Questions about Duo 230 and 2300c

[kissmyash933]

Hey all!

I recently acquired a Duo 2300c with a dock, microdock, floppy drive, and a SuperMac NuBus video card inside the DuoDock II. I also acquired a 230 from an eBay auction.

I have a few questions about these units.

My 2300c has 20 megs of ram in it, yet somehow feels slower than the 230 with 12 megs of ram. The 2300 came to me running OS 8.1, and the 230 had 7.1, but I put 7.6 on it, and it's up and running beautifully. I'm thinking that maybe because 8.1 still has a lot of 68k code in it that maybe if I upgraded to 8.5/8.6 that it may fare a little better? thoughts?

Secondly, my 2300c does not run off of a battery AT ALL. this computer will run fine in the duodock and off the power adapter, but once i try to put it on a battery, it doesn't make an attempt to start or even run at all. I heard somewhere that there could be a fuse bad in this computer? I've aligned the contacts on both computers and the 230 runs great off of both batteries. Any suggestions here?

Also, Where can I find OpenTransport for the 230 so that when it's in the dock I can access my server with it's IP address? Hotline mayhaps?

I'm currently running ExtremeZ-IP to access my PC, because when I try to connect to my OS X server with 8.1 it tells me: "the login type is not recognized" or something along those lines. any way to fix that in 10.5 Server?

I took the SuperMac card out of the Dock, because when it was running, it would make my monitor all funny, wavy and weird. I think the card is labeled Spectrum or something, but I know that it's a full length monster and the copyright date on it is from '88. any way of fixing the crazy monitor issue on it? I'm not sure if it needs drivers or if it's just such an old card that it doesn't work properly anymore.

How would I go about reconditioning both batteries? One of them is an actual Duo Type III, and another is a BTI type 4. If I try to run Battery Recondition off the 230, it tells me that It isn't compatible with this computer.

I've looked around and found that there are some updates for the Duo series, what updates are required for what computer?

Lastly, The drive in my 230 is clicking, where can I go about finding a SCSI drive on the cheap, or at least something that will convert an IDE drive into a SCSI drive.

I'd like to have both of these computers running flawlessly, because I enjoy using both of them!

Thanks in advance for all of your help! I'm sure that once I get these up and running, I'll be back around here much more often! I haven't used a 68k mac, or any mac running less than 10.3 for years!

Thanks so much!

Blake.

 

[kvanderlaag]

Keep in mind that most of these batteries are very old by now, and almost all of them are dead or very near it. I don't have the links on me right now - I'll post them when I get home - but there are very good rebuilding guides available online, and you will do well to use Sanyo HR-AUL cells as replacements. Hell of a capacity on those.

 

[beachycove]

Some random thoughts from a Duo fan:

1. A 2300c should be able to run 8.1 well enough, though Dan Palka over on system7today swears by 7.6.1 on these machines.

2. For various reasons, I have 8.6 running on my 2300c (with 56MB RAM) from a CF drive, and though the latter is a relatively slow drive as drives go, performance is acceptable. In your position, I would think of running 7.6.1 with your RAM, but before going to that bother, you might want to run a disk utility to see if it improves matters, because you may need a new drive. You MIGHT even have a scsi drive in the 2300c, as it had a scsi bus as well as IDE. Any scsi PowerBook drive or early 2.5" IDE drive will be slow. The stock (IDE) drives in the 5300 and the 2300c were in fact notoriously slow, so even a small 2-3GB drive should speed things up noticeably.

3. You are not going to be able to connect to a share over IP from the localtalk port, but you can from the Dock (assuming you have ethernet). Open Transport is included in 8 and available for 7.x from Apple's older software downloads pages, but you will require ethernet to use AppleTalk over IP. It follows that, if you have nubus ethernet, you may need a specific driver for the card.

4. Your SuperMac Spectrum card sounds like it might be toast, but there may be power supply issues underlying the behaviour, so check the card in another nubus machine. The capacitors in the Dock PS have a known propensity to fail.

 

[kvanderlaag]

Good lord, I hadn't even thought about that. I'm having a hell of a time getting my Duo to recognize larger drives (by which I mean a 2GB and a 6GB that should be ATA-3 and ATA-5 respectively, I think) - I hadn't even considered using a CF-IDE adapter. Do you mind if I ask which one you're using, and how well it's supported by the Duo's controller?

 

[beachycove]

The CF-IDE adapter was the cheapest Chinese one I could find on eBay and the CF card was a good brand but nothing special. Worked first time and without a hitch since.

 

[jruschme]

The problem with the 2300c running on battery may not be the Duo, but the battery. Type 3 batteries (I don't know about the BTI type 4) are notorious for draining down to the point that the Duo would not run with one inserted or power off in you inserted it after the computer was running. I suspect they appear to the system as a dead short and a protection circuit kicks in.

Back in the day, I had a little luck with reviving such batteries using a Lind SuperCharger II. These days, I'd put long odds on being able to revive the battery past the point where the Duo would at least run with it inserted.

John

 

[Bunsen]

I suspect that 20MB of RAM in the 2300 is barely enough to run 8.1, let alone 8.6 (8.5 is buggy, and 8.6 is a free upgrade). As Duo RAM is near impossible to find, I would second beachycove's suggestions; to first check the HD, free up some space if it's a bit full, and defragment. Then if performance doesn't improve enough, try 7.6.1. That will also install Open Transport for you. system7today will have more information about updating the version of OT once it's installed, and other useful upgrades.

OT should have been installed with 8.1; you may have to tick a box in a control panel to choose between OT and "classic" networking. Also check Extensions Manager to see if it's been unticked (ie moved to the Disabled folder).

While you're in EM, see if there are any extensions and control panels present for the SuperMac card. Depending on the model, it may just not like OS 8.1. See lowendmac.com/video

I also agree that upgrading the internal hard drive is worth a shot. Note that if you use a drive larger than 4GB, there is a bug in the firmware for SCSI Disk Mode (ie docking the Duo to another Mac as an external SCSI drive) which can corrupt a larger drive if you use it. I have read reports that it works fine as long as you partition a larger disk so the first partition is less than 4GB, but I haven't tried it myself. If you never use SCSI Disk Mode or if your drive is

Any reasonably fast, recent Compact Flash card is likely to be as fast as the internal IDE bus. You gain some in battery life (if your battery works that is) and end up with a silent Powerbook

You might also consider a Microdrive (CF sized hard drive)

Relevant thread is relevant

Also

3. You are not going to be able to connect to a share over IP from the localtalk port

Au contraire, mon frére

 

[beachycove]

You CAN connect to an IP share over localtalk??

Do tell! I have not been able to work that particular form of magic.

 

[yuhong]

On the problems with SCSI disk mode, see this technote:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040625113656/http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1116.html