Macintosh TV Rebuild

[Dennis Nedry]

I have purchased from Narion and successfully rebuilt a Mac TV using spare LC 520 parts. The machine successfully starts up and looks totally awesome (pictures to come).

I had a little issue with the screws when putting the case together: the plastic on the rear case that holds the screw head had popped off for each screw and was missing! So I just used some washers and longer screws and we're back in business. It does not look bad at all.

I don't know what software to use the tuner card with, though. I tried copying the Video Startup extension that comes with System 7.5.3 into the 7.5 System folder, restarting, and running Apple Video Player but that didn't work. Any ideas on that one?

 

[Dennis Nedry]

OH MAN! I posted this in the Power Mac LC section! Could somebody please move this to the 68k LC section?

I am well aware that this is not a Power Mac, just a simple mistake.

Here are a couple pictures anyway:

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Finally I have a little bit of time to explain what this project entailed.

First of all, I saw that Narion had a Mac TV case for sale in the trading post. At the same time, I had spotted a Macintosh LC 520 that was badly yellowed that I could have for free. So I thought, why not combine the two?!

After some talking with Narion, we came to an agreement for him to send me the slightly damaged case and a Mac TV logic board in exchange for some RAM and $50.

So yesterday I got the case, and much to my surprise, it contained everything except the CRT, analog board, fan, drives, and IR receiver board. The speakers, front panel buttons, and the internal cabling was included. Also the TV tuner board was included, which we hadn't explicitly talked about. I didn't realize this could be detatched from the logic board.

So I simply took the CRT, analog board, fan, and drives from the 520 and put it in the Mac TV. I had a couple problems with damage to the case during assembly. First of all, the front case between the drives and the CRT was broken in half. There was a previous repair attempt, but I repaired this with epoxy and is not noticeable unless looking from underneath.

Also each of the screws on that hold on the back case had broken through, so I had to use some longer with big heads for the top 2 screws, and washers on the middle 2 screws to hold it together. The screw in the bottom needed some special attention. I cut out a replacement plastic piece from the LC 520 and glued it on with epoxy. This worked VERY well. There is some visible beige plastic inside the area where the screw sits if you flip the machine over and look at the bottom, but I'm not sure if you'd realize that it's a repair. It looks very good.

You can see most of these repairs in the pictures I took except the screw on the bottom of the machine.

I don't have an IR sensor board... I have the microphone board form the 520 but I don't know what good that does for me. But otherwise the machine is complete and it's basically an authentic, fully-functional Mac TV for $50. I am quite happy with it. Many thanks to Narion for such a cool addition to my collection.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Ah, it looks as if I need the special "TV Setup" control panel. I will be trying this later tonight.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

It works! What a cool addition to my collection. Maybe I should even have posted this in Conquests - I saved this little guy.

I think this may be the coolest Mac I have.

 

[Byrd]

Really nice work Dennis - looks a treat. You can pickup black Apple 24X SCSI drives pretty cheaply, putting one of those in (and vinyl dying the other white bits) would make it look amazing!

Thanks

JB

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Can you get those in caddy loaders? The front bezel requires caddies.

I'm thinking the drive in there right now is probably 2x or so.

I'm not totally sure I'd want a black one because I believe all the originals were beige, but correct me if I'm wrong. I really want it to look as authentic as possible even though black would probably look better.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I've always seen pictures of authentic Mac TVs featuring beige caddy CD-ROMs.

 

[LCGuy]

Can you get those in caddy loaders? The front bezel requires caddies.
I'm thinking the drive in there right now is probably 2x or so.

I'm not totally sure I'd want a black one because I believe all the originals were beige, but correct me if I'm wrong. I really want it to look as authentic as possible even though black would probably look better.

Nah, they were only available in tray loaders, which means you'd need a 550 or 575 bezel, rather than the Mac TV bezel. The fastest Apple-branded caddy-load drive ever made was a 2x, which you'd already have.

And yes, for some stupefying reason, the OEM drives that the Mac TVs came with were beige.

 

[MacG4]

very nice rebuild nice to see that another mac tv has been saved.

 

[defor]

Interesting to see that your floppy/cd bezel has the same cracked notch that one of my mac tv's has...

although that system is currently doing time as a color classic tv...

the mactv never had a trayload option.. technically the system shipped right after the lc520 and as such the AppleCD 300i+ had not been released yet.

as to the system software, I have the original system disk images for the MacTV including the tv software... once it's installed, it'll upgrade to 7.6.1 wonderfully.

the TV software is separate from the apple tv/fm applications as it runs in fullscreen in a lower bit-depth, and will not multitask with other applications...

If you don't have the remote, it'll work with keyboard control and either the credit card remote or the full remote.

Contrary to popular belief, the credit card remote did not ship with ONLY the MacTV, but also with the Quadra 630's which had the video kit pre-installed.

The later kits and systems with tv support use the full remote - personally while the credit card remote is cooler looking, the full remote works far better, and batteries are easier to replace, and has the advantage of being cheap on ebay.

PowerCD remotes and MacMini and later remotes will not work obviously.