Macintosh II and system 7.0

[NickNick]

Greetings.

Thank you all for help getting the Macintosh II up and running. I installed 8 megs of memory in it using 8 1mb simms, it had 2mb in it to begin with using all 8 simm holders. Those memory chips seemed smaller than the ones I am  using now. Anyways I have system 7.0 on it and it works but seems to be glitchy. Files are not there when I restart the computer, I can not change the name of the HDD to Macintosh, always returns to untitled. Needs to be restarted like three times before it will be usable and the icons (like in the apple menu or control panel) wont be there until the third reset. They appear as just a blank sheet of paper with the corner folded down.  Very strange. Once the third reset is done it works just fine. Seems buggy though and I have never seen this on a computer before. This is the oldest system I have ever used.

Any insight on this issue perhaps? Also, is the Macintosh II only able to display 16 colors? I have two different Macintosh II video cards, the Macintosh II display card and the Macintosh II High resolution display card. Both only get 16 colors.

Thank you all for your time.

Nick.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Hi Nick,

The Mac II can display as many colours as the video cards allows. Have you tried rebuilding your desktop? Hold down command and option just after the CDEVs and INITs have finished displaying their icons during startup. Apps like TattleTech will also allow you to do this.

I may be wrong on this, but the Mac will tell you at the beginning of startup if your memory is not OK. The System does a memory check on startup and you'll get a succession of beeps (or even a sad mac) if all is not well with the RAM that you have.

System 7.0 should work fine. You also try System 6.0.7. You'll find your that Mac II is a lot more responsive.

I hope that that helps,

aa

 

[BadGoldEagle]

 Files are not there when I restart the computer

System 7.0 and 7.0.1 were quite buggy. Loosing files was one of the main issues. You should install System 7 Tune-Up. It fixed most problems.

Maybe it can't fix everything, but maybe it could?

 

[Elfen]

Installing System 7 on a Mac II is like installing System 7 on an LC (1), its doable but its going to be slow because its a 16MHz '020 with limited RAM and not a '030 with more RAM. System 7.0 is glitchy, install system Tune-Up like BadGoldEagle stated. Or install/upgrade to System 7.1.

Glad you got it up and running.

Those two video cards should give you 640X480 @ 256colors. What resolution do you have it on? If they are set to a higher resolution, like 800X600, they only have enough RAM to the higher resolution with less color depth.

 

[NickNick]

Thank you all for the replies. Very knowledgeable, much appreciated. AA, I believe the memory is fine as the machine starts up and gives the happy Mac chime each time but, always needs to be reset three times for it to work correctly. Apple put the reset button behind the plastic grating on the side forcing me to use a paperclip to restart it. That's a bad spot for it.

BadGoldEagle and Elfen. Thank you for the tips on the OS...I can assure you both that system seven is very glitchy. Not really fun to use that system as the machine acts odd. It even cut sound out when I was in the sound control panel. Came back after a reset. I was going to actually install 7.0.1 but think I may just go with system 7.1 as it seems to be more stable.

Elfen, I have not tried the Macintosh II display card in any other machine other than the Macintosh II. I did however try the Macintosh II High resolution display card in various other machines and it does show more than the 16 colors. That's why I though perhaps it was the Macintosh II machines max at 16 colors. I'm betting its the system 7.0 that is doing the issues. I will download system 7.1 and install is today and report back.

Thanks again to all for the help. Love these beige mac machines.

Nick.

 

[Elfen]

Good Luck NickNick.

I've had a IIcx with the Mac II Video Display card on System 6.07 and it displayed 256 colors on 640X480 (on an Apple RGB 13in Display); still have it but it needs a recap and other work on it as well. And it never gave me an issue with System 7.1. So I'm guessing that it is System 7.0 that is giving it problems. If you can, you should test the card on other systems.

 

[Cory5412]

7.1 is where I'd go, it should resolve all of the issues of 7.0 and 7.0.1, and 7.1 can also have components from the 7.5 and 7.6 era added, if you need some of that functionality, while remaining ligher weight than 7.5.

