SE/30 with some kind of Radius card!!!!!

[Brett B.]

I finally found what I have always wanted!!!! An SE/30! It even works, screen is burnt pretty bad and the case is yellow but whatever! Donor SE CRT and RetroBrite here we come!

So far I haven't cracked it open, but it appears to have some kind of Radius accelerator, and a Radius Full Page Display card (but I don't have the monitor for that.) I traded a stack of old PCs for it at the local computer recycling place.

I am pretty sure I have enough 4MB 30-pin SIMMs to put 32MB in it, and a 2GB SCSI hard drive, and even a IIfx ROM SIMM that I saved from a broken IIfx that I threw away years ago. Wow I am excited.

 

[Brooklyn]

Sweet man! I have a IIsi rom on my SE/30. When you turn it on with the new rom, the screen displays a checkered pattern for a min or so, then boots normally. So don't be alarmed! I originally couldn't figure out what was wrong with mine...

 

[Mk.558]

Pictures when you crack it or ban! :approve:

 

[macman142]

^^^ what he said.

Pics or ban!

:simasimac:

 

[Brett B.]

OK, pics to come tonight. I was too busy tearing it apart last night to see what's inside so I didn't have time to get the camera out.

My findings so far:

- VERY dirty. I have cleaned out hundreds of nasty computers over the years but this one was in the top ten for dust accumulation.

- CRT is burned in really bad (you can see the previous desktop background clearly) and it may have some analog board issues (flickering, very dim.) I want to swap the tube in from one of my working SEs, but I don't know if I want to part out a working SE...might just end up buying another Compact for a donor.

- Radius card is a "FPDSE-30" full page display card. Obviously for an external monitor. However, there is an extension in the system folder called "RadiusMATH." Not sure what it does yet.

- Every capacitor needs to be replaced, and I have no sound.

- My IIfx ROM worked for a few reboot cycles, and then stopped working. Won't boot at all with it now, just get a garbled screen right away.

- External SCSI devices also cause the same garbled screen. Possibly capacitor or SCSI controller related?

- Floppy drive sticks very badly, fortunately, I have many spares.