Which Was The Best Compact Mac Made?

[Elfen]

Now to me... Ha!

In the past I have owned every compact Mac expect for the Color Classic II. Many of them were modified or expanded upon and some of those I wish I still had. Like my old SE\20 - a Mac SE with an '020 Accelerator; and those Mac 128Ks/512Kes with the 2MB/SCSI Dove Boards (and the occasional ROM upgrades) in them. They were great machines in their day and still would be useful to this day if they were still around.

Currently I own a Mac Plus, Mac SE\30 and Mac Classic II. Currently they are shelved while I pay attention to my other Mac Projects, but of them all, I love the SE\30 the most. The Classic leave me wanting or more for some reason though it is an excellent little machine. And the Mac Plus has saved a few Old Mac Owners out there in Cyberspace as I used it to make 400/800K System Disks with it for them; alas it's 10MB external Hard Drive died long ago. I may have a couple more in storage but I need to look some more.

At most I have the SE\30 with 32megs of RAM and used it as a Web/Internet server for the community center I ran years ago. It also had had a shit load of games and programs; basically everything I did on my IIcx at home I did with the SE\30 at work except for color processing. And carrying work between the two machines on my trusty Duo 210 was great - either by floppy disk or for really big files Apple Talk!

The Plus was also from my community center days. To elaborate, I created the first Free Access Community Computer Center in NYC back in the 80s. (I also assisted in the creation of the first Public Access Computer Center in NYC but it was not free - people had to pay for its access.) With Dr. Levison, we found a Scrap Metal turned Computer Recycling Center in Kearny, NJ and made friends with its founder Eric Burchiel. He gave us old Macs as he could not sell them as well as the recycled PCs. The Macs he gave me I upgraded a couple of schools and the community centers I worked with. With the broken ones I used to teach teens how to do Mac repairs and upgrades and those who passed my final test - bringing a "dead" Mac to life got a tool kit and that mac they fixed in the final exam. A few companies began to hear of my work and supported me and my teens by hiring them to work for them over the summers; where most teens went through the NYC's Summer Youth Employment program and worked for minimum wage - my teens were getting $12+ for their jobs!

But the Plus and SE\30 had their analog boards recapped and the "usual suspects" replaced in the late 90s. It's the SE/30 logic board that did not survive the ravages of age and time but thanks to CompuNerd selling me a "new" SE\30 logic board, it's back among the living! So these two machines mean a bit more to me because they were there since the beginning.

The Classic II I found in the trash last summer with simasi'd screen. In seeing the videos and the posts here, I gave it a recap and brought it back to life though it has no sound. It has 10megs of RAM and a very bloated System 7. It needs some trimming down before I get to use it more seriously. However it is a great machine. I just don't like its 10meg limit as some programs I have requires 16megs. Just have to work around it I guess.

Though I do not have it, the Color Classic was great when I had them (2). Things at the community center were bad that I bought my on printer and copier from Eric at his computer recycling center as the administration of the center had the programs like mine pay for everything - including making copies at the copy room. (you should have seen the look on that a-hole executive director's face when he sent a bill for copies and I showed him my desktop canon copier and Apple Laser Printer in my office! LMAO!!!) One of the two CC's were on my desk and the other was on my 'secretary's' desk, and worked with the computer lab I created and ran by phone-net on the other side of the building. That ED wanted the place to be filled with PCs but being in the northern-area of an artist community, people requested Macs; but even the PCs the place had I got from the computer recycling center! Those were fun days.

But are there favorites? Not really though it leans more towards the SE\30 than to the Plus. There were niches to fill and these Macs filled them perfectly!

Because of politics and personal BS with the ED, I was "let go" with 30 days notice. So I did what I could - pack up my things and leave, including the lab of PCs and Macs. They were mine, they were given to me and a few I bought with my own cash. The ED tried to have me arrested but hen I showed receipts and matched serial numbers, the cops tried to arrest her; damn rabid female dog nearly had a stroke that day! So before I came in they had nothing and when they forced me out, they ended up with nothing. They also lost over $1.2M in funding grants and donations that I brought in for the program that the center kept taking for themselves. If they would have been nice, they would have gotten $5M, but instead they tried to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and you know how that goes.

