Macintosh Portable dilemma

[Apostrophe]

Hi guys,

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted! I've been very musically active recently and so unfortunately have not been able to do much with my computers. I still have a Centris and a 512k to get back up and running, and all computers need more software. So hopefully when I have more time I'll be able to see to all that.

In the meantime I have a quick question for you concerning a Macintosh Portable. (Completely new ball park for me!)

My friend's family has a Macintosh Portable that they'd be willing to give me (being the computer guy that I am), but they have very sentimental files on it that they need backed up first. So I told them, "Sure, I can get those files you need onto a memory stick; in fact all I need is my iMac and its external 1.44 floppy drive."

Which would have been the case...if their two-decade-old laptop had worked flawlessly.

Unfortunately, this morning they told me that they tried turning it on and got a blank screen. According to them, they can hear the HDD sounds and they can tell that the LCD is "getting power", but it doesn't display an image.

Obviously, an HDD that "makes sounds" doesn't necessarily work. The reason I asked them if the Portable gave them an image was that if the HDD were malfunctioning, there would most likely be a :?: or a xx( . But since there wasn't any such image, I have hope that their hard drive may still be intact and functional, with the problem lying elsewhere in the computer.

I've thought about putting the HDD into another one of my computers to get the files that way, but I found out that Mac Portable hard drives can only be used with Macintosh Portables. Is there an adapter that would allow one of my SE's to read it?

And is there another easy way that I haven't heard of to get those files onto a memory stick, given that I have the following:

-2 Mac SE's

-a plethora of 800k and 1.4mb floppy disks

-an Imation 1.44 external FDD connected to my iMac G3

-a nonworking Centris 610

...or are my only options a) getting the Centris working and finding a way to weasel a disk out of that Portable, or B) getting another Macintosh Portable and swapping hard drives?

Sorry about the longish post, and thanks in advance for any help in this strange and foreign world of Macintosh Portables.

-Apostrophe

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

That's news to me, did you find out what the HDD interface is on the Portable? Where did you find that information?

Check out the Links Project in the Peripherals Forum. One of the comrades fixed all the links in one of the posts, so try to find the Portable Documentation online.

I'll nose around a bit . . . sounds curious . . . :?:

. . . back again! [] ]'>

GAMBA's link to the Portable Service Manual is down, but the User Manual is there and says the optional internal drive is SCSI, so I can't see why there's no way to hook it up to something! I'll look for the SM at home, I think I've probably got copies of every .pdf ever posted on that site somewhere on my HDDs!

 

[Apostrophe]

Actually jt, I found that information in an eBay auction for a Conner CP-3045 hard drive:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Macintosh-Portable-5120-5126-40mb-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ370299640790QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5637941bd6

I've also read in these forums that it's possible to rewire the cable to fit a regular drive, but as I've never done it before I think I'll rule it out as an option. I also hear that there was an adapter, but the MicroMac company that makes it went out of business.

Right now it looks like my best option is finding another working Macintosh Portable to switch my friend's HDD into, in order to get the files onto a 1.4mb floppy disk and, from there, onto my iMac G3 and then onto a memory stick.

But it's true, documentation on the Macintosh Portable is sparse online, and that eBay auction was all I found as to specifically what sort of hard drives work in a Macintosh Portable.

-Apostrophe

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

No time to look for the SM, but I glanced at Guide To The Macintosh Family Hardware and if I take a look for that 34 pin header, I'll bet I find the pinouts for it in that tome! [] ]'>

NoPro making an adapter for something that simple and I've got just the Luggable to test it on, PM me!

Wood pulp based storage media ROCK! [] ]'>

To double down the bets though, see if the pinouts on that drive's connector are available online.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Wood pulp based storage media ROCK! [] ]'>

Just to re-iterate that statement: Guide to the Macintosh Family Hardware (second edition) REALLY ROCKS!!! [] ]'>

Got the pinouts, no sweat: it's basically a borked around version of the original NON-STANDARD Apple dilution of the SCSI Spec. from 50 pins down to 25 pins . . . the morons!

Twenty-Two or so pins are the same (mixed about a bit) and the rest of the pins on the Portable's connector are:

four +5v

four +12v

four Ground

It's just Power for the HDD! :

So all that needs to be done is to connect a 34 pin DIP Header (male pins for that female cable) to a standard female HDD Power Plug (a good donor candidate would be an extension or adapter cable) and a 50 pin DIP Header. Make all the proper wiring hookups according to the pinouts in GttMFH and the drive will hook up to any internal SCSI Chain on any other Mac!

At the standard Mac boot drive SCSI ID, I would think. [] ]'>

 

[Mycatisbigfoot]

you could try using an external display (Apple vision) to see if it will display any information there

 

[Byrd]

Surely the issue here is the one where the Mac Portable cannot start up because of a dead lead acid battery ... something I need to research on these forums with my own Portable soon, as it displays the same fault (blank screen, white screen, chime/no chime). If you can get the Portable going ... it'll save a lot of time, needless to say.

