My crummy hard diskless mac se with holes in it

[zerobotman]

currently my Mac SE has an internal 1.44 floppy drive and one external 700k drive which at least lets me boot from one and do other things with the other one. I have a small collection of software including system 7 install disk coppies, a boot disk and some games. I'm taking a look at transmac right now to see the viability of getting a bigger software library going. it would be quite the challenge to repair this case though but i wouldn't mind getting a scsi drive for it eventually.

 

[Elfen]

For now I would not worry about the "Holes" as there are more important things to deal with.

Does the hard drive on the SE works and boots up? Which floppy drive boots the system - the 800K or the 1.4M? they should both boot the system depending on the disk format and OS. (Its 800K, not 700K...)

It looks like your SE says "SuperDrive" on it. It should have a hard drive in it, if it does not boot then it must be dead or needs reformatting (if you are lucky). Replace it. If you can get it - a SCSI2SD or SCSI2CF adapter would be great for you.

If you can get a Hard Drive working on it (may it be a hard drive, SD or CF with an adapter), if you can, install System 7 on it with PC Exchange, you should be able to read/write PC Formatted disks with the 1.4M drive and you will not need TRANSMAC. BUT there is a problem that comes up once in a while - sometimes the resource or file IDs are lost when you transfer files from PC to Mac. This can be a headache at times but there are ways around it but it would be too much to explain how here. For now, just know that there can be a problem...

Clean up the case, find out what you (Apple Menu - About This Mac) and what system are you currently using and how are you booting to it. And be ready to make upgrades/repairs as needed (#1 - Hard Drive!).

 

[Cory5412]

The system does look to be in reasonable shape. The damage to the plastics is just superficial and you can leave it or fix it up. 

The photo very clearly shows the display. It's booting from a floppy diskette.

I believe that the Mac SE was available with no hard disk, so it could have been a dual floppy model originally, or perhaps the hard disk has died or was re-partitioned. If you're going for a recreation of a certain time period, 1.4M and 1/0 config was also available in the Mac Classic.

If you've got a disk tools floppy in your system 7 kit, you should be able to find out if you'll be able to use the hard disk. Though, if you want to, system 6 and a few apps or games should work just fine in a dual floppy config. A peripheral like the FloppyEmu might be nice to have, but some people prefer physical floppies.

 

[zerobotman]

the previous owner didn't' provide the hard drive but i do have the tray and cables. They did demonstrate that it was toast though and only spun up if you shook it. As for the boot disk it comes up in the apple menu as "Macintosh Finder" and it displays finder version 6.1.8 and system 6.0.8. It's currently booting from the external 800k drive but i seem to be able to just copy the floppy onto whatever mac formatted floppy i have and boot from it. this friday is the day i pop it open and scare away the bats that are probably living in it.

As cheesy as it sounds i would really like to start using it for writing if that's feasible.

edit: maybe not. it turns out i need to buy the longest torx screwdriver ever made

 

[Elfen]

HA! I use a Street Sweeper Bristle that breaks off when they roll by your block, pick up a few long ones, they fix inside Mac Torx T-15 screw head nicely.

The internal drive not working? Hope it is. The you can format a 1.4M floppy on it and put a system with more stuff on it.

Put up pics of what you find inside.

 

[360alaska]

If you want to, you can modify the bracket a little bit and stack a hard drive on top of both floppy drives

 

[Cory5412]

As cheesy as it sounds i would really like to start using it for writing if that's feasible.

You can do this using TeachText, which is probably somewhere on a disk you have.  If this is the main thing you want to do, you don't even really need any mass storage bigger than a few floppies.

The internal drive not working? Hope it is. The you can format a 1.4M floppy on it and put a system with more stuff on it.

He's written a few times here and in the lounge that the system physically doesn't have a hard disk inside. It was not included by the previous owner.

The FloppyEmu can do HD20 emulation, which might be worth investigating. SCSI2SD is another good option, which you'd basically install where the old hard disk was.

 

[Elfen]

The internal drive not working? Hope it is. The you can format a 1.4M floppy on it and put a system with more stuff on it.

He's written a few times here and in the lounge that the system physically doesn't have a hard disk inside. It was not included by the previous owner.

I was talking about the 1.4M Floppy Drive in the system. Not a hard drive.

I have not read the posts on the Lounge, but I get that the hard drive is not included from what he posted here. But if his 1.4M Floppy Drive works, then he can use High Density Disks on that drive and Low Density 800K Disks on the other. That question has not been answered other than "It's currently booting from the external 800k drive..."

