@@Mac84 I think the iBook is a great inexpensive PowerPC machine for someone getting into vintage Macs. I think I like my G3 iBook more than my G4 PowerBook!
For each era I go like this. Sys 1-6; Mac Plus or SE, maybe a Mac II if cheap. Sys 7: PowerBook 500 series or Performa 600 series (just because IDE drives are cheap) Sys 8: 603 based Power Mac, gen1 G3 tower or rev B/C iMac. Sys 9: PowerBook Wallstreet or graphite G4 tower OS X: PowerBook G4 or iMac G5
Macintosh IIci is my favorite small formfactor desktop. 3x NuBUS slots + the standard PDS slot that nearly all the II-era accelerators were based off. So no need for adapters to upgrade to a 68040. Coupled with relatively cheap 30-pin SIMMs for up to 128MBs of RAM, it's a great little machine for anything from System 6 to 7.6. It also has an external floppy drive port.
imac g4 is also pretty good for os 9 most if not all g4s can run os 9, but the later ones need a litle bit of tinkering to get it to boot the installer, but there are premade install isos (one of which I used, even on a USB flash drive through some open firmware tricks)
I had an original 128k Mac in 1984, paid a fair chunk of money to upgrade to 512k unofficially (take out the circuit board, remove old RAM and install new one). Had a IIsi and later got a cheap PowerPC through the upgrade path. I gave up for a while as Mac had its incompatible to everything else design. Played with Hackintosh for years. Now finally bought a M2 Mini pro.
Answer: a se/30 or a iici. Best of both worlds. My iici has 64 megs of parity ram, 4mb video ram with a 3D (40,000 triangles) video card. Break out bus card, 2 scsi hdds, 4x cdrom. It is a beast! System 6/7 and mac unix!
I own a PowerBook 540c with the PowerPC upgrade. It also has a Korean keyboard. Very nice machine and has better quality plastics than other models. I’m going to review it soon.
@@Mac84 I don’t normally review Apple products on my channel as I’m more of an x86 guy, but I got new reviews coming of my iBook G3 (clamshell), iBook G4, the aforementioned PowerBook 540c KDM, and my 2006 iMac Core 2 Duo.
I'd always recommend any of the 2001-2002 iBook G3s. They offer excellent Mac OS 9.2 compatibility and easily support up to 10.4. With a little hacking, they can also boot from USB and support built-in wireless networking. They also use a reasonably capable ATI graphics chipset, so vintage gaming is amazing on these machines.
I've been working on a lot of vintage Macs lately, and it pains me to say that they really were not built to last. Some models have plastics that weakened to the point where they will break just being handled. To that end, I personally recommend Macs that have metal cases, like the Performa 600 and similar form factors. The Quadra 630 form factors are good choices too. Although they have plastics that brittle over time, the chassis underneath them is steel. They're fairly cheap, and you can get one that sports a PowerPC processor, like the 6200. I thoroughly agree that the Mac SE is the most reliable of the B&W Macs, and fortunately, it's still the cheapest. Unlike the SE/30, it doesn't use those surface mount electrolytic caps that ALWAYS leak, and you still have a good chance of finding one in working order. Unlike the B&W Macs that came before it, the SE supports an internal hard drive, and it has a cooling fan--very important, given the OG Macs tended to cook themselves to death. Thing is, this is not a hobby for the faint-hearted. There's no getting around the fact that these machines are 30 or even 40 years old now, and they were built down to a cost. Most of us don't even have cars that old. There are also dangerous voltages inside them, especially Macs equipped with CRT displays, and you do not want to dork with them if you don't know what you're doing.
