Table of Contents for this issue:
Re: LCII VRAM Increase?
Lisa and Apple II Parts
Mac Plus; IIfx
Segmenting System
Re: Mac IIcx and CD-ROMs?
Classic info program
Mac IIcx and CD-ROMs
SE upgrade information
The SE PDS Slot
Re: Mac IIcx and CD-ROMs?
Re: Mac IIcx and ThunderCache from MicroMac
Re: 16 bit Datapath Mac Summary
Re: IIvx
Software piracy issues
Lisa Problems
Research URL apology
128K Mac Problems
SCSI RAM Drive...
Re: Mac IIcx and CD-ROMs?
IIcx goes mute
PB 100 Batteries
Re: LCII Hard Disk Drives.
Re: Request for 128K Help
Re: Breaking to LC II's 10 meg RAM limit
Re: LCIII

I have just changed the standard 256k VRAM chip in my LCII to a 512k one: there doesn't seem to be any difference.

Whilst I realise I should be able to view higher resolution images, I had anticipated being able to change the monitor settings upwards from 256 colours,and likewise the choice of colours in the palette in ClarisWorks that I use.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the only improvement I'l be able to see those high resolution images?

Hi Rob...

I have a Performa 460 which is an LC III with a 33Mhz as opposed to a 25Mhz '030 chip.

When I got it, it had the standard 512K VRAM, and only displayed 256 colors.

After the 256K VRAM upgrade which brought the total to 768K, it displayed the "Thousands" of colors option in the Monitors control panel.

Apparently 512K is not enough VRAM to display 16 bit color. 768K is not enough to display the game "Marathon" in 16 bit color, but it's good enough for most apps.

ClarisWorks' color swatch palette in the Draw and Paint layers only shows 256 colors. There is nothing one can do about it.

I am not sure how much VRAM can be crammed in an LCII, but 768K is the limit for the LCIII and Performa 460.

Take care,
--.\\>-H--

Erick wrote:

-snip-

If there's anyone out there that can help me get the Lisa or the Apple III going, or who has parts for the Apple II or Mac systems, please contact me at: 55577f96@.

-snip-

Check out the folks at Shreve Systems, 1200 Marshall Street, Shreveport, LA 71101, (800) 227-3971.

My friends and I have purchased from them. They're honest and priced well.

I am in no way connected with Shreve Systems other than as an occasional customer.

I just joined the list 2 days ago and have not yet received any digests, so if my questions have already been answered, maybe somebody could point me toward the answer in the archives.

I have 2 multi-part questions:

The first is a multi-part question regarding my IIfx 8/650, with a 2-page grayscale monitor, for which I am planning to get some more memory and maybe an accelerator and/or a new video card.

*Regarding the RAM, it seems like most of the common mail-order sources, as well as the retail sources here in Japan, have lots of 4 MB SIMMS for the IIf but little else. Does anyone know where I might be able to get 8 or 16 MB SIMMS for a IIfx at a reasonable price?

*Regarding the video card, I'm thinking of getting a new PowerPC-based Mac -- either a Performa or maybe a clone -- for color work and keeping the IIfx for page layout, word processing, etc. for which I don't need a color monitor. Do you think the advantages of upgrading the video card for the IIfx would be worth the expense?

*What are some good accelerators for the IIfx? Is it worth the expense and effort?

I have several questions regarding a Mac Plus. I have been helping an even-less-literate-than-me friend ("senior citizen") with her Mac Plus (1 MB/40 HD) when she has questions or problems. I've tried to get her interested in a trade-up so she could use some of the later software. She is impressed with what the software can do (such as fax software, e-mail, and Japanese-English dictionaries, for example) and would like to take advantage of some of the benefits; but she insists she prefers to use her (Japanese) word processor for most things and doesn't want to spend the money for a new computer.

*Can the Mac Plus handle system 7.5 or System 7? Are there any unexpected considerations?

*The "Guru" notes on the Mac Plus say it supports only outgoing handshaking. Does that mean it is impossible to use a modem with the Mac Plus for receiving faxes and e-mail? If it *is* possible, how?

