Mac SE Repairs

[DragonKid]

I have decided to use my Mac SE as a recipe box in my kitchen (Before I receive any death threats: I mean I'm storing recipes on the computer, I have no intent of gutting a Mac and filling it with paper recipe cards), but it needs some repairs. The repairs I can do, but I don't know a good source to find parts for SEs.

I need a SCSI hard drive (I'd prefer to find something at least 80MB, although 40MB would be fine), as this machine's original MiniScribe 8425 has serious stiction (if I take the whole SE apart and turn the stepper that moves the heads, the drive will start up once or twice before sticking again).

I'd also like to install a SuperDrive in the mac. I already have the SuperDrive, a Sony I pulled from a dead LC III, but I need the ROMs or SE FDHD or SE 30 logic board.

Anyone know where I might be able to find these items reasonably priced? Also, if I just install the SuperDrive with the original SE logic board, will it at least read 800k disks?

 

[porter]

After a while it becomes cheaper to get a completely new 2nd hand one. I think you are there.

I wouldn't use roms from an SE/30 in an SE. Completely different beast.

Don't you need a new super wozniak chip for 1.4Mb drives?

 

[DragonKid]

I wasn't talking about using SE/30 ROMs. I was considering replacing the entire logic board with an SE/30 board. IIRC, the SE/30 uses a ROM SIMM instead of socketed ROMs anyhow. What I was looking for was either the logic board from an SE FDHD or SE/30, or just the 3 ROM chips from an FDHD, as you can put those ROMs into an SE board.

And as far as the $, I shouldn't think that an old SCSI hard drive would be a hard find, surely someone has an old 80MB out of an LC pizzabox because they replaced the drive with something bigger.

 

[porter]

You would need a new PSU to run the SE/30 logic board.

Finding a dead SE FDHD where the problem is the PSU or screen is what you are looking for then?

If you can't get the 1.4Mb floppy and the problem is transferring data to the box then you could look at networking options.

You can connect two LocalTalk macs with a simple serial cable.

 

[JRL]

You can find high-capacity 50-pin SCSI drives if you look around. I bought a 9.1 GB drive for $5 off a local business.

 

[DragonKid]

Yeah, I don't really need a high capacity drive to go in a Mac SE. Running 6.0.8, and only storing one very small FileMaker database and a bunch of Acta outlines there's just no point to anything over a few hundred megs. I was hoping someone on the board would have something they didn't need, or know of a used part dealer who sold stuff reasonably. I remember some time ago there was a guy who called himself "Junkyard Jeff," selling parts for older PCs quite cheaply.

 

[JRL]

Well, I'm just saying that you could find a 500 MB HD or so for cheaper.

Also, iamdigitalman has a SE FDHD board for sale.