The Tip that just keeps on giving...

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2014, February 25 - 12:26am

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

The Tip that just keeps on giving...

Got an LC630 two days ago. It has 36 (?) MB RAM (4MB built-in?) and has 7.5.1 installed.

It is missing the plastic back cover, and is quite dirty. I wasn't fast enough to pick up the matching monitor and 200MB Syquest drive the week before (I should have though). Thanks to another member of the Garden, I had an ADB keyboard/mouse, and I still had my Mac->PC VGA convertor. Currently running at 640x480, but should run at 1024x768@256 colours. Dunno if I am going to keep this, just wanted to have a look. The power supply sounds like it is going to explode (NOISY!).

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2014, February 26 - 6:19pm

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

A very popular model back when new. I had one, it was a DOS compatible model with a 486 dx2 chip included. Also very easy to upgrade, with that slide-out mobo tray. The PSU shouldn't be too loud tho' so I guess its on the way out.

You really are very lucky with your finds, tmm

2014, February 26 - 9:47pm

max1zzz

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Joined: 2010 Oct 3

Damn your lucky with those finds

The LC630 in a nice machine, The one thing i would like to get for mine is the dos card (although i'll probably never find one)

What do you mean by loud with the PSU?, mine makes a weird buzzing noise when plugged in which goes away within 5 mins of powerup

I'm betting a recap + clean will sort it out

2014, February 28 - 5:14am

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

@mtt - I had the 630/Dos-Compatible as well

The power supply is the noisiest I have ever heard. Just the fan noise. May be too much dirt in there.

Don't know if I am going to fix this up. If the hard drive is an IDE, I may just attempt a fix-up (I still have my G3 and G4 iMacs). This was more of a "test" to see if it worked or not. I remember running HD Toolkit PE, and it showed no SCSI drives, so it MIGHT JUST BE an IDE/ATA hard drive. Can I improve on 36MB RAM tho? It only appears to have ONE RAM SLOT?

2014, February 28 - 7:35am

(Reply to #4) #5

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Its an IDE drive, tmm. No to the RAM upgrade tho', with only 1 slot it appears that 36 MB is maxed out. RAM Doubler would be useful here. 630 boards had either 1 or 2 slots for RAM, looks like you got the single slot board

Check the CPU, these were often upgraded from 68LC040 to 68040.

A good clean inside & out might improve that noise issue.

Its good to have an old Mac like this, if only for the full floppy disk access - esp. for imaging to Disk Copy 4.2 .image & uploading to the Garden

2014, February 28 - 10:49pm

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

@mtt, you are ON THE MONEY as usual!

Full FPU 68040 as you suggested.

IDE lets me (hopefully) put an 80GB drive in there (not the smallest I have, but the other one is from an XBOX, and is probably only 10GB). Don't quite know what I would do with 80GB, but it is S-O-O-O much better than the existing 500MB drive (WTF?). I will try and find a method to install 7.5.x -- did this even exist on CD?

I'm dying to play Sky Shadow at full speed once more

I may have to create floppies for the entire 7.5 install, do you remember how MANY there were? I have about 10 to 15 spare floppies.

Concentrating on my new Core-2-Quad Q9300 HP DC7800 at the moment. Whacked a new Radeon HD 5450 1GB graphics card in the PCIe slot, and it is running ever-so-sweetly. Also runs Mavericks quite nicely

2014, March 1 - 8:50am

(Reply to #6) #7

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

80 GBs! That should see it out for a while

There is a straight 7.5 floppy install here at the Garden - there are others too, but whether they're still available (lots of mediafire links), I dunno. This 7.5 is the top DL on the page (15.88 MB).
Its a bit odd, in that its a .ZIP archive which then unzips to a .RAR archive, which in turn UNRARs to a bunch of .BIN files containing a mix of Disk Copy 6.x & Disk Dup+ disk images. Phew. They're in good shape tho' if you get that far. - Best unzipped and unrar'd on a PC, before handling the bins and images on a classic system.

Also, mrdav put up the original 630 CD which has SSW 7.1.2 on it plus all of the bundled items (ClarisWorks, Spectre Challenger, Mavis Beacon 2.0 etc). Well worth a look if you'd like to see the original OS release for this Mac up and running. A bootable CD to install from is a plus, too. Its the top DL on the page (23.56 MB).

The official & free full Mac OS 7.5.3 release was kept at Apple ftp for years but now are only mirrored in a few locations, nearby are the free 7.5.5 updaters.

Anyhow, any of the above should be enough to get you up and going with the 630. Cheers.

2014, March 2 - 8:11am

(Reply to #7) #8

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

Got all of em, thanks again. Wondering what the maximum res is (PC style). It is currently 640x480xThousands, thinking I might be able to set it to 1024x768@256 colours.??

