Two SEs & Accessories - $300

[jdcurry]

The SE was usually sold with either a M0115, M0116, M0487, or M3501 keyboard, depending on when it was sold.

Battery-wise, if the motherboards are early enough, they would have the soldered on Varta batteries. I would clip them out, then, if you want to keep your settings, go over to the ReActiveMicro website and get the Apple IIgs battery adapter they sell for $10, plus shipping, PayPal fees, etc. Has two wires that connect to the wires on the board, then a double AAA battery holder. Pop two Energizer Ultimate Lithiums into the holder, and it'll work like it did with the original battery.

Hard drive-wise, I do have a 40MB SCSI drive from my LCIII which would work. Has System 7.5 installed on it. I'd be tempted to downgrade it to 6.0.8, though, which I could do for you, if you want it.

Much appreciated. I will get the much-needed tool tomorrow afternoon and open them up for closer inspection. I have concerns that the second unit may have had some permanent damage done causing the white and black stripes (maybe battery leakage?), but that's pure speculation on a few things I've read. At the very least I can open them up and clip out the batteries so no further damage can be done.

 

[Berenod]

In my opinion:

• Get the batteries out asap. The Varta's have a lower chance of leaking/exploding compared to the Maxel's, but best not to take the risk.
  Machine runs fine without battery, it's mainly the clock which loses the setting, and if I'm not mistaken you also lose the settings in the contro panel, such as mouse speed, double click speed and such things. Not critical at all, just a tad annoying.
• Mix and match. With a bit of luck the harddrive in the one with the bad video is still working, is obviously a higher specked machine then the other one with only two floppies. So swap logic board makes the most sence to get the machine with the SC20 harddrive working.
• Both machines only have the 800k floppy drives, not sure if you have other vintage Mac's, but floppies for your SE's can only be made with other Mac's. USB floppy drives on more modern machines won't work at all for making 400/800k Mac floppies!
• Do some research on the SD card solutions (BlueSCSI, ZuluCSI, ...) and BasiliskII. Once you get the hang of it, it's an easy way of moving files/programs from "modern", internet connected computers onto your vintage Mac.
  I like my DB25 BlueSCSI for this, but there is some controversy on the maker of those, apparently not exactly a straight shooting bloke
  But, like for me, in Europe, it is however by far the most affordable and easy to locally buy solution.
• Or, alternatively, get a FloppyEMU from BMOW, not cheap, but extremely handy to do the same as above point.
• Once you have one completely working machine, you can then move on to fix the other one!

Tip in case the harddrive does not work, is to remove it, keep it horizontally in your hand, and twist it, basically around the orientation of the axle, this often get things going again.
Also, some of those miniscribe drives used back then actually have a round hole in the PCB exposing the axle, using the back of a pensil with an eraser on the end, you cann use the grippy eraser to turn the axle!

 

[Berenod]

Hard drive-wise, I do have a 40MB SCSI drive from my LCIII which would work. Has System 7.5 installed on it. I'd be tempted to downgrade it to 6.0.8, though, which I could do for you, if you want it.

An SE should indeed run 6.08! Or 7.01 at the most, anything higher will make it rather sluggish, especially when running of the original harddrive!

 

[joshc]

or retro-brightened, I think...

Avoid doing this if you can learn to get used to the yellowed cases. The reason to not retrobright is that it damages the plastic and it's easy to get it wrong and end up with a case that looks even worse than when you started. Even if you retrobright, the plastic will yellow again unless it's UV treated but at the end of the day, these are 30+ year old machines so you may as well enjoy them as they are.

What options do I have for replacing hard drives with an SE?

Take a look at ZuluSCSI: http://zuluscsi.com/

And I should be able to play some of the old classic games I grew up with, even considering the limitations of the SE compared to the SE/30.

Well, the SE is generally a better machine for old B&W games vs. an SE/30 because a lot of those games don't work with the 68030 processor whereas they work fine on a 68000 like the SE has. I have multiple SE/30s but I actually chose to get an SE for this reason.

The bag, mouse & keyboard cost an extra $100.

That's a good price for them. And has has been mentioned, that is a IIgs keyboard which is sought after - it has a different feel to the other keyboards they made.

The other keyboard you got is an AppleDesign Keyboard, most of which are not mechanical and have a spongy feel to them - not very desirable and generally not well liked by Mac collectors. At one point I had about 15 of those keyboards and I gave them all away, didn't even keep one for myself. The only spongy style keyboards I kept in my collection are Apple Keyboard IIs, but the rest of my Apple keyboards are mechanical.

