My first 68K Mac : a SE/30

[val1984]

Hello there!

This is my first post and I'm proud to be joining the 68k Mac Liberation Army with my first 68k conquest (but not my first Mac at all ).

Last sunday, I bought a Macintosh SE/30 from someone through a classifieds website for 40€ (~$55 I guess).

It was owned by a man who passed away recently and sold by his two daughters who didn't know much about it.

So I went to their home to test it and it did boot up without a problem (only had to tune the brightness knob to be able to see it did boot up).

I got the keyboard, the mouse, a spare localtalk cable and the plastic accessory for reboot and debug, but no floppies with it.

It has 8 MB of RAM, a huge hard drive (40 MB) on which the following software are installed:

• System 7.0.1
• Microsoft Word 5.0
• Microsoft Excel 4.0
• Claris MacPaint 2.0
• Norton
• A few games

I have no way to communicate with it right now since it has no Ethernet card (and even no PDS card). I'm thinking of buying a SCSI Zip 100 drive (or maybe use my father's if he can find it) and buying another USB Zip 100 drive (to use on an Al PowerBook G4 running 10.4 or 10.5) plus a few disks so that I can install System 6.0.8 on one Zip, System 7 on another and System 7.5.5 on a last one (at least and maybe A/UX too). Do you think it's a good idea?

I think I will have to change the capacitors on the motherboard since the sound is really muted (I can barely hear it at max volume) and I'm planning on avoiding to use it until I find some time to assess the motherboard condition.

Thank you for reading

PS: This post was typed on the mentioned Al PowerBook G4 which has the following characteristics:

• G4 1,33 GHz
• Radeon Mobility 9600 with 64 MB VRAM
• 1.5 GB RAM
• 120 GB Crucial mSATA SSD connected through an IDE to mSATA adapter
• Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 installed

PPS: English is not my native language so please forgive any mistakes

 

[uniserver]

that banana is ripe and ready to eat!!!  

The scsi zip drives work great with these old mac's

Maybe put a Network Card on the list if Want's for it.

 

[Mk.558]

A scraggly grin is what I see...

The first thing you'll want to do is take it apart and repair/replace all the capacitors on the logic board (there's an image to help you with that in my signature). The PRAM battery is famous for causing colossal damage, it should be inspected and replaced at once. Cleaning out the FDD is a really good idea too, they're usually gunked up with 10 year old dust from Argentina or wherever. Just don't touch the heads, or you'll be buying a new drive!

Networking: There's an extensive link in my signature which elaborates on this. It should be updated in a little while which will make it much more accurate and comprehensive. I wouldn't bother with Zip unless you need it, although a bigger HDD and more RAM should also be on your list. I had 32MiB of RAM in my late one and it was plenty for anything.

P.S. 10.3 will mount a 7.0.1 server, but you need the File Sharing Extension from 7.5.3.

P.P.S. Your English is fine. Better than about 10% of English-only speakers/writers.

 

[Elfen]

*takes the banana and starts peeling*
 
Yup, that is an excellent find! Save up for a recap and analog board parts. It should last you many years. Perhaps enough years for people to question why you are using a 2D Display with it!

 

[Superdos]

easiest Ethernet solution without opening it up is going to be a SCSI Ethernet adapter. else, I wish you luck on finding an internal ethernet card for your SE and congratulate you on its liberation.

easiest way to get files from it after that would be to use a web browser catered for those with file download capability (there were a few), and then put the files on a webserver someplace locally-- point the SE to the local address for the folder and you're done. saves time and address typing.