Schematics - Mac IIsi and others

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Please respect this guy and his work. Do not go and just pass them out everywhere. I understand that having information available may be nice, but to be perfectly blunt 98% of the people on this forum are not doing anything that would require these schematics.

Amen to that, comrade. I offered my mail drop specifically to limit distribution. I'm glad it's going direct. How much are the schematics anyway?

@ Bunsen: reverse engineering to clone/undercut an existing product is considered bad form in general, I think.

 

[James1095]

Aren't the mainboards multilayered? How does one reverse engineer those?

I've done it, although not with anything as complex as a whole motherboard. I x-ray the PCB, use a multimeter, visual inspection, datasheets for the ICs, and a bit of intuition. It takes a lot of patience and a good eye but it's certainly possible. If you don't care about reusing the board, removing many of the parts makes it easier to see what's going on with the traces. Most of the time there isn't much on the inner layers besides ground and power planes, most of the traces connecting parts are on the surface.

If the guy is willing to part with the schematics, what harm is there in scanning and posting them somewhere? There is no commercial value in schematics for 20-30 year old computers, the only people interested will be hobbyists trying to keep vintage machines going.

 

[Blinkenlightz]

There is no commercial value in schematics for 20-30 year old computers, the only people interested will be hobbyists trying to keep vintage machines going.

In this case, the author of the schematics still has direct commercial interest - he is selling them himself actively at the link posted above by bbraun...

 

[mcdermd]

And I don't think his prices are too bad - $1.50 per sheet. Most of the Macs are 10-12 sheets (I think the 840av is the largest at 21 sheets).

 

[Bunsen]

what harm is there in scanning and posting them somewhere?

Are you even remotely serious? You just went through a paragraph describing the amount of work involved in buzzing out simpler boards, and you want to dick this guy out of $1.50 a sheet for his work - against his express, legally enforceable wishes?

Man, apart from having a terrible understanding of how copyright works, you're just plain rude.

 

[mcdermd]

To be honest, I wasn't expecting his prices to be so low.