Rescued what I thought was a Mac II

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Hello 68k Community!

New member here. I was in 6th grade when the Mac II came out. My first computer was a Classic 2/40. I looked forward to reading Guy Kawasaki every month. On my high school newspaper we worked on SE's, and the day we bought a IIci was like Christmas. Ah, the good old days!

I wanted to share my story about rescuing a vintage Mac. Last month my township held a household waste disposal day, including collecting old computers for recycling. As I dropped off an old laptop, I noticed a couple Pizza Box Quadras, turned out to be 605's, pretty neat. Then I turned over a larger, desktop case, and behold, a Mac II!!!! There was no way I was going to let this piece of history be destroyed, so I quickly and stealthily "rescued" her and got out of there. This was the machine I lusted for as a child, but no way we could afford one (top spec cost nearly as much as our 1989 Ford Taurus Wagon!). I brought her home, gave the case a quick wipe down, and set her up as a monitor stand (and had some fun with my PC showing a period-correct Mac desktop on the monitor)



There was what I assumed to be a token ring card, so I thought maybe she came from a school or a business.



A few days later, I finally had time to crack the case. First thing I noticed was a hand-written date of 5.18.88 with initials S.W. and a #9 on the cover

Then, I took a closer look at the motherboard and this is what I saw

SHE WASN'T A MAC II, SHE WAS A IIfx!!!!!!!!
​

Here are a few other bits I was able to come up with. I don't have a grounding strap, and being overly cautious I wasn't going to remove anything, visual inspection only at this point.

All 8 RAM slots are filled - total RAM unknown
210MB Quantum HD from ClubMac - presuming aftermarket upgrade
Dual floppies - unknown if 800KB or 1.44MBs
Toby Color Video Card - 8 bit memory upgrade unknown
Extensive Battery Damage
(more pictures below)

I'm not sure what I'll do with her, maybe restore her at some time. Right now just thrilled to have her in my office.

For those with more knowledge of the Mac II family:

Are IIfx swaps into II cases common?
Is there a way I can tell if the power supply is from a II or a IIfx?
Is the writing on the case's cover an Apple QA notation or something an owner wrote?
Is the exposed board with the Mac Designer Team names common? I did a quick search but couldn't find a similar board.

Any other thoughts or insights would be appreciated. Thanks all!

 

[bibilit]

Not a Maxell battery, a Tadiran one… you are lucky, probably damage limited to the battery and holder.

 

[joshc]

Are IIfx swaps into II cases common?

Yeah, fairly. A II or IIx is so much slower than a IIfx, a lot of businesses upgraded because it was cheaper than buying a new machine. My first IIfx was in a IIx case.

Is the writing on the case's cover an Apple QA notation or something an owner wrote?

That's from the factory, or a dealer. Most likely from the factory.

Is the exposed board with the Mac Designer Team names common? I did a quick search but couldn't find a similar board.

Yep, depends on the revision of board. I have a IIfx board with the names and others without.

Any other thoughts or insights would be appreciated. Thanks all!

Get the batteries out right now. Soak the area with vinegar, then rinse with isopropyl alcohol. More cleaning may need to happen but that will be the problem area on your board.

A IIfx board needs two working 3.6V batteries to start. There is a trick to starting without them but it's just easier to put them in for testing.

Aside from the corroded battery contacts (which may mean you have to end up replacing the battery holders), the IIfx can suffer issues with its startup circuit caused by two leaking electrolytic capacitors in that circuit. I can't see them from your photos, but it's likely your board has them judging by the amount of dust/dirt on your board which will have stuck on there because of cap goo.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Extensive Battery Damage: You have shown that the IIfx works but there is battery damage. I'd look into getting that battery damage cleaned and fixed where possible. It is possible that running electricity through that motherboard can cause damage.

Are IIfx swaps into II cases common? Yes, it is quite common.
Is there a way I can tell if the power supply is from a II or a IIfx? Is there a serial number on the PSU? This can be compared with other Mac II & IIfx motherboards.
Is the writing on the case's cover an Apple QA notation or something an owner wrote? 5.18.88 is the May 18, 1988 written in the American format.
Is the exposed board with the Mac Designer Team names common? I did a quick search but couldn't find a similar board: My IIfx has them.