*Is it possible to use a 1.44 floppy drive with the Mac Plus? How about a CD ROM?

I should add that I'm not afraid to invest money in something just because it's out-of-date -- provided it's not just throwing the money into a black hole. My wife and I drive a 1970 VW Beetle.

TIA

How did you know where to segment the system? What parts beside the chooser and the finder are essential?

What I did was use stuffit lite to stuff the entire sys. folder, then used suffit lite's segment option-it's in the Translate pulldown menu-to segment it onto 800k floppies. So the answer to the first question is, in true mac fashion, where to segment the sys. folder wasn't my problem... ;-)

Off hand, I think the other neccessary files are the "network", "sharing setup" and the "users and groups" control panels. Someone can correct me if I'm missing one-I did this about 3 months ago...

Anybody have a IIcx connected to a CD-ROM? Please relay your experiences.

I have an Mac IIcx with a AppleCD 300 (2x speed). It's not too speedy, but runs CDROM titles I own such as MacinTax (last year's multimedia version on CD), Redshift, and Myst. The only problem is that animation and video clips are sometimes jerky. Sound is usually OK, but I do notice some "jerkiness" every now and then. The CPU probably isn't fast enough in a IIcx...

The music CD playing features work fine. The best thing is how painless installing and updating system software is with a CDROM drive.

-Ken Watanabe

Here's something great for Classic Mac readers interested in getting the low-down on a classic they're coveting, or just the one they're coddling...

ftp://ftp.nisiq.net//pub/mac/umich/misc/documentation/themacs1.0b6.cpt.hqx

There's a condition, though: if you download the program, it will not run on your Mac if your are the least bit diligent about setting your Date & Time control panel. There's a built in expiry date, presumably because the program is/was a beta - a very nice beta, btw, that served me very well when I was first learnin'.

The good news is that you can run this program - which runs in a jaw-dropping 175K! - if you set the date to somewhere betweeen 1 February and 31 May, 1994. It's a kludge - but isn't everything? Don't forget to reset the date once you're done...

Here's a part of the blurb from the binhexed form:

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 22:28:13 EST
From: M. David Greenspon

The MACS is a freeware application which displays a large number of
specs for all Macs that have ever been released. Search capability is
included. For a more thorough description, see the help included in
the application.

The MACS supports all Macs from the Plus up and all Systems from 4.1
up.

This version has the new Performas: 410, 460, 466, 467, 475, 476, 550.
(Actually, five of these just give you an alert saying what other
model they're equivalent to.)

Anybody have a IIcx connected to a CD-ROM? Please relay your experiences.

I have a IIci connected to an APS 4X CD-ROM which I use mostly for software loading and educational CD-ROMs (that is, I don't play games off the CD-ROM drive). Since the only real differences between the IIcx and IIci are the 32-bit clean ROM, 9 MHz of processor speed, and built-in video (and I use the Apple Toby card anyway), there should be some correlation between the models. Performance, IMHO, is limited more by the CD-ROM drive than by the Mac. The IIci handles things like QuickTime and QuickTime VR to my satisfaction.

Hello. I volunteer in a non-profit organization where we have an old SE with a slow 20MB hard disk, currently running 6.0.7 with 2.5Mb but I just found two 1MB 30-pin SIMMS for PC.

My questions are:

1) Is the RAM upgrade feasible to 4MB (i.e. removing the two 256KB modules, I think..)

2) Would it be worth switching over to System 7 as we only use Word 5.0, Filemaker Pro 2.1 and MacDraw Pro? My only worry is the performance loss as one of System 7' cool features (TrueType fonts, which we now take for granted) work already in 6.0.7.

3) I read about a program called Synchronys's RAMCharger. What's it all about? How does it work? What are its requirements?

... I thank anyone who can help. Please come and visit our pages. They are not Mac-oriented but.. made with a Mac! Ciao.

Can anyone give me as complete a rundown as they can of just what can be plugged into the PDS Slot on a Mac SE? Mine has a 150 meg HD and an 800k floppy, with 4 megs ram running 7.0.

