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The typical corporate setup that I came across consisted of a server (or servers - sometimes NetWare with Mac support) on a 10Mb ethernet backbone connected to a Webster MultiGate with 4 x LocalTalk network, each LocalTalk segment having four Macs connected. i.e. 16 LocalTalk Macs to one...

The zones are created ("seeded") by a router. Zones are definitely not restricted to LocalTalk. A single ethernet LAN running AppleTalk could have many zones, with devices logically grouped into zones even though they may be sharing one physical LAN. In the case of LocalTalk, a single...

Back in the days of large AppleTalk networks, The Chooser was despised by network admins because of the network broadcast traffic it generated. Every time a user opens Chooser, it starts spewing out network broadcasts requesting that all laser printers or all AppleShare servers respond. No...

Bolle: "unusual" is probably a mild description. Step 3 from the FAQ strikes me as incredibly bad advice. The mains voltage is AC at 50 or 60 cycles per second. This means that the degaussing coil alternately magnetises, demagetises and then magnetises with the opposite polarity 60 times per...

You haven't included the "must have" accessory for every computer of the time: a modem! Trouble is, the fastest one I recall Apple making was the 1200 baud one - "Apple Modem 1200", I think it was called? By 1990, 2400 bps modems were state of the art, so most IIfx users would have used modems...

I've come across Macintoshes used in some unusual applications. One was used by a stone mason to drive a special stencil cutter. Basically, the text required for a tombstone would be typed up on the Mac. The cutter would cut the shapes of the letters out of a sheet of rubber. The finished...

The AU Mac 512k machines were all 240v. The step down transformer was nothing special: just a white metal box. The Apple IIs were always 240v and I don't know about the Lisas. I'll see if I can find an old Apple spare parts price list - the transformer would have been available as a spare part.

The Australian Mac 128k machines had 110v power supplies and shipped with an external 240v => 110v step down transformer. However, nearly every 128k that I encountered had at some stage been connected directly to 240v and had its original power/sweep board "blown up". I suspect that this...

Likewise: my backlit portable has always had a few brightness "steps" that are no-go areas because they make the backlight flicker slightly. It seems to vary a bit with temperature too - after the machine has been on for a while, the problem diminishes. However, the machine recently developed...

Wow, that's quite a find. Those things weigh a ton though, so freight could be substantial. The printers share many parts in common with a Canon photocopier of the same era. Back when I worked on them, we had a suitable Canon copier in our office and the copier frequently became an "organ...

At the time the 190 was released, I had a PowerBook 520 (later upgraded to a PowerBook 540c). I was working with 190s and 5300s almost every day, but they seemed poorly constructed and "cheap" next to my 520. The 190s leave a bad taste with those of us who worked with them at the time. The...

You need to have an ethernet card and have it selected before you get access to options such as DHCP. While you are using LocalTalk, MacIP is the only way to do TCP/IP.

I agree that it's likely to be a floppy drive controller. The 74LS38 devices use open-collector logic, as do PC floppy drives. There are what appear to be pullup resistors adjacent to the 34 way connector and the 34 way cable has a connector for a second device half way along it in the same...

It does sound like the usual Mac Portable with no main battery problem. Don't forget that the 9v backup battery is only in circuit when the lid is off the battery compartment. The reverse is also true: if the main battery is installed, it's only in circuit when the lid is on the battery...

If the LC630 had been released in place of the LC475, we'd have thought it was wonderful. As it was, it was only ever going to be the "cheap" Mac, not the "good" Mac. The main things that give me bad memories re the LC630 are: a) Same case as those awful, slow, clunky 603e PowerMac 6200...

Nice summary of all the different models, Scott. I might add that the quality problems with the ImageWriter LQ 24 pin printer were addressed with a "rework" programme in which quite a number of the internal printer components were replaced. Among other issues, it reduced the noise produced by...

If I'm doing display alignment on a compact Mac, I find it easiest to cut a sheet of white paper to the correct image size. Just hold the paper up to the display and adjust the image to match the size of the paper sheet. It also helps confirm that the geometry is correct (parallel top/bottom...

The interesting thing about the HyperDrive was that it was one of the few third party mods that did not void warranty. Apple mentioned it in their service manuals at the time.

The backlight inverter in the Portable makes a high pitched whining sound when the backlight is on. Since converting mine to a solid state hard drive, that noise seems much louder (it's not being drowned out by the racket the old mechanical hard drive used to make). Take Hen3ry's advice and...

Since some of us are freighting rare Macs around the World, it's worth a bit of a mention of how the image geometry can get to be screwed up on a classic Mac. The Earth's magnetic field interferes with the position and geometry of the image. In particular, if a Mac sold in the Northern...