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Mac SE with a difference

Quadraman

68030
Pickup a Mac SE. 1mb, 800k, 20mb hard drive AND (drumroll) a Radius 25mhz 020 accelerator. :O

It doesn't boot, I get a checkerboard on the screen, but I hope there's enough salvageable parts (especially the accelerator) that I can put in my two floppy SE.

 
Just older the caps from trag, de solder them out, solder the new ones in correctly (correct polarization) and BAM. Done.

 
(correct polarization)

has anyone ever warned a noobie to this operation about the different markings?

anyway the caps that need to be replaced are polarized, meaning they have a + and a -, hook them up backwards and BANG! (sometimes, other times possible fire or a disapointing phhhft sound) the electrolytic's you would be taking out are packaged with the - marked, and its quite clear

if you replace them with the same kind no big deal, but the ones that are preferred, because they last longer, are marked with a + or sometimes just a dot

Instinct tells us to match the markings, but reality is they are marking 2 different things, and its something to keep in mind

If you can hold a soldering iron, and feel that you can safely (to the machine, you can man up) remove and replace fairly easy to handle components then it should be a quick and fairly painless process (those irons get hot!) after a few practice runs on a scrap board

 
Did I read that correctly? A + on a new capacitor doesn't mean positive lead anymore? Or are you just referring to the "dot" part that to the inexperienced means very little....

 
Well I got it and had to open it up to see the upgrade board and it was in there, but it wasn't plugged in to the expansion slot! I also accidentally snapped the tail end off of the CRT unplugging the power connections from the motherboard because they were on so tight. Doh! On the bright side it looks like the RAM was upgraded because the resistors behind the RAM bank are cut off. I don't know which version the motherboard is, high density or low density. Probably low density because the case doesn't say FDHD on it but some people do swap the boards or just the ROMs so who knows? Is there a way to know for sure whether they have the high density ROMs or not? I have the drive cage pulled and am going to try swapping it into another SE I have along with the 020 upgrade board. I went looking for a 25 mhz 68882 FPU because the upgrade doesn't have one and the prices are just ridiculous when you can find one. It's those damn Amiga users driving the prices up, I know it is. :p

 
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