Macintosh SE for £1

[joshc]

Got a spares/repairs Macintosh SE 800K/20SC HD for £1. Powers on but has the flashing question mark. My guess is that the hard drive needs replacing...no worries, I have spare SCSI drives. I made a set of 800K System 6.0.8 disks. It won't accept the System Tools disk. So maybe the floppy drive is also bad. Towards the back of the case is very yellowed. Half of the front bezel looks like its been put back wrong, see pictures. The CRT has some burn-in. Once I have a long handled screwdriver for the two upper screws I will investigate further.

Details about this Mac, decoded from its serial number:

Your Macintosh SE with hard disk (M5011), with serial number C7350S3M5011, was the 887th manufactured during the 35th week of 1987 in Cork, Ireland.

You can view larger images at my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackymacs/

Here she is:

Told you it was badly yellowed at the back...

Dirty!:

Hmm, someone put the bezel on wrong?

Down the side:

 

[tmtomh]

Nice! The 800k SE's aren't as useful as the FDHD/Superdrive ones, but I would imagine they're more collectible now because they're rarer.

And all for a pound - a true conquest!

Well done.

 

[LCGuy]

Great score. And yes, that CRT has extremely bad burn-in.

 

[wally]

...Half of the front bezel looks like its been put back wrong...

I've seen similar gaps when the analog board at the top/front slips out of the retaining slot of the front bezel just as the assembly is being closed. If your situation turns out to be this, it is easily set right when you get that long torx driver.

 

[Christopher]

Your power outlets are funny looking.

yes yes I know other countries have different electricity outlets and such.

 

[Apostrophe]

Actually, your SCSI drive may not need replacing.

My SE from 1987 did the exact same thing; boot it up, but question mark icon. So I ordered a replacement drive...which prompted the same reaction from the SE. 'No disk' icon. I think I ended up replacing the floppy drive in that one too, but even when it did accept disks, neither HDD would show up. So I figured that they were trashed.

But then I booted up my Centris 610 and ran my OS 7.6 CD. From that CD I pulled Apple HD SC Setup. I then transferred it to an 800k floppy disk, and on that same disk I added a very chopped-down System (due to limited room on the disk), which I then loaded into the SE. The System caused the SE to boot off the floppy disk, and then I ran Apple HD SC Setup. And presto! The drive works! It just needed initializing.

I forget which hard drive is in that SE now; the original one, or the one I ordered...but anyway, the one that's in that SE now didn't work, as if the drive weren't there, until I ran Apple HD SC Setup on it.

So I don't know if the same will apply to you or not, but there's my success story...

Good luck!

-Apostrophe

 

[stevep]

An SE I got a few months ago had the HD stuck. I took it out of the Mac and smacked it on the desk (quite hard actually) and it now runs fine. I seem to recall this being refer from the old grease inside hardening up.

 

[Cloud]

Regarding the crooked bezel, I can safely say that it is a pretty common occurrence upon taken-apart-then-reassembled SEs. The cause of the problem is due to two plastic protusions on the front bezel that push against the 'fishbowl' when the mac is closed. This frictional force keeps the mac closed even without the four torx screws attached, and is the cause of hard-to-take-apart SEs. The bezel is crooked because the person who put it back together didn't align the fishbowl properly with the front bezel. Don't worry - a take-apart and an alignment would certainly fix it!

 

[joshc]

Thanks for the helpful info, wally, Cloud and Apostrophe! The potentially stuck hard drive is not a new thing to me. I once had a PowerBook 100 with the same problem. Today I made some progress with the SE. I received some old diagnostic discs from a fellow forum member, and I managed to boot the SE from a MacTest Pro July 1995 disc. SCSIProbe shows the MiniScribe drive. I tried the floppy drive again, and it does actually work, so I suppose I just made some bad floppies (they do read though, they just don't boot). However, the auto inject doesn't seem to be working properly. I have to push the disk *all* the way in, to the point where i have to put my fingernail (hard for me, I cut them short ) through the space in the bezel to get it to go in. Checked the RAM, and it is 4MB.

More pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackymacs/tags/macintoshse/

 

[MrMacPlus]

Neat. The SE really is a nice little machine.

 

[joshc]

I have finally acquired a long T15 screwdriver, so I have been able to open my SE. It's very dusty inside, and the analog board is indeed misaligned. Photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackymacs/tags/dirty/

 

[Temetka]

Nice score for a pound!

I have an SEFD and while it is a nice machine to tinker with, it's lack of an internal HD makes me fire it up about once a year or so. I think I might hack in an HD to solve that problem, but the bigger problem with that would be that I don't have a long T15 driver to work with. While I might be able to drive on over to Harbor Freight and pick one up, I lack the required motivation to do so. Mainly because when I am done, I will be thinking to myself "Now what do I do with it?".

 

[joshc]

Temetka, If you don't mind spending $15.48, then get this:

http://www.amazon.com/GearWrench-80086-18-Inch-Long-Screwdriver/dp/B001M0O17A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1246252341&sr=8-1

Mine is a different brand, but looks very similar.