on the clock on the board and the FPU being 33MHz grade.

That would make more sense, I see no signs of tampering with the board itself

 

[volvo242gt]

Cool find.

Yeah, I think you'd need to at least replace the Finder file with the regular 7.1 version to get it speaking english. The System file may be the same as the US version, except for version number, of course. Since you have an '030 under the hood, you can probably upgrade to 7.5.5, which would work well. I would, however, consider installing either one of the SSD options we have available today, or maybe upgrade the hard drive to something a bit bigger. Something like a 160MB drive might be adequate enough. Enough room for 68K games and other apps you're thinking of running on it, plus room for documents. Install the 40MB drive into an external case, that way you can image it whenever you want.

 

[Phipli]

Since you have an '030 under the hood, you can probably upgrade to 7.5.5, which would work well.

I'd be cautious - the age of the machine means that the drivers for most of the accelerators tend to be only compatible up to 7.0.1, sometimes 7.1.

This might be an exception, but it seems most have issues beyond that. Look at the release date of 7.5 vs many of these 030 accelerators... A lot of time had passed.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

I would use Disk Copy 6.3.3 and an external drive like a BlueSCSI to create an image of the internal disk.

 

[Marsu]

I'd be cautious - the age of the machine means that the drivers for most of the accelerators tend to be only compatible up to 7.0.1, sometimes 7.1.

This might be an exception, but it seems most have issues beyond that. Look at the release date of 7.5 vs many of these 030 accelerators... A lot of time had passed.

This is the issue with my Radius SE in my other system with system 7.0.1. The Rom firmware only supported up to system 6.08 unless you sent the card in to Radius for the ROMs to be updated or the know how and files to do it yourself.

 

[Phipli]

This is the issue with my Radius SE in my other system with system 7.0.1. The Rom firmware only supported up to system 6.08 unless you sent the card in to Radius for the ROMs to be updated or the know how and files to do it yourself.

Do you still have the Radius card?

 

[Marsu]

Yes I went into the settings on boot by holding the mouse button and turned the card off while it’s in the system. I’m saving up for a bluescsi so I can save the HDD’s.

 

[Marsu]

Do you still have the Radius card?

^^^^^^
I forgot to hit reply to previous post

 

[Phipli]

^^^^^^
I forgot to hit reply to previous post

Someone can probably ly help you with it. I haven't messed with one, but I'm sure I've seen a firmware updater, otherwise, perhaps you can find someone to flash the newest ROMs for you?

 

[LaPorta]

The only question is: why are all the SEs that I find totally vanilla, end everyone finds accelerated ones?

 

[volvo242gt]

I'd be cautious - the age of the machine means that the drivers for most of the accelerators tend to be only compatible up to 7.0.1, sometimes 7.1.

This might be an exception, but it seems most have issues beyond that. Look at the release date of 7.5 vs many of these 030 accelerators... A lot of time had passed.

The extension may be an issue, but it should have problems with 7.1 as well. From what's shown in this thread, it sounds like the card will work without extensions.

Sonnet 68030 PDS accelerator driver ?

I have acquired a Sonnet accelerator with an 030, I've found a couple pages that refer to this as an Allegro, which is a name the also used on some USB cards later on, but I haven't found software to enable it yet. Does any one have a link? All I have found are presto plus drivers. Thanks!

68kmla.org

 

[Phipli]

The only question is: why are all the SEs that I find totally vanilla, end everyone finds accelerated ones?

Because people don't post about the boring ones! Don't worry, I'm sure you're not missing out. Best I've found in one was an ethernet card.

 

[volvo242gt]

At least, that's what @KnobsNSwitches discovered.

 

[Phipli]

This looks like the most likely :

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?attachments/allegro-v2-8-for-se-lc-sit.17701/

 

[Marsu]

Someone can probably ly help you with it. I haven't messed with one, but I'm sure I've seen a firmware updater, otherwise, perhaps you can find someone to flash the newest ROMs for you?

well That ruins the fun of discovering how to do it myself.

If I knew anyone in my area I would but I’m in a relatively rural area where finding someone that would know anything about vintage macs would be difficult to find

I have 3 systems with 1 being the experiment mac. So i will just put the radius card in a system that supports it until I figure out what I can do