As, as is, for me it is the SE\30, then the Plus (with a working hard drive) and a Classic II because that is what I currently own.

 

[rickrob]

I'd have to go with the SE/30 as well, the ability to run AUX was cool, and the the memory limit of 128MB was unheard of in those days. A Mystic CC would be second due to its speed and uniqueness. I have both, and still use them-- Have them networked on Ethernet  and sharing a Laserwriter 4/600 with the Laserwriter Bridge.

 

[uniserver]

In those days 8meg's was the ram limit for the se/30 until MODE 32 was out there.... wasn't even available till darn near 1992 for free you could have paid 169.00 for it sometime in 1991 direct from the sw vendor though.  

 

[uniserver]

People forget the Macintosh SE/30 was $6500.00 dollars. back then.

 

[rickrob]

In those days 8meg's was the ram limit for the se/30 until MODE 32 was out there.... wasn't even available till darn near 1992 for free you could have paid 169.00 for it sometime in 1991 direct from the sw vendor though.  

True, forgot about that. When I got my first SE/30, Mode 32 was out. Compared to 640K plus 384 extended on a DOS PC, even 8MB was a lot...

 

[CC_333]

My turn!

I never had any experiences with compact Macs until August 2005 with my SE/30. I've subsequently played with 512k's, Pluses, SE's, and even a 128k, Classic and Classic II, and the SE/30 is probably by far the most capable of the bunch, although I think the 128k is really neat, if only for its historical significance.

The capacitors are a problem, but truthfully, they'll be a problem with anything that old. And each other model has it's own issues (the analog board from the 128/512/Plus, for instance, is seriously under powered and is therefore very prone to failure, even when new), so I don't count them as an inherit flaw in the SE/30's design. That being said, the TWO things that are annoying are the fact that it wasn't 32-bit clean from the factory, and it doesn't have an improved display (it's identical to the SE's design, which is basically a somewhat improved version of the 128/512/Plus A/B with a modular PSU). If the display could do color (or even grayscale), it would've improved it's value considerably.

That being said, it has lots of potential, with its somewhat slow, but nonetheless better-than-a-68000 16 MHz 68030 (every other compact except the Classic II had an 8 MHz 68000) and a RAM ceiling of 128 MB (the 128 and 512 are stuck with their respective 128KB and 512KB of RAM, the Plus, SE and Classic had a ceiling of 4 MB, and the Classic II could take 10 MB).

So, I guess I have to say that based on these metrics, the SE/30, in my opinion, is the best Compact Mac.

c

 

[gsteemso]

When I graduated high school in 1995 (yeah, yeah, “Get off my lawn!” etc.), my parents bought me my very own computer as a reward. I chose an nth-hand SE/30 from the far side of the region… being an ignorant and overeager teen I overpaid, but not horribly so. It was awesome! It did everything I wanted it to with the trivial exception of displaying colours, and the accompanying ImageWriter II I later scrounged up from somewhere was quite entertaining to watch as the momentum of its relatively heavy print carriage reversing direction threatened to topple over whatever insufficiently massive piece of furniture I had it perched atop at any given moment. I was quite annoyed when, around autumn 1997, the University upgraded their modem banks to 56k and dropped support for my perfectly serviceable 2400 baud modem, though. (Hey, it “just worked” without my needing to write a custom modem initialization script! DON’T JUDGE ME muttergrumble) Alas, all good things must come to an end. Not long after that, probably by 1999 or so, I had powered the thing on one morning and ducked briefly across the hall to do some trivial thing while it finished booting. When I got back, mind elsewhere, it took me a minute or two to notice that the screen was still unpowered and I couldn’t hear the bulky, aftermarket 80 MiB hard drive spinning. There was an odd noise, though… kind of a crackling noise, a bit like an… electrical… arc…