 

[jdcurry]

Avoid doing this if you can learn to get used to the yellowed cases. The reason to not retrobright is that it damages the plastic and it's easy to get it wrong and end up with a case that looks even worse than when you started. Even if you retrobright, the plastic will yellow again unless it's UV treated but at the end of the day, these are 30+ year old machines so you may as well enjoy them as they are.


Take a look at ZuluSCSI: http://zuluscsi.com/


Well, the SE is generally a better machine for old B&W games vs. an SE/30 because a lot of those games don't work with the 68030 processor whereas they work fine on a 68000 like the SE has. I have multiple SE/30s but I actually chose to get an SE for this reason.


That's a good price for them. And has has been mentioned, that is a IIgs keyboard which is sought after - it has a different feel to the other keyboards they made.

The other keyboard you got is an AppleDesign Keyboard, most of which are not mechanical and have a spongy feel to them - not very desirable and generally not well liked by Mac collectors. At one point I had about 15 of those keyboards and I gave them all away, didn't even keep one for myself. The only spongy style keyboards I kept in my collection are Apple Keyboard IIs, but the rest of my Apple keyboards are mechanical.

Good to know. I'll look into the Zulu (I'm currently playing with the Floppy EMU from BMOW I purchased years back when I had a Classic). I'm getting an X symbol on boot (from what I understand the disk images I currently are trying to use are 1.4mb and not 800k and causing that error?) But I'm trying not to mess with it too much before I'm able to peek at the insides tomorrow. I don't want to damage the plastic, so I may just learn to love the yellow.

...Or I guess I could purchase another, better-stored less yellow-y unit years down the road... and swap cases...it's not something I'm looking at doing anytime soon and not a necessity. And that seems like an expensive and silly endeavor. Those clear cases look cool, but I have no idea if they made them for the SE, and are quite expensive and hard to find.

At first, I thought these two units were identical, then did some digging and found that the one with the screen issue may contain a disk drive (because it only has one floppy drive). And I guess that's how they were configured and sold back then.

 

[jdcurry]

In my opinion:

• Get the batteries out asap. The Varta's have a lower chance of leaking/exploding compared to the Maxel's, but best not to take the risk.
  Machine runs fine without battery, it's mainly the clock which loses the setting, and if I'm not mistaken you also lose the settings in the contro panel, such as mouse speed, double click speed and such things. Not critical at all, just a tad annoying.
• Mix and match. With a bit of luck the harddrive in the one with the bad video is still working, is obviously a higher specked machine then the other one with only two floppies. So swap logic board makes the most sence to get the machine with the SC20 harddrive working.
• Both machines only have the 800k floppy drives, not sure if you have other vintage Mac's, but floppies for your SE's can only be made with other Mac's. USB floppy drives on more modern machines won't work at all for making 400/800k Mac floppies!
• Do some research on the SD card solutions (BlueSCSI, ZuluCSI, ...) and BasiliskII. Once you get the hang of it, it's an easy way of moving files/programs from "modern", internet connected computers onto your vintage Mac.
  I like my DB25 BlueSCSI for this, but there is some controversy on the maker of those, apparently not exactly a straight shooting bloke
  But, like for me, in Europe, it is however by far the most affordable and easy to locally buy solution.
• Or, alternatively, get a FloppyEMU from BMOW, not cheap, but extremely handy to do the same as above point.
• Once you have one completely working machine, you can then move on to fix the other one!

Tip in case the harddrive does not work, is to remove it, keep it horizontally in your hand, and twist it, basically around the orientation of the axle, this often get things going again.
Also, some of those miniscribe drives used back then actually have a round hole in the PCB exposing the axle, using the back of a pensil with an eraser on the end, you cann use the grippy eraser to turn the axle!

I do have the BMOW device from years prior when I had a Classic that died on me. I am toying with it now for a bit before heading off to bed. Getting an "x" symbol so I think there may be an issue with the .dsk files I had on my google drive I put on the SD card.

Honestly, I'm not looking to have a big collection (when thinking about the future), but just one solid machine that I can occasionally game on or type up some stuff... so it might be wise to swap boards if the hard disk (or SCSI port) is alive and well.

 

[jdcurry]

Some progress, at least...Trying to mount a 'hard drive' and it doesn't like like 2GB image.

 

[joshc]

I'm getting an X symbol on boot (from what I understand the disk images I currently are trying to use are 1.4mb and not 800k and causing that error?)

Most likely yes.

The FloppyEmu is fine but not the fastest way to use your SE. I'd still recommend taking advantage of the SCSI bus and using a SCSI SD device instead.

