I need help with my new Macintosh Classic

[bobesch]

As cool as your personal configuration is, OS 6 and OS 7 are in German, which might be a little tricky for those of us who don't know German, or who don't have older Mac OS memorized. They also reminded me how rusty I was with such old versions of the Mac OS, there was definitely a time when being in German wouldn't have mattered for me, but I don't think I've really touched anything older than 7.5 in a decade.

Oh my, I let my fingers get the better of me, and didn't read things through. Still, I definitely use to know OS 6 and OS 7 better than I do now, a lot better.

I've updated the archive and added the english version of system6 (#2a Boot Mac-os6e (40MB).dsk). Could be done by using that basic system6 disk-image "System Startup" and "System Additions", that come from the mini_vMac homepage and replace the system-folder on the now "#2a Boot Mac-os6ger (40MB).dsk".
System7.5 is already localized in english.
I guess, I'm gonna use system70 for my own Macintosh Classic, since footprint in RAM is much better than in system7.5, but it depends on which of both offers better option for connectivity to my iMacG3. Gonna look for the english version on MacintoshGarden or the Macintosh Repository tonight and update the archive.
Have fun!

 

[galgot]

Now all this makes me want to power up mine. I boot it only maybe twice a year, that will be the first in 2020.
Have System 6.8 and 7.1 on it. While you can do more thing with 7.1, the Classic is much more at ease with 6.8 .
Tried 7.5, but it gets even more sluggish than with 7.1 of course.

The funny thing when trying/playing with these old systems, is you realize after a while using it how many time you have to reboot ...
We certainly had much more patience with tech those days.

 

[bobesch]

Now all this makes me want to power up mine. I boot it only maybe twice a year, that will be the first in 2020.
Have System 6.8 and 7.1 on it. While you can do more thing with 7.1, the Classic is much more at ease with 6.8 .
Tried 7.5, but it gets even more sluggish than with 7.1 of course.
The funny thing when trying/playing with these old systems, is you realize after a while using it how many time you have to reboot ...
We certainly had much more patience with tech those days.

Is there any specific advantage of 7.1 over 7.0x? That 7.1 version is somehow hard to find...
Found system7-floppies in the original box, but they were sent to my sons adress and are with the Macintosh now. Will be a kind of surprise ... especially because I don't know, if the floppy-drive does work at all.
Speaking about "much more patience with tech those days." I was using DOS at that time ... and each time I fire up system6/7 I'm amazed about speed and easiness.

 

[galgot]

Is there any specific advantage of 7.1 over 7.0x? That 7.1 version is somehow hard to find...
Found system7-floppies in the original box, but they were sent to my sons adress and are with the Macintosh now. Will be a kind of surprise ... especially because I don't know, if the floppy-drive does work at all.
Speaking about "much more patience with tech those days." I was using DOS at that time ... and each time I fire up system6/7 I'm amazed about speed and easiness.

Can't remember why exactly I installed 7.1 specifically, maybe because it unconsciously reminded me the first Mac I had, a LC475 which original OS was 7.1 .
Now checking :

System 7.1

System 7.1, released on August 3, 1992, was an important (yet costly, as it was the first OS upgrade with a compulsory price tag attached to it) system update. The most important aspect of System 7.1 was the System Enabler scheme. Instead of rolling out updates for every new Mac (as was the case...

apple.fandom.com

SSW 7.1 was the first to introduce System Enabler. And some more "international" date&time control panels and other, and being French...

Never had the chance to use DOS or early Windows stuff, so can't say about the patience needed with these. Just heard the rumors Went direct from a Atari 400 to Mac.
When I meant the times one have to reboot these old Mac, I not only mean crashes, but also each time you install something with a new extension file or stuff like that. We are completely spoiled now

Btw, just tried doing a test text file in SimpleText on the Classic, then transferred it on a Tiger running machine via Timbuktu. Textedit opens it without problem in Tiger. And same on a El Capitan running MBP.

 

[Poki]

Thank you all so much for your valuable tips! I will receive the tools to open and clean the Mac in a few days and I'll definitely check back once I figured out what exactly is wrong with it.

By the way, I just remembered that I still had a Matias Tactile Pro keyboard which uses the same mechanical switches the Apple Extended Keyboard did, so I'll use that one with the Macintosh Classic, seems pretty fitting and feels pretty nice.

 

[defjam]

Thank you all so much for your valuable tips! I will receive the tools to open and clean the Mac in a few days and I'll definitely check back once I figured out what exactly is wrong with it.

