Mac SE in Pittsburgh!

[Scott Baret]

Just for fun, I decided to check the local CL listings last night, figuring there was an outside chance of getting something while I'm home. (The IIGS is still there, but I probably won't be picking it up until June now--it will be held for me though). Sure enough, there was an SE on the listings.

I bought it this morning and it started up fine from an 800K disk. It's the single-floppy 800K model with a hard drive, although the hard drive doesn't spin up. It's no problem, as I have a stack of other drives I could replace it with, or I could fit a drive into one of those sweet externals I got a few weeks ago in Charlotte (which I left down there along with all my tools--good thing I left a set of 6.0.3 disks here).

The Mac is yellowed and is missing some "feets" but looks fine otherwise--no damage to the case that I can see. Aside from being the color of a 512K, it's in amazing shape cosmetically. The screen is sharp without burn-in.

The only concern I have with the Mac is the RAM--it only has 1MB. Looks like it's a good time to go through that pile of RAM sticks I have sitting here. I want to at least take it up to 2MB, preferably 4MB.

I also found out today there's a very outside chance I may have dibs on three iMac G3s and a 13" Apple HiRes RGB and maybe a trio of eMacs. I don't know what I'd do with all of those save for the Ruby iMac that I really want though!

 

[TheEisenfaust]

I love my Mac SE that I have in my collection. It was the model with the dual 800k floppy drives, but what was really cool was that the previous owner put an aftermarket sled in the back of it and mounted a 60MB HDD inside it. So yeah, instead of having to choose between 2 floppies and FD/HD, I got the best of both worlds! :b&w:

So have you tried throwing System 7 on it yet? I had to rig up a SCSI CD-ROM to make it work, and even then it was a bit of a pain... Way worth it tho.

 

[haplain]

I love the Mac SE. I feel that those style of computers are what comes to almost everyones mind when they think of an older Mac. I'm one of the luck few who happens to own the extremely limited production Mac SE Transparent prototype. Just thought I'd share...

 

[Scott Baret]

I actually left the SE in Pittsburgh since I'm returning there to tutor in June. Nothing better than having a Mac already waiting for me when I return, especially since I have most of my compacts in the south with me. (I'll probably take a Classic home too--have one that's been recapped that I'll probably take for the ride).

I haven't put System 7 on this one yet--it only has 1MB RAM and the hard drive doesn't spin up. I'll probably wind up keeping it with System 6 until I take the RAM up, and even then, I usually stick with 6 on the slower machines. Still, 7 can be done--actually had an SE with 2MB and 7.1 as a classroom computer in second grade and it worked fine.

I also have a prototype SE, although mine is of the non-clear case variety. It's actually being exhibited this coming weekend at the vintage computer show north of Atlanta! That reminds me, I need to pack for the upcoming weekend

 

[TheEisenfaust]

@Scott Baret I wanna see pics of that proto if you can snag 'em! I would loose my mind if I ever got my hands on a Prototype. Coolest Macs in the world if you ask me.