Installing System 7 on a Mac II is like installing System 7 on an LC (1), its doable but its going to be slow because its a 16MHz '020 with limited RAM and not a '030 with more RAM. 

The II is widely reported to be faster because it has a better memory bus. It can also run better GPUs, even though the Toby that was available when they were new isn't itself particularly impressive.  Until you get to running a lot of apps at once or working with larger datasets, arguably Quadra activities anyway, a II is going to be fine with 7.0/.1/tuneup or 7.1 on it.

Even if the II weren't much faster -- it was introduced in 1986, four or five years before the LC was, at a much greater cost, with an eye toward being a UNIX workstation.

 

[NickNick]

Hello!

That was the issue. Works great with system 7.1 installed.  I do however believe that this computer relies rather heavily on the batteries as every time it will revert back to black and white, simple beep, etc. when powered on from off state. But system 7.1 seemed to have cleared up all the odd issues lol. Thank you all for the leads on how to correct this.

The machine now displays 256 colors with the High resolution card. The Toby one has the expansions slots empts so, I think it displays 16 colors max perhaps? Elfen, I will have to try it out in some other machines to see the outcome.....I have a few I can try it out in.   I do believe it was system 7.0 OS that was the issue as well. The Mac seems to be happy though, still no luck with the 1.44 mb floppy though.

Thank you all so very much for your help. I really enjoy re capping the machines, get them going and filling them will games lol. They are kind of cool little vintage game systems. I really like the pizza box LC's the best!!

Thanks again

Nick.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Congrats !  :ii:

The Mac seems to be happy though, still no luck with the 1.44 mb floppy though.

You sure yours isn't a 800k machine? Some had the 1.44mb treatment but the very early ones had 800k drives (some were upgraded too).

A 800k drive looks like this: (2 switches to sense the presence of a floppy disk. FDHD drives have 3 switches)

and it has MP-F51W-23 written on the bottom.

 

[NickNick]

Hey BadGoldEagle. Thanks for the  help and support. It is an 800k disk drive that is currently installed in there. I'd like to get the 1.44 mb. one working in there. I have an extra one but the machine does not read the disks when it is hooked up. Just the 800k ones. I read that you have to replace the actual roms with one from a Macintosh IIx or similar in order for the 1.44 mb. disk drives to work in it. If that's the case Im just going to make due with the 800k drive as I have no extra roms lying around.

 

[tjjq44]

Yes without the proper roms and swim chip (1.4Mb floppy controller), you won't be able to use anything else than 400/800k floppies! But an original (non upgraded) mac II is quite rare and is much more valuable/collectible than any other later macs II, consider it

 

[NickNick]

Hey tjjq44 thanks for the tip, I believe I will just leave it as is. I installed the iomega driver to it and I can now hook up the zip drive to it. I just transfer files to it that way. No ether net card for this machine yet but one might turn up. I do believe this mac was rather original and early too as it had big caps on it, 256kb. simms installed in all 8 rom banks for a whopping 2 megs of ram lol, stepper motor HDD, plus the original toby non upgraded video card. Think this machine was stored for many years as it reeked of oldness when I first got it and opened it up lol. Pretty cool machine to use though.

 

[slomacuser]

To speed up a litlle system 7 on LC or Mac II, change the "Color" - control panel to B&W so the title bar is white. Folders open faster. 

 

[NickNick]

Hey slomacuser that is a pretty cool bit of knowledge. I'd consider it on a monochrome monitor but I do prefer color lol.

 

[tjjq44]

There is a "zoomin" extension too, it accelerate windows opening. Another tip, set flash menu bar to 0 in general control panel

 

[NickNick]

Nice tips tjjq44. Will have to check out the extension if I can find it. Still enjoying playing around with the Macintosh.

 

[just.in.time]

On system 7.1 there was also a system update or system fix up 3.0. I can check tomorrow evening for sure. At any rate, my download included it so I ran that as well. 7.1 is a fantastic OS, especially if resources are a little limited.