Table of Contents for this issue:
Mother (Logic) Board Batteries
Classic
Netscape
Classic II Accelerators
Re:32-Bit Clean...etc. + Systems
Re: DayStarred Mac II, 8MB?
Mac Plus and AOL?
MacPlus
IIvx-Dmitri
Re: Mac IIfx info
RE: Can't Throw Out the Trach
RE: Classic Macs Posts
Re: IIFX
Re: Can't Throw Out the Trash
Re: IIvx - ????????
Re: Can't Throw Out the Trach
RE: Classic Posts 11.13.2
Two questions
Re: History (Was: Netscape and Mac Plus)
Re: Classic Macs Posts
Re: SE and 10baseT?

Fellow Early Mac Folk -

This is a shameless self promotion - forgive me.

Those among us that have not yet experienced a dead logic board battery should be aware that one of these days you will notice that your Mac forgets the date when you turn it on, thinking that it is 1956. If you have a color Mac, it will start up in Black and White. It may even fail to start at all!

And worst of all - your helpful Mac tech may recommend a new motherboard, a step that could cost you hundreds of dollars.

And all because of the expiration of a $10 battery.

To combat this ever-growing scourge, as our batteries all inevitably age - I started the Web page that is given in my signature. This free web page, unfettered by ads, gives the symptoms of a dead battery, the solution (for many models), and associated hints, trivia, etc.

Feel free to tune in, and suggestions are always welcome.

BTW the proper term is Logic Board, but lots of people refer to them as Motherboards. As long as they run the MacOS - you can call them anything you want.

Charles D Phillips

Check the Macintosh motherboard battery Web page at:
http://www.academ.com/info/macintosh
(This page also links to a Totally Unofficial Panorama Page)

"I Don't Do Windows, I Have A Macintosh"

One thing that will accelerate your Classic II is to replace the hard drive with a modern one. When I went to 170 meg external, my speed doubled over the original 40 meg drive.

Get the FPU if you run ram doubler. It appears to me to help it run trouble-free.

eric lyons
buda, texas

i used Netscape 1.1n on my SE for a year and it worked fine so i can't understand why so many people say you can't use it. you can download it from the CSU Monterey Bay webpage:

http://seal.monterey.edu/~netcom/.

does anyone know where you can get FreePPP 1.0.5?

also; is there anywhere that lists the software that was available for the 128k & the 512k?

thanks, sk dunn

As the discussion recently turned to some questions about accelerators, I'd like to know if anyone has come across any kind of accelerator(s) for the Classic II? This is a 16MHz '030 across a 16bit bus. Galaxy Hardware sells an FPU for it, but that's not what I understand an accelerator to be. Is there even a cache or something out there? Thanks.

Drive7 is a superior HD formatting utility that employs an optional, efficient disk cache method which significantly increases performance (and even measures it against standard Apple HD scheme), However, I understand that Apple has licensed this code from Casablanca and may be currently offering it via the 7.5.3 HD Set-up utility, part of the recent 7.5 updaters and widely available.

Hard to justify the expense of a 3rd party accelerator for a Classic II. I owned a Plus, then a Classic and replaced it with a Classic II and lived with that through law school until I donated it to my Mother and moved to an '040 Centris and a Duo. The Classic II is really quite a solid little Mac. Additional RAM and Drive7 may be the best approach until you decide to go PowerPC.

You wrote me a prior message that I haven't gotten around to replying to, yet.

What used to be the 'Computer for the Rest of Us' has clearly become the 'Computer for the Best of Us.'

The IIFX is a 68020 processor and RAM Doubler wont run on anything less than 68030. If you want more ram you'll have to pull some of the 1MB SIMM and replace with 4MB.

Must have been smoking something when I said that. The IIfx is an 030! Should have know, I've got 2 of 'em.

Some folks posted about where to get old systems. The useful ones 6.0x, 7.x are on the apple server. However since I go back to the first 512K Mac, (still have it as 512KE with aDove board) I thought the 128 was underpowered and hung on to my Apple II+ a little longer, I have probably most of the systems from 1.0. So if you are desperate I could dig them out and ship disk images.

Andy

I have a Mac II w/o the FDHD ROM upgrade. It's running a DayStar 40-MHz '030 Universal Powercache. I've tried putting 4 MB SIMM's into bank B and I get the Chimes of Death on startup.

The '030 on the DayStar board has built-in PMMU, right? This *should* work, shouldn't it? (Yes, I've got Mode32 installed but that shouldn't be a factor for startup since the Chimes of Death sound before the HD is ever accessed.) Yes, the SIMM's are (according to the vendor) the PAL SIMM's required for a Mac II. Yet it doesn't work. Howcum? TIA.

