Thread
II SI?
Hey guys, is it worth grabbing a free Macintosh II SI? It has a 12" apple RGB monitor to go with it and little to no yellowing. Not sure of specs since I did not have ADB KB/M with me to try it.
Hell yeah.
The IIsi is my favorite of the Mac II line, I really like the styling of it.
The IIsi is my favorite of the Mac II line, I really like the styling of it.
Now to figure how to get both things home a bicycle.....
It's worth it for the 12" monitor alone. Best Apple monitor for the 68Ks, especially the IIsi and LCs.
I got a apple display cable to VGA so I could use it with my G4. 
I have a IIsi and I like it, but you can tell Apple crippled it because of little expansion choices.
I loved mine, I got 8 working on it... didn't run too fast, but it was cool
isn't like one nubus or something?
There is a Nubus expander card which gives the IIsi two Nubus slots.
I like my IIsi - loved the styling and it can run System 6!
two? i doubt it. my IIsi has a riser card with an FPU and a single nubus slot, and iirc the back of the machine only has one slot anyways.
IIRC, it plugs into the single Nubus slot and is basically a Nubus card with two Nubus slots.
Definitely worth grabbing that IIsi! Any old Mac like that should be saved in my opinion.
That's nothing, I know a guy who managed to transport a Superbrain home on his bicycle. Just take plenty of bungees and make sure the base unit and monitor are well fastened to the luggage rack / panniers.
The IIsi has ZERO Nubus slots built in. all it has is an 030 PDS like the SE/30. The adapter card converts the PDS to ONE Nubus slot, not two. How do you think you're going to mount two Nubus cards in a IIsi case?
the two nubus slot adapter sounds suspect to me 
of what use would be a nubus card where you cant access teh back panel...
the adapters with two slots are either dual PDS adapters so you can plug in two PDS cards (one accelerator and a nic for example) or they are nubus+pds adapters.
of what use would be a nubus card where you cant access teh back panel...
the adapters with two slots are either dual PDS adapters so you can plug in two PDS cards (one accelerator and a nic for example) or they are nubus+pds adapters.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-820-0305-01-Mac-IIsi-NuBus-Adapter-Card_W0QQitemZ170200781142
here is the PDS to Nubus adapter for the IIsi
here is the PDS to Nubus adapter for the IIsi
I mistook the PDS slot as a Nubus slot... 
I'd grab it.
As for NuBus slots, even if you could somehow get 2 NuBus cards into a IIsi, I still wouldn't - even when the IIsi was new, it had a reputation for having a, well, under-endowed power supply.
As for NuBus slots, even if you could somehow get 2 NuBus cards into a IIsi, I still wouldn't - even when the IIsi was new, it had a reputation for having a, well, under-endowed power supply.
Well, I can get over there on tuesday, and I will have a friend and a "general lee" also known as Honda Civic.
Yeah, except that one is missing the metal frame. Unless my memory is really out of whack, the PDS to NuBus adapter for the IIsi has a metal frame to help support it.
A few other thoughts. As is commonly known, the oscillator on the IIsi can be replaced and the machine clocked up to at least 25 MHz. Some have taken it to 27 or 28 MHz. A few MHz may not sound like much, but at those overall speeds, each MHz is a substantial percentage of the total.
The NuBus adapter could probably support multiple slots, but it would require major modifications. Once you have the NuBus circuitry at all, most of the work is done. The modifications would be to actually get the additional connectors wired to the board, and to wire the slot ID pins properly, adn finally to identify some additional unique interrupt lines to connect the slots' interrupt to--one interrupt per slot. I imagine the chipset has the interrupts available on some of the pins, since the chips are probably the same or very similar to those used in the IIci.
It would be interesting to try wiring larger memory capacity into the built-in 1 MB bank of memory. Again, given the simiilarities to the IIci, it should be able to take 64 MB in that bank.
But then, once you've gone to all the trouble above, you'd just have a IIci, so really, I guess it's kind of silly.
The NuBus adapter could probably support multiple slots, but it would require major modifications. Once you have the NuBus circuitry at all, most of the work is done. The modifications would be to actually get the additional connectors wired to the board, and to wire the slot ID pins properly, adn finally to identify some additional unique interrupt lines to connect the slots' interrupt to--one interrupt per slot. I imagine the chipset has the interrupts available on some of the pins, since the chips are probably the same or very similar to those used in the IIci.
It would be interesting to try wiring larger memory capacity into the built-in 1 MB bank of memory. Again, given the simiilarities to the IIci, it should be able to take 64 MB in that bank.
But then, once you've gone to all the trouble above, you'd just have a IIci, so really, I guess it's kind of silly.
And at the end of the day, I'd still be afraid of killing that little PSU, like I said, even back in the day those little PSUs weren't known to be the best. You'd need an extra auxiliary power supply for sure.
IIsis are nice machines; it was actually my first 68K Mac. If you install the RAM Muncher INIT and keep an eye on your extensions, the performance isn't too bad. I haven't used mine much since I got my Quadra, but they're not bad at all, especially for free. The floppy port is a nice bonus, too.
If you set your disk cache to over 1 MB the iisi gets a speed boost, since the 1 MB built in ram is then used as VRAM, since you're pushing the VRAM data into the 1 MB of onboard memory, and this has a latch that the RBV chip can use to access that ram separately.
Well, that is indeed interesting }
I've got a 2-NuBus dealie in one of my IIsis. It came with a fairly expansive SuperMac video setup. The two cards fit because they partially overlap, with the (custom-made) bottom card's port protruding through the top card's back slot cover.
I doubt it would be easy to install two normal NuBus cards in the thing, unless the bottom card didn't need external connectivity.
I doubt it would be easy to install two normal NuBus cards in the thing, unless the bottom card didn't need external connectivity.
Are you sure they are actually two separate Nubus cards, rather than one Nubus card and a rather large daughtercard?