Just bought a Macintosh SE FDHD ... What next ? - Macintosh Garden

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2012, November 2 - 7:29pm

#1

dougal

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Joined: 2011 May 20

Just bought a Macintosh SE FDHD ... What next ?

Hi guys... Seeing as i couldn't get my LC III working again and seeing that I always loved the Classic all-in-one Macintosh look i bought a Macintosh SE FDHD on ebay.

This one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221145721727?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=...

First i'd like to ask.. If you look at the picture of the rear of the machine it seems to have some sort of expansion in the expansion bay with what looks like a BNC connector and a 15Pin plug and some sort of RJ something plug... What is that ?

Also screen shows a disk with a question mark. Is that a messed up or damaged hard drive ?

Hopefully it will arrive soon so that i can start playing around with it. I'd love to set it up with the latest Mac OS that works on it. I have a whole bunch of 30pin simms (1MB i think) which i can upgrade it with and i want to install games for it.

If the HD is ruined i have a spare 1GB SCSI drive. Would that work ?

Thanks in advance

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2012, November 2 - 10:49pm

#2

MikeTomTom's picture

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Hi dougal, congrats on your purchase.

Plugs on rear of case in order, from left to right:
ADB x 2 - for Mouse & Keyboard etc.
External Floppy Disk Drive port - (its 19 pin, not 15)
SCSI port - 25 pin (external SCSI devices such as hard drives & scanners etc)
Printer
Modem
Sound out (mono)

Disk with Question mark means it can't find a System file to boot up to. Can be a number of reasons, including a corrupt System, Disk drive has frozen (likely) or disk drive is missing. You'll be able to determine this once you get the wee beastie home.

About your bunch of 30 pin RAM. Make sure that its suitable for that Mac. I once made the mistake of using 30 pin SIMMs from a PC in a Mac SE/30 and absolutely fried the SE/30, hosing the mobo. Once bitten and all that... For the SE tho', 4 MB is the maximum RAM it can take (4 x 1 MB).

Your spare 1 GB SCSI might suit, if the pins are compatible with what you remove. You might need to partition the drive to get better use of the block sizes, but that's no big deal. If its not a Mac certified SCSI drive, you might need to use a 3rd party software such as FWB's to format the drive as HFS (or the patched "Apple HD SC Setup" app).

Get yourself a good working bootable "Disk Tools" floppy disk with "Apple HD SC Setup" and "Disk First Aid". Also, while waiting for your SE to arrive, find a (PDF) Service manual on-line. Its usually not difficult to locate one for this model and it may save you lots of grief.

2012, November 3 - 12:51am

#3

HV

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Joined: 2010 Nov 26

That seems like an ethernet card in the extension slot. With all 3 types of connector available in that era. The middle 15pin female DB is for an AUI adaptor which would have been the standard way to connect to a 10base5 network (thicker wires than 10base2). The card has a RJ 10baseT adaptor which is easier than having to use a AUI/10baseT adaptor.

You might have to secure yourself a network hub that do not auto-detect the link speed.

If you can make the hard-drive and network card to work, you'll have an easy system to use.

2012, November 3 - 3:56pm

#4

dougal

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Joined: 2011 May 20

Thanks for the info peeps... Great it has a network card. I can use that to get stuff easily onto it. I also have an original apple scsi cdrom drive that had come with my now dead LCIII.

2012, November 3 - 5:15pm

#5

24bit

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Joined: 2010 Nov 19

About the SE´s ethernet - you could also use the BNC if you can still find another matching BNC card for you PC. In that case "only" a BNC cable, two T-adapters and two termination resistors would be needed.
I have to admit, I dumped lots of BNC stuff decades ago, but there is something in my crap box still.

2012, November 3 - 7:31pm

#6

bertyboy's picture

bertyboy

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Joined: 2009 Jun 14

Congrats on an excellent purchase. Especially with the Ethernet card. I looked for one of those cards for my SE FD/HD before I left the UK, the only one I saw on eBay went for £125. Then I came to NZ and got three in 4 boxes of bits with 7 Macs and 2 printers for £8 equivalent.

2012, November 4 - 6:52am

#7

dougal

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Joined: 2011 May 20

I will obviously be opening the Macintosh when it arrives, at least to check the state of the battery.

I was seeing on the service manual a bunch of warnings to discharge the CRT. Is this necessary to work on just the logicboard ?

If so any tips ? I'm handy with opening computers etc.. but never really worked with or near CRT displays.

2012, November 4 - 10:57pm

(Reply to #7) #8

MikeTomTom's picture

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

As the internals of the SE are so tightly compact, it probably is a good safety measure to discharge the CRT, if only to avoid accidental death, really. And it only takes a second to perform.

An excellent page here on taking apart & trouble shooting an SE/30 - much of which is relevant to other compact Macs such as your SE. It has a very good illustrated section on how to discharge the CRT properly and how to make a CRT discharge tool yourself cheaply (and easily) using alligator clips and a screwdriver.