Too Many Macs!
While I’ve been working on the Plus Too Macintosh replica, I’ve also collected a few real vintage Macs in the past couple of weeks. Too many, in fact, so it’s getting hard to even walk through my office due to the Mac paraphenalia everywhere. The trouble is that once your friends hear you’re collecting vintage Macs, they’ll start giving you perfectly good systems for free! Here’s the current inventory:
Mac Plus – aka “Lonely” – I bought this Plus from a Craigslist ad with the photo shown above. It’s in nice working condition, and has only moderate yellowing of the plastic. I’ve paired it with an older Apple M0110 keyboard, which actually predates the Plus. After an upgrade to 4MB of RAM and the addition of a 100 MB external Zip drive, Lonely is in business! The Plus is running System 6.0.7 and has a 68000 CPU running at 8 MHz.
Mac 512Ke – aka “Smelly” – This was another Craigslist purchase, acquired from a guy who was once a Mac repair tech in Japan. He threw a whole box of spare Apple ICs into the deal for free. This machine earned its nickname from the horrible burning smell it gave off when I first turned it on. In an attempt to pinpoint the problem, I later ran it outside with the rear cover off, but the smell never returned and Smelly has worked fine ever since. It’s paired with an Apple M0110A keyboard (the one with the numeric keypad) with a couple of broken keys. The 512Ke is basically a Plus with no SCSI and only 512K RAM, but the CPU specs are the same.
Macintosh Classic – I was given this machine for free, which is good because it has lots of problems. It does mostly work, but there’s no sound, and it sometimes fails to boot up and shows a checkboard pattern on the screen. I believe both of those problems are due to aging capacitors on the motherboard, which could be replaced if I were motivated enough. The floppy drive doesn’t work, and seemingly half the keyboard keys are broken. It’s got a 40 MB internal hard drive and 4 MB RAM, and the same CPU as the Plus and 512Ke. I’ll probably cannibalize the HD and RAM, and recycle the rest.
Macintosh LC II – I bought this pizza box machine cheaply from a vintage Mac web site. The specs are good: 68030 at 16 MHz, 12 MB RAM, 1 GB hard drive, and ethernet card. Unfortunately it’s a real dog running System 7.5. I used to own an LC myself, and I don’t remember it being this slow. It can take nearly a second for the computer to respond to mouse clicks on the tool strip! I haven’t been able to get the ethernet card working, although I haven’t tried very hard. I plan to install System 7.1, and see if that helps improve performance at all. If not, I’ll probably swap out the 1 GB HD for the Classic’s 40 MB one, and re-sell or donate this machine.
Powerbook Duo 230 – This was another freebie. The Duo 230 sports System 7.1, 12 MB RAM, a 120 MB hard drive, and 16 glorious grays. The 33 MHz 68030 CPU feels relatively snappy. Unfortunately without a Duo dock or mini-dock, the only way to get data on and off the Duo is with a LocalTalk network connection. Even if I had a dock, though, the flakey keyboard makes it challenging to use. All of the keys work, but many of them have to be pressed very hard to register a keypress. This is a common problem with Duo keyboards, and I followed the instructions to disassemble the keyboard and clean the contacts on the mylar membranes, but it didn’t seem to help much. I’ll probably donate this machine.
Power Mac 8500 – This Mac is awesome, and I got it for free! There’s something about the vintage tower Macs that’s just irresistable. With a 120 MHz Power PC 604 CPU, 160 MB RAM, and System 9, it’s actually capable of running semi-recent software. It’s only problem is that it’s as loud as an airplane. I think the hard drive mount may be vibrating, which should be simple to fix. If one of the fans is failing, it may be more difficult to find a replacement.
I was able to get online and browse the web using the 8500, although no recent web browser will run on this machine, and the browsers that do run on it (Internet Explorer 5… ahem) have trouble rendering many web pages from 2011. Even when the pages do render correctly, it is S…L…O…W… These days, even a simple web page is likely to involve downloading dozens of individual image and style sheet files and running a bunch of JavaScript. I plan to keep this machine for general Mac nostalgia use, and as a file server for the Plus and 512Ke.
Piles of Peripherals
I’ve got external Zip drives, assorted RAM, system saver fans, SCSI cables and terminators, serial cables, LocalTalk cables, and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t even identify. I need to learn to say no to donations, even when they’re free!
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Re Smelly, I’ve seen this kind of thing happen when a tantalum capacitor goes short. Tantalums just do that, after many years, even the ones used in classy gear like HP and Tek scopes. They’re often used across power supplies, so when the short comes, there’s a brief battle between the cap and the PSU’s short-circuit protection. In the case of the scopes (that I fixed), the PSU shut down. But in other cases, the cap burns up and smells bad as soon as power is applied. Once burned out, there’s no more smell — but no more capacitance, either!
Yes, that sounds about right, as some of the capacitors on the analog board look positively ancient. It’s surprising that it would continue to work after one burnt out.
I had a PB Duo 230, and I got lucky and found a Farallon Ethernet card that used the LocalTalk port for $11 on eBay. I can’t remember what it was called at this point but it worked great. The downside was it only worked with MacTCP. I ran System 7.5.5 quite happily.
Did you know that the Mac Classic has a copy of Mac OS 6.0.3 on it’s ROM?? Hold command-option-x-o when booting up. I’m a Mac collector myself.