Mac Plus Revival!

[MapGuy42]

Thanks to the Xmas Wishlist swap thread, just yesterday I received my one and only 68k wish: a Mac Plus to work on. User aubrick reported that the Plus appeared to be suffering from an intermittent reboot problem, but he couldn't test further owing to his lack of a system disk.

Quite yellow, but in otherwise fine cosmetic shape, I plugged it in, only to find the checkerboard issue instead! Well, I did my due diligence and consulted the repair PDF found on this site (which now resides in my iBooks library, always at hand) and I cleaned the SIMMs and reseated them. For good measure, to preempt the reboot problem, I removed the J4 power connector and cleaned those contacts. The PRAM battery contacts looked kind of nasty as well.

Put it back together, plugged it in, flipped the switch, and… WHAT? What's this clicking? I get a third problem? No, no, I forgot to plug everything back in on the logic board, which I'm sure has never happened to anyone else here.

That fixed, try again… BONG! For fun, even though I don't have the keyboard or mouse plugged in, I popped in a System 6.0.8 disk I made experimentally on my 8100 from a taped-over HD disk, and it works! Woohoo!

I've left it sitting as long as I've been typing this, and no reboot yet, so fingers crossed that I've prevented it. C1 looks really good, and the disk drive sounded decent, though I think I'd like to lube it all the same. And this summer I look forward to the retro-bright.

All in all, a great acquisition! Thanks aubrick, and thanks 68kmla!

 

[macman142]

Sounds good - nice work. A little effort and you've saved one. Love the feeling and so often they're relatively straight forward fixes.

Are you sure it's yellowed and not just an early beige Mac Plus?

A retro-bright would give good results whatever the original colour was. A fresh "beige" Mac looks great, though I've still never done a retro-bright on any of my Macs yet...

Oh and because we all love pics - any chance of some?

 

[MapGuy42]

All set up:



The Unboxing can be seen here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjygaMSF

Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure it was a beige, though the production year is 87. Can that be right? Anyhow, the pic doesn't do justice to how jaundiced it really is.

And I spoke too soon about the floppy drive; on eject, I had to help the disk out the rest of the way with a pair of pliers. It popped up, but not out.

I was pleased to find it has 4 MB installed. I hope to do some online terminal stuff with it, and play around with HyperCard.

 

[MapGuy42]

Edit to my first post: For posterity and anyone digging up this thread for troubleshooting advice, the clean and re-seat your SIMMs tip came from jagshouse.com, not the classic Mac PDF at 68kmla.com/files/.

 

[Concorde1993]

Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure it was a beige, though the production year is 87

Macs were still beige in 1987. I have a couple of Pluses from 87, and both are beige. I believe that they transferred over to platinum sometime at the end of 1987, as all Mac models used the platinum scheme in 1988.

 

[MapGuy42]

Well, then I'm well within beige territory, as my production week is 5 according to the serial. I'm glad; I think the "plain front" compacts look best in original beige. :beige: And it means the case isn't as far yellow as I originally thought.

Even though I knew they were there, I was a little startled and stirred when I saw the signatures in the back case for the first time. I took a moment and appreciated them. Showed them to my wife; she was not impressed. What can you do.

 

[aubrick]

I'm glad to have done my part, and thanks for the kind words!

 

[MapGuy42]

Tonight I took the floppy drive out, in anticipation of picking up some lithium grease tomorrow to refurbish it. I couldn't believe how easy and obvious it was; for a machine that was never intended to be user-serviceable, it sure is friendly on the inside. Contrast that with my 8100, which is like a fortress concealing a labyrinth. I'd love to take out and replace the battery in that one, but I'm not sure how to get at it!

As for the Plus' battery, I sure wish I could get one locally. I have a Fry's and a Radio Shack within striking distance of my work. I guess I can have the Shack get the battery for me, but it would be nice just to walk in and pick one up.

 

[Concorde1993]

As for the Plus' battery, I sure wish I could get one locally.

AFAIK, these batteries are no longer in production. Electronic retailers, and hobby shops don't carry them, and I doubt one can purchase a new one online.

Personally, the 4.5V batteries were a joke, especially the Rayovac ones found in the 5xxx Performas (although that one can be easily replaced by soldering three "AA" batteries). They don't last as long as the common 3.6V lithium batteries, and as far as the early Compacts are concerned, impossible to find nowadays in working condition.

 

[MapGuy42]

To name a few battery sources:

Amazon

Radio Shack

Battery Mart

A Google search on "A133 battery" reveals many sources, unless I am mistaken on the battery type, 4.5V 600mAh.

This is pretty much the last thing I need to worry about--no need to keep a battery in it until I am regularly using it!

 

[Concorde1993]

To name a few battery sources

Weird. When I type in "A133 battery" on The Source website (which is the Canadian equivalent of RadioShack), only the iGo® Power Tip A133 for iPhone® shows up.

I guess it's a regional thing, but it's nice to see that they are still around.

 

[MapGuy42]

I did pick up some lithium grease at Kragen today, so tonight I proceeded with the cleaning and lubeing of the disk drive, per the instructions in the wiki. Got it all back together, put the drive back in the Plus, and tried it out. Damn if it didn't still stick on eject! I carefully pulled it the rest of the way out (I could just find purchase with my fingertips) and examine the drive, then the disk. Then it hit me: of course it's sticking; it's catching on the bloody tape I put over the hole to fool it into believing it was an 800k disk!

I tried one of the legitimate disks I got, MacPaint, and it works perfectly! So, maybe the drive didn't need service just yet, but I learned something more about these machines, and in the process maybe reset the clock on when I might have drive trouble later on.

Question: should the retainer disk on the bottom of my mouse be black? Just curious.

My next tasks are software related--obtain some real low density disks and make a RAM disk start disk--and move stuff around related--make a space on the retro-computing bench, with the G3 iMac and the 8100, to network it up.

 

[bibilit]

Question: should the retainer disk on the bottom of my mouse be black? Just curious.

Apparently can be black or platinum, the black ones seems to be US made or Japanese.

 

[MapGuy42]

Here's another puzzle, to me anyway. When I looked at the RAM the first time, it looked like 4 MB to me. The "1000" on the chips of the Korean SIMMs I took to mean 1 MB, and likewise the "640" on the NEC SIMMs I took to really mean 1 MB, having come from DOS land where 640K meant you still had high memory to play with, up to one megabyte.



But, this is definitely not the case, as the Finder shows me here:



Would anyone educate me as to what value my SIMMs likely have?

 

[bibilit]

Probably 2 x 1 Mo and 2 x 256 K SIMMS

 

[waynestewart]

You read the Korean SIMMs correctly but on the NEC SIMMs the 8640 is a manufacturing date for I believe 40th week of 1986. The lower number with 256 in it is the size

Wayne

 

[MapGuy42]

Durrrrr... :lol: That's obvious enough. Thanks guys! Guess I'll need to get a couple more 1 MB SIMMs. They seem to appear in the Trading Post pretty regularly. No sense running around little more than half full!