Mac Classic 2

[sirwiggum]

Hi all, newbie here with an interest in classic macs

After having had to give up my old mac collection prior to moving out into a small house (beige G3, LC 475 and Classic, with a multi-switched VGA adaptor and previously a trinitron 19" apple CRT), I recently obtained a Classic 2 to celebrate moving again into a bigger house with a proper computer room :b&w:

First impressions are that visually it is virtually indistinguishable from the classic, the only giveaways being a circular pattern of holes for the speakers (much needed as I recall the classic's sound being muffled).

It doesn't seem overly yellowed, has a fresh grey-ish look to it.

On booting, it will show a zebra crossing pattern. If I leave it half an hour, it will show a diagonally striped grey wallpaper.

On physically restarting, it will usually show the diagonally striped grey wallpaper and play an 8 note death chime.

Usually after 2 or 3 reboots it will get to the desktop. The date is set to 1956. I assume that this is a sign that the PRAM battery has gone?

I read in the service manual that this requires removing the memory board from the motherboard, a few connectors and the battery should be replaceable?

When I get to the desktop, all is well, it has 4mb RAM (a huge amount for a classic compact mac in my opinion!) and a 40mb HDD. Installed is System 7 and ClarisWorks 1 (a useful application and one I remember fondly from IT classes in school ).

Unfortunately my disk with my classic games on is now unreadable.

I can obtain games and use VMac and a Pentium 2 laptop with a floppy drive to get the games onto the mac. Is there a way of networking classic macs to a network drive such that the mac itself could obtain the .sit files?

I can use a G4 Mini, the P2 laptop with FAT32, Linux box etc.

Cheers!

 

[phreakout]

Sirwiggum,

Thanks for the post and welcome back to the Retro Mac community! It sounds like all the symptoms you are experiencing narrow down to the RAM and a dead PRAM battery. You'll need to access the logic board, which involves some disassembly, replace the PRAM with a new one after cleaning the battery holder contacts. Also, temporarily remove the RAM, check for any debris or corrosion on the contacts, RAM card and logic board, clean them if there is any with isopropyl or denatured alcohol. Then, reattach the RAM card, reassemble everything back together and turn it back on. The problems should be solved.

As far as networking goes, you've got a few choices. You can add the Classic II to your existing home network, but you need the right adapter, software and settings. There is no PDS slot inside the case, so you'll have to resort to the external SCSI port or the Printer and/or Modem Port for connectivity. Asante makes interfaces for both the SCSI and Printer ports to link to an Ethernet cable. They can be bought through Asante or used via eBay or the like. If you choose Modem port, you could utilize 2 external phone dial-up modems and a long 4-wire telephone cable for connecting the Classic II and a modern Mac together. The latter will be dial-up modem slow; so beware.

For software, the Classic will need System Software 6 or 7.x.x with AppleShare system extension, Open TransPort and/or MacTCP 2.0.x with AppleTalk installed. If you use phone modem, you'll need a terminal emulation software such as Zterm or one that's included with Microsoft Works 2.x/3.x/etc., WordPerfect Works, ClarisWorks or AppleWorks.

For Ethernet connections, maker sure you configure your router to go at 10 Mbps or 10BaseT speed at Half Duplex, no Auto Negotiation. You may even have to setup a static IP address for the Classic II to be assigned. Enter those settings in MacTCP or Open TransPort and then try restarting your Mac to test it out. If using dial-up and terminal software, set up a Mac-to-Mac or computer-to-computer connection. The Classic will be the receiving end and the other computer (Mac or PC) will send. Configure the settings for both machines to be a fast speed (Kbps) at non-parity, 8 stop bits and 1 data bit. Handshake can be none or XON/XOFF. From here, it's just a matter of telling the sending computer to send a file and the Classic II will automatically listen and receive new data. Once you start sending a file, it should then be received in sync. If you have a whole folder of files to send, be sure to compress the folder into a single file such as .zip, .sit or the like.

One last thing to mention. If you do network via Ethernet with a more modern Mac, make sure that recent machine has OSX Tiger or earlier installed. OSX Tiger 10.4.x was the last version of OSX to suppport AppleTalk. All new versions have dropped it completely.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[sirwiggum]

Thank you phreakout for your great answers.

I will crack it open then, replace the battery and clean the RAM connectors with electrical contact cleaner.

When it does boot up, it shows all 4MB available in the about screen, and I can run Clarisworks, slider game etc. without lockups.

Do any UK/Ire users know if Maplins would be the place to go for a replacement PRAM battery?

Null modem may be the way to go, I assume it would have to be a mac 68k compatible (and not a generic PC modem) such that it connected to the modem port? As most of the games and apps I could invisage using are floppy-disk-fittable, modem speed shouldn't be too much of an impediment.

I think later versions of ClarisWorks had a terminal app built in.

I also had a Mac Plus in my mothers attic, which hopefully isn't in landfill :-/

Last I used it before going to university (in 2001 8-o ) the screen had a bad connection (needed tapped on the top left to keep a picture) and I didn't have any 800k floppies. But that's another thread.

 

[protocol7]

Searching on the Maplin site drew a blank. I bought a few batteries off ebay a while ago. These half-AA 3.6v batteries are commonly used in alarm systems, so a good hardware shop might have some locally.

 

[sirwiggum]

Thanks protocol7. We have homebase and B+Q nearby, so will investigate in there. Also a decent independent a few miles away might nip in some lunchtime.

Will take the original out this weekend. Can it still boot without a PRAM battery?

 

[protocol7]

Yep, I took the battery out of mine and it still booted. I've left it that way for now.

 

[phreakout]

Yeah, null modem is one way to do simple network connectivity. The modem can be Mac or PC; what does matter is that the modem connected to your Classic II is external. It can be any speed you want, preferably the fastest (56K baud).