I have 3 vintage Macs: Performa 6300CD 100mhz (OS 7.6.1, 9.1), Blue and White G3 450mhz (OS 9.2.2, 10.4.11), Quicksilver 2002 dual 1ghz G4 (OS 9.2.2, 10.5.8). These were all purchased new at the time so no hunting around for them. Zip 100 is the common format used to transfer between them. All 3 are internet capable. The CD and floppy drives in the 6300 have been acting up lately... may have to move all vintage gaming that requires a CD to the G3 if it gets any slower reading disks. Descent, X Wing and Tie Fighter never get old! The ADB CH Flightstick Pro works so well I bought the USB version! I do have an Apple Multiple Scan 15" display that came with the 6300 but...... the picture tends to randomly "fade out" to black when in use. When I slap the side the screen flickers white. Seems to work for a little bit after it sits off for a few hours. Not sure what to do with it. Don't want it sitting in a landfill. It's fairly yellow too. Maybe Mac84 wants to add it to his collection of printers?? Don't have the original power cable since a guinea pig chewed it and... failed at life.
This video was insanely helpful for longtime PC users such as myself. I've been interested in early Macs ever since I found a "hypercard zine" (that's also how I learned about emulation!) but what really got me interested in owning one was... ...well, this is silly, but I somehow landed on a "Mac Crash Noises" video and something about those old death chimes made me stop and really look at these machines and the systems they run. I guess there's something about Apple. Style, character... and proprietary connections ;P Anyway, great video. I'm going to check for that Powerbook video (if you've already made it)
You are very welcome, I am very glad it was useful for you. I haven’t made the PowerBook video yet but I hope to soon. If there is anything specific you’d like it to cover, or you have a question you’d like answered, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks! 👍
The First pre Intel Mac I bought(also my second Mac I bought) was a 550mhz Titanium PowerBook G4 in pretty nice shape. It's a great starter classic Mac and can even run macOS 10.4 decently(though I'd probably recommend at least an 867mhz to get the 7500 or 9000 graphics to run macOS 10 smoother)
Excellent video Steve!! The info for new vintage Mac collectors, the new background, cool b-roll.. this video had everything!!! P.S Congrats on 7000, FIRE UP THE IMAGE WRITER we need to see that new banner 😀
Thank you!! I’m very pleased so far with everything I’ve set up (although I have some tweaks to make). I’m very excited for things to come - and yes, we’ll be printing out a banner soon! 🤓
Great stuff! I no longer have any 68000 or G3/G4/G5 Macs, but I sort of wish I did... though honestly, I struggle to think of any software I need to run on them. It's just that I loved these things so much.
im subbing to your channel, this 2021 i finally decided to collect my childhood computers as i sold or mishandled them years back. now that im a bscoe graduate i want to collect them for life. ebay for me is the last resort because importing is a risk and expensive, in my country those macs are getting rarer and rarer by the day so good thing im starting to collect them before they become e-waste or crushed somewhere in a landfill. I also want to contribute to the Macintosh depository with some vintage mac software i had on original floppies because some of them aren't even uploaded yet. might also do a vlog when i eventually buy macs, for me it's both a patience game if one is for sale locally and a rush to save them before they get destroyed
Thank you! Yes, it’s always nice to save these machines from a scrap pile… and archiving the old software is very important. I’ve uploaded countless things to MacintoshGarden.org and love that more and more people are doing the same. 👍
I have a Macintosh SE FDHD I just bought it from offer up a couple weeks ago and surprisingly the original HDD still works though it is quite loud I’m going to do a review on it sometime
Great video Steve :) it’s been a few years since I could collect any vintage Mac. My oldest systems are Mac Plus, Mystic Color Classic & my Power Mac 8500. Mostly I get a fix when I go over to John’s Mac addict barn. Have you ever made it down here to North West Florida where James & John and myself live? Cheers in a great channel.
My first Mac was an SE ... 68030 to be more exact ... and it was kind of an antique when I bought it. Prior to the Mac, I was an Amiga guy. My stepmother as a school teacher, teaching students on the Apple IIc ... actually wrote, and published a book for the Apple IIc, (and my father illustrated it.) Unfortunately the book got published about the time that the Mac SE came out, and so the book didn't do very well. My collection starts with the 68030 SE, and up through a G5, and a couple Power Macs ... (of course OS's no longer supported by apple) so I have had to upgrade ... 71yo .. retired, on a fixed income I'm down to Mac Mini. currently a 2012 running Mojave ... with a fast enough processor 2.6 i7, and 16gb ram ... that it will keep me on the internet a little while longer before I have to move to another mini.