(need to set the 6 dipswitches on the adaptor box FIRST!)

I think I'll drop in a fresh 80GB IDE drive tonight and try the CD install.

I will need to go through my backups for International English versions (Z?) of 7.5.3/7.5.5

We'll see.

2014, March 2 - 6:15pm

(Reply to #12) #9

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

I will need to go through my backups for International English versions (Z?) of 7.5.3/7.5.5

tmm, just use the US 7.5.3/7.5.5 installers, they're almost 100% identical to Aus Z releases. The only possible difference I can think of is in the default Date & Time Control Panel settings, which you can change to suit, anyhow.

[Edit] The Printer default settings too, US is set to Letter size, an easy fix by holding the Option key down when confirming your own (generally for us, A4).

2014, March 4 - 8:16pm

(Reply to #12) #10

MikeTomTom

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I will need to go through my backups for International English versions (Z?) of 7.5.3/7.5.5

@tmm: I've located the international English 7.5.3 install set & the International 7.5.5 update files (for several languages, including "Z" international English). Located at an excellent mirror of the old Apple FTP site, too. The most comprehensive collection I've seen since Apple ditched their resource.

2014, March 1 - 11:28am

#11

mrdav

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Joined: 2011 Dec 3

There is also my D/L for LC/Quadra 630 Mac OS 7.5 Install CD (72.60 MB). Scroll down the page to find it.

2014, March 1 - 9:20pm

(Reply to #8) #12

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

@mrdav: I didn't see this 630 addition to the 7.5 page before. Thanks! Is RS OK now? I didn't hit those issues with DL'ing this that folks were complaining about a month or so back. Slow-ish DL but not too unbearable.

2014, March 1 - 11:09pm

(Reply to #10) #13

mrdav

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Joined: 2011 Dec 3

@mtt My RS account has now reverted to the free version. That 7.5 CD is about the only file left on RS. It is OK to D/L as it is small enough to avoid RS restrictions

2014, March 1 - 8:41pm

#14

24bit

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Joined: 2010 Nov 19

I think I stored a copy of the 7.5CD. (Not sure whether it was bootable.)
Just let me know in case you need it, TMM.

2014, March 2 - 8:02am

#15

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

There seems to be more downloads of Apple I and Apple II software on the internet than Sys7.5.5 updates

2014, March 2 - 8:09am

#16

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

PS. Cyberduck is AWESOME software!!!

2014, March 2 - 8:46am

#17

mrdav

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Joined: 2011 Dec 3

@tmm "Z" means it is localised for Australia

2014, March 2 - 10:01am

#18

24bit

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Joined: 2010 Nov 19

Just to confirm, the CD "MacOS_7.5_691-0246-A.iso" is not bootable.
Comes with Datawiz, Powertalk, eWorld and QuickDraw GX Extras though.

2014, March 3 - 5:43am

#19

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

Yeah I'm in Australia

Never knew about the option-select A4 default thing. Tell me more plz.!!

2014, March 3 - 7:09pm

(Reply to #18) #20

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

What I meant by printer defaults is "LaserWriter 8" printer defaults. I can't vouch for the other Apple print drivers (never used them).

2014, March 4 - 1:28am

#21

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

In OS9 I will always use AdobePS, but under Sys7.x I'll try this trick with Apple's driver.

2014, March 4 - 8:24am

#22

macjames

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Joined: 2013 Apr 14

I am under the impression that Z just means international english, and it's not just an australian thing.

2014, March 4 - 11:16am

#23

mrdav

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Joined: 2011 Dec 3

You are right macjames. I found a reference to Z meaning International english on this Apple support page. I never realised this before

2014, March 5 - 1:28am

#24

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

@MTT - I have never seen the ZM (multi-country) prefix before. (Z) I have seen HEAPS AND HEAPS!!

Yeah, Apple could have kept a perfect historical archive of their software. BUT DIDN'T

2014, March 5 - 2:55am

(Reply to #24) #25

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

Here's a list of the 7.5.3 language versions the ZM 7.5.5 install set updates. I spotted this on the US 7.5.3 page:

Version 7.5.3 of MacOS is required to install ZM-SSW
7.5.5. ZM-SSW 7.5.5 Update supports the following
localized versions of MacOS:

Spanish

Danish

Swedish

German (including Swiss-German)

Dutch

English (British, US, and International)

Norwegian

Catalan

Polish

Italian

Croatian

Finnish

French (including Swiss-French and French-Canadian)

Ukranian

Hungarian

Turkish

Bulgarian

Korean

Portuguese

Romanian

Chinese (Simplified and Traditional)

2014, March 6 - 2:40am

#26

themacmeister

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Joined: 2009 Oct 26

Yup, I would call that multi-language