“…Oh, crap!” I dove for the off switch and got the case open as quickly as practical, though I didn’t immediately notice anything out of place. Firing it up with the bucket still off revealed a thick rope of lightning connecting the CRT neck to some out-of-sight trace on the analogue board two or three inches away, which proved once the power had been removed again to have melted a wide, twisty tunnel through the insulating wax over the CRT neck coils. I was told at the time by one of the few Mac shops in town that everything in the case had probably been destroyed, with that kind of voltage flying around in there. A very knowledgeable acquaintance has recently disputed that claim, but alas, that poor old machine was recycled over 15 years ago, so we will most likely never find out.

 

[fimbulvetr]

I have an SE/30 and a Classic II. I have been very happy with my (recapped) SE/30 and consider it the best of the two, but dammit if this thread didn't make me want to get an SE as well.  So I bought one of someone local and I'm off to pick one up after work today. $50 got me a running SE 1/20, Apple Extended keyboard, mouse, external floppy, and a spare SE FDHD motherboard. I think I will swap the FDHD motherboard into the SE so I can use the 1.4 Mb disk images on Floppy Emu.

I'll weigh back in later on which I think is best. The bomb-proofness of the SE motherboard and the fact that it can use HD20 are two definite pluses over the SE/30. Lack of HD20 support is a pretty big shortcoming with the SE/30, as it sure is handy for moving stuff around with the Floppy Emu.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Is the question, 'what is the best compact now?' or 'what was the best compact mac then?'?

And why aren't the iMacs included? The DV iMacs were very impressive beasts in their day.

 

[SE30_Neal]

Good point Armor! I don't think it's just classic macs so put down your choices

 

[Floofies]

I don't have an answer, but rather a question...

I could have sworn the SE was the least popular Compact Mac, but from what I can tell it seems to be the most popular? Was I wrong? If so, how the heck did I think that in the first place?

 

[SE30_Neal]

Does look that way for a reliable all in one...

 

[Elfen]

At the time it was the least popular Mac for many reasons, but it has survived better than all of the others over the test of time.

It was expensive, slow, and it's 9in B/W Screen some considered as an evolutionary stand-still when everyone else was going for color. 4MB of RAM was the same as the Plus so no advantage there. And no internal hard drive and only 800K drives for its first year; for 1/2 the price you could get a Mac Plus with an external hard drive. It left a bad taste for some. And Mac Plus sales were going through the roof. Because of that, the Mac Plus had the longest production run.

People thought that they were getting a IIcx in a Mac Plus case with the SE. It was not true until after the SE\30 was released.

 

[Scott Baret]

I'm going to go with the SE SuperDrive on this one from TODAY's point of view. Of all the compacts, it's the least flawed from an engineering standpoint.

The early Macs had their power supply limitations/problems and lack of expansion. Classics (both models) and SE/30s had the trash can caps. 

I give the points to the SuperDrive (or FDHD) model in particular because of the fact USB floppy drives can only use high density floppies. They also didn't have the rat cage fans from the earlier 1987 production SEs.

I do like the other models and have a (re-capped) Classic II as my main machine at home, but for the computers I use with the kids, most are SEs due to their durability and the fact they can accommodate 4MB RAM, a hard drive (mod it enough and you can fit TWO hard drives), and even expansion cards for Ethernet if so desired (I do have one but don't have it in use at the moment).

Did I mention the Varta batteries? Some are still going strong nearly 30 years later...and all of them were made in a country which hasn't existed since 1989!!

 

[Compgeke]

Can confirm those Vartas last forever. I have 4 SEs that held date\time perfectly before I snipped them out due to age. I've never seen another battery of any kind that's lasted almost 30 years and hasn't leaked or gone completely flat. SE 5 had a dead purple Tadiran iirc.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

 If the display could do color (or even grayscale), it would've improved it's value considerably.

