Macintosh IIsi

[mac57]

Hi All, I have been a reader of these forums for a while, but I haven't posted much. However, I thought I would share my latest acquisition, a Macintosh IIsi. I have become fascinated with System 6, and wanted a System 6 native machine to experiment with. I got this little guy on eBay, and have maxed it out since then. It now has a full complement of 17MB of RAM, is running Maxima, so that it can actually USE all of that RAM (System 6 tops out at 8MB), and has been upgraded to a 500MB hard drive. I purchased the NuBus extender card and the Apple NuBus ethernet networking card, and both are now installed and working well. I paired the IIsi with a perfectly sized Apple monitor from the period and a similarly appropriate keyboard and mouse. Finally, I installed the 4.2 version of the Iomega driver and have an external Zip 100 attached to it, although this is not visible in the photo.

All in all, this is a sweet little system. When I first installed System 6 on it, it cold booted to desktop in only 7 seconds. Amazing! Now, fully configured, it takes 30s, but that is still a great time for a 20 MHz 68030.

I am now slowly loading it with System 6 compatible software. This is proving to be a challenge in some areas. System 7 really was a seachange, and a lot of the Mac OS stalwarts that I have used forever simply don't run under System 6. Finding equivalent functionality that DOES run under System 6 is all part of the fun...

 

[james_w]

Aw a IIsi was the first Mac I owned myself, bought second hand when I was a kid. Sold it to help pay for my first from-new Mac, a PM 6100 with DOS card.

Nice idea to have a System 6 machine, I may do similarly with either my IIci or IIsi. My family's first Mac was a Classic II running 7.1 so it's only been in recent years that I've got to know 6.

 

[68krazy]

Aw a IIsi was the first Mac I owned myself, bought second hand when I was a kid. Sold it to help pay for my first from-new Mac, a PM 6100 with DOS card.

Nice idea to have a System 6 machine, I may do similarly with either my IIci or IIsi. My family's first Mac was a Classic II running 7.1 so it's only been in recent years that I've got to know 6.

It’s funny, I’ve never owned a IIsi but have always really wanted one. There’s something cool about it. We had one in my 2nd grade classroom way back when.

A Performa 6116CD was my first computer ever when I was a kid during the late 90s.

So both your childhood Macs are related to my childhood Macs.

To the OP, that’s a nice IIsi you’ve got there. I particularly like the nice Trinitron monitor you matched with the machine. Overall, a very nice vintage Mac setup!

 

[68krazy]

Quick question: what are those googly eyes in the menu bar?  I've seen them many times before but have never been able to figure out what they are for.

 

[Scott Squires]

The eyes follow the cursor around and occasionally blink. That's all they do. There were a lot of silly programs like this back then.