Upgrading/Refurbishing a Classic

[Simon_Carr]

Hello All,

Having finally maxed out my Centris 650 (just awaiting the delivery of my final bank of 64Mb of RAM to top it out at a full 136Mb), I'm now turning my attention to my lovely little Mac Classic that was recently given to me by a friend who has had it since new. It is completely original, with a 40Mb Quantum HDD and came with the fully expanded RAM board, which is nice: my friend said that he never had a problem with it that required any maintenance or repair, and he has had it under a dust cover in his office since 1991.

As with all my retro computer rebuilds (I also have a collection of Sinclair ZX Spectrums, ZX81s and QLs), when I refurbish them, I like to do everything together, so that once rebuilt, the computer is as upgraded as possible as well as fully refurbished.

I appreciate that the expansion and upgrade options on a Mac Classic are very limited, so I am just looking to see whether my list below is comprehensive in terms of what can be realistically done to the Classic whilst I have it in bits:

1: Replace PRAM battery (done immediately when I received it! First time the Mac had ever been opened up since being assembled!)

2: Replace SMD Electrolytic caps on Logic Board

3: Replace Electrolytic caps on Analog Board

4: Replace Quantum HDD with a SCSI2SD unit

5: clean everything

6: err.....?

Is that it? I'm not interested in turning it into a FrankenMac by completely changing its innards: I like the idea of a simple Mac Classic in the manner its creator intended, but is there anything else I should look at doing while I have it in pieces?

 

[bibilit]

clean and lubricate the floppy Drive.

 

[Simon_Carr]

Thanks, I should have noted that 'clean everything' meant doing this with the floppy drive, as well as just cleaning the PCBs!

 

[Elfen]

That's basically it.

Since it is a Classic, test to see if the ROM Disk works by holding down "Option Apple X O" when you turn it on. The Classic is the only Mac with a ROM Drive from Apple, and boots up on System 6.0.8. You can use it to see if your drives work after cleaning them up.

 

[Simon_Carr]

Yes, good point; the ROM works just fine, and is a very useful backup to have: it makes setting up the SCSI2SD even more straightforwards. I'm still trying to decide what to put in there, whether to have it as an original system 6, or to take it up to 7.0.1. I don't think that going much beyond 7.0.1 is worth it with the awesome performance of a 68000 cpu...

 

[CC_333]

No, probably not. It *can* run SSW 7.5.5, but it'll be slow. SSW 7.1 is probably best, as it is basically 7.5.5 without the extra bloat (which means it can run virtually all SSW 7.5.5 "only" software with a few minor upgrades and alterations).

c

 

[Elfen]

I would agree on System 7.1.

Just got to Max the RAM to 4MB to make it work. Anything less than 4MB and it starts to choke and crawl.