My Macintosh IIfx. Still running after eleven years.

[Emiel]

My Macintosh IIfx. Still running after eleven years.

In early 1999 I got a gift from a colleague, a graphic designer at the printing company where I had a job as printer: an old Macintosh IIfx. Then equipped with 20 MB RAM and 230 MB hard disk. Furthermore, it had a Supermac video card and a Supermac Storm Card insite. I had a Macintosh II PC Card Drive with 5.25-inch floppy drive by myself. This macintosh IIfx took the place of my LCIII, which I then had 6 years in use.

A thorough cleaning followed and from the LCIII I put the floppy drive over to the IIfx, so I had two floppy-drives. From an old Macintosh IIx I had a floppy-drive mount, witch was necassary, because the LCIII-mount was another model.

It was a great improvement, not only in speed but also memory and hard disk. From 25 MHz without FPU to 40 MHz with FPU. From 8 MB of RAM to 20 MB of RAM. And finally from 160 MB hard disk drive to 240 MB hard disk drive. It was the best 68K mac I've ever had (and still have).

From May 1999 I had also internet in this IIfx. The computer then works with system 7.5.5 / open transport 1.3.1 and a 14k4 modem.

Just over one year later I bought a Powermac 8600/250, so the IIfx hardly used. And since I am moved in 2006, the IIfx remained in the moving box. Late last year I unpacked the IIfx again to see if I could start it up again.

After connecting... nothing happend. After opening: mmm, everything looks OK... Why it does starts up... Then I thought that the PRAM battery could be empty. A voltmeter gave the answer: 0.0 volts! Mmm... where can I get these batteries. Luckily I had two spare part batteries. So I placed it quickly. Then followed the startup-sound, but it do not start up. With a boot disk with System 6.0.7, finally succeeded. The external hard drive (Supermac Data Frame) had no system folder and internal hard drive dose not do anyting. So I replaced the internal hard drive by another 2 Gb hard drive, the disk of my old Powermet 8600 (which had already a 4 GB hard drive in it). Thanks to an external CD-ROM drive and boot disk the 2 GB hard disk could be installed and I put system 7.5.3. Dutch version on it.

At that moment I had a working IIfx, with 20 MB RAM, 2 GB HD, Supermac video card and two floppy drives. Via a site in America, I could purchase 4 64-pin simms of 4 MB, so that I had 32 MB RAM.

I bought on Ebay a Nubus Asante Ethernet card. The software I found on the Internet. Together with the installation of Open Transport 1.3.1 I managed to connect to the IIfx cable Internet.

Via via I found a Radius Rocket Stage II without RAM. I had some old 30-pin simms, so I could have a total of 20 Mb RAM places in de card. I found the software on the internet, and the installation went fine.

Finally I found on a Dutch auction site a Dutch installation CD-ROM for system 7.6. I had the upgrade to 7.6.1 by myself and this system is now running on my IIfx.

This is my IIfx-set at the moment:

Macintosh IIfx

- 32 MB RAM

- 2097 Mb HDD

- 2 FDHD floppy drives

Nubus

Radius Rocket Stage II, 40 MHz 68040

- 20 MB RAM (4 x 4Mb bank A, bank B 1 x 4 MB)

Macintosh II PC Drive Card (and disk drive)

Asante Technologies MC3NB (ST-NIC-T) rev. B1

Supermac Spectrum/24 V v3 (with Apple 14 "monitor)

External

Supermac Data Frame 320 MB hard disk

SCSI tower-mount with:

- SCSI hard disk mounter

- CD RW Drive

- 44 MB SyQuest drive

A Nubus FWB Jackhammer SCSI-2 card has already been bought on Ebay, but is still in the mail. If it takes a long time now. Bought and paid on March 17, but still not received...

So far my Macintosh IIfx story.

Regards,

Emiel

 

[beachycove]

Great story and the IIfx sounds a well-loved machine. I have a couple of 8600 604ev PowerMacs (at 300MHz) also, and think they are fabulous machines.

I do, however, have a Mac II -> IIfx upgraded machine, so it is a IIfx in all but badge (and power supply, it seems), but as I have only 8MB of RAM in it, I have decided to keep it as the "ultimate" System 6 machine in my collection — though I have various compacts as well as a IIsi and a IIci running 6 as well.

The fact that I have 68040 and ppc hardware for system 7+ makes this lowend choice for the IIfx something of a pleasure. The beauty of it is that I wanted something to run Claris CAD on, and according to the user's manual, Claris CAD runs best on System 6. So the IIfx is destined to be used for drawing when the need arises.

I haven't had the chance to set it all up yet, but a IIfx + System 6 + Claris CAD + Apple Nubus 8/24GC + Nubus ethernet + 20" Radius Greyscale monitor = a kind of perfection.

