My first real 68k Mac use - SE DD for MIDI

[CJ_Miller]

As I posted elsewhere, I recently bought some old software, including some 68k mac music apps I have always wanted to check out. My first 68k Macs are: a Plus given to me by a friend, which I never had software for; and a Duo280c from another friend which I have never gotten to run. My first real Mac use was a Performa 6250CD shortly followed by an 8500, in the late 90s. So now I am finally using a 68k Mac and learning my way around.

This SE looks great, it was used but cared for. I bought it from the original owner who used it for publishing. My main 68k is an Atari Falcon 030, and this SE is noticeably less spry. I have an old square external SCSI enclosure from "Cutting Edge" which I installed 6.0.8 on. The square box matches the footprint of the bottom of the SE. I had an old Opcode MIDI interface years ago with the same form factor but I donated it to a friends new Mac setup. The SE turned out to be a good choice for the programs I have here, because they seem to have come out at around the same time.

So far I have installed Intelligent Music's M and Jam Factory, algorithmic jammers which seem quite deep. And Laurie Spiegel's MIDI Mouse, which is a sort of alternate music controller software, set up for the DX7 and CZ101 which suits me fine. I found that I already had a floppy for SoundEdit 2.0.5 which works on this thing, so I can use it to synthesize soundfiles with its noise generators, or even edit audio files. And lastly Coda Perceive, which is an ear-training package. My experience thus far is connecting an old, single-port MOTU interface to the modem connector and haphazardly joyriding MIDI riffs to my CZ1. Very fun stuff indeed.

I know that on my heaps of old CDs I did acquire other 68k music software which will probably run on this old thing. Tonight I am trying to find them and figure out how to transfer them to the SE.

My main concern about this box is that there is a very noticeable lag when trying to interact with the gui. It's not horrible, but not great for musical work/play. I wonder what I can do to tweak the performance of the SE a bit. It is great simplicity though to not even bother with OMS or such things. I just confirm the "modem port", and "1MHz" dialogue and jam.

 

[Mac128]

My main concern about this box is that there is a very noticeable lag when trying to interact with the gui. It's not horrible, but not great for musical work/play. I wonder what I can do to tweak the performance of the SE a bit.

How Much RAM is installed? If not 4MB, you need to max it out. You're already running on a hard drive. So that's about all you can do on an SE without adding an accelerator, which at that point you are better off upgrading to an SE/30. It is possible that adding a dedicated video card to the PDS slot and external monitor might improve performance, but they are hard to come by, and I think the bigger problem is not rendering the video as much as it is trying to pump out a lot of real time MIDI data via an 8MHz 68000 CPU off a slow disk drive at the same time. Besides if you do that you might as well get a Mac II.

I worked almost exclusively with a Mac Plus and MOTU Composer and Performer back in the day. The GUI is terribly slow, especially when chasing, or if you have complex MIDI tracks, but that is the nature of that Machine. The SE is only slightly faster than the Plus depending on the software. One difference is the hard drive formatting. If you did not format the HD on the SE, you should reformat it as the interleave is different and could slow down access. I also seem to recall that the sound software did not play well with any kind of RAM cache, disk cache, or RAM doubler software, so try disabling any of those things which may be active and see if that improves performance.

When the SE & Mac II came out, the SE was NEVER a consideration as a replacement for the Plus, we went straight to the Mac II, as it was the only real improvement for music use, despite the considerable cost. The SE/30 became an extremely popular Mac for music as it was compact enough to go on the road and powerful enough to drive the most complex MIDI sequences.

Hard as it is to believe the Mac Plus was state of the art for music production until 1987, and musicians were forced to work within the limitations of the technology. Frustrating as it was, it was miraculous, and though we complained about it, we considered ourselves lucky to have access to it. By comparison the Mac II was a god-send, even though by today's standards it's like programming music via that little LCD window on a DX7.

One last thought, is the GUI slow overall? I mean is it slow when just working within the Finder, no other software loaded? Until 6.0.8, it should be quite snappy. If so, that definitely points to a HD interleave problem, a mouse problem (in which case it needs to be cleaned), or worse case scenario, a problem with the ADB interface on the logic board. I'm not aware of any other common problems that would cause an overall lag in the GUI.

 

[Bunsen]

I recall having the same GUI lag on my friend's SE running M. It's prioritized to get the MIDI out in time, rather than updating the display.

 

[Mac128]

It's prioritized to get the MIDI out in time, rather than updating the display.

Busen, everything I said in one sentence! LOL

Exactly so with all MIDI software, processing a lot of MIDI data with a built-in lag to begin with on the limitations of the 8MHz 68000 Macs, was a lot to expect to begin with. Keeping up with the GUI, which was improved on the SE, but not significantly so, was of little importance to the intended purpose.

I remember when we got the Mac II, and it was as "magical" as using the iPad to watch a 20 track score flow by in real time with the music.

 

[CJ_Miller]

It will be better when the graphics acceleration is working. How can one tell if Quartz Extreme is enabled on these older models?

 

[CJ_Miller]

Obviously I am joking about QE, I am not that clueless. But still I feel like my first Mac days when I didn't know what i was doing.

Of course MIDI timing must be prioritized. The only problem is that this is live performance software, so interacting with the GUI is essential. If it was a multi-track sequencer, it would not bother me.

