Table of Contents for this issue:

Re: Classic Macs Digest 2.11
Re: Chooser question
re: Mac IIsi vs LCII
Chooser question
LC Problems
Mac SE SuperDrive upgrade
HowWeUsedThe128&512E etc.
IIsi PDS slot
forgetfull LC
Re: Chooser Question
B& vs Grayscale
Chooser question on LC
Hypercard and Mac Plus
LC...sounds like the battery's going...
Re: SE 1/80 needs a floppy upgrade
Re: Classic Macs Digest 2.11

Subject: Chooser question
Sent: 2/18/97 8:15 AM
Received: 2/18/97 9:12 AM
From: Foley, Edward A.
To: 'classic-post@hitznet.com', classic-post@hitznet.com

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

I can't tell you much about the machine, but I do know it is 100%
factory hardware except for an add-on hard drive (LaCie) and it is
running System 7.0.

Any suggestions will be appreciated, and I can get more information
about her configuration if that would be helpful to anyone.

Change the battery. It's not saving these set-up choices in RAM, 'cause
the battery is failing.

Edward,

It's probably the on-board battery at fault. The symptoms are identical to
those I had on mine.

From: Foley, Edward A.
To: 'classic-post@hitznet.com', classic-post@hitznet.com

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

I can't tell you much about the machine, but I do know it is 100%
factory hardware except for an add-on hard drive (LaCie) and it is
running System 7.0.

Any suggestions will be appreciated, and I can get more information
about her configuration if that would be helpful to anyone.

Regards, Keith

From: Gina Wallace
To: classic-post@hitznet.com

I'm looking for a "beginner" computer for my almost 5-yr.-old
granddaughter. I'm also very cheap. A recent ad in our local
paper has a Mac IIsi (with external CD) listed for $200 so
the price is right! We have our old LC II set up for her
at our house and she seems very content

The 16MHZ to 20MHZ cpu difference will not be that noticable,
but the 16 to 32 bit bus change will be noticable.

But then the SI uses RAM for video, so that slows things down a bit.
The MIPS rating difference is 3.9 to 5.0.

For your purposes I would suggust you look for a MacIIci box.
It has a MIPS rating of 6.3 and an FPU.
If you look real hard you can find one in your price range.
Better expanability, and if you can find a cheap video card
you will avoid the video slowdown referred to above.
(I found a 32 bit video card for $50.)

This is not my families computer.

Good Luck.
Bruce

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

It's the PRAM battery. There is a useful Web page on this subject.
See http://www.academ.com/info/macintosh/

Hope this helps,

Steve Smith

Regarding the Query...

Subject: Chooser question
Sent: 2/18/97 8:15 AM
Received: 2/18/97 9:12 AM
From: Foley, Edward A.
To: 'classic-post@hitznet.com', classic-post@hitznet.com

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

The second query is easy...the rechargable battery is no longer taking
charge and is dead. It is VERY easy to replace. You can remove the top
cover of the LC by lifting up on the two spring tabs near the rear
of the machine and then lift off the cover. The battery is near the
center of the big logic board, probably red or purple, and by far the
most colorful thing in there. To relace it, you have to lift up the
small plastic cover, which is held in place by little tabs on each end.
You may be able to just wiggle it off. Or, using a VERY small
screwdriver, press one side inward to release the tab, and it should come right up.
Notice the orientation of the battery before removing it. They cost about
$10 at your local computer store.

Now, as to the first question...Perhaps its also due to the battery.
I'm not sure...fix the battery and see.

bob

I have a Mac SE 4/20(in a beige case! I wish I had a platinum case) with an
800k floppy drive. I would like to upgrade it with a SuperDrive. Since most
of the books I have are too old, and Apple doesn't seem to support anything
older than a PowerMac 6100, I was wondering what is required to do the
upgrade. Do the ROMs need to be upgraded, will it need a new cable, system extension,etc...

BTW, the SE will soon be used as a BBS server. I am considering using
MacCitadel, does anyone have any experience with that system? Are there other
systems I should consider? I have had trouble with MUBBS, Hermes and PublicAddress.