 

[Unknown_K]

I kind of like OS 7.1 best on a IIfx with 32MB of RAM, the lesser Mac II's can run OS 6.

 

[Emiel]

I do, however, have a Mac II -> IIfx upgraded machine, so it is a IIfx in all but badge (and power supply, it seems), but as I have only 8MB of RAM in it, I have decided to keep it as the "ultimate" System 6 machine in my collection — though I have various compacts as well as a IIsi and a IIci running 6 as well.

If you got only 8 Mb RAM in your IIfx, maybe I can help. I have got 4 64-pin 4 Mb SIMMs, which I do not use, because my IIfx has got already 8 64-pin 4 Mb SIMMs. I have tried to sell it here in Holland via a local auction site, but there was no responce.

There is a little problem with these SIMMs. I have also got 4 64-pin 1 Mb SIMMs. But they do not work together. After placement of the SIMMs (totally it would be 20 Mb RAM), I've got a black sad-mac-screen with a code (i dont know which one, but i can figer it out). But the 4 Mb SIMMs alone works fine.

Let me know if you want them. I can also sent photo's of the SIMMs.

Regards,

Emiel

 

[beachycove]

I might take you up on that, depending on price, but according to an article on LowendMac on IIfx memory, "For 16 MB, install four 4 MB SIMMs in Bank A. To reach 20 MB, add four 1 MB SIMMs in Bank B."

Do you happen to remember if you followed that advice when testing, by any chance?

 

[Emiel]

Mmm... Maybe I have make a mistake with that. I will try the SIMMs again and see wat happened.

Regards,

Emiel

 

[Emiel]

I have tried different RAM-configurations. The configuration "16 Mb in Bank A and 4 Mb in Bank B" and "4 Mb in Bank A and 16 Mb in Bank B" gives the same problem:

- a black screen (even not a sad-mac-screen)

- a startup-sound, followed by an erron-sound

Without the 1 Mb SIMMs, the 4 Mb SIMMs works fine in Bank A, but also in Bank B. Without the 4 Mb SIMMs, the 1 Mb SIMMs works also fine in Bank A or Bank B. But what exactly is the problem, I do not know.

Regards,

Emiel

 

[beachycove]

Thanks for giving it a try.

On the sale, I think I will say No. If I were going to go to all the trouble of sourcing some new RAM for the IIfx, I would want to get RAM that I knew for sure was unproblematic; plus, as I say, I have reasons to keep it as a System 6 machine anyway.

It is, however, possible that the problem lies with the 1MB SIMMS you are trying these with....

 

[IIciguy]

I always wanted a IIfx after interning at Planet Dallas Recording Studio around 1997. They had one running Pro Tools 3 I think with an 8 channel audio interface. We used early Power Macs when I went to audio engineering school in '96 and '97 but the IIfx looked cooler and was something different that I had not seen before at the time.

 

[Emiel]

Here a little update:

I have received my FWB SCSI Jackhammer, which I ordered on Ebay. After some experience to get a bootable harddisk, I have format a 8,5 Gb Quantum Viking II 9.1WLS harddisk into two partitions of 3,9 Gb. That harddisk came from an old server, but is in a good condition. Partitioning was necessary because the system can't handle harddisks larger than 4 GB.

I have used "FWB RAID Toolkit 2.0.2" to format and partitioning. Then I copied the system folder from the old harddist to the new one, selected with Startup Disk the new harddisk and started it up again. And that would immediately succeed. So my IIfx-set is now:

Macintosh IIfx

- 32 MB RAM

- 8,5 Gb HDD, partitioned into two disks of 3,9 Gb

- 2 FDHD floppy drives

Nubus

FWB SCSI Jackhammer

Radius Rocket Stage II, 40 MHz 68040

- 20 MB RAM (4 x 4Mb bank A, bank B 1 x 4 MB)

Macintosh II PC Drive Card (and disk drive)

Asante Technologies MC3NB (ST-NIC-T) rev. B1

Supermac Spectrum/24 V v3 (with Apple 14 "monitor)

External

Supermac DataFrame 320 MB hard disk

SCSI tower-mount with:

- SCSI hard disk mounter

- CD RW Drive

- 44 MB SyQuest drive

When I looked into the system ratings with Norton System Info, a IIfx normally scores 59,7. By testing in the previous setting (the set shown in the first topic) it scores 70,5. The higher scores caused by the harddisk, which were a lot faster then the original one. After installing the Jackhammer and the 8,5 Gb Quantum Viking II 9.1WLS harddisk, the system rating scores 71,2!

There is also a new startup-problem. When I try to startup from the Supermac DataFrame with system 7.5.5, I get a sad-mac-error:

0000000F

00007FFF

Starting up from the Supermac DataFrame with system 7.6.1, it gives a bus-error at the begin of the startup. After some retry, I get aslo the message "not enough memory available". Does anybody know this problems?

Regards,

Emiel