Thank You Steve. I am not sure how I found you but I am glad I did. Collecting and playing with old Apple stuff has been a great adventure for the last 3 years. I learn a lot from you and the multiple sites. I will certainly look at supporting your efforts. You have a talent for explaining things well to the layman and yet bringing us deep into the secret tech caves. Good on you!!!
I had an ADD-ON CARD! I had a PowerMac that could boot up from a pentium, and you’d just press COMMAND RETURN to toggle between each OS.. It was pretty neat.
Great vid. Love my Mac Classic. Yep, it is slower, running at the same basic speed as the original Mac, but that's one of the things I like about it. ;-) It's also the only Mac with copy of the OS in ROM. Yes, it's an older one (6.0.3????) but great for testing if your hard drive and floppy aren't working. It also has the SuperDrive, so it can use 1.44M floppy disks and that makes transferring files to it much easier. It does need to be/have been recapped (and probably have the motherboard cleaned), as it has those early 90's surface mount caps, and you'll want to watch for battery damage. The other thing to watch out for is the memory card. It was sold with only 1M RAM, which was all on board. It supports 4M, but that requires the expansion card. If your Classic doesn't have that card, it is virtually impossible to get that card separately. If it comes with 2M, then it has that card and just needs some SIMMS to get to 4M. You're not going to (easily) get it networked (no expansion slot), so that means the floppy is the way to transfer files. Still, it was the first Mac that sold for under $1000 and has that original classic Mac feel.
The cheapest way to find old Macs is to ask your relatives and friends. Lot of people have old Macs sitting in attics. My father had a 1Ghz eMac, not as old as the one's you're talking about, but it I was able to get MacOS9.2.2, which gives me most of that 'old mac feel.' Also dual boots to Leopard, which doesn't quite work on the web, but almost does.
I think there’s an artist run gallery in Newfoundland still using the first apple donated to them to print labels. Or at least it was still there when I played with it in 1994.🍎
very well done explainer video, i followed along and agreed with all your suggestions and comments. i have been a mac user for a long time and have collected mostly powerbooks. the only mac i don’t have still that we once owned is the Mac Classic with 2Mb of RAM, and my Quicksilver tower that died completely. The PowerBooks are a mixed bag of working and not working, but only one has stopped working for me. thanks for the great video, i hope to be able to share it with someone who needs it one day, for me it was a lovely trip down memory lane :)
With regards to LCD's, what about using something like the RGB2HDMI and a modern LCD? Would need some custom adapters made up to interface with the internal display cable, or if the laptop has video out capability, route the cable from the outside to the inside into the RGB2HDMI or tap into it internally (messy, but would be a last-ditch effort to salvage these machines.) Mounting would also be an issue as it's unlikely to find a modern (or even semi-modern) display with the same mount points, but again, maybe adapters can be made. Might not work for every Mac laptop, but maybe some could be saved. Another TH-cam channel did something similar with an older PC laptop/portable, an Amstrad I believe. Granted early PC laptops were bulky, and thus had plenty of space inside to do this. But this TH-camr was able to find a modern LCD display that fit, and there was enough room to tap into the CGA out and run it internally to the RGB2HDMI. And since this mod replaced the old green LCD with a color one, this allowed for color CGA graphics. I don't want say which channel in the event that's not cool with Steve, but if it is I'll reply to this comment with a link to the video so you can get an idea of what I mean. Plus we know from yet another TH-camr that at the very least Classic Mac's can interface with the RGB2HDMI to output video to an external display, so it's possible this could work here too. Again, if cool I'll reply with a link to it, though most of you probably already know who and what I'm talking about.
yeah, the retro geniuses out there need to be thinking about this - those old LCD displays are diminishing over time just as CRTs and spinning harddisk and floppies will eventually go caput
I just bought a $20k video card for $200 in the mid 2000s. It had dual vga out, 3d, 4 megs of ram....the ram was a pain to source as it is low latency iifx memory.