JB

 

[Mycatisbigfoot]

If it is the batt that is dead, I know you can rig a power adaptor to the battrie in slot like this guy said on lem

Godwin says, "If the acid battery dies, one can bypass it and convert the Portable into a luggable. One needs 2 AC adapters - the original one and a 9V DC adapter. Take out the 9V DC battery and replace it with a 9V 1A power adapter. Then remove the battery and cover (there is a switch at the battery cover which we need to disable). Plug the two adapters in and viola! one of the sleekest Macs on anyone's desktop!"

also this is what some one elts said

You can use a PowerBook 100-series AC adapter to run the Portable without the internal lead-acid battery. However, you will lose PRAM settings if you unplug the power (date, time, cache size, etc.)

Try It

 

[LCGuy]

you could try using an external display (Apple vision) to see if it will display any information there

I wouldn't. Even though the Portable uses the same DB-15 video out port as other Macs from that era, the interface is completely different, using a digital signal rather than analog. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, no monitors were actually made that support the signal from that port, and connecting any display designed for use on other Macs to that port may cause damage to either the display, the Portable, or both.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Sounds to me like access to the Portable is limited until the owner's files are offloaded. So rigging up a simple adapter to back up the HDD onto another Mac, nets one Luggable to fool around with at leisure.

. . . or that's how I interpreted the original post anyway. :-/

 

[Byrd]

Yes the adapter sounds great - *if* you have the time to rig one up, and ultimately will be useful if you can then modify it the other way around: to power a standard 3.5" or 2.5" SCSI HD off a Portable. That's what I'd like

Sadly my own non-backlit Portable appears to have leaking caps, although it does boot to a flashing disk icon and spins the HD up and down.

JB

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yes the adapter sounds great - *if* you have the time to rig one up, and ultimately will be useful if you can then modify it the other way around: to power a standard 3.5" or 2.5" SCSI HD off a Portable. That's what I'd like

Doesn't sound like a big deal, I'll look into it. [] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . . back again, looked into it, got bored & stopped, but there's probably enough info in this version to do just about anything you want to do with a Mac Portable or its HDD. [] ]'>



Some of the connections got a bit garbled because I started revisions to break out the control lines to the 50 pin connector. Here's the first rev I did over coffee this morning. The connections are clearer, but some of the paths have changed.



Sorry if the presentation is confusing to those of you who are used to doing electronics in a conventional manner. That's basically a single sided adapter PCB layout with one rework jumper wire for Data Bit 1. My brain works in a graphical PCB design mode . . .

. . . it doesn't do schematics . . . when I try . . . :scrambled:

 

[H3NRY]

The Portable has a few of oddities. It's basically a low power 16MHz CMOS MAC SE. It requires more juice to spin up the HD than the AC adapter can supply, so it needs a charged battery. A couple of ways to approach this:

1. Re-cell the battery. It uses 3, 2V size X cells which my local Batteries Plus store carries, about $12 each.

2. Get a 6V sealed alarm battery and clip leads, and hook it up. Watch polarity! The battery cover has to be in place to close the switch.

3. Get a PowerBook 100 series 7.5V DC adapter, which is higher current and will boot a Portable. Make sure it's good (measure the Voltage) before you hook it to the Mac. I had one go bad recently and it blew out my Power CD. The replacement off eBay was bad, too.

The video output is NOT VGA or anything else known to the civilized world. It is for an external LCD which Apple never shipped.

If it doesn't boot, press both programmer's switches (right side) at once to reset the PMU and hit any key to turn it on.

You can make an adapter to hook the drive to a regular SCSI & power cable, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing that. It used to be easier to just put the drive in another Portable, but a lot of Portables are dying now, and they're not easy to find. The 5120 non-backlit ones usually need re-capping, and the 5126 backlits' custom voltage regulator ICs are failing. The Conner 40MB HDs are also failing. These machines are getting OLD.

 

[JRL]

You can make an adapter to hook the drive to a regular SCSI & power cable, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing that.

MicroMac sold an adapter that served that purpose for a long time, but since the company's defunct now, there's no use.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You can make an adapter to hook the drive to a regular SCSI & power cable, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing that.

MicroMac sold an adapter that served that purpose for a long time, but since the company's defunct now, there's no use.

Make your own, all the info you need is in the pics above. [] ]'>

 

[mcdermd]

Thanks for this thread and the cabling information. I made a 34-pin to 50-pin+molex cable for my Portable and it's working great. I'll keep the Conner drive around for posterity (it spins up and down, over and over) but a 50-pin drive will keep it going.