Schmeaux's present stuff and future conquests...

[Schmoburger]

And here we have the IIci after a tidy up... I love everything about these machines and they are definitely among my favourite desktop cases... except for when it comes to cleaning them. *bangs head against wall*... It took me nearly an hour to get all the grime and dust out of all the grooves in the plastic. But that aside they are soooo damn easy to take apart... literally one screw and a handful of nice soft plastic latches.





Unfortunately this one will need a cap job and some cap leakage damage control before it flies again, but thankfully the damage does not seem too horrific. I must say it bums me that this did work perfectly when I parked it 10 or so years ago. Ah well. You win some you lose some... I didn't really expect it to work without new caps.

Oh and also I dug out my old MacALLY AEK-wannabe from the keyboard cupboard... an AEK it most definitely is not, but it does the job well enough and looks the part.

 

[Schmoburger]

Just recently pulled some machines out of storage including this Powercenter 132... One of a pair I have. I just replaced the CD-ROM drive with one I seagulled out of the dead WGS, as the original one would not respond or spin up discs. Hence the lack of frnt controls on the drive itself. These are an absolutely fantastic design... Everything is easily accessible, easily removable  and laid out logically.



Unfortunately no interior shots as I forgot to get some before I put it back together and stuck a 17" CRT on top.

This formerly belonged to the local paper, the South Coast Register (hence the sticker) at one point in its life, and has a folder full of news stories going back 20 years. Kinda interesting to have such a little snapshot of the past. And yes I know some would call this an ethical disaster, myself included usually, however as these were all news stories which went to print in a tabloid 20 years ago, I beleive there isnt really a dillemma here at all... It was obvious that all these documents were news articles and not personal effects. Just though I should clear this up before I get shot.

I'm currently backing up the system folder on the clone as we speak, meaning I have it and the 9600 going as well as the G5... it sounds like I am on the tarmac at LAX  with 6 hard drives and 12 fans running at once. It's also becoming quite toasty in here with 3 machines going...

 

[jsarchibald]

Yep, I had a 5500 Director's Edition, but decided to move it on because I don't have the space, plus the plastics are terrible.  Oh, and I prefer the Mac TV anyway, so I kept the TV and sold the DE!

Whittling down the collection now to the really good stuff, finally pairing each machine with a keyboard and mouse and packing the good stuff away safe and sound.

Good to see how long you've had some of these for, and how well you are getting them back up to scratch!

 

[Schmoburger]

Yeh they are garguantuan and awkward machines the 5500... my first ever Powermac was a standard white 225 and it was at the time, a slick, fast and capable rig, and I have always had a soft spot for them. But yes, the plastics are among the worst I have ever seen on any Mac to date. It literally gives way in your hands if you pick them up the wrong way. If I ever find a mac TV for sale in Australia I will probably be all over it... They are one of my grail machines and always have been. At this stage I am in no big hurry to repair the DE as even when I do, I have no place to permanantly install it (as it is way too heavy to be moving in and out of rotation like i do with my desktops.

But yes, I'm at the stage now of sorting through what I have, dragging out the rarities and particularly volatile machines first and working out what works, and what needs to be done to make others work, and preserving the best examples of the other stuff, and working out what is to be reduced to parts, what can be kept for future trade. Realistically the Oldworld PPC and 68k portion of my collection stems largely from the period of time around 1999-2005... at that stage I was basically in the mindset of collecting AAAALL OF THE THINGS. If I saw a grey Mac somewhere, I bought it no questions asked... Same with accessories. As a result I ended up with huge numbers of duplicate  machines (eg. I have 4 7600's, 2 7500's, 3 7220's and at least half a dozen 63xx machines) and a cupboard full of peripherals. The NewWorld stuff is mostly from the period from 2006-present and whilst I went out of my way to procure some of it, a lot of it just found me by chance... usually because friends would end up with access to a haul or replace their individual machines and automatically asssume I wanted them. As a result I have about a dozen complete iMac's and as many that have been reduced to parts, as well as an eMac, my Power Tower collection (which techcnically dont count as they have largely been my succession of daily driven machines) and then my pair of Lombards and Pismo. Obviously there are a few old world things I have received more recently such as my 2nd IIvx and my 9600, which were machines I actively went out of my way to get, but realistically I havent collected much OW/68k stuff for around 10 years.

 

[Schmoburger]

My latest eBay conquest arrived, in the form of a pair of G3 Minitowers which I purchased for 30 bucks and got a friend in Victoria to pick up for me... his mother in law (also a nerd from way back in the days of BBS's) just dropped them off to me an our ago after coming back from a 10 hr drive. God bless her!