CC, I agree that the SE/30 should have had greyscale as standard on its internal CRT. But you can add Greyscale on the 9 inch display thru 3rd party hardware with the Micron Xceed Video card and its adapter. It's a shame you can't tell if one SE/30 has that option because since the back connector doesn't stick out like most SE/30s do with video cards, because it doesn't have any connectors, it's all internal. It means that some really beaten up SE/30s on the net end up in the trash because no one bidded on them. Some might have had some pretty interesting cards in them...

You can also add a color external screen and it will be faster than any LCII or III on the market (except those with PPC upgrade of course). I tried it on mine and it displays color quite fast !

PS: In the olden days, some guys tried installing the IIsi/IIci PDS PPC601 upgrade card in an SE/30. It would really be impressive if it worked! If only I had one of those upgrade cards, I would try that.

 

[H3NRY]

For BEST compact Mac, I'd vote for the SE30. For FAVORITE compact, I have to go with my 128K first Mac, the one that got the Dr. Dobbs 512K upgrade, the one that I developed the 1 meg RAM board for and the internal SCSI hard drive for. That machine was sort of responsible for starting three Mac-oriented companies. 

For favorite all time Apple, I'd nominate my 1977 Apple ][ which taught me digital circuitry and programming, and brought me into the personal computer business.

All these Apples still run, something that can't be said for much 30 to 40 year old consumer electronic gear. Even the two Shugart 5 MB ST506 hard drives attached to the Apple ][ still spin error-free. Apple hardware with a few exceptions is built like professional gear to last, rather than to be thrown out after three years. I do wonder about some of the current models, especially phones, tablets, etc. which cannot be serviced.

Preventative maintenance such as recaps and analog board upgrades have been done as needed. The only Apple which doesn't work at the moment is a backlit Portable. Its voltage regulator hybrid circuit is wonky. That seems to be common with that model. Someone needs to trace out the circuit and work out a replacement. The older non-backlit model is OK (all Portables need recapping by now, of course.) I suppose it can be argued that no one in his right mind would bother recapping a Dell...

 

[DragonKid]

Did I mention the Varta batteries? Some are still going strong nearly 30 years later...and all of them were made in a country which hasn't existed since 1989!!

Actually I'm pretty sure those Varta batteries were made in West Germany.  East Germany was the one that ceased to exist, and I doubt that Apple would have been importing batteries from there anyhow, U.S. based companies giving money to Soviet Bloc countries tended to be frowned upon by the authorities.

As for my vote on best compact Mac, I'd probably have to say SE SuperDrive - All the reliability of an SE plus a 1.44MB floppy drive which makes transferring files a lot easier.  The SE/30 was more powerful but had those %$^#ing SMD electrolytic caps that eat boards and smell like a dead fish in a hot car (I just finished recapping an SE/30 logic board and a Mac Portable, and the unpleasant odor is still fresh in my mind).  I suppose the Mac Classic is similar to an SE, and the Classic II to an SE/30 but more of those tended to come from the factory with Maxell grenades.

 

[brayne]

Hi all,

If I was to answer driven by emotion, I'd have to say the Mac Plus. Lots of fond memories of working with these. I just love opening them up and pulling them apart (which is evident in my YouTube vid from a few years ago). They were a pretty powerful computer in the day, and with the introduction of SCSI and RAM expandability to 4Mb, I definitely think they're worthy of mention.

But I'd have to agree with many others and say that the SE/30 is probably the best compact Mac (even if they did cost $7,500 for the base model here in Australia).

 

[mattpnew]

I don't think you can answer that question without some degree of nostalgia bias, sure I always wanted a Mac SE but couldn't afford it so had to settle for a Mac Plus (which I still have all these decades later), maybe its just me, however I don't have the same attachment to all the Mac Pro's and Macbook Pro's I have had since!