Just got a Mac Plus--I have questions.

[justanotherjohn]

I actually bought this machine almost 20 years ago, but the disk drive died in it and it's been on a shelf since then. I have a few questions in my quest to get up and running again.

1. If I get a floppy disk emu, will I need anything else? Can it totally replace the internal drive (which I removed after it broke)? 

2. Somehow I've lost the keyboard. Is there a low-cost alternative to buying an original? The ones I've seen on eBay tend to be 1/3 the price of the whole system! 

3. I am interested in streaming games online. Is there any mod I can do to split the video output to both the Mac Plus's screen and a composite or VGA monitor? 

4. Are there any other mods you'd recommend? 

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[Elfen]

The lubrication on the Floppy Drive has dried out and hardened. That is a simple fix of taking apart the floppy drive and relubing it. The forum's Wiki Section has instructions on how to do it:

https://wiki.68kmla.org/Floppy_Drive_Lubrication

FloppyEmu is a nice alternative. It can act as a second floppy/hard drive (HD20) for the Plus.

Not muck on the Keyboard. You might have to bite the bullet on this one. Maybe somebody on the forum has a spare keyboard they are willing to throw at you. Ask around.

#3 - No.

#4 - Up the RAM to 4MB.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

#3 - Elfen is right, it is near impossible to get a video out on a Mac Plus. 

In the early days of the Plus, there were some alternatives, like getting a video card that would disable the internal screen to allow an external one to be connected. About 0.01% of all Pluses ever made got that upgrade. Another alternative is to go for an Aura Scuzzygraph. But that thing is just as rare. You could also use up to 8 colours using a Scuzzygraph on a Mac Plus with an external colour display! That's neat.

Someone with enough electrical engineering background and determination should reverse engineer one of those Scuzzygraphs! 

 

[justanotherjohn]

I was hoping it would be as easy as modding a Spectrum or VCS, just solder another wire to the video lead off the board  

That Scuzzygraph is awesome! I was also reading about a thing called a Power R Converter here:

http://www.jagshouse.com/powerrconverter.html

 

[bdurbrow]

The video on a compact Mac is TTL, and not at a standard frame rate. For streaming, you would probably be better off running the games in an emulator and streaming that out via a video capture app on your modern Mac/PC.

In principal one could create some new hardware to capture the TTL video and input it via USB (perhaps with a fast ARM micro controller that had a high-speed USB 2 port on it), but it would be a non-trivial project.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Well, it's a shame Spectator doesn't work on B&W systems... Because it's exactly what you're looking for. It saves the output file on the Mac HD.

Maybe someone could hack this? How hard can it be? You just need to trick the software into thinking you're on a colour mac...

Edit: I tried 'I Wish I were' on mini vMac. Even when set to a Colour Classic, I can't use the color control panel. 

 

[techknight]

Problem is, you need Color Quickdraw, and thats in ROM. Without it, you cant really have color. 

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Okay, I forgot about that, but why does Spectator needs colour to work at all?

 

[bdurbrow]

It's probably making a bunch of Color QuickDraw calls; even if the display is in single-bit-per-pixel mode.

 

[justanotherjohn]

It seems that the Power R Model 2702 is exactly what I need. Check this out:

http://web.archive.org/web/19990819155946/www.powerr.com/prices.html

How do you think this was accomplished? How did it even connect to a Mac?