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Newby questions for stock SE30

ChrisW381

Active member
Hi guys…

Relatively new to the group so bare with me as I have some quick questions :)

So I have restored a SE30 which I assume is in stock condition with 8 Meg Ram etc.

So what is the best / most stable OS version and where to source it?

Can I get the SE30 onto the internet and if so what is the best card / solution to do it?

Many thanks in advance

C
 

retrofreak83

Active member
Hi guys…

Relatively new to the group so bare with me as I have some quick questions :)

So I have restored a SE30 which I assume is in stock condition with 8 Meg Ram etc.
You should immediately check whether it has been recapped. If not, consider doing it - the sooner the better. If you don't do it, you risk that the capacitors leak and literally corrode your logic board.
Also, check the age of the 1/2 AA battery. It has the potential to burst and spread acid all over the logic board and case.
My suggestion: If you don't plan to use the Mac on a regular basis, don't insert a battery at all. What you will miss is that contents of the PRAM are not secured, which basically means date/time and loudspeaker volume.
So what is the best / most stable OS version and where to source it?
From my point of view, a stable *and fast* version would be System 7.1. Back in the days when I started with these Macs, the version has not been publicly available (in contrast to 7.0.1 and 7.5.3). Meanwhile, most versions should be archived and available at such places like archive.org. I live in Germany, so I could just show you where to get German versions which most likely won't help you.

AFAIR, 7.1 is fast and uses less system resources. Another option would be System 7.5.3. It uses more resources and runs notably slower, but thenumber of available software is much bigger.

If you are going to install your system from scratch anyway, one thing you (c/sh)ould consider is replacing the original harddrive by a (SD-card-based) BlueSCSI board. Installing your system is much easier then because you don't have to create a bunch of installation disks and have the hassle of using 3,5" floppies with your modern system. There are also ready-made hard disk images for BlueSCSI around and the very handy "DiskJockey" tool, see here: https://github.com/erichelgeson/BlueSCSI/wiki/Getting-Started

Can I get the SE30 onto the internet and if so what is the best card / solution to do it?
To be honest: I don't know what could be a solution which would be *easy to acquire*.
What I can think of spontaneously are these options:
Use LocalTalk hardware and a LocalTalk to ethernet bridge. Has the disadvantage of being slow, AFAIR.
Next: Buy an external SCSI-based ethernet "card", a popular one would be Asanté EN/SC.
An additional option is to use the internal expansion slot of the SE/30 and install an internal ethernet card.
Here are some suggestions: https://se30forever.com/networking.html
Another option would be to just put a modem or modem emulator to the serial port, there are several options to bridge that into something modern and ethernet, but needs additional hardware and maybe things like running some server-like stuff on a Linux machine, etc.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
So what is the best / most stable OS version and where to source it?
Stable isn't really something you pick an old Mac OS by, they're all fairly stable from that era, but all crash sometimes. On the other hand. Usability, features vs. processor speed and RAM, I'd suggest 7.1 or 7.5.3.


Can I get the SE30 onto the internet and if so what is the best card / solution to do it?
You can get the SE/30 on the internet in the technical sense of the word, but the experience will be similar to trying to walk through a door without opening it first. What sort of thing do you want to do with the internet? Text emails and FTP are fine, browsing the World Wide Web is just about half possible if you use something like frogfind. IRC and some terminal based Web services are fine.

You can't use websites with scripts or, what are they called... images 🤣
 
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retrofreak83

Active member
Oh yes, good hint of Phipli. You won't be able to browse modern websites (is it any wonder for a computer way over 30 yrs old?). These bring so much code and complexity in the background that it takes ages on such an ancient machine like the 68030 to parse. Additionally, pretty much every website nowadays is transferred encrypted (https), so the Mac needs to do decryption essentially. Current encryption algorithms aren't even implemented for browsers that are available for that old systems. Even with a PowerMac G5, browsing today's web does not make much fun.
One browser which has been maintained for 68k Macs for a long period of time is iCab. The last 68k version was released in 2006 at least.
 

ArmorAlley

Well-known member
The advantage of an ethernet connection is to be able to get files on and off your SE/30 with relative ease.
I use a Mac Mini G4 running Mac OS 9.2.2 as my server and I use to access the Macintosh Garden.
It then connects to old macs and I connect with them to the mac Mini G4.
Pay attention to almost everything from a member by the name of @Bolle, especially this thread below:


and this one


You need neither of them but they will add value, expansion slots, speed and ethernet capability to your SE/30.
They seem expensive but you will find that most things to do with the SE/30 are expensive, or, at least, more expensive than things for other similarly old Macs.
 

