Questions about Macintosh colour classic

[derole123]

I got a colour classic today and I have some questions.

1) what would be best for playing basic games on it? A FPU, vram upgrade or ram upgrade?

2) any good games that I can run on it?

3) is there any way of getting a cheap HDD for more space?

Thanks.

 

[Carboy7]

Hope you don't mind me asking, but how much did you pay to get it?

 

[ArmorAlley]

I paid the equivalent of $50 for mine. It didn't start up though but I reckoned that I'd have to get the boards on it recapped as a matter of course.

 

[Tempest]

I'm also curious about games for the CC. I noticed the math co-processor slot as well, but I doubt there are many games that would use it (flight sims maybe). Then again they're like $5 so it might not hurt to add one.

 

[rsolberg]

If it doesn't have 10MB of RAM already, I'd upgrade that first. Many games of the era must be run in 256 colour mode, not in thousands of colours mode, so I'd grab the FPU next rather than the VRAM (the VRAM upgrade adds the option of 65,536 colours to the stock options of B&W, 256 greys, and 256 colours). The FPU will help with a few games, but certainly not a majority. Sim City 2000 will run a lot better with the extra ram and FPU than stock, for example.

 

[Tempest]

I thought the major stumbling block with the CC when it comes to games was the resolution? I've run into a bunch of games that look like they should run but required 640x480.

 

[rsolberg]

Tempest: very much so. Many colour games do require 640x480. I find a good clue that a game will work if resolution isn't mentioned is if the requirements mention a Mac LC and/or a 12" colour monitor. (commonly sold with the LC and also limited to 512x384 resolution)

 

[Tempest]

One of these days I'd love to increase the resolution in my CC, but that mod is beyond my skills.

 

[rsolberg]

I ended up doing the VGA (640x480@60Hz) mod to mine. I'd already swapped the logic board to a freshly recapped LC575 unit, so the display mod actually made it easier to install and boot Mac OS; I no longer needed to edit the System file to work on the non-standard combination of logic board and resolution. If you do such a mod, I'd strongly recommend a variable speed Dremel/rotary tool. I used a fixed 30,000rpm unit and it was nerve wracking. There was virtually no resistance against the cutting wheel which made it very difficult to cut only the desired traces rather than go right through the analogue board. I did some practise cuts on some dead PCBs from the recycler and it took a few tries before I wasn't making holes in them.