Quadra 610 has arrived.

[Mithrandir]

Okay my quadra arrived today and of course I have a bunch of questions for you guys. I am attaching some pictures of it that will help you guys know what I am talking about. Alright, so question number #1 is about ethernet. It says that it has an ethernet port, and I see that symbol that stands for ethernet, but the port doesn't look like any sort of ethernet I have seen before. What do I need to do in order to connect this to a modern ethernet? Can I share an internet connection to my quadra through my powermac g4 provided the quadra eventually is using a modern ethernet port? Next is the cd drive. The quadra was advertised to have a working floppy and cd drive. The floppy drive works great, but I can't seem to understand how the cd drive works. It appears to have one, but how do i get it to open? (<- Sorry if this is a stupid question). Plus does it really have a cd drive in this first place? Finally, take a look at the first picture. There appears to be a loose pice of plastic tubing just rolling around inside of the case. I want to just take it out, but I am unsure if it is ok to do so. Thanks in advance for helping me get this mac running.

 

[BGoins12]

Congrats! I love my Quadra 610... the 25MHz 68040 with 36 megs of RAM makes it a speedy little Mac.

As for the ethernet, you will need the adapter. It plugs into the ethernet port and turns it into a standard ethernet jack.

And the CD drive is a caddy loading CD drive. You will need to buy some caddies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddy_(hardware)

 

[Mithrandir]

Wow thanks BGoins, Never heard of that caddy thing, but it actually looks pretty cool. Guess its back to ebay, can I get just any caddy, or is there certain compatible ones for macs?

 

[BGoins12]

Not sure. I'd assume they are all the same. I used different types in the caddy drive I had with no problems.

My 610 doesn't have a caddy drive, it has a tray loading drive.

 

[Mithrandir]

You think these caddies would work?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CD-caddy-caddies-CD-cartridge-for-old-CD-drives-Used-/290667588638?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43ad236c1e#ht_500wt_1413

 

[Brett B.]

I am about 98% sure those caddies will work. They look exactly like the one I have for my Apple external CD-ROM drive.

 

[IIfx]

You think these caddies would work?.

Yes, they will. I have used a few 68k Macs with the caddy load, and some external NEC caddy load drives. They all take the same caddy, and they are pretty much universal.

Those look just like the ones I have.

 

[gobabushka]

From what all I have seen over the years, caddys were interchangable

 

[Arthegall]

Probably would work just fine. Price seems high, though.

Here's one that closed a couple weeks ago.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/320899950842?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_500wt_1129

 

[trag]

Back when the Quadras and Centrises were shiny and new, ethernet was still kind of rare and expensive, found more often in institutions than in homes and came in three different physical media flavors. There were two forms of ethernet media on coax cable, thick net and thinnet, and there was 10base-T running on UTP, unshielded twisted pair cable.

As we know now, UTP won the cable wars for ethernet. But that wasn't so clear back in the early 90s.

So, there was a type of port called AUI, Attachment Unit Interface which used a DA-15 connector. The AUI brought out connections for the Media Access Control and provided an interface to which to connect the MAU (Medium Attachment Unit) or transceiver.

Depending on what type of transceiver you attached, you could connect to any of the three flavors of ethernet physical media used back then. At a time when an ethernet interface cost a couple of hundred dollars, this versatility was nice.

Well, when Apple first added ethernet to the Macintosh, they decided to use an AUI interface, which was how the Unix'y guys and workstations did things. So that was kind of nice. But they decided (I think) that the DA-15 connector was too much like the Macintosh's display-out connector. Folks were too likely to plug their Apple monitor into the AUI.

So, Apple invented AAUI (Apple Attachment Unit Interface). Which is the funny little connector you see on the back of your Quadra. And, as someone else pointed out, you need a transceiver in order to use it.

Make sure you get a UTP or 10base-T or RJ45 transceiver. There may still be thinnet and thicknet transceivers out there. I bought some 10base-T transceivers about ten years ago and thinnet was in the boxes.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

AUI + Mac monitor = BANG

Don't ask me how this was discovered (I didn't do it, but I witnessed it).

 

[Bunsen]

a loose pice of plastic tubing just rolling around inside of the case.

That's a physical support for the weight of a monitor sitting on top of the case. It screws into a hole in the inside of the bottom case, courtesy of a trapped screw in the bottom of the tube. Unfortunately, and as appears to be the situation here, they often break.

You can either glue it back on to the bottom piece with the trapped screw, which is probably still screwed into position (unscrew, glue, replace) or pull it and toss it. Just refrain from putting anything really heavy on it without one (LCD monitor yes, 21" CRT no ). You could also possibly, and space allowing, slide another piece of tube over it and glue it in place to reinforce the join. The join doesn't have to be super-strong, just enough to keep the pieces aligned so the force is directed straight down through them.

I'd also recommend vacuuming or blowing the dust out of there, particularly the power supply. You can dismantle it safely - while it's off The 610, 660AV and 6100 share a design flaw where the dust mesh in the PS is on the wrong side of the airflow, and actually traps dust *in* the machine. So, if you do get in there, pull the filter and toss it. The air *in*take is under the hard drive bay at the front left; if it bothers you, you could add a filter there. I hear dryer sheets work well.

Can I share an internet connection to my quadra through my powermac g4

Yes.

 

[Mithrandir]

So if I have my Applevision 1710 CRT on it without that tube,that is bad?

 

[LCGuy]

The 1710 literally weighs a ton. (well, not literally, but you get my drift). So no, without the tubing I wouldn't put it on there. The heaviest I'd go, really, would be a little Macintosh Colour Display.