Newly acquired Mac Portable (M5120)

[Berenod]

Hi guys,

Finally came across something I have always wanted, a Mac Portable M5120!
I already have a lot of the PowerPC stuff, an iMac G4 lampshade, some Powerbook G4's (15 and 17"), some iBook's, a sawtooth, ...

So this is the very first of the "older" generation Mac's for me.

I also have a lot of the other retro stuff from my (very) young age, things like a TI-99/4a, Commodore 64, Commodore PET, a Tandy TRS 80, computers which were "sort of" affordable when I was a youngster. Unlike the Mac Portable, which was anything but affordable

I bought it "non-working", according to the previous owner it was working most of the years he owned it, until after leaving it without charging for too long (equals blasphemy), the battery died, and with it the possibility to actually test it before buying.
I only ended up paying 100€ for it, a gamble I am more then willing to take!

Now, I do now the credo, "recap, recap, recap", and obviously find a solution for the dead battery, before even thinking of connecting the powersupply!

Pictures under here (click for full size version).

 

[Berenod]

I took apart the machine (such a pleasure, no screws), pretty sure I am the first one to take it apart since a very very long time, the rubber feet under the machine were 100% intact, but did desintegrate pretty much into rubber dust when prying them out (to be able to release the keyboard cover).

When I removed the mainboard, bit of a wow factor, pretty much immaculate.
No leakages at all that I can see, using magnifying glasses.
Tomorrow I'll take it to work and put it under our soldering microscope, to search for the dreaded leakage and corrosion.

But, based on what I am seeing now, my gut says, power it on when you have the battery sorted out.

What do you guys think?

Under here the best I could get using my phone camera on macro setting (again, click on the image for full size picture):

 

[Berenod]

Actually, looking closer on the pics I do see the very early stages of leakage on a few of the capacitors...

 

[Johnnya101]

Looks to be in decent shape overall cap leakage wise. The hybrid looks to have made it without getting eaten alive as well. New caps plus a really good cleaning may be all it needs (hopefully). You caught it before it got bad. Please update when you get it recapped! Also make sure to recap the power adapter as well.

As you already said, make sure to install a new 9V battery and the big battery before trying to turn it on.

 

[Berenod]

Additional question:

I do now there are a lot of dead machines around (fried hybrid's, ...), how easy would it be to source ram cards? The sram of the m5120 seems to be a bit of a rarity!

 

[Johnnya101]

MacEffects WAS making new ram cards, last time we spoke they could not find any new ram chips due to shortages. So for now, you will have to try and find used ones.

 

[Berenod]

Looks to be in decent shape overall cap leakage wise. The hybrid looks to have made it without getting eaten alive as well. New caps plus a really good cleaning may be all it needs (hopefully). You caught it before it got bad. Please update when you get it recapped! Also make sure to recap the power adapter as well.

As you already said, make sure to install a new 9V battery and the big battery before trying to turn it on.

Yup, obviosly the recap of the (luckily correct) power suply was indeed planned!

If it boots, it looks like i might have been lucky, if not, well worth the 100€ gamble!

 

[Berenod]

MacEffects WAS making new ram cards, last time we spoke they could not find any new ram chips due to shortages. So for now, you will have to try and find used ones.

Yeah, already looked there!

On Ebay rather pricey, found one in France (am locaten in Belgium myself), 114€ incl. shipping for a 3mb module...

 

[wymtb]

Just be happy you were able to buy this Portable for 100€. Even if you should not be able to get it working you probably could sell it for more if you would like.
As far as I can see the ebay ram card would not fit into M5120, should be for the M5126.
So now you can relax and wait until your nice find is powered up for the first time since years. Looks to be in nearly perfect condition.

 

[LaPorta]

The Maceffects cards (if around), do work very wells and will get you 8 MB. Makes it a very usable machine.

 

[nottomhanks]

I have a used 3Mb board. I bought the MacEffects board early 2021. It gives the non backlit 9Mb and the backlit 8Mb.

 

[Berenod]

Ok, main board and power supply recapped.
Brand new lead acid battery...
Attempting to boot results in the hard drive spinning up and stopping about 10 times, after which the portable shuts down.
No sad Mac face, during the boot attempts the screen is active, with just the mouse pointer visible, and moveable with the mouse.
I carefully opened the drive, as expected the seal was reduced to a semi liquid goo.
Guess it is dead, it spins up normally I guess, but the head is not moving about at all.
And as we know, working Conner cp3045's are as rare as a peace loving Russian dictator....

Any tips on how to proceed? I don't have any floppy's of that era, so can't really test the floppy drive...
I do have a buddy with a fully working duo230, not sure if he has any floppy's, have to ask him next time I see him...

I only have windows and did machines with working floppy drives, not sure if that would be useful?

 

[LaPorta]

First, disconnect the HD both from SCSI and power. Then turn on the machine, see if you get the question mark floppy. If not, there’s more troubleshooting to do. If yes, you can rig a SCSI2SD with an adapter board/wire to use as the HD. Let’s see if there is life in it first and take it from there.

 

[Berenod]

 

[Berenod]

The life is there

After disconnecting the HDD (no power cable on the portable, just the special scsi cable) it indeed wants a floppy!

 

[Berenod]

That SCSI2SD seems to be a hard to get item in Europe!
The 5.5 model, which you can plug in de db25 connector in the back of the portable, only seems to be on sale in the US shop (inertial computing).
The other models feature an standard scsi connector, which the portable does not have...

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I believe you can get an adapter to get standard SCSI drives working. (Including the SCSI-2-SD)
Edit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/312973273392
Here’s an eBay link to see an example. Try to find a similar one in your country.

 

[wymtb]

You could use a blueSCSI: https://scsi.blue/ Seems like the europan seller One Geek Army has some in stock.
I have used a blueSCSI inside one of my portables but I have been using the 50 pin internal version with an adapter. Never tested DB25. I might can test on the Weekend.
Another option you might should consider would be RaSCSI.
And please keep the broken harddisk. It might still could be repaired or the electronics could be moved over to the normal 40MB conner HDD.
PS: if you should ever find another Portable in this condition for about 100€ please inform me. I would be glad to buy it. Congratulation!

 

[Berenod]

You could use a blueSCSI: https://scsi.blue/ Seems like the europan seller One Geek Army has some in stock.
I have used a blueSCSI inside one of my portables but I have been using the 50 pin internal version with an adapter. Never tested DB25. I might can test on the Weekend.
Another option you might should consider would be RaSCSI.
And please keep the broken harddisk. It might still could be repaired or the electronics could be moved over to the normal 40MB conner HDD.
PS: if you should ever find another Portable in this condition for about 100€ please inform me. I would be glad to buy it. Congratulation!

Just ordered the blueSCSI in db25 version from One Geek Army, looks the easiest option.
Any tips on where to find an image of the OS to put on the SD card (if at all possible that way)?
I'm a bit worried that sourcing floppy's is going to be a hassle, with the added risk that the floppy drive is fried as well...

 

[wymtb]

https://github.com/erichelgeson/BlueSCSI/wiki/Usage#premade-images