Thread

Alaska's Collection

Alaska's Collection Hardware 37 posts Jul 22, 2015 — Jan 11, 2017

#1 Wed, 22 Jul 2015 - 04:57

Hello All,

I have finally decided to start a thread... I'm going to start with recently acquired Macintosh II:

I got it on ebay for 10 + 30 shipping. Unfortunately, it had dead batteries so it wouldn't turn on... I went ahead and retrofitted battery holders in this guy:

FYI: The battery holders don't fit into the holes and are too wide next to each other. I was able to make one battery hold fit into the holes by bending out the leads, the other I ended up attaching to the board with silicone rtv and used 24 gauge wire. What the red stuff you might ask? It's insulating varnish:

Yep, I put some under these holders to protect the board in the event of battery leakage... The official retrofit board had a 1000uf 10v Capacitor and I'm not quite sure what it's for but I did add it in...

#2 Wed, 22 Jul 2015 - 05:17

Unfortunately,this one did not come with the FDHD kit

so I'm sorta making my own kit. The roms are for the MAC II FDHD/IIx/IIcx are the same so I put up a request for a dead IIcx board. I'm sure you could make them on your own with the right gear or maybe ask Rob Braun or BMOW. Next was the SWIM, the Mac II/IIx has a tiny PLCC-28 IWM that is only shared with the IIGS as far as I know. Mac Classics/SE30/IICX/ETC have a larger PLCC-44 SWIM that simply will not fit... I did some research and discovered that the DIP-28 Mac SE Swim actually has the same pinout as the Mac II IWM so I made an adapter:

Unfortunately, all I had on hand was a 40 pin dip socket but the Swim seems to work perfectly... I'm waiting on a new video card because the original Macintosh II video card only outputs composite sync for the original NTSC monitor... I barely see it it but with the floppy emu I can make it boot 7.0... More to come...

#3 Wed, 22 Jul 2015 - 18:38

Wow! Very cool! I'm loving this thread so far, can't wait to see more

#4 Fri, 24 Jul 2015 - 21:17

So I ordered a video card off ebay an it turned out to be a dud

I powered on the MAC II and this is what I got:

YUCK! nice and gooey! I suspected that my attention should go towards this guy:

After cleaning, re-flowing, and checking continuity I got it a little better:

I suspect that multiplexer may be bad but in the mean time I have another nubus card on order. It did work well enough that I was able to verify that my SWIM modification worked perfectly. I also tested the 5.25 40mb hard drive and found an old copy of 7.0 on it:

More to come...

#5 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 - 03:09

Well, the other day I got the damaged IICX logic board so I used my hot air station to remove all 4 roms and popped them into my Macintosh II (IICX/FDHD MAC II have the same roms). I plugged in my Floppy EMU and was able to verify the 1.44 mb disks worked! I went ahead and installed system 6.0.8, I've actually never seen system 6 in color since there are just a few models that support 6 which can output color:

I'm also impressed that after all this time this 40mb 5.25 hard disk still works:

One more thing: I have decided to design a pcb to convert the PLCC-28 socket over to DIP28. What I have with the wires works (of course) but it kinda looks messy and I have 1 more MAC II coming my way so I'm doing a run of 3 of each:

View attachment 7102

View attachment 7103

This adapter doesn't convert the socket itself, it converts the footprint so you'd still have to de-solder the plcc-28 socket...

#6 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 - 21:47

Wow... I wish I understood that stuff. I've always been a design guy, but I also have an interest in how these things work.

#7 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 - 22:00

Hotdog Zanzibar said:
Wow... I wish I understood that stuff. I've always been a design guy, but I also have an interest in how these things work.

Most of the time I see these things and I'm like..."I can make a bootable floppy! That's cool...right?"

#8 Wed, 29 Jul 2015 - 05:30

I'm happy when I can swap parts and everything still works.

#9 Tue, 1 Sep 2015 - 04:02

Sorry for taking so long to make a new post, I have built and installed the new adapter and it works beautifully:

View attachment 7258

This concludes my Mac II project for now...

#10 Tue, 1 Sep 2015 - 04:14

Up next, What could this be?

It's an original Macintosh in near mint condition and all original. I got it with the case for the price of free

His serial number is F4424ML0001 which means he's the 5358th manufactured during the 42d week of 1984 in Fremont, CA.

I took him out and tested him only to find the floppy drive is stuck in the down position

This part was sticking, I took the mechanism off the rest and cleaned off the old grease and it works now thankfully.

#11 Tue, 1 Sep 2015 - 05:13

How did you manage to get that for free? That's amazing.

#12 Tue, 1 Sep 2015 - 05:24

A whole bunch of stuff I got from an old man trying to clean his basement...

#13 Tue, 1 Sep 2015 - 15:25

hey alaska - good stuff.

first time i tried to fix one of thoes floppy drives it took me for ever to figure out what was wrong. Was the same problem you had there. That dam little swing arm. Took a pliars and a good bit to force to move it then paitence and wd40

-

almost every other 400k floppy i have got my hands had the same problem.

-

worth the effort when the test floppy finally seats into position and the mechanisim is all clicking together correctly.

-

free 128!!!......way to go man!!

#14 Thu, 19 Nov 2015 - 04:46

I can't really say I have much to report, I just finished moving and decided to recap my two IIFXs today. I did find it interesting that while one logic board had many surface mount electrolytics the other only had 2:

They did have the same part number

I also decided that the best way to store my working compact macs would be to put them on a metal shelf in the living room for all to see:

#15 Thu, 19 Nov 2015 - 18:08

Kitty!

#16 Thu, 19 Nov 2015 - 23:31

Nice!! I love to see old Macs out on display, and kitties are always a bonus.

I need to get my Mac IIfx out of the basement. It's been languishing too long.