heh.... I downloaded the pictures and rotated the back one... itsays NO EXTERNAL POWER needed in the front (so 99% there is some IC inside) and on the back it explains 2 connection modes , one with another device the company makes and the last one (the interesting one that is) is called "standalone" and basically tells you to connect the dongle to the serial port, then connect the keyboard patch and then connect a ps2 mouse and keyboard to your AT computer (and not connect/disconnect when powered, another good thing that tells us of a potential ic inside...)
I guess we'll see how that goes

I got a beautiful old Macintosh SE in the mail today. I've always loved the look of the old compact Macs and the SE is probably my favorite design of them. It was originally a typical 800k floppy/20MB hard drive/1MB ram machine, but apparently as I'm still trying to figure out, it's far from stock.

First off, it's maxed out at 4MB of ram, always a nice surprise. It's running System 7.1 on a 20MB volume, so clearly it's just the stock 20MB drive right? Well, I'll get to that... I found a program in the control panel called Performer and FPU, and it's a Harris program that lets you set some FPU options I guess. Cool, so it has an FPU upgrade. Then I found a program in the Apple menu called Silver Lining, which gives some info on various system specs... apparently this thing has a Motorola 68030 with a 68882 FPU. Meaning it's not the original 8MHz 68000. Not sure if it's an accelerator card (probably given the Harris utility), an SE/30 motherboard swap, or what yet; haven't tried to open the machine up yet. Also, apparently it has a 170MB Quantum hard drive, but the volume on it is only 20MB. That or it has a 20MB drive and a 170MB drive and the 170 isn't mounted; not sure which...

I'll get some pictures in a bit, but I'm still trying to uncover the mystery of this thing. I should mention it seems to work perfectly; the first time I turned it on after about 5 minutes, right as I went to open a program, the monitor went to just showing a really thin vertical line, and I had to force it off. Powering it up again and it had the same issue, but unplugging it and plugging it back in fixed it. Since then I've been using it for over 30 minutes with no issues 😀 So hopefully it was a loose connection in the monitor cable or something simple like that, because the image looks really crisp and bright and I'd hate for the screen to die.

Oh a funny note as well. Judging from the documents and stuff on here, I'm fairly certain this machine was owned and used by a Baptist preacher. What's a bit scary is within 10 minutes of using the machine I stumbled across somebody (presumably the owner's) personal info, including their phone number and, believe it or not, their fricking social security number 😮 I know we hear this all the flippin time but seriously people, wipe your drives!

Anyways back to trying to uncover this beast's secrets 😁

EDIT: The help menu for the harris program mentions the Performer Pro, which if that is indeed the upgrade this system has, means it has a 32MHz 68030 😳 Holy crap that's a huge upgrade; that makes it on par with my LC550 with the 33MHz 68030 (besides that machine having 36MB of ram that is).

EDIT 2: I'm an idiot; it just has a single 170MB Quantum Lightning hard drive that's formatted with the full size. I was reading "20.5MB on disk" and thought that meant the volume size, but it meant the volume had 20.5MB used out of 170 (or whatever the actual formatted value is).

After I copy off all the programs and games that I want from this machine, I'm going to format it and put System 6.0.8 on it, since I already have a 7.1 machine, and apparently System 6 runs much faster. My favorite game I've found on it so far is I think called StuntCopter, where you use the mouse to control a helicopter. There's a horse-drawn cart full of hay that constantly scrolls across the screen, and you have to drop people from the helicopter into the cart. It's quite silly and fun.

EDIT 3: Well the video issue happened to me again, and after waiting awhile it worked again. Googling seems to reveal the most likely culprit is simply a cracked solder joint on J1, pretty easy to repair (well, for someone who knows how to solder at least, aka not me yet). That's comforting; I'll have to give it a go sometime in the near future.

I've been trying to do the trick where you tape over the hole opposite the write-protection on a 1.4MB floppy disk to use it as a 800KB disk, which is extremely unreliable, but the intention was just to use it to put a Zip driver on the SE. Unfortunately I'm not having any luck; the SE and LC550 can both successfully format a disk, but neither can read one formatted by the other. I've tried several disks. Probably just the way it goes when you're trying to use an already iffy method with old used diskettes and weak, worn drives. I'll have to pick up some 800KB (I think they're the same as 720KB PC disks) disks off of ebay or something, or maybe see if somebody at my dad's work has some. Also gonna have to grab an Appletalk setup once I do more research and find out what I actually need for that, because then I could go SE<>LC550 via Appletalk, and LC550<>G3 or G4 MDD via ethernet, hopefully eliminating the need for disks.