Those clear cases look cool, but I have no idea if they made them for the SE, and are quite expensive and hard to find.

For the most part, the SE and SE/30 cases are the same, and the clear case works for both of them. But clear cases are not made anymore and on the open market, people seem to want as much as $500 for them now.

And I guess that's how they were configured and sold back then.

SEs came in numerous configurations. You could get them with one, or two floppy drives, or with a floppy drive and hard disk. In theory it's possible to fit two floppy drives and a hard drive in them but it gets pretty cramped.

System 6 works well with a dual floppy drive setup, as you can boot from one drive and then use the other for your applications/documents - no disk swapping required!

 

[volvo242gt]

The SE with the checkerboard pattern is probably with issues involving either the harness plug for the motherboard on the analog board or the harness itself. Typically the solder joints fail and the computer will randomly display the checkerboard pattern. While you have the bucket removed, power up the machine, then, while staying away from the neck of the tube, wiggle the harness. It may just boot.

 

[volvo242gt]

You can also get the aftermarket hard drive bracket, then install a hard drive in a dual floppy SE. The harness I mentioned in my last post can be seen between the hard drive and the power supply.

 

[jdcurry]

Most likely yes.

The FloppyEmu is fine but not the fastest way to use your SE. I'd still recommend taking advantage of the SCSI bus and using a SCSI SD device instead.


For the most part, the SE and SE/30 cases are the same, and the clear case works for both of them. But clear cases are not made anymore and on the open market, people seem to want as much as $500 for them now.


SEs came in numerous configurations. You could get them with one, or two floppy drives, or with a floppy drive and hard disk. In theory it's possible to fit two floppy drives and a hard drive in them but it gets pretty cramped.

System 6 works well with a dual floppy drive setup, as you can boot from one drive and then use the other for your applications/documents - no disk swapping required!

 

[jdcurry]

Sounds good. I just placed an order for a BlueSCSI device and will utilize that when it arrives.

 

[jdcurry]

The SE with the checkerboard pattern is probably with issues involving either the harness plug for the motherboard on the analog board or the harness itself. Typically the solder joints fail and the computer will randomly display the checkerboard pattern. While you have the bucket removed, power up the machine, then, while staying away from the neck of the tube, wiggle the harness. It may just boot.

I will give that a try tomorrow. Thank you!

 

[jdcurry]

View attachment 55995
You can also get the aftermarket hard drive bracket, then install a hard drive in a dual floppy SE. The harness I mentioned in my last post can be seen between the hard drive and the power supply.

Oh that does look quite useful!

 

[mmmlinux]

if the hard drive isnt working try taking it apart carefully and spinning the platters. you might be able to just get the board off the bottom and access the motor that way so you dont have to risk dust.

 

[Phipli]

Don't take the hard disk apart - there are loads of things to try before that. I've recovered loads of disks, and never once by opening them up.

Opening a disk is risky and as likely to cause issues as not. They were built in dust free clean rooms and even in 80s disks there are only nanometers between the head and disk. Dust getting in there, or hair or whatever, can cause a failure.

 

[jdcurry]

Don't take the hard disk apart - there are loads of things to try before that. I've recovered loads of disks, and never once by opening them up.

Opening a disk is risky and as likely to cause issues as not. They were built in dust free clean rooms and even in 80s disks there are only nanometers between the head and disk. Dust getting in there, or hair or whatever, can cause a failure.

I don't think I will attempt to take it apart... I believe I have a 20 MB SCSI in storage that can be used if the current drive is shot. Will go to the storage unit over the weekend and take a look.

 

[jdcurry]

Alight folks, I hope you're ready for teardown pics. There were a couple of surprises hidden in one of the machines! Can you guess which?

 

[jdcurry]

Teardown of Machine #2 - Two floppy drive edition.


No signatures




What do I spot here? A hard drive in a machine that usually doesn't have one? Aftermarket adapter or factory?







Could this tear in the cable be the culprit??



Looks like a Molex for the HDD


Trying to get to the screws....

A



And the drive is out!


Varta, again! Time to cut it out.


Farewell, Varta.


Removed the expansion card to get a closer look. A fair bit of dust!



A closer look at the modem.


And assembled back together it boots! (Still, no OS installed as of yet)

 

[jimjimx]

One seems to have a modem of some kind. Looks like a bnc connector/serial port?

One of the easiest things to do, to get the network working with modern equipment, is to get a old hub with BNC, like this..

Acer Ethernet Networking HUB ALH-509U Original | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Acer Ethernet Networking HUB ALH-509U Original at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

You'll also need a BNC cable..