• Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.

Now I'm on the fence Plus vs SE/30

My SE's ethernet card (Farallon EtherMac SE) connected directly to a 10/100 linksys switch, and also to that DLink/XBox ethernet wifi bridge without a middleman hub.

 
SE/30 every time! I had a Plus, years ago, but I lent it to someone and now I can't remember who. No matter, because I still have my SE/30. I recapped it myself, messily, but it works now - which is a considerable step up from the simasi'ing mess that I hauled out of the loft during a clear up. Mine has 16MB RAM, a 2GB hard disk, Ethernet and A/UX 3.01 installed. It also has a nifty black back to live in. For SE/30 perfection, all I need now is a Dougg3 IIsi ROM - and then A/UX will be able to use all the installed RAM, instead of running out at 8MB. Would I swap it for a Mac Plus? No. Not a chance!

My biggest difficulty, in installing A/UX, was that my external Apple CD ROM drive is dead - luckily, though, my Quadra 650 lives. I swapped the SE/30 hard drive into the Quadra, installed A/UX, put it back into the SE/30 and Hey Presto! Result!

 
Fence no more!

I've moved the good CRT over to the SE/30 and the board has been sent off to uniserver for recapping. Also found out it was an SE but was upgraded to an SE/30. So the plus and most of my SE/30 are actually nearly the same age. SE/30 is F821. Plus is F847(so the plus is a little newer!)

Think I'm going to recap the analog board an power supply while I'm at it.

Also, the upgrade also explains why the yellowing on the front and rear sections of the case don't match!

 
His se30 board will read good floppies just fine,,, but every time you try to write or format, it gives a bus error. 800k and 2m disks seem to give a different bus error.

would need the schematics to fix. Cap goo went in an caused some issue some where.

its is a low percentage pattern failure. If one were to figure out what the issue is, the fix could be used in other identical cases like this.

So far this is only the second time i have seen this issue.

 
And no one wants to have it figured out.

Really see little need to write floppies, read, yes write, no. And I really only need to read 800k floppies at that (I have a 1.44MB USB drive that reads mac disks on my intel mini). ethernet is better than sneakernet. |)

 
His se30 board will read good floppies just fine,,, but every time you try to write or format, it gives a bus error. 800k and 2m disks seem to give a different bus error.
I'm curious: what is the error exactly?

 
lol do i need to rip his box back open and tell you?

i forgot.

it was like bus error 30 or something like that … and then it just gives a restart option.

 
I'll post it up once I get it back and running.

Just used the plus to move some data off some floppies, GAH what a nasty tangle of wires and peripherals. Having definite second thoughts about keeping it, lots of time spent setting it up before I could use it... If I do keep it, it'll be stand alone running off floppy sort of thing... going to get rid of all the extras I don't need for sure.

 
my floppy drive is not happy. slow to eject and took a while to read an 800k floppy, refuses to read 1.44meg wants to try to format everything as 800k and just says 'format failed' no crash or bus error.

Other than that the machine is working great, thanks uniserver the board looks great. :)

 
fantastic, yep sounds like you need to get out the schematics and meter and go pin to pin figure out what lines are dead… then post your results.

its probably only like one or 2 lines out. - ya got bit by the cap goo bug.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm sure its gummed up really good. acted like it was, and I got a nice hunk of fluff on the disk when I ejected it. |)

It was quite dusty inside. it spent years inside a dusty closet running as a mail server I bet that floppy drive hadn't been used since the early 90's it was just a dust catcher. :p

 
Ok, so it reads and writes 800k floppies just fine.. Does not recognize any 1.44 meg floppy... This was an upgraded SE, wondering if it's an oddball 800k only SE/30?

 
Well, that's easy to tell - if you can see a micro switch on both the left and right side, it's a SuperDrive. If there's only one, it's an 800k.

 
Checkable through the floppy slot? When uni had the board for recapping he got bus errors trying to write to floppies, using a 1.44meg drive, mine is reading and writing 800k fine.

 
Back
Top