I have quite an interesting collection of Apple computers and devices. Apple IIe Macintosh portable (non backlit) PowerBook 520 PowerBook 540c (with official Apple PPC upgrade) PowerBook G3 Lombard and wallstreet iBook G3 snow iMac G5 iMac core 2 duo Every generation of iPod nano/mini/touch iPhone 2G 3G 5s and also my main phone 16th max And my main laptop a M3 max MacBook Pro 16” Edit: Also have every generation of iPod shuffle and the 2nd and 3rd gen iPod classic
about ten years ago, I had this Performa 550... The CD didn't work, nor the HDD, but the floppy did. I thought it was a lost cause. I put it out at roadside after a while of trying to make it useful... Never once thought to try an SD card solution or SSD... I still kick myself every time i think about it.
I'm assuming you meant having someone recap the logic board of a classic not just recapping it yourself. I just ordered a set of caps for 9$... lol I will say though thank god for Adrian's Digital Basement because I was previously too afraid to tackle this project and have personally sadly thrown a few classics back into the scrap bin when I found out they didn't work in the past. Going to attempt it for the first time soon and hopefully get this Classic II up and going!
As I often say in my repair live streams, I fully encourage people to repair their own systems if they are comfortable with doing it themselves. Good luck getting your Classic II working!
I got a macintosh classic and it looks great but its crashed recently and ive gotta check the logic board for leaked caps, if its not that the hard drive is dead
It's a real pity that the SE/30 is particularly susceptible to the Bad Capacitor Plague, as it is my favorite of the classic Macs and the one I lusted after back in the day. I was lucky enough to acquire one a number of years ago at a local university's surplus equipment sale for next to nothing (this way way before the days that retro was popular with the cool kids, otherwise I'm sure they would have charged an arm and a leg for it!) but alas it is in need of work, and my soldering skills, uh, let's just say that they leave much to be desired. :-(
I am considering a Macintosh (original, se, classic, or color) that has been re-capped with tantalum capacitors as an educational tool for my pre-schooler. My rationale is that these models have the “Autostart” feature, so he can eventually learn to stick in a 3.5” disk and power on the computer to play Reader Rabbit or Oregon Trail. I find the iPad games marketed for his age to be distracting due to too many in-game options or overly complex UI. Does this sound like a bad idea?
Hi, I have watched a lot of your video's on Macs and was wondering if you are familiar with the 4000, 5000, 6000 series of macs that have bus speeds of 40mhz, when the CPU speeds are 75 to 300mhz. Are oscillators what is keeping these macs at 40mhz? If so can the oscillator be changed to speed things up. I read that the 6360 is the first mac to have a better board with better memory that did not limit the computer. However, the bus speed is till 40mhz. I appreciate any information you might have on this situation.
I enjoy vintage computers and found this video very interesting. I do not currently have a vintage Mac although that may change so I am looking forward to parts 2, 3, etc. of this series. Are they in the works or have you already released them under a different name?
Great content! I guess the Mac SE I bought was not a bad choice for $25 CAD... I just need to repair it now. Is there schematics easily obtainable for these machines? Recapping is easy, but troubleshooting ... sometime not so much. I get the big checkboard screen on bootup which might be fix by recapping only, but it might also be something else.
Thanks! Sounds like a good deal on the SE! Send me a service message on my website (www.Mac84.net/services) - I’ll reply to you with some resources that I’ve found that are helpful.
nice video! be careful about recommending S-Video cables to replace ADB ones. many cheaper cables have the bottom two pins (which are ground in S-Video's pinout) shorted together, and to the sheath. this is not good for old macs.