The above is basically the same setup I have (except it's the older 32mhz Daystar 040 board) and it works great. I have 20MB of RAM (4 ones and 4 fours). I'd suspect your RAM isn't really PAL RAM. Does the machine work _without_ the accelerator and/or without the extra RAM? The board shouldn't have any affect on your RAM and vice versa.

Even though the accelerator has a built-in PMMU, the socket on your Mac II motherboard is not filled. I think this causes a problem. Back when I had my old Dove Marathon 030 accelerator in this machine I had to order a special $20 "fake" PMMU chip from Connectix to put into my PMMU slot in order to enable virtual memory. The chip was not a PMMU--just a dummy chip to fill the slot. Some technical explanation I don't remember was what Connectix told me. It worked fine, though. Never removed it when I got my Daystar board and everything still works. This problem may have been specific to the Marathon board, though.

Has anyone used an older version of AOL on a 4-meg Plus? I'd think one of the first versions would work on a Plus (abiet slowly).

I have been offered a MacPlus...1meg Ram and no hard drive. I'm not sure that the fellow giving me the machine can find his OS disks so my question is twofold.

1. Can you get a copy of pre 7.1 OS?

2. Can you run the MacPlus from a Zip drive?

tia
Jack Cornell

I love my IIvx, its fairly fast and decently runs almost everything out there for the 68k macs. Upgradeability is fairly good: motherboard to a centris or quadra 650 or a 7100, and a upgrade card to a 040 or PMac. I would consider parting with it. Its actually a Performa 600 but I stuck a Math coprocesor in it so its basicaly the same. 20 mb ram 160 HD.

Jorge

PS: Sorry, I didn't catch your email address. I probobly missed it somewhere.

Thanks everyone for your extensive explanations on the model. Whatever you sent to me was of great value and should accelerate my decision.

Dmitri

I've got an LCII running 7.5.1; I have 3 items that I was able to drag to the trash but can't empty because the items are "in use."

I've tried "option-emptying" and I've rebooted with the original systems disk but no change. When I use the Finder to find the originals, the originals "can't be found" or my internal or external drives.

You might be having some sort of problems with a "Hellfolder"... download hellfolderfix from info-mac if this is the problem.

Other than this, I'd try deleting and rebuilding the desktop files. If that doesn't work, first run disk first aid on your disk. If there's still a problem, you'll probably want to use a program such as Norton Utilities' Disk Doctor to fix it.

The IIFX is a 68020 processor and RAM Doubler wont run on anything less than 68030. If you want more ram you'll have to pull some of the

(Andy)

the IIfx is the fastest '030 around! not '020.

The IIfx required faster SIMMs than the usual and I didn't think that it required Mode 32. But there is a new Mode 32 for sys 7.5+. But it sounds more like a memory hardware problem. Check that the SIMMs are the correct ones for an fx.

regards
Paul B Jones

The IIFX is a 68020 processor and RAM Doubler wont run on anything less than 68030. If you want more ram you'll have to pull some of the 1MB SIMM and replace with 4MB.

Sorry Andrew, but the IIfx has a 40mhz 68030 processor. The ONLY II that has a 68020 is the II (just like mine, except I have a 25mhz Rocket installed). Regarding the problems, Have you tried a totally FRESH system Install? Is your Disk Driver System 7 compatible?

-Dave

I've got an LCII running 7.5.1; I have 3 items that I was able to drag to the trash but can't empty because the items are "in use."

I've tried "option-emptying" and I've rebooted with the original systems disk but no change. When I use the Finder to find the originals, the originals "can't be found" or my internal or external drives.

Hi everybody,

I've suffered a similar problem a couple of months ago, in my Power Boock 165. It was produced by a corrupted b-tree directory. I used Norton Disk Doctor to fix it and it worked OK.

I hope this will help.

Have a nice day

Juan Mares

I want to purchase a used IIvx to do digital audio production. So ...

1. How many NuBus slots does IIvx have?

Three. I suppose you will need a NuBus card to do "digital audio production" since the IIvx's standard audio out is only 8-bit mono.

2. How much memory (RAM & VRAM) does the model normally ship (oops! used to be shipped...)with and how much more SIMMS (DIPS? What size?) can it accomodate?

RAM: 4 Mb soldered onto mother board plus one bank of four 30-pin SIMMs.
Typical configurations are:
4 Mb + (4 * 256K) = 5 Mb
4 Mb + (4 * 1 Mb) = 8 Mb
4 Mb + (4 * 4 Mb) = 20 Mb
4 Mb + (4 * 16 Mb) = 68 Mb (maximum)

VRAM: 512K or 1 Mb (maximum) depending on configuration. 1 Mb gives you thousands of colors on a 640 * 480 monitor. Models with built-in CD-ROM drive usually shipped with 1 Mb.

3. "Inside the Apple Macintosh" tells Mac II series has no internal video, that is, when you used to purchase one, you'd have to buy a needs-specific NuBus video board/monitor. Is it true with IIvx as well? The model I'm speaking about comes with a monitor. Does that mean that one NuBus slot is already occupied with a card?