By the way, I just remembered that I still had a Matias Tactile Pro keyboard which uses the same mechanical switches the Apple Extended Keyboard did, so I'll use that one with the Macintosh Classic, seems pretty fitting and feels pretty nice.

I can't recall if anyone has mentioned this already but be careful when working on it as there can be lingering high voltages. There is a bleed off resistor which is intended to slowly discharge the high voltage after some period of time. Thus I would recommend you leave it sit, unplugged for an hour or so to give it time to do so before working on it.

 

[bobesch]

Hi there, I've just updated "instant" mini vMac by adding the english version of System7.1 (source: https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/)

Happily on intel-Macs file-exchange between mini_vMac and intel_Mac can be achieved by using SheepShaver.
Don't know, how real floppies will do ...

Next step: find out to which extend ClarisWorks4 may be the link between System7/OSX/Win (a lot of exchange of done work can be achieved by printing to PDF) and how to get the Macintosh Classic connected to the rest of the pack (maybe by the communication-part of ClarisWorks).
This precious landed in my postbox last week... (I'm looking forward to the real Macintosh to arrive... and I feel very close to be ending with punch cards finally ... 😄)


@Poki great you've got that georgeous keyboard. At work I take keep my old Cherry-keyboards (for PC/Win) like a treasure (unbelievable that most of those KB went to trash).
I guess, that Matias Tactile Pro is such a gem too!
The coloured iMacG3-keyboard or the black-and-acrylic one's look fancy, and the all-white-and-acrylic-intel-iMac-keyboards are good to maintain, but they all can't compare to the old fashioned Cherry- (and assumably old Apple-) keyboards, when it comes to typing.
Take care of the high-voltage, when opening the Macintosh ...

Repair Mac

@galgot : "SSW 7.1 was the first to introduce System Enabler. And some more "international" date&time control panels and other, and being French..." 🙂 👍 J'aime le mot "ordinateur" et vacances en France. Et mon (ou ma?) premier Clamshell est venu d'un vendeur en France ...
But what's the use of System Enabler?

 

[galgot]

Hi there, I've just updated "instant" mini vMac by adding the english version of System7.1 (source: https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/)
View attachment 895720
Happily on intel-Macs file-exchange between mini_vMac and intel_Mac can be achieved by using SheepShaver.
Don't know, how real floppies will do ...
View attachment 895694
Next step: find out to which extend ClarisWorks4 may be the link between System7/OSX/Win (a lot of exchange of done work can be achieved by printing to PDF) and how to get the Macintosh Classic connected to the rest of the pack (maybe by the communication-part of ClarisWorks).
This precious landed in my postbox last week... (I'm looking forward to the real Macintosh to arrive... and I feel very close to be ending with punch cards finally ... 😄)
View attachment 895695

@Poki great you've got that georgeous keyboard. At work I take keep my old Cherry-keyboards (for PC/Win) like a treasure (unbelievable that most of those KB went to trash).
I guess, that Matias Tactile Pro is such a gem too!
The coloured iMacG3-keyboard or the black-and-acrylic one's look fancy, and the all-white-and-acrylic-intel-iMac-keyboards are good to maintain, but they all can't compare to the old fashioned Cherry- (and assumably old Apple-) keyboards, when it comes to typing.
Take care of the high-voltage, when opening the Macintosh ...

Repair Mac

@galgot : "SSW 7.1 was the first to introduce System Enabler. And some more "international" date&time control panels and other, and being French..." 🙂 👍 J'aime le mot "ordinateur" et vacances en France. Et mon (ou ma?) premier Clamshell est venu d'un vendeur en France ...
But what's the use of System Enabler?

C'est "mon" Clamshell as "ordinateur" is masculin word. Or if using French nickname for the iBook Clamshell : "Palourde" which is another mollusk :

Votre Français est excellent.

System Enabler is a file found in the system Folder starting with SSW 7.1 , that is specific to the machine the system is intended to run on. Before SSW 7.1 , when releasing new machine Apple had to update the system software. System Enabler file was a way to get around this. the System Software was "standard" , then a System Enabler was written for enabling it to work for each new hardware when required.
MacGarden has collection for download :

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/apple-system-enablers

 

[DearthnVader]

If you have an old PC with Floppy drive, TransMac can write bootable HFS floppies for you from image files.

However, just to be honest, a Mac 68k emulator such as Basilisk II can do pretty much anything a Classic can do, unless you just have some old hardware that will only interface with the Classic.

I know we want to keep these old system alive as long as we can, but at some point we reach the point of diminishing returns.

 

[bunnspecial]

If you have an old PC with Floppy drive, TransMac can write bootable HFS floppies for you from image files.