Yes, I should have emphasized "the pinout should be the same" more when I spoke. But this is correct, thankfully most well-known cable makers don't take this shortcut. I looked through my collection for a badly made cable to use as an example, but I haven't found one yet. When I go more in-depth about input devices in another part, I will mention this as something to be aware of. When in doubt, use a mulitmeter! :-)
I’m about to buy my first in years, and I’m going to get the quicksilver and find the dual cpu upgrade card hopefully. Id like to run adele linux and use it as my everyday pc. Anyone think There’s a better choice for me? I’m looking for the oldest possible every day driver with big upgrades
Keep in mind CPU upgrades are hard to find for vintage Macs and often expensive ($300+) and may not be supported by non-Mac OS systems. Heck, even the way Mac OS originally utilized dual CPUs wasn’t even distributed across all apps and features. Linux isn’t a magic cure for old hardware, even with CPU upgrades. The system bus and I/O limitations can be big barriers. There may also also be sound and graphic acceleration hurdles to overcome. It’s fun to run this stuff and tinker for sure, and I encourage that, but for a multitude of reasons I’d never use 20 year old hardware as a daily driver. For unique apps and functions? Sure. But not everything. From the power supply to the processor, these systems are all on borrowed time. If you really want to play with a dual processor PPC Mac, get a G4 or G5 with them and skip the upgrade cards. You’ll get a faster system bus and memory too. Or even play with the dual Xeon Intel Mac Pros, they are SUPER cheap these days but can keep up with modem demands quite well.
I just recently got a PowerBook G3 Pismo It came with everything like the original charger and it was in pretty good condition but after once I got it to my doorstep after trying to install 10.4 tiger on it the hard drive died and almost caught on fire and then I had to replace the ribbon cable and replaced it with a M.2 to SSD and I happen to turned out that the SSD bought was too big So the kernel keeps crashing and can’t progress anything until I unplug it got any advice
Sadly there is barely any Classic Mac around here locally. Once in a blue moon there's one and most of the times people know its rare and want lots of €.
Thank you for the helpful video. Very insightful, and helpful. I recently acquired a Macintosh Plus. I am looking to write floppy disks for games from Macintosh Repository Website. Based on my research, a simple USB floppy won't format the disk correctly for the Plus. From my understanding, I need to get a floppy ush, download the content to the floppy, insert it into a desktop that has a floppy disk drive, copy it onto the desktop, copy it onto another floppy disk, and then can insert it into the Plus. Do I have that correct? So I need to go out, and find a desktop that has a floppy disk, or is there a simpler solution. Thank you!
The cheapest solution to load games and apps on a Mac Plus is with a BlueSCSI (DB25) hard drive emulator. This’ll save you from getting hard to find 800K disks and another actual Mac with a floppy drive (and the limitation of space). There are plenty of videos online about the BlueSCSI and Mac Plus. I highly recommend it.
@@Mac84 I appreciate you reply! I have done some more digging, and found that users either use BlueSCSI, or Floppy EMU. I'm leaning toward Floppy EMU. What are your thoughts? Thank you!
The floppy emu emulates a floppy disk. You need a separate boot disk and a separate disk for games or apps etc. This limits you to using one floppy at a time and endless swapping. You are also limited to 800K sized disks and apps etc. If you’ve ever used the system like this, you’d know this is not ideal. The BlueSCSI (db25/external model) is the way to go as it emulates a hard drive. It gives you an unlimited hard drive and makes it far easier to transfer files from a modern system or try out another OS version. The BlueSCSI is also lower cost than the FloppyEmu. Don’t get me wrong, the FloppyEmu is great, but the hard drive solution would be better in this case.
You're welcome! Some Macintosh II models have two PRAM / clock batteries. You can "jump start" them without a working battery by applying voltage to certain points. But two fresh batteries are needed to get the machine working fully. Some batteries are soldered on, so you'll need to cut them out and replace them with a battery holder of some type. The issue could also stem from leaking capacitors on the power supply or logic board, which can cause the machine not to function.
What was that ADB to whatever-phone-jack-keyboard-plug-was-called adapter you showed briefly? I was looking for an adapter to go the other way in order to use the original 60% keyboard on an SE/30, but I couldn't figure out what search terms to use to find anything other than the ADB to USB adapters.