 

[joshc]

@ArmorAlley looks like your reply got mixed up with your quote. Also see this from the OP, I don't think this IIfx works or has been tested yet, they just hooked up the monitor to a PC and displayed a static image of a System 4 desktop:

and set her up as a monitor stand (and had some fun with my PC showing a period-correct Mac desktop on the monitor)

 

[ArmorAlley]

@ArmorAlley looks like your reply got mixed up with your quote. Also see this from the OP, I don't think this IIfx works or has been tested yet, they just hooked up the monitor to a PC and displayed a static image of a System 4 desktop:

You are right. I read the last line of that paragraph too quickly and mentally skipped over it. I did think that 512K was an unusually small amount of RAM for a IIfx.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the good info and advice.

@joshc - Roger that on battery removal, will do!

 

[Unknown_K]

These days an original Mac II is harder to find then a IIfx in a Mac II case.

Is there a Mac IIfx sticker on the bottom of the case?

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

These days an original Mac II is harder to find then a IIfx in a Mac II case.

Is there a Mac IIfx sticker on the bottom of the case?

Ok I feel like an idiot I missed this, yes sticker says IIfx

Was there an official Apple upgrade program for II -> IIfx? Or did Apple just not label every fx as such on the front of the case? Really appreciate all the history!

 

[Phipli]

Was there an official Apple upgrade program for II -> IIfx? Or did Apple just not label every fx as such on the front of the case? Really appreciate all the history!

There was an official upgrade program. There was for a few machines in that era.

They mostly seem to have just left the front label, although my LC 475 that was a II has a sticker over the model name.

 

[Unknown_K]

The bottom sticker was for IIfx motherboard upgrades in model II, and IIx machines.

 

[Byrd]

Yes, also had a Mac II upgraded to a IIfx, with sticker. Mine came from an Australian laboratory, it had a hard life as a 24/7 mail server when I got it, got me through studies before I stupidly gave it away.

 

[joshc]

Yes, it was an offiical upgrade path, but they didn't always put the sticker on the bottom. My IIx which contained a IIfx board, still had the IIx sticker on the bottom. As far as I know there was no replacement sticker for the front of the case.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Hello all,

Here's the latest on my IIfx. Following the good advice of @joshc , I geared up for battery removal and affected area remediation. I gave everything a thorough compressed air bath before I began.



The exterior battery and holder were way worse. The outer holder is only connected to the board at the rear end. While the interior holder's terminals are likely beyond repair, there doesn't seem to be any other visible damage to the area. And I couldn't find damage on anywhere else on the board, but I'm no trained eye.







I cleaned the battery holder areas with vinegar and then with alcohol. I also cleaned the area from case to the SIMM slots, from the J31 SIMM slot to the outer battery holder area with alcohol just as a little test.


Admittedly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve upgraded/gutted/built numerous machines, but I never performed any restorative work. I’d appreciate any recommended YouTube primers.

I was also able to learn much more about the components. Pictures are below, here is a summary.

Floppies:

1 x Sony MP-F74W-026 SuperDrive 1.44MB – SCORE!

1 x Sony MP-F75W-23 800KB

NIC:

What I thought was a Token Ring card was actually a

DaynaPORT E/II-3 Ethernet Card – SCORE AGAIN!

SIMMs:

4 x Siemens

3 x Oki “2690”

1 x Oki “3590”

I have no idea what this amounts to, will have to do more research.

That’s it for now. As always, thoughts/insights/feedback appreciated.

Thanks for checking in!

Sony MP-F74W-026 SuperDrive 1.44MB

Sony MP-F75W-23 800KB

DaynaPORT E/II-3 Ethernet Card


Siemens SIMMS



Oki "2690" SIMMs



Oki “3590” SIMM

 

[Snial]

HYB514100AJ-70 are 4MBit DRAMs, so = 0.5MByte. 8 of them = 4MBytes.
OKI M51100A-80J are 1MBit DRAMs, so 8 of them = 1MByte. 2 of them = 2MBytes.

This accounts for 3/8 SIMMS. I figure the IIfx needs them in groups of 4 to provide 32-bit wide memory, so that's maybe 16MB+4MB = 20MB?

 

[joshc]

@ClassicGuyPhilly Really nice photos you've taken there, thanks for documenting what you are doing so well.

Right, so what you have is a IIfx logicboard with mostly tantalum capacitors (they don't leak) but the classic example where, for some reason, Apple chose to install electrolytic capacitors at locations C24 and C9, both part of the startup circuit IIRC, and these both leak and cause problems there. Those both need removing and replacing with tantalum capacitors.

The IIfx logicboard is unusual among Macintosh logicboards because it was designed for two different capacitor package sizes, for tantalums or electrolytics from the factory, so for each surface mount capacitor on the board there are two sets of pads, you can install the new capacitor onto either set.