TIA

-JR

Just a story by an early user of a 128 baby Mac. I purchased one of the first
one's the day before Thanksgiving in 1982. Yes the roll out date was Jan 1,
1983 but this store was giving a pre- view. When I saw MacPaint and the
ability to subtract rather than erase with MacWrite, I knew we had to have
one for bankruptcy since we had to do 7 carbons for bankruptcy. A mistake
meant 7 erasers. So here I came back to the office with a 128k, an Image
writer I and 5 diskettes. (Cost of the outfit $3200) The diskettes cost $10
each, yes $10 each then. The 128k was a marvel of a machine. Since it had no
fan (Jobs hated fans they said), it was prone to power supply failure due to
overheating. Mine never did. You became accustom to the constant grind of the
disk drive as it accessed the disk frequently. (Sorry no hard drive, no
second drive either, the System 1.02, and McWrite 2.2 both resided on a 400k
diskette. MacWrite 2.2 could only do 4 pages with a 128 Mac but since most
letters were less than one page long, this worked fine. MacWrite 3.0, 3.2,
3.5 then 4.5 came along. A great improvement. 4.5 was disk based. With it we
could put a bankruptcy template on a diskette and use it. So I manually typed
in the chapter 7 bankruptcy form and saved it as stationery. We were hooked;
we became Mac nuts. We stayed up late at night playing with MacPaint. We
didn't have anything but MacWrite and MacPaint and we grew to love them both.

We still do. We love bit map graphics. The Image writer was a great machine
for us, we still have it, it is dry storage however. We next got an external
drive, a great help because the system could reside on one disk and the
program and output on the other. By this time Word 1.02 had hit the street
and we had a copy of it. Also Multiplan 1.03. We developed a template in
Multiplan to figure taxes, ahhhh we praised the Mac. It was slow but we
didn't know it. We thought it was a modern day marvel.

About taxes. We had figured taxes for clients from time immorial. We'd get
the tax figured and tell Farmer Jones he owed $50 Social Security and $200
federal income tax and Farmer Jones then would say, see, here young man, I
have more feed receives out there in the truck pocket. We'd have to refigure
the taxes. With our Multiplan template we could tell at nearly any point what
the clients tax liability was, so Farmer Jones could tell us about the feed
receipts when he needed to.

About the early applications. They all had code in them which required you
to insert the master disk into the main drive. A pain in the rear. You
overcame this by doing a hack. You went into the code and changed some bit
and then the master disk was not required. We modified our Word and
Multiplan this way. Later Bill Gates decided it was more important to occupy market
share than to cripple use. There was no way we could give the software away
by copying it. We lived in the sticks and were the only Mac nut in the area
for a long long time.

Finally we able to find a data base. We secured pfs File. A DOS application
ported over to the Mac. It was a disaster. We still have it however. Next we
got a little data base whose name we forget (we have old timers disease now)
but it worked for a while.

All the while we were making posters, flyers, even Christmas Cards. We have
made all our cards since the Mac came out. It was so much fun we thought.
Other attorneys had dedicated word processors to type on but we had a
Mac!!!

We loved the Mac. We could take a girl right out of the cotton patch down
here and have her typing a letter before lunch. In the afternoon she knew how
to work Multiplan and keep up with billing. Try that with an MS-DOS system.

We have owned nearly all the classic Macs including a Max-XL but all that is
another story.

Is the PDS slot on the IIsi capable of using more than one device via the
use of an adaptor?
Paul D. DiGiovanni
Cortland, NY

I've been warned several times, and I read it in Macworld as well, that
even though the IIsi offers the cappability, its power supply is too
weak to support more than one card.

I'm told that this weakness is unique to the IISi. You can take a simple
patch cord and plug your sound out port into your stereo. You can buy
such a cord or make it uyourself by splicing a mini--plug, (Mine came
from a walkman headset), to an RCA type connector pair. I made mine
about nine feet long so I wouldn't be tied to closely to the stereo.
Never heard of a comm slot on a MAC. Could be for an FPU?

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:
1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modm) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

You should pull the battery from the logic board and see if its up to
snuff. It you don't have a tester, then place a known good one in and
see if the forgetfulness persists.

Edward,

I was not sure about this until I read the booting in B&W. Replace the battery
on the motherboard. They run around $10-20. You can get them at most
computer stores or Radio Shack. Repair shops should charge about $25 to
install plus the cost of the battery.

Try the web site at

http://www.academ.com/info/macintosh/

for more info on Mac batteries.

MAKE SURE YOU ARE GROUNDED TO THE MAC USING A WRIST STRAP BEFORE CHANGING THE BATTERY!!! STATIC ELECTRICITY CAN DESTORY THE MOTHERBOPARD!!! YOU AND THE MAC NEED TO BE AT THE SAME POTENTIAL!!! CONNECT THE STRAP TO THE POWER SUPPLY CASE OF THE MAC AND WEAR THE STRAP! IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS ABOUT DOING THIS, HAVE A REPAIR TECH DO IT! There, I said it.

Regards,
Bob Eye

Subject: Chooser question
Sent: 2/18/97 8:15 AM
Received: 2/18/97 9:12 AM
From: Foley, Edward A.
To: 'classic-post@hitznet.com', classic-post@hitznet.com

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

I can't tell you much about the machine, but I do know it is 100%
factory hardware except for an add-on hard drive (LaCie) and it is
running System 7.0.