This just arrived. A Highscreen Handy Organizer

This lovely piece of hardware from 1992 sports a healthy 640KB RAM and a 8086 compatible NEC CPU.
It has DOS 5.0, Works and QBasic installed on a 1.5MB ROM and about 350KB of free memory for documents. (battery buffered...if the battery dies, all your custom files go with it)
The OS and GUI are in German and there's no way to change the files in the ROM (at least not to my knowledge).

In theory I could expand the memory via PCMCIA SRAM cards (there are two expansion slots on the bottom) but as you may know, these things are incredibly expensive.

EDIT 3: Well the video issue happened to me again, and after waiting awhile it worked again. Googling seems to reveal the most likely culprit is simply a cracked solder joint on J1, pretty easy to repair (well, for someone who knows how to solder at least, aka not me yet). That's comforting; I'll have to give it a go sometime in the near future.

I just bought an SE of my own a couple weeks ago, which also had video problems. That's kinda normal and expected with these things. When you get around to fixing it, just go ahead and re-touch all the larger solder joints on the analog board, especially all the connector pins and the flyback transformer. That'll help head off any future issues. It's also possible that some parts have gone bad, but even if that's the case, it's still not that difficult to fix.

As for getting an Appletalk (or more specifically, LocalTalk) network going, if you just want to connect two machines, all you need is a regular 8 pin serial/printer cable. Plug it into the printer port of each Mac, and then just turn on Appletalk and set up the file sharing. Not much to it.

System 6.0.8 is definitely preferable on an SE, unless you've got an accelerator with its own memory slots that allows you to go over 4MB RAM. However, I don't think the Harris accelerator is one of those... IIRC, it may be one of the cheap ones that still used the 16-bit RAM on the motherboard and tried to make up for the performance hit with a cache.

More Roland goodness arrived today - boxed SCB-7/SCD-10!

[/b]

Can you make a copy of that disk and put it on vogons drivers?

CapnCrunch53 wrote:

I'll have to pick up some 800KB (I think they're the same as 720KB PC disks) disks off of ebay or something

Double-density disks are double-density disks.

It's the formatting that makes them different. I have a small set of "known good" double-density disks that I share between my Amiga and Tandy 1000 with no more than a format in between. They will soon be used by my IIgs as well, when the drive finally arrives.

I've had the same experience using high-density disks in double-density-only drives. It's not something I'd ever want to rely on.

Got another 486 today, a little old dx33 and about to break it down for restoration but it is one of the dirtiest machines in a while. One word as to the hint of its use, Novel Netware and yes it has a ISA ethernet card.

At a thrift store today I found what ended up being a Sound Blaster AWE64 in an SB16 box, would have preferred the card to be the latter of course, but still not bad. Eventually I'll have to get a computer to put it in. 😒

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I just bought an SE of my own a couple weeks ago, which also had video problems. That's kinda normal and expected with these things. When you get around to fixing it, just go ahead and re-touch all the larger solder joints on the analog board, especially all the connector pins and the flyback transformer. That'll help head off any future issues. It's also possible that some parts have gone bad, but even if that's the case, it's still not that difficult to fix.

As for getting an Appletalk (or more specifically, LocalTalk) network going, if you just want to connect two machines, all you need is a regular 8 pin serial/printer cable. Plug it into the printer port of each Mac, and then just turn on Appletalk and set up the file sharing. Not much to it.

System 6.0.8 is definitely preferable on an SE, unless you've got an accelerator with its own memory slots that allows you to go over 4MB RAM. However, I don't think the Harris accelerator is one of those... IIRC, it may be one of the cheap ones that still used the 16-bit RAM on the motherboard and tried to make up for the performance hit with a cache.

SquallStrife wrote:

Double-density disks are double-density disks.

It's the formatting that makes them different. I have a small set of "known good" double-density disks that I share between my Amiga and Tandy 1000 with no more than a format in between. They will soon be used by my IIgs as well, when the drive finally arrives.

I've had the same experience using high-density disks in double-density-only drives. It's not something I'd ever want to rely on.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm pretty nervous to open it up and retouch the solder joints since I really don't have any good soldering experience, but it doesn't seem like it should be difficult and I gotta learn sometime. Someone at work showed up today with a stack of 22 double-density disks for me, so I'm all set on that front 😁 I was working on copying the programs I wanted off of the SE when the screen acted up again; looks like I'll have to open her up sooner rather than later.

Just won an auction on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271081622000 Truthfully, its an $80 gamble, and an exercise on why you should never bid on ebay items drunk. Mostly because the shipping price was so damn high. Anyway, there is ONE card, easily visible that would make it worthwhile, provided it worked. You should be able to see it:

There is at least one other card I hope that works in this pile. Thats not counting what you cant see. Hopefully I should be able to resell what I don't use to offset the cost. Heres hoping anyway.