The SE had a proprietary PDS that wasn't shared with any other member of the Mac family. Most of the items I remember being available were accelerators and network interface cards. If I am remembering correctly, grayscale video cards (I may be getting confused with the SE/30, a very different "beast" which had color; the SE did not), printer controllers, and an internal modem were available. This probably is not an exhaustive list, as they say ;-)

The SE was in production for so long that it made sense to build items for the PDS. Of course, everything you're looking at must be "previously-owned" at this point.

Anybody have a IIcx connected to a CD-ROM? Please relay your experiences.

I've had an Hitachi single-speed CD-ROM attached to my IIcx since 1992, and had no problems (apart from a little (!?!) sluggishness, compared to my 8500/120 with a 2x at work...!) -- even when I had a Radius Rocket attached. I believe the IIcx will also cope well with 2x CDs, but I'm sure I've heard somewhere (probably _here_) that 4x and above cause problems -- but I'm not so sure why: as CDs don't come close to the transfer rates of of HDs and other media.

To increase speed, you could use FWB's CD Toolkit, or other similar *drivers* that cache data, etc.... (I'm sure someone will come along with less vague ramblings if you need more information...).

[I'm running System 7.1, with 32Mb RAM -- although I _have_ run the CD with only 8Mb, and both 6.0.5 and 7.5.3 (with the same version of the INIT), with no noticeable problems....

Email me if you _do_ need more info!

There are a number of very good options for you to consider.

Thank you very much for your detailled informations in this article. I'm actually reading the Classic Macs mailing list because I'd like to see what people do of their elder Macs today. Personally, I would like to upgrade my beloved but nearly retired Color Classic.

Here is my question: from the slot design, any LCII-card should work in a CC, too. Actually, my CC runs a LCII-Ethernet Card. One problem I could imagine is the card's size, because the CC's footprint is smaller than the LC's. Have you or anybody else some experiences with cards >33MHz in a _Color Classic_? Ads just mention CC compatibility for the 68030/33MHz-model.

Andre Lex (Switzerland)

up. All have the Apple Cyrillic Language Kit installed. I can still use System 6.0.8 on the SE (or MacII) with ABTOP which by replacing the System fonts gives a fully bilingual Desktop, WPing -WriteNow 2.2 or 4.0-unbeatable Search and Replace!- or MS Works 2.0e-the last great Mac software they made-for basic WPing, Spreadsheets, Databases and Graphing. My next magic trick is to modify System 7.5 to use Sistemny as default - the Chicago-like Apple Standard font for the same effect as ABTOP in System 7. Also owned a new LC which I sold to a friend.

Hold it a sec!! Just the other day I was trying to load Apple Cyrillic Language Kit on an SE (4MB, 80MB, OS7.1 update3) You can't! the Kit requires an '020 or better.

(to the curious, I'm donating SE's to relatives with both roman/cyrillic capabilities)

So either you are talking about an SE30 or you know a trick I need. Actually I really don't need the Kit if someone knows how to remap the keyboard without having to use wordscript so that the cyrillic fonts

Whats ABTOP?

arm

I have a IIvx which came with 5 megs of memory. I wish to add 4 megs. Could someone tell me what I need to purchase. Do I need 4-1meg chips or 2-2 meg chips? How many chip slots does the IIvx have? I don't have it at present so I can't take the back off to see.

Geez,
Didn't realize my Performa 600/IIVX was a classic! In any event, the IIVX has SIMM slots currently filled in your machine by 256k chips. Four megs are soldered on the motherboard. You can fill all four slots with equal size 1, 4 or 16 meg chips (dunno about 32's) 30-pin SIMM chips. If you put in 1 meg chips, you'll have a grand total of 8 megs! Cool! 8>)

Todd

Let me preface this by stating that I don't want to pirate software. also raises the issue of what does one do when trying to find software that has been superseded or is unavailable.

This has cropped up a couple of times in the list and will inevitably crop up again. In the US and Australia and EU and other Berne Convention countries, the law is quite simple - the original copyright holder owns the copyright for 75 years, unless s/he/they explicitly place the work in the public domain.

