SE/30 & Micron Xceed & clear plastic goodie

[Bolle]

So SE/30 OCD kicked in again... I saw this SE/30 on eBay. The seller only had posted a few pictures of the outside. It looked pretty clean.

What catched my interest was the DB15 port on the back.

The grainy structure of the metal bezel holding the DB15 connector screamed MICRON so I decided I needed to have this SE/30.

Ended up winning it for 130€ - a bit on the higher side for me but not too bad of a bad price for a decent SE/30 even without any goodies.

The machine arrived today and I could not wait to rip the box open when coming home from work. Something heavy was rattling inside and I started having a bad feeling that it might have smashed the tube.

The case looks great - only minor scratches here and there and not too yellowed as well:



I got out the Mac Opener and cracked her open - not too dirty on the inside as well:



The rattling came from the Harddrive which was hot glued onto the floppy cage. It obviously got loose while shipping the machine. Luckily nothing was smashed on the inside though.

The drive was mounted on a piece of plastic that must have been cut out of a Power Mac and was screwed onto a clear hard drive sled one knows from various Power Macs.

Never seen one of those before. Where there third party manufactures making these or might this be an Apple part? (wew my first clear plastic part so far) The drive seems to be dead though. I wonder what is on there.



The logicboard looks good. Only very little goo and very few traces that look like they should be checked. When turning it on it is even giving a startup chime but only displays a horizontal line - tested it in another known good SE/30 and the line is coming from the logicboard.

Notice the odd RAM slots. I have four white and four black ones on there. Never seen that before:



And now enough of the teasing - the reason I bought the Mac in the first place. Turns out I got really lucky as it indeed has a Micron card inside. Not only that but one with the socket for supporting internal grayscale as well:



The card is working giving me 256 colors at 640*480 on an external LCD:



Monitors control panel says it is a Micron XCEED Color30.

Now to get everything ready to build myself a grayscale adapter and harness. }

 

[olePigeon]

Ooo.  That is one cool looking drive tray.

 

[Juror22]

Nice catch!  Not a bad price either.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Well done, sir.

If you know what you're looking for, the chances are much higher of striking gold.

You took the risk and were rewarded for it.

Now, if you can get this card cloned, you will be sitting on a modest goldmine, once greyscale adapters become available.

 

[joethezombie]

woo-hoo! great catch! i think the only better prize than the xceed would to find a 50mhz powercache, socket version rather than pds.

 

[aplmak]

I'm sorry maybe this is a stupid question. And by no means am I trying to offend. I've been curious why everyone goes nuts over the Micron cards..... For me the SE/30 and it's original screen is how I want to use it and remember it. I'm not sure why having the external monitor with grayscale or color capability is worth it? I understand maybe playing a few games that require it but what else are the benefits? I could see if it were current in today's age that would be awesome to have for spreadsheets and surfing the internet. I can understand the accelerator cards to speed things up a little bit.. but the external display cards are not something I've ever been really interested in.

I like the compacts for what they are... a nifty little machine all-in-one without external monitors...

 

[unity]

There are several Micron cards, most are not worth much or really all that neat. But the one that supports internal grayscale, such at this one, are not all too common. Probably an expensive upgrade. This one is missing those parts and was probably sold as such with an additional kit needed for internal support. Anyway, the internal grayscale upgrade is pretty slick and that is what people like to have. Luckily the extra parts needed for this card to make the internal display grayscale can be made or even bought on eBay from time to time for a decent price.

 

[Bolle]

I'm not sure why having the external monitor with grayscale or color capability is worth it?

Because this card gives you grayscale on the internal screen. I am not that much after using external monitors on compact Macs as well.

 

[aplmak]

Ahhh I wasn't aware it enhanced the internal monitor... Aside from the SE/30's, my Duo's with passive matrix I always do just black and white and no grayscale.. Grayscale looks horrible on passive screens.. lines galore! Does the grayscale slow down the refresh of the windows at all? But having an accelerator should offset that lag. I just had to comment because I see everyone go nuts for them... and the prices are crazy... I was wondering what all the hype was about... lol

They must have pulled that hdd out of another machine for sure... those sleighs I see on 575's, 580's, PM's and many others from generations after.. I bet Hap would love to see that!!! I don't think he has a clear 575 or PM yet... not sure if they even made any..