What card do you mean that is worth it? The G200 AGP? The 16bit ISA ATI card?

yes, its actually an ati mach 64. it looks like it is NOT memory upgrade-able, meaning it most likely already has either 2 or 4 mb of memory. Most likely the 2.

If that card works, I'll be fine. if not...

Haha... but even so it good to recalibrate the "drunk eBay" motor function from time to time. If the deal works you can be more trusting of your "autopilot", if it bombs the searing self-recrimination will enhance the self-control feedback loop next time...

luckybob wrote:

yes, its actually an ati mach 64. it looks like it is NOT memory upgrade-able, meaning it most likely already has either 2 or 4 mb of memory. Most likely the 2.

If that card works, I'll be fine. if not...

On the plus side you will have extra parts on hand or resale for a small profit.

This list of stuff was not all bought today, but I think you'll forgive me. I bought most of it recently:

- Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (boxed), including unused SP/DIF bracket, microphone, gameport MIDI cable, CD-ROM, flyers, registration cards, audio cables and 8MB memory upgrade (in separate box) with SoundFont CD.
- Two new and unused AWE32 'Goldfinch' (CT1920) cards
- Creative AWE64 (CT4520) with 12MB memory upgrade (I bought it for the memory upgrade, to use on an AWE64 Gold I already had)
- Creative SB16 (CT2800), was still missing from my collection
- Roland MT-32, first gen, with manual and Roland power supply
- Roland MT-32, first gen
- Roland SC-55, very good condition, will probably go up for sale again
- Yamaha MU50, very nice as well, but I do not really need it, so I'll probably sell it too
- Roland MCB-10 (to complement my Roland RAP-10), lucky find at a low price!
- Roland MPU-IPC-T (boxed), complete (in transit, will arrive on Monday)
- Turtle Beach Pinnacle (Rev C), hope to find one soon that has the Kurzweil HOMAC daughterboard
- Quickshot Sound Machine, an official Creative clone card (with CMS chips) (this was quite a while ago, a gift from Salient, thank you!)
- MusicQuest MQX-32M MIDI card with manual, driver disk and original MIDI cable in mint condition (found it on eBay last year, very cheap!)

Nice list. Where did you find all that? It's certainly not all from Ebay..

Yesterday for the first time I went to a local computer parts warehouse/recycling centre, and after spending a couple hours rummaging through bins I came home with 17 ISA, PCI and AGP cards for a total of $10. The PCI and AGP cards are tested and so apparently work, unless I or someone else fried them while going through them, but the ISA cards were actually waiting to be recycled, so they may or may not work. 😦 I was also hoping to find a 5.25" floppy drive but unfortunately they toss all the really old stuff.

I'm an enthusiast but by no means an expert, so if anyone can provide me with info on any of them, please go ahead. Since I don't want to clog up the page I'll just link photos.

All of them

ISA
Sound Blaster 16 CT2230
Sound Blaster Vibra16 CT2860, CT2890, CT2960
Sound Blaster 16 Value CT2840
Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects CT4170
Unknown display card?
Realtek RTVGA-V2-91007B?

PCI
2x ATi Mach64
Diamond Monster 3D 4MB (Voodoo)
Obsidian GE? (Voodoo)
Hercules Stingray 128/3D (Voodoo Rush)
Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB (Voodoo2)
Diamond Monster Sound MX300 (Aureal Vortex2)

AGP
Diamond Monster Fusion 16MB (Voodoo Banshee)
3dfx Voodoo3 3000

If at least certain of them work then I'll be very happy indeed. 😦

Eh, Sound Blasters and old VGA cards are surprisingly hard to kill... unless there's stuff broken off of 'em, they'll probably work, and if there is stuff broken off of 'em, they still might work. 🤣

Your unknown video card was made by V-Tech, originally used in their house-brand "Laser" PC clones. The video chip is probably an OEM rebrand of something else, but god only knows what. Fortunately a basic VGA card like that shouldn't need any special drivers, but for those dip switches you're probably going to have to resort to flipping 'em and seeing what happens.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Eh, Sound Blasters and old VGA cards are surprisingly hard to kill... unless there's stuff broken off of 'em, they'll probably work, and if there is stuff broken off of 'em, they still might work. 🤣

Your unknown video card was made by V-Tech, originally used in their house-brand "Laser" PC clones. The video chip is probably an OEM rebrand of something else, but god only knows what. Fortunately a basic VGA card like that shouldn't need any special drivers, but for those dip switches you're probably going to have to resort to flipping 'em and seeing what happens.

Ah, thanks for ID'ing that one for me. Unfortunately I don't have a machine I can test the ISA cards in right now, but hoping to put one together soon. 😒