Upgrading the SE: RAM and HD replacement + OS backup

[ioncehadamac]

Hi all,

I have finally found a Macintosh SE in decent conditions; so I decided to buy it and drive back to memory lane, when I used to work on these computers in high school.

Now, I am super rusty about the whole Macintosh world of the pre-PPC; so I am looking for some guidance.

First of all, the machine has 2.5 MB of ram; looking to max it out to 4, but I heard there are so many issues with RAM modules that has to be of specific type and brand; so could you tell me what is the best an easiet st to find module ?

Also, I would like to replace the SCSI drive with something a bit more modern and bigger; like a 250 MB or something similar, although I am not sure what specs should I look for... as for the memory modules, the Macintosh is picky about what does it like.

Last but not least: once I find the drive; how do I re-install the OS? The computer came with no floppy disks, so I just have the OS on the Hard drive, and I don't see how to create install disks just from the OS installed. I have plenty of single and double sided disks, since I also have an Amiga up and running, so all that I need is to find a way to get the OS on the floppy disks, so I can restore the system when I do replace the HDD. The SE has no ethernet card; I did hope that someone would make a USB to Serial converter for transferring data via serial port, but I don't think this ever happened for the SE (there is a super expensive network card; beside that, I don't see how I can actually transport files between the mac and my other OS.

I did check if it was possible to use my Amiga to make boot disks using Basilisk emulator, but I did not find a single tutorial nor any documented attempt, so I am not even sure if that would work.

So far I am enjoying my time with the SE; it feels like being young again

 

[Scott Squires]

Look for simms with 8 chips, not 3, they are more likely to work.

It's difficult to get scsi hard drives old enough that still work. It's possible to use Ultra320 drives, but the ebay supply has dried up and after the cost of the drive and a terminated adapter, you're up to the cost of a scsi2sd. So I suggest just going with the scsi2sd.

Does it have an 800k drive or a 1.4mb drive? If it's 1.4mb, you can write disk images using a pc. If it's an 800k drive, the easiest way is to get another Mac with a high density drive that you can use as a bridge machine to write 800k floppies.

 

[Scott Squires]

Also, if the Mac drive is 800k, the Amiga will not be able to write disks for it. Neither can PCs. The 800k Apple drive uses variable speed in order to fit 80K more data on the disks. Floppy drives on other systems are only capable of fixed speed.

 

[ioncehadamac]

Thanks Anthon; I have found these on Ebay; but ou said that they should have 8 chips... http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-pcs-4x1MB-30-Pin-SIMM-80ns-FPM-Memory-4MB-Apple-Macintosh-SE-Plus-II-/391557158565?hash=item5b2aa016a5:g:7LAAAOSwknJX1HF~

At this point then I will go for the SCSI adapter that use CF cards or SD; I have one for Amiga that was very cheap (like 20 USD), but that was IDE to CF card; I assume that the SCSI will cost more.

My SE is a standard 800K; I did not see too many that had the Superdrive; and from my research, I can't just slam in a 1.44 floppy, since it need a different Rom chip on the logic board to support the 1.44MB.

With the Amiga, the idea was to use the emulator to make a compatible disk as 720K PC formatted disk, which from what I remember, can be read from both the Amiga and the Macintosh. Sadly I have no other mac that use a floppy; I have a mac pro but I can't format 800K disks, even if I use a USB drive.

So for now, the only alternative is to use 720 PC formatted disks; if I can get the OS images, I can divide the files on multiple 720K disks, and then restore them on the SE, and make a proper 800K disk for the backup, but this is all in theory...not sure if this is even possible. I have a PC USB floppy drive that format 720K disks, that's the only device that I can use sadly.

 

[Scott Squires]

It could be possible to transfer the disk images on 720K PC-formatted disks, if the SE has the software for reading them and some sort of decoding software installed already that can use multi-part archives (stuffit expander, compact pro, etc). Actually, maybe if you compress the images they will be small enough to fit on a 720K floppy. You could do the compression in Basilisk, get the files onto the Amiga (network?), put them on PC-formatted floppies, and extract on the Mac. That all assumes you have PC Exchange, StuffIt Expander, and Disk Copy on the Mac's hard drive.

Since MemoryTen specifically lists that memory as compatible, I would go ahead and try it. It's not so much the number of chips that is important, but how the memory is arranged electrically. It's just more likely, in my experience, that 8 chip configurations will have the right arrangement.

 

[ioncehadamac]

It could be possible to transfer the disk images on 720K PC-formatted disks, if the SE has the software for reading them and some sort of decoding software installed already that can use multi-part archives (stuffit expander, compact pro, etc). Actually, maybe if you compress the images they will be small enough to fit on a 720K floppy. You could do the compression in Basilisk, get the files onto the Amiga (network?), put them on PC-formatted floppies, and extract on the Mac. That all assumes you have PC Exchange, StuffIt Expander, and Disk Copy on the Mac's hard drive.

Since MemoryTen specifically lists that memory as compatible, I would go ahead and try it. It's not so much the number of chips that is important, but how the memory is arranged electrically. It's just more likely, in my experience, that 8 chip configurations will have the right arrangement.

I see; so it would be possible but only if I have that software on the SE itself...dang, this is quite complicate I wish there was something like the ADF format for the Amiga; so I could compress disks and then write them back on the real SE. I was hoping the Mac has already in System a cross-platform app that would allow the machine to read PC 720k disks; similar to Cross-Dos on Workbench 3.1.

I will give a try to these memory stick; in the worst case, the price is not that much of a loss, thanks a lot for the info!

 

[Scott Squires]

What version of system software is the SE running? If it's System 7, PC Exchange might be there. It's a system extension that loads at startup.

 

[ioncehadamac]

What version of system software is the SE running? If it's System 7, PC Exchange might be there. It's a system extension that loads at startup.

It is running System 6; I may be able to set a serial connection between the PC and the SE, although it is quite complex and I believe you still need System 7