Use for an LC520?

[Flan]

Hi all, I'm in posession of a Mac LC520 All in One. I've removed the floppy drive, as it leaves a nice ring around any floppy discs I put in it. Other than that, I've upgraded the Ram to 36Mb, put in a new Clock battery (don't worry its a Purple Tadiran Battery Made in Israel, not a Maxtor) and upgraded to a 1GB Hard Drive. It currently has 7.6.1 Installed.

The problem is that now... I've done all this... but I realize... I don't know what to do with the machine! It's been sitting here for the past few months, and I'd like to see if I could put it to some good use, rather than have it just sit there. Does anybody know of any Practical use for a 68k Machine Like this?

Thanks ahead of time.


EDIT: Forgot to mention, I've also installed an Ethernet Card into the machine

 

[uniserver]

yeah sure take the Mainboard out and slide it into a color classic!  

Makes a color classic SOOOOOOO much better!

 

[uniserver]

its just a really great,   68030 computer.    25mhz...    /w PDS....  /w ASC  /w Nice Sony Trinatron Tube.  /w Stereo Speakers  32bit clean.

 

[uniserver]

Word Process

Spread Sheets

Netwroking:

IRC

FTP

WWW

Email

Picture Viewing

CD Playing

should be able to play MP3's

Vintage Games, From the Macintosh Garden.

Other Vintage Apps / Educational

Another Mac To add to the collection ?

Salon Care #40  Candidate?  

Pop FPU in and install A/UX

 

[techknight]

it wont play MP3s that are in todays standard format 128k 44.1khz stereo+ I could barely get a quadra700 to play MP3s back in the day unless they were recompressed at a much lower quality. My P1 166Mhz I had stuttered when I would first start up an MP3 but then played perfectly afterwords. 

PPCs handled fine though

 

[beachycove]

Classic games & Claris software suite. Toy with old technologies like Publish and Subscribe while playing around with HyperCard and messing with Prince of Persia...?

A practical use for a computer from 1993 or so is a long stretch. Real work in the ordinary sense of the term is best done on something more recent, but I have used old gear to bridge between old peripherals like localtalk laser printers and OSX machines.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Prince of Persia, Lemmings, all of the Infocom games, PageMaker, Civ I, Armor Alley (which is multiplayer, btw), bolo (likewise), Shuttlepuck Café, Tetris, SimCity.

I wouldn't put Mac OS 7.6.1 on it, I'd go for System 7.1 with a few extras like SoundManager, ThreadManager, later version of QuickTime if you need it.

 

[uniserver]

not that it matters,  i just would like to throw in that i really like the LC520 / LC550 Main-boards,  just as i like the LCIII  And pretty much all LC-III's will run at 33mhz no problem.     -- And to go long with the color classic.    Slapping a LC520/LC550 in there, Brings that machine A L I V E! and there is no Mod's, its just a slide in,  Pop rear I/O cover back on and run.

 

[Cory5412]

I'd put 7.1 Pro on it and basically do anything you could have done with system 7. There are a lot of good games from that time period, there were some really neat ideas in desktop productivity software (things like publish and subscribe, which beachycove mentioned) plus PowerTalk on 7.1 and 7.5, if you have multiple machines and a localtalk or ethertalk network.

I really wouldn't bother overclocking it, because if you're going to do that, you may as well just grab a 575 board. Putting the board into a Color Classic is an option, but that really depends on if you want the smallest possible system, and want to deal with the lower resolution of the color classic's display.

 

[360alaska]

yeah sure take the Mainboard out and slide it into a color classic!  

Makes a color classic SOOOOOOO much better!

Personally, I have issues with sacrificing one mac for another, these are all starting to be rare...

 

[MinerAl]

No sacrifice.  If you have both machines, and (critically) want to run them both at the same time, the 520 will run with the CC board in it.  It'll just be big and slow while the CC is small and fast.  You can always reverse the process and have big and fast when you want to.

Overclocking a 520 to 33MHz wouldn't make it a 575 (an '040 Mac), it would make it a 550.  Still an '030 machine, but silly fast. 

Uni - have you got a 128MB SIMM to work in these?  If so, an overclocked 520 or 550 with 132MB RAM would be about the coolest pre-Quadra Mac (especially in a 640x480 modded CC).  Even at the nominal maximum 36MB RAM, it's a pretty sweet machine.

 

[uniserver]

i herd a rumor they could accept (some) 64 meg simms,   but i do not have any proof to back that up, i'v never first hand seen that. ( just 32 meg )

(LC-III / 520 / 550)

I have a LC520 test machine that i treat like a red-headed step child.  Zack sent it to me and it literally busted apart in the shipping, so I used GOOP and glued it all back to gather. I use it to test CC/MacTV/520/550/575 MB's  even though its glued together its fully functional!  And works out great as a test machine.  My test machines are getting beat up anyways,    I have a se/30 that just sits on the shelf with out it's back on. its CRT has seen better days.  the AB/FLoppy /HD all work great so it works out good as a test machine,  Had to tear it down the other day to re-solder on the Speaker wire, it fell off from all the mechanical tensions, Soldered it and gooped it this time

 

[djhaloeight]

I use my LC III+ for vintage games, the occasional letter/word processing, drawing, very basic/lite web browsing, and networking with my other Macs

 

[Schmoburger]

I had one of my LC's set up as  a headless localtalk<->ethernet bridge, as I could have it stuffed in a shallow shelf of a cupboard, no need to have a keyboard attched to power it up as it was hard power only, and realistically it was too slow to do much more with anyway. Like, yes it was workable, but the LCIII and LC475 took up just as little space and were not hobbled with an '020.

 

[Bunsen]

What's the screen rez of the 520?  I wonder if you could swap the analog board over to a CC as well, and get 640x480 without having to mod the board/s.

 

[Unknown_K]

I stuck a Presto + in mine to make it an AIO gaming platform but it mostly collects dust. It does have a nice 640x480 color Trinitron screen and the built in CDROM is decent. Basically a poor mans fat CC.

 

[MinerAl]

Bunsen: yes. Back in the days of an active CC mod community, people did cut down 5xx boards and stuff them into CCs to avoid the hi-Rez hack. There were a few non trivial circuits and components that had to be moved/patched in order to get it to fit. All in all it wound up being as much work as the various Rez hacks, and crippled another Mac in the process.

Of course, if you're just stuffing Macs into CCs, you could find a 10" 4:3 hi-rez monitor and the most recent Mac mini and have the most powerful CC in the world!

 

[techknight]

Well I assume the takky and mystic hacks for the CC were popular because the logic boards could still be purchased from apple, or parts stores. And the fact that the macs were very plentiful at the time. 

But nowadays, they are all considered endangered species. So killing one to save another for size/cuteness reasons is kinda well... insane. lol. 

 

[uniserver]

Yeah tacky and mystic hacks to cc these days are insanity, I don't want nothing to do with those. Completely worthless and destructive in my book.

The best you see out of me with a cc is slide a 520 or 550 mb in one and that is all. Other wise bone stock with an apple iie card makes a nice fun little unit.