C9 is located near the rear power switch.



C24 is near the RAM slots and above the small yelow axial capacitor.



The dull appearance of the solder joints around those two electrolytic capacitors, and the dull appearance as well of the legs of the UF18 (RTC - Real Time Clock) chip indicates those capacitors have leaked already.

Remove, clean area with isopropyl alcohol, add new solder to the pads, clean with wick and lots of flux, wipe all flux off with isopropyl alcohol, and solder the new capacitors on.

For a IIfx with two good 3.6V batteries, the most common reason they will not start is those capacitors causing problems. The startup circuit in the IIfx is a weird thing, there can be broken traces and other faulty components in that circuit. That is always the first place to check.

But for now, replace those capacitors before worrying about anything else.

Then you'll need to attend to the crusty battery holder - it should be removed and replaced with a nice clean one. It's worth having nice clean battery holders because the IIfx does require two 3.6V batteries to start (unless you want to try the trick to powering it up without the batteries).

Another interesting thing to note about your IIfx is that someone went to the effort of installing heatsinks on the FPU, memory controller and the CPU. Those were not factory installed. My only guess is that whoever was in charge of servicing this thing really cared about its longevity - it was probably critical to someone's business.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

HYB514100AJ-70 are 4MBit DRAMs, so = 0.5MByte. 8 of them = 4MBytes.
OKI M51100A-80J are 1MBit DRAMs, so 8 of them = 1MByte. 2 of them = 2MBytes.

This accounts for 3/8 SIMMS. I figure the IIfx needs them in groups of 4 to provide 32-bit wide memory, so that's maybe 16MB+4MB = 20MB?

Makes sense to me, thanks so much for all the info! Just contemplating how much this box would have absolutely decimated the IIci 8/80 I used in high school. My Quark Xpress layouts would have been done in no time!

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

@joshc thanks so much for the kind words, and also all the amazing info!

Now that you've shown me where and what to look for, I do see the capacitor leakage in both areas. The area around C24 was very dull and dirty after I hit the board with the air, that's why I decided to do my "test clean" there, though I didn't understand the cause.

Thanks for the process for capacitor replacement too. I never learned to solder but I think my neighbor may be able to teach me. I would like to do as much of this work with my own hands as possible.

The heat sinks "jumped out" at me too as soon as I took off the drive platform, but I didn't have time to research if they were common. Agree, someone really cared for her, and I'm proud to be able to now carry on that responsibility.

When I registered for the board I didn't know what the MLA meant. After my initial posts and reading some threads, I finally decided to look it up. Yeah, I was a Mac Liberator before I even know what one was, and I love that there are so many other such warped, obsessive but welcoming and immeasurably informative individuals here on this board!

 

[joshc]

So, in terms of working on your IIfx, if you haven't soldered before I would highly recommend practicing on something with a lesser value. Any cheap board with SMD components that you could find on eBay would be a good candidate. Routers, DVD players and the like are also good to practice on.

The best thing you can do is practice. I first soldered at school, but we never did any SMD stuff, only basic breadboard and small through-hole stuff, and no chance to do any rework or repair stuff. So my first foray into the rework/repair side of soldering was recapping a IIci - I screwed it up. I didn't know what I was doing. I came back years later and tried again with a Classic II, again screwed it up. They say practice makes perfect and it really does when it comes to soldering. So this is why I just encourage people to practice as much as possible - but not on stuff they care about. Do it first on cheap/low value stuff first and then you'll really appreciate it when you come to working on repairing Macs.

Aside from practice, you have to get your techniques from somewhere. That's where YouTube videos come in of course. I've pasted a few links below to ones you could watch to learn some tips.

Branchus Creations (he does a lot of Mac recapping)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxfPY-Ebzlk1sb7PFoh4DS7f7tuWc4PuN

PACE - these are old videos, but the information is still relevant

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837

I don't really know of any others I'd recommend, but start with those and see what you think.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Again @joshc this is great, appreciate all your advice and guidance!

The IIfx will stay in present state for a while as I learn to solder (definitely on "throw away" stuff before even thinking of touching the IIfx).

I also think a fully functional compact system with a 1.44MB floppy would be good to have as an aid to get the IIfx up (i.e. might need system disk made). I can also use known good KB and mouse on the IIfx. And I want a Classic or SE anyway.

Finally, to do the IIfx proper, I should try to find a 13" AppleColor display too.

I'm very excited with progress so far, and now know the path forward, will just take time to get to the finish line.