See above. VRAM does not occupy a NuBus slot.

4. What is your opinion about the model in general (I'd love to hear ANY)? I've had Color Classic and I know the new baby should have the same processor (twice clock speed ?), more expansion slots and a co-proc.

When I bought my IIci, I was debating between it and the IIvx and looked at both machines very seriously. I picked the IIci for several reasons:

-I wanted millions of colors and was willing to invest into a NuBus video card and therefore did not care for the VRAM that came with the IIvx;

-although the IIvx is clocked at 32 MHz and the IIci is clocked at 25 MHz, both machines often perform at roughly same net speed. This is because of the speed at which the data actually travels inside the machine, the data bus, which operates at 25 MHz in the IIci but only at 16 MHz in the IIvx. This sometimes causes a bottleneck effect in the IIvx (and many other models);

-the IIci may be used with System 6 while the IIvx needs System 7.

This being said, the IIvx is a fine machine. Compared with a Color Classic, the IIvx's data path is twice as wide (32-bit vs 16-bit) and its processor clock is twice as fast (32 MHz vs 16 MHz). This should make the IIvx about 3 to 3.5 times faster on most tasks (not 4 times because of the data path speed bottleneck effect explained above). The IIvx will be much faster when the math co-pro comes into play.

Finally, downloading the following file will give you all the information you are looking for, and more: ftp://ftp.newertech.com/users/ntech/download/guru.hqx

I've got an LCII running 7.5.1; I have 3 items that I was able to drag to the trash but can't empty because the items are "in use."

I've tried "option-emptying" and I've rebooted with the original systems disk but no change. When I use the Finder to find the originals, the originals "can't be found" or my internal or external drives.

I've had this same problem on IIx's running 7.5.1. Try re-building the desktop, or starting from floppy or another hard drive, then emptying the trash. Also you may want to run Norton Disk Doctor if you have it to see if there is a problem with the catalog on your drive.

Vince Renaud

No. No. No! Netscape requires Color QuickDraw! Even if you have an SE with one of those 68020 or 68030 acellerator cards, you won't be able to run Netscape.

It isn't the processor that is required, it is the ROMed software. You just typically find Color Quickdraw with a 68020 or better processor. Apple never released Color QuickDraw for 68000-based Macs.

The colour quickdraw extension was on sys 6.0.7 Print Tools disk(?). An early version actually loaded on 68000 based Macs but crashed when it was called. It should work on accellerated Macs but you may need to track down the early version to find out. I have an app that will tell you if CQD has loaded but it's not on the web.

Paul B Jones

First, Can I replace the battery on a Classic II or must this be done by a dealer. Are there any workarounds?

Second, is the (40Mg) drive replacable?

Thanks in advance

Martin

Apple never released Color QuickDraw for 68000-based Macs.

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. A few years ago my first mac was a IIsi (I later upgraded to a used SE/30) and I distinctly remember a Color QuickDraw extension with a prism icon finding itself installed on my machine at some point. This was right around when System 7 first shipped.

You are thinking of 32-bit Color QuickDraw. Original Color QuickDraw only supported 8-bit indexed color images. Later, about 1989, Apple came out with 32-bit Color QuickDraw, which supports 16-bit and 32-bit direct color images. In 1991, Apple rolled 32-bit Color QuickDraw into System 7.

It came from Apple but may have shipped with a version of Photoshop or some other application.

Exactly. Photoshop required 32-bit Color QuickDraw.

If you can find this extension somewhere it may allow Netscape to run on a 68020 or 68030 accelerated mac, or a classic.

Nope, this won't do it. 32-bit Color QuickDraw needs Color QuickDraw, which shipped in ROM, and was extensively patched with successive system updates. 68000-based Macs, even if accelerated with other processors don't have Color QuickDraw.

The IIFX is a 68020 processor and RAM Doubler wont run on anything less than 68030. If you want more ram you'll have to pull some of the 1MB SIMM and replace with 4MB.

You have to stop working on a Pentium machine, they fry your brain.

The IIfx is a 40Mhz 68030. And RAM Doubler (and VM) will run on a 68020 if it has a 68851 PMMU, although this is rare.

i'm new to the group, so please forgive me for asking a question that might have been discussed over and over again...
i just bought a 10basetwo. is there any way to get it to work on a 10baset network? are there any 10baseT cards for a se out there?

Your 10Base2 card probably has an AUI (or perhaps AAUI) port on it. The AUI port is a DA-15 connector (like the DB-25 SCSI but smaller (15 pins). If so, you could buy a transceiver for it. If you have an AAUI port (hard to describe, but probably the only other connector on the board if it has one) you still need a transceiver, but one specifically for AAUI. You need to check with a store or mail order outfit that sells networking hardware.