 

[ArmorAlley]

Personally, I'd love to have the Color Classic screen transplanted into my SE/30. I have no idea of what would need to be done (or even if it can be done without major surgery), but it would be absolutely awesome ( and the best of both worlds).

I've never heard of it done, so I suspect that it is not practical.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Ahhh I wasn't aware it enhanced the internal monitor... Aside from the SE/30's, my Duo's with passive matrix I always do just black and white and no grayscale.. Grayscale looks horrible on passive screens.. lines galore! Does the grayscale slow down the refresh of the windows at all? But having an accelerator should offset that lag. I just had to comment because I see everyone go nuts for them... and the prices are crazy... I was wondering what all the hype was about... lol

They must have pulled that hdd out of another machine for sure... those sleighs I see on 575's, 580's, PM's and many others from generations after.. I bet Hap would love to see that!!! I don't think he has a clear 575 or PM yet... not sure if they even made any..

For the price that the SE/30 was sold at back in 1990, I wondered why Apple were too scabby to put in greyscale or even colour. One could get a IIcx and 12" monitor for the price of the SE/30 - same specs but with NuBus expandability instead of PDS/30 expandability.

 

[aplmak]

They were scabby with so many things over the years... I'm sure engineers suggested stuff but then the bean counters took stuff away... The 128K in my opinion was a display model (prototype)... It's another machine I've never had a desire to own... none what so ever... other than it's value as a physical object..

People joked about me and my "Delorean" back in the day.. everywhere I went had no Apple stuff... and snickered when I asked.. It's bitter sweet to now see all the stores who had no clue what "Apple" was back in the day now carry Apple products.. Sorry I got off topic... my apologies..

 

[Bolle]

I just finished recapping the board. Still getting only a horizontal line on the screen.

Seems like the board is not putting out a vertical sync signal. Hsync is fine and measures 22kHz on my multimeter. Vsync just seems to stay high at 3,9V.

Pin 11 on the Power/Video connector traces fine to UG6 and UI6. What else is involved in generating Vsync?

Analog board and CRT are ok as I tested those with another SE/30 board.

 

[Bolle]

Got it... UF8 was faulty. Without the signals this mux is sending to UG6 the PAL at UG6 won't generate Vsync.
Replaced UF8 with one from another board that got killed by a Maxcel. Everything else seems to be ok.

Nice thing I just discovered is the Mac came with 32MB RAM installed as well.

I also got parts on order for building a grayscale CRT board. Lets see how that goes. Anyone knows if the wiring diagram for the grayscale harness that is found in the Micron patent files is indeed correct and the same as the shipping version? I did not find any other sources for the wiring so it seems it probably must be correct.

 

[joethezombie]

Yes.  The pinout is correct on the patent files.  I was all prepared to make the cable, but when my conquest arrived, it had the kit already installed.  I verified the schematic then.  There's pictures on my gallery of the harness and neckboard if you want a second look.

I'm sure you're familiar with the numbering scheme for these Molex connectors, but just to be complete:  hold the connector so the locking lever is to the right and the pins are facing you.  Numbering is in columns.  For a 20-pin connector, pin-1 is top-left, pin-20 is bottom-right.

The missing pin numbers on connector J4 are simply:

(10) GND

(9) VOUT

( VIN

(7) VS

(6) VS

(5) GND

(4) GND

(3) GND

(2) HSOUT

(1) HSIN

The one other thing to check, is if the CRT is able to accept the micron board.  Gamba shows this image, although all my macs have the correct rotation.

Good luck!  I really want to see what you come up with for a neckboard!

 

[Bolle]

Thanks. Did not even notice the missing numbers yet. Put them right into my notes.

The neck board will be single layer I will "design" and make myself as there does not seem to be a design anywhere on the internet.

Not going to reinvent the wheel... it will probably look a lot like the one gamba made back then.

 

[trag]

Personally, I'd love to have the Color Classic screen transplanted into my SE/30.

My memory says that someone has looked into this and that the CRT in a CC is much deeper (longer front to tube neck) than the 9" B&W CRT in the monochrome compact macs.

 

[omidimo]

The greyscale adapter I recently acquired came with the adapter that was a homebrew piece based on the Micron schematics. 

Here is a pic in case it is any use to you.

 

[ScutBoy]

I have the Micron internal greyscale adapter and harness... just in case I ever found the card. If pics would help, let me know.