Classic II "enhanced sound"

[BadGoldEagle]

Hey there

I found a "dead" Classic II for sale for 5€. Comes with HD, floppies, keyboard & mouse.

The screen shows the greyish pattern of a working Mac but with vertical black bars. I know it is capacitor related. I want to get this machine because I want to try my hand at soldering. It's really cheap as well!

I will ask the seller the serial for some more info about this Mac. This one has the speaker grille (I think it looks nice and different from what I'm used to) but I'm wondering if it has the "enhanced" version of the Logic Board? I heard that they were somewhat rarer than the "standard" ones. 

Can you tell if it does with the serial number?

Does the presence of the grille in itself indicate that it has an "enhanced sound" LB?

 

[360alaska]

The "grille" does make it highly likely...

 

[unity]

The enhanced motherboard is not something I ever heard of. Anyone got some more details? I have some Classic IIs, maybe I should take a closer look . But for what, not sure.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

That's good.

This one was probably made in Ireland. Most Macs in Europe were made in Ireland.

Is there a specific date when they stopped making the "standard" Classic IIs? Probably not but worth asking

unity, I didn't know "enhanced boards" existed before someone started a thread here about yet another problem with a Classic II. 

Someone pointed out that it was a "enhanced sound" one, making it somewhat rarer. Uniserver mentions it on his website

It has two more capacitors.

 

[Paralel]

It was a redesign of the Classic II Logic board, a few differences, two ROM chips instead of 4, the two rework wires that were needed on the original LB design are obviously not there because the issues that required them were corrected in the new design, etc...

The "Enhanced Part" is literally just the holes drilled in the case, otherwise its functionally identical to the first version of the classic II LB.

I never understood why they drilled the holes. If you turn a classic II's volume all the way up without the holes present, it should be entirely too loud. I can't imagine how loud it is with the holes in it.

 

[uniserver]

the Mac Classic is a good board to start out on… not the Classic II…    yeah basically there was REV1 and REV2 Classic II main boards.

Rev1 had (4) rom chips and rev2 had (2) and more caps. The sound is the same for rev 1 and 2.  the only difference was the grill in the case allowed the sound to be a little louder and less muffled.

 

[Paralel]

I really contend the "Muffled" belief that is prevalent. The sound in my original Classic II is very clear. Of course, maybe I'm just lucky. My Classic II is a little odd, having Ceramic ROM chips rather than the typical plastic ones. I'm still nor sure why that is.

 

[unity]

The first run of Classic IIs had ROM issues. So Apple used EPROMs for the early run. Why not a SIMM, not sure. But its not the only machine that used EPROMs for early batches.

 

[Elfen]

Well, my Classic II is a mute - cap-goo got the audio area and no sound comes out and I have not went looking into it further. Which is funny, one of the program I found on it was a musical keyboard program for making music and MS Word.

 

[bibilit]

the Mac Classic is a good board to start out on… not the Classic II

I agree a 100 %, The Classic is a good starter, but the Classic II with all those tiny caps is tricky.

I have got several Classic II and all of them have the grill, don't know if in the end the same casing was used for both the Classic and Classic II.

I have seen a Classic casing with holes and a blanking plug for the microphone.

 

[Paralel]

The case of the Classic II and the Classic are completely interchangeable as far as I'm aware.

 

[bibilit]

The case of the Classic II and the Classic are completely interchangeable as far as I'm aware.

Not completely, the Classic II Logic Board has a connector above the bottom left screw which is missing on the Classic, so a Classic Logic Board will fit a Classic II case, but a Classic II board will not go in a Classic case without drilling a hole for the connector.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Well it would have been great if the ad didn't suddenly disappear. I didn't get an answer. 

Guess that someone was quicker than me.

Anyway, thanks chaps for your help, if I come across another one I'll give it a go. 

Found something else, slightly more interesting than a Classic II but I'll just create another thread for that one...

 

[eR1c]

Well, my Classic II is a mute - cap-goo got the audio area and no sound comes out and I have not went looking into it further. Which is funny, one of the program I found on it was a musical keyboard program for making music and MS Word.

-Mine too! ....it was a pain getting my Classic II to run ...so haven't got the energy to dig further into my sound issue either. I am fine w/ it as it is.  

 

[uniserver]

for what ever reasons classic II's are hot right now.

 

[Elfen]

I think they are hot because they are much easier to fix than a SE\30. In most cases, a Cap-Goo wash down and a Re-capping job will fix most Classic IIs while on the SE\30 you need to check traces and fix other things after recapping the LB to get it working again.

But that's MHO...