The one on the left is a 266 and the one on the right a 300... I actually initially bought these specifically for a  CD-ROM bezel, a drive sled, and a drive bay RF plate for my 9600. However the machines are largely complete, and assuming I have one working logic board and one working PSU then I can build a  97% complete G3 minitower (with the exception of the CD bezel as there was only one in the lot which is now on the 9600) needing only some RAM and a hard drive from my stockpile. So I am going to see what I can get to work, and with luck I will have two serviceable logic boards  such that I can get a working 300MT and also possibly replace the acid-damaged board in my 266DT, assuming the boards are the same, which they look to be going from memory alone.

 

[Byrd]

Nice score on the G3s - I was watching the sale (wasn't for me but hoping someone would buy), glad they are largely complete and you can build up a super G3 from the two, hopefully?

 

[Schmoburger]

Nice score on the G3s - I was watching the sale (wasn't for me but hoping someone would buy), glad they are largely complete and you can build up a super G3 from the two, hopefully?

Yep I couldnt go past it...  I beleive the may be a member on here somewhere actually as they mentioned both forums to me.

I ended up using the bits I required from them to finish off the 9600 so it is now a 100% complete machine, and then spent the early hours of the morning assembling the 300MHz machine into a complete unit using the best parts from both machines and now have it successfully powering on and attempting to boot from a HDD and a CD... it failed to boot and had a spaz when i tried to boot it of a HDD then i realised it is a 9.2.2 install which the beige ROMs may not like, and it tries to booot from a CD but I beleive the one CD-ROM drive that was in the 266 machine is on the fritz. Aside from this what should hopefully be a minor issue, I should have it booting by tonight after work or tomorro, and all it is missing is a CD bezel (lol... here we go again) and a couple of RF plates.

I ended up having two spare drive sleds, a spare FDD on a sled, a spare fan, and another PSU left over as spares from the junk case, and I have found confirmation of my suspicions that the MT and DT boards are identical for given revisions, so I will be removing the board from the junker tonight and placing it into my DT which copped a leaking battery... Basically, I have managed to build an entire machine, and use the majority of the leftover parts to fix existing ones plus have a couple of handy spares, so all up I'd call this a thoroughly rewarding haul!

 

[JWrigley]

Glad they're proving useful

I will have to create a thread myself soon, to show off my collection.

BTW, I seem to recall there is a jumper switch setting on the G3 MLB to choose whether it is in the DT or MT casing... I think it relates to PSU compatibility.

Hope this helps,

J.

 

[Schmoburger]

I have to say you are definitely among the best people ive dealt with on evilbay in years mate... An absolute pleasure! I do very much look forward to seeing a stash thread in the near future!

And yes you are correct, the J28  jumper near the lower PCI slot configures the board for the DT (MAC setting) or the MT (PS2 setting) power supply... with the MT using what is basically a standard ATX unit.

Anyway, the 300MHz machine now looks a lot more like a Powermac than it did before.



It just needs a few RF shields and some better bezels at leisure.

Meanwhile this is the stack of parts I have left... the Rev.1 logic board will be going into my 266DT to replace the board that had a battery meltdown, and the rest can go into inventory for a rainy day aside from the empty case which will get thrown away unless anybody wants it (a bit too shaggy for me to use for anything.).



Incidentally, whilst the CD bezel is a bit yellow by comparison to the rest of the 9600, it certainly looks a lot better with it in place, and nothing a retr0briting wont fix...


 

 

[XBHS1997]

Some nice stuff! The 5500 DE is interetsing.

I'll definitely make a similar topic when I get my iMac back.

Cheers, Nicolas

 

[Schmoburger]

Thanks Nic, I look forward to seeing your thread in the near future... if the list in your signature is anything to go off, there are some interesting things.  The 8500 and PB145 are ofparticular interest... also two machines I would like to get my hands on soonish.

So, the G3 minitower is now successfully booting 8.6 from a CD after replacing the CD-ROM drive (currently using my test drive)... Now just requires a hard disc. IN the process of getting this running I decided I'd use it as a testbeed to verify that my 7600 and WGS drives had definitely failed. I kind of hoped the 7600 was just a bucket and the SCSI controller had failed, however sadly the drives are just as dead on the G3 as on their respective machines. Ah well... I am in the market for some new SCSI hard drives I think.

 

[Byrd]

Nice work!  It's always a good feeling to get one cracking Mac from two junked units; the G3 Minitower is a real keeper as it's so easy and cheap to upgrade.  Do you have a modern IDE HD for the G3 instead of SCSI?

 

[Schmoburger]

Nice work!  It's always a good feeling to get one cracking Mac from two junked units; the G3 Minitower is a real keeper as it's so easy and cheap to upgrade.  Do you have a modern IDE HD for the G3 instead of SCSI?