Without actually looking into it, my "gut" reaction is that it most likely only works with 1.44mb floppies, and can't do Mac format 400 or 800K.

A convention PC low density floppy is 360K/720K and spins the disk at a constant speed. One of Woz's brilliant moves for the Mac was to vary the rotational speed of the disk as the head moves across it. This gives a constant linear velocity at the point of the head(in PC floppies, the linear velocity is higher as the head moves toward the perimeter) and allowed Macs to "squeeze" an additional 40K of data per side of the disk.

All of this was handled on early Macs through a chip called the "IWM"(Integrated Woz Machine), where later computers had the IWM functions included in a larger/more multi-functional chip.

The end result, though, is that 400K and 800K are not readable unless there is an IWM or equivalent somewhere talking to the floppy drive. This essentially means beige era/old world ROM computers at the latest. The beige G3 towers can handle 400/800K fine, but a B&W G3 or iMac G3 with a USB floppy or a USB LS-120 drive(both were popular options) can only do PC/Mac format 1.44mbs.

 

[weckart]

The end result, though, is that 400K and 800K are not readable unless there is an IWM or equivalent somewhere talking to the floppy drive. This essentially means beige era/old world ROM computers at the latest. The beige G3 towers can handle 400/800K fine, but a B&W G3 or iMac G3 with a USB floppy or a USB LS-120 drive(both were popular options) can only do PC/Mac format 1.44mbs.

This is correct. If you want to read and write to these old floppies on a PC, you would need a specific ISA bus interface card between the floppy drive and the motherboard. It was the Deluxe Options Board from Central Point. I have been trying to get one for years but the only ones that ever come up are in the US and are really expensive.



They could also bypass the copy protection on early diskettes hence the admonishment on the literature in the pic.

 

[DearthnVader]

Without actually looking into it, my "gut" reaction is that it most likely only works with 1.44mb floppies, and can't do Mac format 400 or 800K.

A convention PC low density floppy is 360K/720K and spins the disk at a constant speed. One of Woz's brilliant moves for the Mac was to vary the rotational speed of the disk as the head moves across it. This gives a constant linear velocity at the point of the head(in PC floppies, the linear velocity is higher as the head moves toward the perimeter) and allowed Macs to "squeeze" an additional 40K of data per side of the disk.

All of this was handled on early Macs through a chip called the "IWM"(Integrated Woz Machine), where later computers had the IWM functions included in a larger/more multi-functional chip.

The end result, though, is that 400K and 800K are not readable unless there is an IWM or equivalent somewhere talking to the floppy drive. This essentially means beige era/old world ROM computers at the latest. The beige G3 towers can handle 400/800K fine, but a B&W G3 or iMac G3 with a USB floppy or a USB LS-120 drive(both were popular options) can only do PC/Mac format 1.44mbs.

Interesting stuff, squeezing 40k is laughable these days, but I'm not sure how it proteins to the Classic, as it has a 1.44MB drive.

 

[bobesch]

Interesting stuff, squeezing 40k is laughable these days, but I'm not sure how it proteins to the Classic, as it has a 1.44MB drive.

Oh, dimensions, that still feel very familiar to me thinking of my first Palm-devices ... except, those thingies did fit into the shirt pocket ... 😄

 

[Poki]

I received my iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit today and finally was able to open up my Macintosh Classic! Here are my observations so far:

• It is indeed the higher end model with 4 MB RAM and the HDD, though I still don't know if the hard drive works.
• Somebody already did repair the machine before – the power supply was replaced with another one that looks very home made. It did turn on though, so I'm not sure if that's the problem.
• The battery on the mainboard looks fine.
• There is a lot of corrosion on the contacts of some of the chips, especially on the AMD AM8530 serial controller. I managed to remove a lot of it, the contacts look kinda fine.

I will have a friend of mine who does know some things about old computers before building it back together, but it would be great if simply removing the corrosion would have improved things. At least I can't see anything else being wrong with the machine, it looks super clean.

 

[Poki]

Update: So I did dig a little deeper and talked to another guy who knows a little bit about electronics of that time. Turns out the power supply is indeed the genuine Apple one. Also, after cleaning the corrosion off the contacts, everything looks like new – but it still doesn't work. Any ideas how I can find out what's wrong?

 

[defjam]

I'd seriously consider having it re-capped. Does the system make the startup chime when powered on?

 

[DearthnVader]

We could tell a lot more from some high resolution pictures of what you are working on.

These old 68k's were damned near distractible but for the capacitors, most of the ODBII computers in cars were 68k based for that very reason.
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