ChrisW381

Active member
Many for the quick replies really appreciated….

So to answer some of the points , I have recapped both the logic and analog boards as part of the restoration. New good quality battery fitted so will keep an eye on it. New 40 Mb HDD (NOS) so I will need to get hold a a copy of the best OS on floppies presumably? I do have a scsi external caddy based disk drive here so not sure if I can clean install from that?

Thanks for info on internet access so will leave that well alone then!
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Many for the quick replies really appreciated….

So to answer some of the points , I have recapped both the logic and analog boards as part of the restoration. New good quality battery fitted so will keep an eye on it. New 40 Mb HDD (NOS) so I will need to get hold a a copy of the best OS on floppies presumably? I do have a scsi external caddy based disk drive here so not sure if I can clean install from that?

Thanks for info on internet access so will leave that well alone then!
I'd strongly recommend getting a Floppy EMU from BMOW over using real floppy disks. Floppies are not something I'm nostalgic about! The drives give trouble and the disks give trouble, and they're hard to write from modern computers.

You can just load up floppy images and even up to 2GB disk images on a Floppy EMU and select them from a menu.
 

rjkucia

Well-known member
I'd recommend a PiSCSI to get your SE/30 online. It can also replace your hard drive and can do some other neat tricks.
+1 for PiSCSI. It's a great way to get started, as it so much capability built in to one device. It's a little more technical than Floppy Emus or SCSI-SD devices, but it'll get you CD/HDD emulation, ethernet, and a file server all on one device. The main downside is that it plays best if you have it external and it requires its own power supply.

Once you're started, then I would recommend looking in to other devices such as an internal SCSI device like BlueSCSI and/or PDS cards for whatever you need.
 

rjkucia

Well-known member
As far as OS version, I can echo that 7.1 or 7.5 seem to be the best choices. 7.0 is fast, but 7.1 included a software rewrite that makes it compatible with much of the software that works with 7.5. 6 is insanely fast but probably wasted on an SE/30 since you can't even get 32-bit addressing. 8.1 is neat to try out, but it's very, very slow and doesn't get you much other than a visual revamp (which can technically be added to 7.1-5 as well, but also makes it slow).

I've *heard* that 7.1 + adding what you need to it is the best way to go, but I haven't done that yet myself.

As a side note, I've been trying to put together a chart showing what each version gets you. I couldn't find one myself so I threw this together. If other people would like to help review/add to this I can make a new thread for it. Note that this screenshot may be incorrect since it's just from my own quick research.

1674497648833.png
 

Phipli

Well-known member
6 is insanely fast but probably wasted on an SE/30 since you can't even get 32-bit addressing
 

rjkucia

Well-known member
Oh hey, neat! I'll add that to my chart lol

Although seeing that it doesn't work with Multifinder is kind of a bummer.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
8.1 is neat to try out, but it's very, very slow and doesn't get you much other than a visual revamp (which can technically be added to 7.1-5 as well, but also makes it slow).
7.6 and 7.6.1 up don't work on an SE/30 without a replacement 32bit clean ROM and 8.0 and 8.1 don't work on 68030 based machines without some hacking and bodges.

On a stock SE/30 you're really limited to Systems from 6.0.x to 7.5.5.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Oh hey, neat! I'll add that to my chart lol

Although seeing that it doesn't work with Multifinder is kind of a bummer.
I have actually almost never use multifinder, I tend to use 7.1 if I'm looking for that sort of thing since... we'll, it's like multifinder but better 🤣
 

rjkucia

Well-known member
7.6 and 7.6.1 up don't work on an SE/30 without a replacement 32bit clean ROM and 8.0 and 8.1 don't work on 68030 based machines without some hacking and bodges.

On a stock SE/30 you're really limited to Systems from 6.0.x to 7.5.5.
Forgot about the ROM - which is actually a good suggestion for OP, the Rominator II! The bootable image on the ROM is a huge lifesaver whenever I mess up something in my system folder. OS 8 just requires a single byte flipped, I think, and there's quite a few premade images for it, so that's not too hard. But again, it's not a very usable system on an SE/30.
 
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