I probably wouldnt use the term "modern" to describe the 7.5Gb U-Series that is currently in it (first working drive I pulled off the shelf that didnt have things I'd be sad about formatting over), but alas yes, it is IDE nonetheless.

But yes, I'm definitely with ya there Byrd... very handy machine to have too by virtue of being a tower with lots of drive bays, a great, easily workable case, an onboard SCSI controller still but also two IDE channels, and being that I decided to build the Rev.2 machine for this project, it also supports slaving on the IDE buses (unlike the Rev. 1 which is donating it's board to the DT this evening which really cant make use of slave drives anyway due to case restrictions). In adition, it supports OS8 through OSX up to a point... My only regret is that I didnt buy a couple of minitowers back when they were phenomenally cheap, unwanted and readily available. I guess they are still cheap nowadays assuming you can get one, but very uncommon to find being sold anymore in any condition. This was definitely worth the gamble... Even if I was fully prepared to simply have a pair of paperweights just for the sake of a drive bay bezel, a drive sled, and a couple of RF plates.

As of now it is back together properly and running a brand new install of 8.6... only issue I seem to be having is getting it to play nice with the G5 and 9600... the 9600 and G3 cant see each other in Chooser, and when I try to connect to the G5 via a direct IP address, it recognises the machine there, but will not display any volumes to which I can connect. Puzzling, but probably easily fixable.

 

[Schmoburger]

Well, as of yesterday afternoon the Minitower is now a complete unit booting flawlessly into a fresh install of 8.6 with a 7.5Gb U-series I found in a slotload drive rack in the cupboard, and currently using my test CD-ROM drive until i out a new or otherwise working unit in it's place. Still havent worked out what the quarrel it had with OS9 is... the 7.5Gb drive had a dual install of 9 and some flavour of X and it also refused to boot. Whatever... it works now



Note the computer in the background of the networking setup assistant...



Having gotten this thing now together and working, I decided to go to the Stack this evening after rehearsals and bring home the 233DTso I would have something to play with on my night off work. I got straight into it as soon as I got home with this being what I had to work with...







The case is grubby and the logic board has a nice slick of dried acid and  plastic  from a leaked Saft battery (best I can tell, the OEM one by the date code). Having looked at the replacement board, I notice where this battery has leaked the only surface mounted components that seem to exist in ground zero are a small resistor and what I beleive to be a tiny board power LED... As the damage seems localised to a fairly unpopulated area, I will clean the board up and perhaps attempt a repair at some stage as it is a Rev. 2 board (for some reason). I'm unsure how far the acid has gone through the board, however it's worth an attempt for the sake of a couple of caps and resistors and a diode... Even if some traces have been damaged, a wire repair may be feasible. That's a job for another time however.

The replacement board, whilst correct for the machine, is a step back in being an early revision unit from the 266MT which has the Rage II+ chip and no slave support. Ah well... at least it *should* work. I have taken out the SGRAM DIMM and put it to better use in the 300 minitower, and until I ascertain whether 233MHz and 266Mhz voltage regulators are able to be interchanged, I have also used the original 233 CPU, jumper block and reg board from the DT as the parts tower was missing this part.

Anyway, I am now about to power it up, hope the PSU doesnt explode, and from there, ascertain whether it will power on and if the drives are still good... wish me luck?

 

[Schmoburger]

Welllp... power supply didnt explode immediately. It was more of a timid snap after a couple of dodgy startups, and a subsequent failure to draw power at all after that. Might be ATX conversion time...

 

[djcommie]

I'm tossing out my PowerCenter Pro 240 with a bum logic board if you want the sweet SCSI II card and the 240MHz CPU for it. Unfortunately I'm in the USA, but you can have the parts for shipping.

 

[Schmoburger]

I'm tossing out my PowerCenter Pro 240 with a bum logic board if you want the sweet SCSI II card and the 240MHz CPU for it. Unfortunately I'm in the USA, but you can have the parts for shipping.

I shall PM you mate, but yes, I am rather keen on the aforementioned! shipping shouldnt be prohibitively expensive across the drink for small items such as those anyway. The offer is very much appreciated... I can definitely put both these things to good use!

 

[Schmoburger]

So, as of last night I managed to get the 7600/200 running and booting with one of it's original HDD's (the other is fubar).... turns out the failure to boot properly was a result of a bad DIMM which i have isolated to one of two that were installed years ago. This might go some way to explaining the random sporadic freezes it used to suffer when i still used it.

Unsure as to what I will do with it after i clean it up...  I have stripped the Radius firewire card and the USB card out of i and reboxed them, as well as taken out all but 40Mb of RAM at the moment.The only non-standard parts are the added VRAM modules now.

I also happened to drag out another 7600 I painted black many years ago... this is likely to supply a donor logic board to resurrect my WGS 7350/180.