Any suggestions will be appreciated, and I can get more information
about her configuration if that would be helpful to anyone.

Hi,
I own a Mac si with a NuBus B&W card driving a monochrome Panasonic
M1900M Monitor.

This is a fixed frequency monitor that I owuld like to drive on a
grayscale; Is there any video card that allows me to do this?
Where can I get a detailed list with technical specs for "old" (NuBus)
video cards?

Thanks in advance
Luis Sisamon

Sounds like the lithium battery isn't doing the job. Replacements are
available from Radio Shack or other electronics components sources. The
Radio Shack number is 23-026. The specs are '1/2 AA, 3.6 volts'. Other
numbers: TL-5101, 742-0011, 742-0029, LTC-9C, T04/41, ER35, LS-3,
LS-14250, ER3VSM.

After you get the battery, pop the top of the LC, locate the battery,
remove the plastic cage, remove the battery (remember which way the + & -
go), and put in the new one. If you don't feel comfortable doing it your
Apple dealer would be glad to do it (but might charge much more for
labor).

Subject: Chooser question
Sent: 2/18/97 8:15 AM
Received: 2/18/97 9:12 AM
From: Foley, Edward A.
To: 'classic-post@hitznet.com'

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

Which versions of Hypercard work well on a Mac Plus and how can I obtain
older versions of Hypercard?

Joel

Subject: Chooser question
Sent: 2/18/97 8:15 AM
Received: 2/18/97 9:12 AM
From: Foley, Edward A.
To: 'classic-post@hitznet.com'

My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

I can't tell you much about the machine, but I do know it is 100%
factory hardware except for an add-on hard drive (LaCie) and it is
running System 7.0.

Any suggestions will be appreciated, and I can get more information
about her configuration if that would be helpful to anyone.

Hi Edward!

Sounds like your friend's battery is dying. P-RAM data doesn't seem to
"stick" anymore which is symptomatic of a dead battery.

It's pretty easy to replace, however you need to be mindful of polarity,
because if you put the battery in with reversed polarity you could blow the
P-RAM chip or worse.

Take care,
--.\\<-H--

Ron,

You need to swap out: the 800k drive with a 1.4MB drive; the old 128k ROMs with
the 256k ROMs; the old IWM chip for a new SWIM chip. As I recall these last
two are not pin for pin compatable (and I am sure someone on compact-macs will
correct me if I am wrong on this), so it does not work in practice, just theory.

You will be able to find motherboards at:

http://www.thearc.com/macintosh.html (they have the Apple upgrade kit with
drive, etc. for $200 (with exchange), part number M6052; they also have a
logic board for the FDHD for $60 (661-0536) - a better bet since you have the
drive already)

http://www.go-nexus-go.com/nexcomp/ ($69 for the motherboard)

http://www.macparts.com/ (no boards listed, but a SE with 2.5 MB RAM and an
20 MB HD goes for $79 - no mention on drive size)

http://www.shrevesystems.com/ (refurbished boards fopr $49 - ask if they are
FDHD before buying)

The best bet is to get a SE FDHD motherboard and swap it out with the old SE
mb. Then remove the old floppy and install the 1.4MB floppy.

Regards,
Bob Eye

Subject: SE 1/80 needs a floppy upgrade
Sent: 2/18/97 11:14 AM
Received: 2/18/97 9:49 PM
From: Ron Carlson
To: classic-post@hitznet.com

How does one upgrade the SE from an 800K to a 1.44M floppy drive. Simply
plug in the 1.44? Is there are ROM that needs to be changed along with it?

I have a 1.44 from an old Mac IIcx - where can I find any needed ROMs or
software?

Regards, Ron Carlson

Subject: Chooser question
My neighbor's LC has the following two quirkies:

1. The printer selection in the Chooser won't persist from session to
session -- every time you turn the machine on, you have to go in and
select the printer again. She's using a HP Deskwriter through the serial
(modem) port.

2. The machine powers up in black and white, but when you do a restart
through the Finder, it comes on in color as it should.

Where should I begin in helping her with this?

I can't tell you much about the machine, but I do know it is 100%
factory hardware except for an add-on hard drive (LaCie) and it is
running System 7.0.

Any suggestions will be appreciated, and I can get more information
about her configuration if that would be helpful to anyone.

The problem is definatly a dead battery. The computer remembers
settings after you turn it off with a battery powered memory called
pram. The chooser and color settings are forgotten because tat battery
has failed. I bet if you check the time on the computer, that its not
remembering that too. Check a local computer store or mail order
catalog, tell them what computer you have, and they should be able to
find the correct battery, for about $10-15 dollors.