My SE has 4MB of RAM, and I am trying tonight a 1GB hard drive, which seems ok so far. I formatted it on my 1400CS with the A/UX utility. The software which came with the drive yields formatting which won't mount on my newer machines. If it works out I will transfer my M and Jam Factory authorizations to the new drive. If I can score an accelerator I might do so, and use a high-end Mac ii or Quadra for more demanding software.

When the Plus and SE came out, I was just a kid, and could not even remotely afford any such thing. I remember drooling over the Lisa and early Macs at a computer store in Nashua NH. The only thing I was able to afford there was Robotics Age magazine, which was great. My first Mac experiences came much later, but I am approaching this without any expectations. I am more so interested in how to configure my older system, never having used systems 6 or 7 before.

 

[Bunsen]

1GB hard drive, which seems ok so far. I formatted it on my 1400CS

If you did not format the HD on the SE, you should reformat it as the interleave is different and could slow down access.

This seems like sound advice. You can download a Disk Tools floppy for the SE from Apple which will let you format the drive in situ.

 

[CJ_Miller]

Disk Tools? I haven't found this there. Even Drive Setup I have only found for 7.5. Didn't see it on the FTP either.

What interleave do you recommend? The booklet to my hard drive suggests an interleave of 2 for the SE. When I did this I was unable to mount it on newer machines for loading my software. The HD SC Drive Setup formats it so that it mounts on my SE and my 1400CS, but my 8600 bombs when I try it there. Another weird thing is that once I mount it on my 1400cs, the SE doesn't see it as bootable anymore. I don't understand how simply mounting it renders it unbootable, even though it has the same System Folder it booted with before. So when I put it back on the SE I reinstall the OS. This has all proven to be more fiddly than I hoped. I wonder if I could make an Appletalk connection between the SE and my other boxes, but I am afraid that my brain will bleed. Perhaps I can try after I have slept.

One thing that did work out: I found an archive of Notator Logic 1.7 on Higher Intellect, and it works with one of the dongles I scored.

 

[Mac128]

Back in the day it was all easy. Because there was only one way to do things, and there was complete documentation and tips for third party vendors who wanted to sell to the Mac crowd. Disk Tools is one of the multi-part install disks on Apple's Site for 6.0.8. The interleave is handled automatically on the SE. Non-Apple approved drives may or may not be recognized properly depending on how they are formatted on other equipment. AppleTalk will likely be the easiest to setup. 6.0.8 is ready to go, as is System 7 on your later Macs. Just plug a serial cable into the SE and directly into the other Mac, set up Apple Talk, and sharing and transfer your files to hearts content.

 

[Bunsen]

Appletalk plays merry hell with MIDI setups, though

 

[Mac128]

Ha ha, true enough. It must be disabled before sending those merry music packets out the serial port. But presumably, setting up his SE and using it would be two different steps.

However, what am I remembering about which port MIDI interfaces were recommended to be attached to, and weren't there some kind of port expanders that allowed one to maintain a normal Mac setup without constantly changing the MIDI setup? Or a passthrough switch on the MIDI device, which could be used without a reboot? It's been so long and those were the details I left up to the studio tech ;-)

 

[Scott Baret]

In regards to Disk Tools--the name Disk Tools only came about with System 7. The disk with Apple HD SC Setup was called System Tools in System 6 and earlier if you're using 800K disks (which I assume you'd want--not sure if your SE has a SuperDrive or not) and System Startup if you're using 1.4MB disks.

If you're using Apple's downloads, use the four-part System 6.0.8 to get an 800K System Tools floppy. It's probably Part 1 of the four part download (not 100% sure since I use the original floppies in emergencies). If you do have a 1.4MB drive, use either the 6.0.8 System Startup disk or the Disk Tools floppy from the 7.0.1 set. I find either all of these easier than using Apple's 7.5.3 download (honestly, you're better with that version on CD-ROM unless you have a lot of floppies and a lot of patience).

Another option is to track down Silverlining or Hard Disk Toolkit. These are commercial products--you have to acquire a physical disk and license to use them--but are pretty advanced as far as formatting goes. I've used Silverlining and know it is very easy to set interleave with it.

 

[CJ_Miller]

It seems like I have an adequate assortment of formatting tools here, it is just that I have not fine tuned anything. I don't know what the SE likes, really. For instance, that interleave of 2 which was recommended - I read the same on LEM but the SE profile also says that this is because of slower drives of that vintage, that newer buffered drives don't need the older setup. I don't have enough experience with this to have an opinion yet. Next things I will do tonight are use my hokey disk transfers to copy over utilities for formatting and localtalk to make floppies of, so if I decide to reformat that getting connected to another Mac for my files becomes easier. On my 1400cs I used the HD SC setup for A/UX, and on my SE Lido seems to work, as does the Cutting Edge formatter which came with the external drive.

Yes, Bunsen and 128, MIDI troubles are how I learned about Appletalk in the first place! I installed OMS on my 8500 with SVP and Max and saw the warnings, along with the readme of practically every MIDI app I have seen until X. It sounded like such trouble that I couldn't understand why anybody would ever use Appletalk. But a few years later once I had more Macs it has saved the day on occasion. Now it seems like a necessity for me, at least for sharing apps and documents between systems.

Scott, I have double-density drives only. Until recently I didn't know that superdrives were around in the 68k days. For a few minutes I toyed with finding a SWIM and trying to graft one from one of my parts machines, but really localtalk will be enough. I will look for System Tools to see wot da de-al.