Cheers!

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[beachycove]

As others have said, welcome back to vintage Mac-land.

In my experience, checkerboard patterns are commonly symptomatic of failed capacitors in a Classic II, just like the SE/30 etc. I don't think that RAM and PRAM batteries are going to help you much there (though I would certainly pop in at least 2x4MB 30-pin SIMMs, and I would renew the battery also just to keep the thing ship-shape). If there is no sound or only faint sound, also, that's confirmation of capacitor failure. Removing, washing and drying the logic board may provide a temporary fix, is a useful diagnostic measure, and is a necessary step in the repair process anyway. I'd try that in the first instance.

Apart from the backup battery, which tends to cost a fair bit retail, the capacitors can be repaired very cheaply and fairly easily, and the repair is certainly well worth doing to preserve a Classic II in good condition. Some of us prefer a Classic II for aesthetic reasons to any of the other Compact Macs, even if it is a compromised technological design. Cute and powerful "enough."

Having said that, System 6.0.8L flies on a Classic II. The model shipped with 7.0.1, however, and with 10MB RAM, it will also run up to System 7.1 surprisingly well. I personally really like System 7.1 on a Classic II, but would not go any higher than 7.1, and would forego installing Open Transport and other, later System 7.1 add-ons. The 7.1 Update 3, however, is a good idea for bug-fixes and such.

Networking is going to be a pain if all you have is the Classic II and a modern PC. The Classic II is really pre-internet in the sense that it was designed in a way which was oblivious to its development. You could go the modem route, but I would say that the best thing might be to find another, more capable Mac to use as a bridge to the world at large. I would recommend finding a PPC running System 8 or 9, to turn on filesharing, and solve your problems that way. Something like a Wallstreet PowerBook, especially if it has the floppy expansion bay, would not take up much room and would prove really useful if you want to get into retro-gaming and such.

To illustrate: I have a Classic II running System 7.1 that can (for instance) mount a 500GB share from an Appleshare IP server that runs on my home network on a PowerMac 8600/300, connecting over localtalk/PhoneNet. Yessiree. There are some small extras needed to do this by way of use of Localtalk Bridge or similar, but it works perfectly. Software can be downloaded to the share and installed on the Classic II that way. You can also connect to TCP/IP networks if you want, but I don't see the point of that except to say that you'd done it. A Classic II is really not designed for that task, and is best left doing what it WAS designed for, which is running productivity applications, B&W games, and the like. Those things it does with style.

 

[sirwiggum]

With moving house (with a computer room / study big enough to start collecting macs again ) and packing etc. I didn't get a chance to peer at the innards of the Classic 2.

protocol7 thanks for confirming it could boot without a battery.

phreakout I'll investigate maybe setting up a couple of modems. The G4 Mini has a built in modem and OS9. Might be the best bet.

Would a Parallel port zip drive be compatible with a Classic 2? Could be another option. I have a VMac HD full of apps and games that it would be nice to see executing "properly"

beachycove, thank you for a great intricate reply

I have read elsewhere on the net that capacitors on the 68k machines can go.

How would I know if a capacitor is dead? Is there a tell tale leakage?

Would need a steady soldering hand I would imagine.

I am getting sound though. I know what you mean regarding the sound, my last Mac Classic had dull sounding sound, barely audible, definitely had a problem.

The Classic 2 has surprisingly sharp sound. On the diagonal wallpaper / grey screen it plays a nice 8 note death chime, but when it boots properly it chimes like a mac should, the startup sound, the "eeps" etc. that can be selected from the control panel, all good

Wouldn't do any harm to replace the battery. Might track down a couple of SIMMs. Would they replace 2 x 1 MB SIMMS to bring it to the 10MB ceiling?

I'm not overly concerned at bringing the machine online to the internet, but I was more concerned with sharing files etc, bringing files over from my VMac hard drive.

Does it read the full 500GB share? What size does it report it as? Would be amazed if this old mac could read such a large drive, when the contemporary FAT16 had a limit of 2GB :O

Sounds like a great setup you have there, must have took a bit of tweaking to get it all set up, but worth the end result

I'm hoping to use mine for simple games, some productivity (for example, it would be nice to type letters on as it has a brilliant keyboard, then transfer the .cwk / .doc to another machine for printing / emailing).

I was also hoping to use a DB application to store recipes in, and maybe it could live / holiday in the kitchen. Clarisworks though only allows a single line text field to be displayed on their simple DB app. More for address fields etc. than full blown recipe / ingredient lists.

Thank you all for being so helpful. I hope to post pictures (probably after the move) and let you know how I am getting on with it

 

[protocol7]

You'd need a SCSI Zip drive for a Classic II. The way I got mine "networked" was by connecting it to an old PowerMac via a printer cable. Then I could put whatever software was needed onto the PM and copy it over on the Classic II via AppleShare. Slow, but it worked. I now have a couple of (non-Mac) SCSI externals and a CDROM, but I need to get an adapter to fit the DB25 connection on these old Macs. Then I should be able to use those.

Speaking of drive sizes, is there any limit to the size of a drive that a Classic II can see? My externals have 18GB disks. Assuming I partition them into up into 2GB HFS partitions, would they work ok?

Mine still has 4MB RAM as I haven't found any 4MB sticks to get it up to the full 10MB. It has 2x1MB sticks on the board already, so yes you'd replace those with 4MB sticks to get the 10MB.

 

[sirwiggum]

Thank you Protocol7.

A few options then, to invest in a SCSI Zip / Network adaptor / compatible Modem.

I can't remember the network in school using file sharing, the whole network just seemed to be devoted to printer sharing.

DTP lessons on Clarisworks. Those were the days.