 

[zerobotman]

Ike... i couldn't resist taking a peak inside. those 10 foot long torx screws were tricky but funny enough they were already stripped and half out when i got to them which probably explains the man handled bezel. a long Robertson driver and a rubber band got them out without issue and i can't say i was thrilled about what I saw inside. I'm pretty sure that this mac won't last very long. on that note what's the going rate for an SE motherboard

BTW i assembled it back up and it still works. i even hooked up the speaker that wasn't hooked up. Also to answer your question both the high density drive and the 800k drive work well.

 

[Elfen]

copied from: https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27238-estimate-looking-at-possibly-replacing-mainboard-in-future/

I'm looking at your SE board and except or the rust, it looks OK. Wash the board out with ammonia and distilled water and then rinse it with a high proof alcohol, and it should be fine for years.

The SE Board is robust, it can take a serious beating. But is is not an SE\30 with a more powerful and faster CPU, FPU, and able to hold more RAM, but caps are not going to explode on you like an SE\30. The SE as its place in the Vintage Mac arena. I would love to have one but for now I don't as I do not have the money to get one.

Except for the dirt and rust on the metal frame, this should be fine after a good wash and rinse down. Blow Dry with a hair dryer or compressed air.

The rest of the case should be as dirty, so it should be cleaned out as well. The Rust you can deal with some rust remover or rust paint and paint over it. This machine should out last you if you take care of it right.

Adding to it:

How is the rest of the metal frame inside the case? Any rust on that metal? I forget which member who it was, but an exploded battery damaged the metal case on an SE, SE\30, Classic or Classic II, but the logic board was recoverable. The rust on the metal frame was taken cared off with steel wool and then painted over with Rust Neutralizing paint. It gave the frame a luscious black finish.

EDIT:

Good that it can boot from the internal High Density Drive. Now you can get high density disks for it and format it to make a larger boot disk.

 

[zerobotman]

My SE just got a whole lot scsier!
 
Good news is that i just traded an old workstation for a 40mb scsi drive! It also seems to work with the old operating system which i found strange. the case is very corroded the farther down you go and i bet the unit experienced a flood in it's time. I will likely try to put some time and effort into this thing now that i've gotten a drive for it. here is a pic inside the case. do you know if household ammonia is ok to use?

 

 

[Elfen]

Household ammonia works (great) but you need to mix it with distilled water. Facet water has too many dissolved minerals that can case problems and leave a white-chalky residue on the board and other surfaces. Many dept. and auto stores stores sell distilled water for about $1 a gallon.

When you dry it, do not let it sit there for days and dry out. Take come compressed air or a hair dryer and blow out the water and dry it.

Congrats on the drive!

I have to say that this system looks promisingly good!

EDIT: Ammonia/Water is good for the logic board and metal frame. Not for the plastic bezel. In either case, you need to chase out the water with some high proof isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol - 75% minimum - 90% at best. You still need to dry it out with compressed air or a hair dryer.

 

[zerobotman]

Thanks again for the advice. Would you remove the chips from the logic board or just the ram? also in your experience what is the best material to replace the aluminum shield with since it's a bit rotted too?

edit: by aluminum shield i mean the tinfoily cover on the underside of the logic board

 

[Elfen]

I would remove just the RAM SIMMs.

In my many years of Macs, I have seen many of them without that shield. That shield is only for blocking TV/Radio interference the Mac might make. It does not provide much protection in anything else, especially for the Mac.

 

[zerobotman]

Sounds good! on another note I just updated the system to system 7.1 and installed pcexchange. it now reads all pc floppies making the exchange of info possible!

 

[Elfen]

That's Great!

Like I post everywhere about PC<->Mac file transfers, keep in mind that one can lose the File ID and some resource forks of the file during the transfer. This would give a blank icon when it happens. If you can, compress the file as a zip file and get the later version of Alladin's Stuffit Expander which can handle Zip Files. There was also a Mac Zip expander program but I forget its name.

Also get Utility Dog program, its a file/sector editor that lets you fix lost File IDs and resource forks if you know them. By this lets say, you have two MS Word files, one on the Mac and other going to the Mac from a PC and its File ID and resource forks get deleted or scrambled. Use Utility Dog to look at the good file, copy the file information that is missing and open the bad file and paste them in and save the file. This will restore the messed up file most of the time, and you can open it in MS Word again.

 

[olePigeon]

HA! I use a Street Sweeper Bristle that breaks off when they roll by your block, pick up a few long ones, they fix inside Mac Torx T-15 screw head nicely.

They're excellent for picking locks, too.  *shifty eyed*  Not that I picked locks...