However, a lawsuit can only attempt to recover damages demonstrably suffered. For a product that is no longer sold, a company could not claim damages.

The bottom line is that although you are unlikely to be pursued, copying these old materials is =not= legal and if anyone is planning to assemble an ftp site full of commercial software covered by the above description, I strongly advise against it.

Hi All,

For the fellow with problems with his Lisa, there is a computer page called the "obsolete Computer Museum" which has links and info on many older computers, as well as some interesting info and pictures on the inside of a Dismantled SE. The address is:

http://www.ncsc.dni.us/fun/user/tcc/cmuseum/cmuseum.htm

Hope that helps.

AL

Hi again,

Apologise to anyone who tried to go and fill out the questionnaire I mentioned in my previous posting (see below), I had missed a slash off the URL, the correct URl is as follows:

http://www.custard.co.uk/sharl/

Even though I don't have a classic Mac, I joined the list because my brother-in-law took home a 128K home for their kids to use. Being a Mac owner, they of course asked me about software etc. I'd like to be able to help them - kids brought up on Macs can't help but love 'em :-)

According to the sticker on the back, it was originally upgraded to 1 MB. It also came with an Apple dot matrix printer. (I hadn't seen one before - it's not an ImageWriter - or not the II in any case). The machine doesn't have a hard disk. Everything seems to work - excepts disks get jammed when ejected and need a LOT of tugging to get out.

It's probably an ImageWriter I which looks nothing like a IW II. Have you tried using a straightened paper clip in the little hole next to the floppy. That is the emergency eject method and can help with disks that don't fully eject, much better than tugging on them which is likely to make things worse.

1) What's the latest system version this machine can use - without upgrading it?

Does the back of the case say Macintosh Plus? If not, it sounds like a third party upgrade. If it is a Plus, you can use System 6.0.8 or System 7.0 - 7.5 if you upgrade to 4Mb. If it's not a Plus, I think you are limited to System 4 or so. 6.0.8 and 7.0 are both available from www.apple.com. I think you can also get System 4 from there too.

2) Does it use only 400K disks? I've looked in some shops and they only seem to sell HD's these days; I think the 128K could use these, but I need to download shareware etc using my Mac, and it won't like HD disks formatted as 400K's - any solutions?

Again, if it's a Plus, it will have 800K drives, if not it's probably got 400K drives. You may have to look around but I'm sure you can still find DD disks.

3) Can anyone recommend sites which specialise in software to run on these machines - or sites that let you easily search for them?

If it's a Plus there is a lot of software that will run on it, including current stuff (I use FMP 3.0 and ClarisDraw on mine), given sufficient memory.

4) Has anyone had similar problems with these early disk drives (I realise it's probably passed Apple's original working life expectancy). Is it possible to safely pull these machines apart (they are sealed by special screws)?

My Plus (born as a 512K Mac) had it's 800K drive replaced shortly after I got it (fortunately under warranty) because it had trouble ejecting disks. It still gives fits from time to time as does my IIsi's drive. You need a long Torx T-15 screwdriver. Once the screws (5) are out, you have to seperate the case which is best done by slipping something between the front and rear case and twisting, alternating between left and right side. While working inside, keep the cord unplugged and stay away from the high voltage lead coming out of the CRT.

5) Will Apple IIe mouses work with this machine?

I don't know about this.

Also if it's a Plus, you can add a SCSI drive, but look for one that will work on the Plus.

Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
Macintosh / Internet Consulting

Does anybody know where I can get an external SCSI RAM drive with battery backup? Basically an enclosure with power supply, pc board for SIMM's, and battery backup; that works like a SCSI drive.

Thanks.

Anybody have a IIcx connected to a CD-ROM? Please relay your experiences.

Todd, I have had two CD-ROMs attached to my Mac IIcx for about 1 year - at SCSI ID #2 and #3 - the first was a NEC Intersect 1X that I got about 3-4 years ago and I got a 4X about 1 year ago from APS. Both function fine when running individually or together, and I dont detect any speed improvements with the 4x CD-ROM. When I need to use only one CD-ROM I only turn one on, but use of only one is fine when both are turned on. I run my IIcx with Sys 7.1 and update 3, Mode 32 (7.5) with 32-bit addressing on, have 16 megs RAM (16 x 1 meg chips using SIMM expanders) and over 48 megs RAM with RAM Doubler v2 set to 3x. For the CD-ROMs I use the Spirit Tech software - Spirit CD Cache Control Panel v1.0, and Spirit CD-ROM player to listen to CDs through the headphone jacks with amplified speakers. Everything has been working fine. BTW I could not get both CD-ROMs to work together with any versions of Apple or NEC CD-ROM software available a year ago.

Gene

My beloved IIcx has lost its ability to make sounds.

I swapped in an 80MB hard drive from a IIci, which worked fine (except for the "on" light -- the connector was incompatible) BUT the IIcx stopped doing the sound thing. No chime when it boots, nada.

Anybody have a clue what needs to be cleaned, reconnected, resoldered, or replaced? (The hard drive replacement may not be the culprit.)

Thanks.

Does anyone have any information on where (and for how much $$) new Apple-brand replacement batteries for a PowerBook 100 Model Mac can be had, if at all? My current battery has about 45 seconds of life in it when fully charged :-p

None of the mail-order places I have tried have Apple batteries, which I hear have the longest available time between recharges. I am lugging along the AC adapter wherever I go. Bummer. I love the PB, it's got 8MB RAM, a 2400 Bronze internal fax/modem, 170 Quantum HD, 16MHz 68000, MSWorks 2.0e, an ideal B/W Mac off-road setup for low-stress computing - but no juice between wall outlets! Help!

Thanks,
Bob Laughton
Ukiah CA USA

Could someone please let me know what the restrictions are on replacing a hard disk drive on an LCII?

My original machine came with a mere 40Mb, and as it's less expensive to replace an internal drive than to buy an external one, I'd like to be sure that 'standard' drives currently available will fit the casing, given the low profile of the LCII.

Thanks in advance,

Rob.

1) I wouldn't try running anything above 6.0.8 on a 1Meg Mac 128.
2) The original machine only understood 400K floppy drives. With the "Plus" ROM (or 512kE ROM) you could use 800K drives. Note that all new Macs can't even format 400K disks, so you need an older Mac to transfer data to these disks.
3) Find someone (like me) who has been around awhile, and has archives of ancient software.
4) There are lots of know problems with these floppy drives - their heads tend to get ripped off by deformed floppy shutters, and their grease gets sticky, leading to slooooow ejection. Among lots of other problems.
5) I don't know.

Is anyone aware of a software "work-around" to this 10MB limit which would give her an additional 2MB free?

Only two software workarounds I'm aware of: System 7's Virtual Memory and the more effective RamDoubler from Connectix.

RAM Doubler won't work on the LCII. RD needs at least an '030 processor. The LCII has an '020.

When ever I startup I get a chime and a sadMAc w/ 0000FFF 000007F I've run Disk Firstaid which says all is well but only when I startup with disk firstaid in the drive. Whenever I try to startup with an empty drive, w/ or without the shift key held, I get this sad MAC.

Although you get the chimes of doom, the fact that you can start up with the shift down indicates you do not have a hardware problem. And that your system is basicly good.

Your next step is to do the extension shuffle, or buy ConflictCatcher to do it for you. Also ConflictCatcher will check your INITs for damage.

But more immediately run Disinfectant and let it check the files as it will tell you if any resource forks are damaged. (Do not tell us you do not have a floppy with a small system and Disinfectant around to check for bugs!)

You might restore your conteolPanels and extensions form your last backup.

Another shortcut is to move the preference folder out of the system folder and reboot. If no problem then hunt down the bad file. If the problem continues just put it back.

A clean system install might work, but the problem may be in a non-apple INIT. It would be helpful to have Norton or Mactools. The time you are spending now is worth the cost of these handy-dandy utilities. (I do NOT work for Symantic!)

Bruce