There may be an adapter out there to do what you describe, but I'm unaware of one. The adapter I show lets you use a PC PS/2 keyboard on a Mac 128K/512K/Plus: th-cam.com/video/91SE12Kqfac/w-d-xo.html
@Mac84 Thanks! I realized that was probably what you had when I did some further digging. Theoretically I could go from the phone plug to USB then from usb back to ADB using two adapters but that seems a little silly even if it worked, and with just a little bit more code savy than I currently possess it shouldn't be too hard to patch together a proper diy arduino or teensy type adapter since from what I've found both ends of the problem have already been solved in different open source projects. Just need to take the phone jack input protocol code from one project and the ADB output code from another (or vice versa) and get them to play nice on one arduino board... but I've put that idea on the backburner for now, I already spent too much on the SE/30 I'm waiting to arrive from Ebay and will certainly need some TLC, I don't need to drop another hundred on an M0110 and an extra project right now! 😅
So you showed many incorrectly labeled macs on eBay. The one that stood out was the SE labeled "original Macintosh" but another common mistake seems to be with the "original iMac." If you're referring to the first iMac ever sold, it's an egg-shaped, bondi blue colored iMac with a slot-loading optical drive and an infrared port on the left side. Many people see the slot-loading iMac G3 and call it "original iMac" because it was sold for much longer and is therefore more common. Another point of confusion is that the iMac G5 and the first Intel iMac come in the same case design, so eBay sellers can get easily confused about that. Then there's the many generations of white iBooks.
Even System 7.0 was bit of a memory hog, when compared with 6 (7.5 was only worse I think since that really did improve system 7, as opposed to 7.1 etc), since it introduced advanced features like virtual memory for the first time, it was a similar story with windows 95, both need at least 4mb to boot at all…
If memory serves, with my PowerBook 145 I had to solder a battery holder to the logic board. My original PRAM battery holder was rusted and the battery was dead. After removing that and replacing it, it works well. My PowerBook works without the main battery present as I run it off the power adapter.
A Powermac G4 quicksilver or MDD non FW800 at 1 ghz or higher. These machines can natively run OS9 which means they can run everything and are upgradable up the wazoo. Oh and do all yourselves a favor and leave the hateful tubes in the past where they belong
That's a good reason! But hardware repairs can be challenging. You can try out the excellent emulators online, like this one: infinitemac.org/ that should be able to play those titles well. But it's hard to beat real hardware!
Thanks for a super interesting and insightful video! I'm intrigued by the statement at 17:43 about the need to recap all machines except possibly the original SE. What makes the original SE the exception? I recently took ownership of a working SE FDHD that had been sitting abandoned since the 90s, and have been considering whether I should recap it or not...
What I'd like to see in the next part: PowerPC!
Yep! I will be covering some fantastic PowerPC machines soon, I'd love to hear some of your favorites.
@@Mac84 can't beat the iconic iMac G3! Loved using those machines in school :)
Which color? 😉
@@Mac84 orange! :)
@@Mac84 I think the iBook is a great inexpensive PowerPC machine for someone getting into vintage Macs. I think I like my G3 iBook more than my G4 PowerBook!
Awesome part 1 video, when is part 2 coming out?????
For each era I go like this.
Sys 1-6; Mac Plus or SE, maybe a Mac II if cheap.
Sys 7: PowerBook 500 series or Performa 600 series (just because IDE drives are cheap)
Sys 8: 603 based Power Mac, gen1 G3 tower or rev B/C iMac.
Sys 9: PowerBook Wallstreet or graphite G4 tower
OS X: PowerBook G4 or iMac G5
Macintosh IIci is my favorite small formfactor desktop. 3x NuBUS slots + the standard PDS slot that nearly all the II-era accelerators were based off. So no need for adapters to upgrade to a 68040. Coupled with relatively cheap 30-pin SIMMs for up to 128MBs of RAM, it's a great little machine for anything from System 6 to 7.6. It also has an external floppy drive port.
imac g4 is also pretty good for os 9
most if not all g4s can run os 9, but the later ones need a litle bit of tinkering to get it to boot the installer, but there are premade install isos (one of which I used, even on a USB flash drive through some open firmware tricks)
wallstreet not pismo? o.O
Honestly any of the G3 series work, I just put Wallstreet because its my favorite.
Why G3 tower vs desktop?
Stunning production quality in this video Steve! New set is looking great!
I had an original 128k Mac in 1984, paid a fair chunk of money to upgrade to 512k unofficially (take out the circuit board, remove old RAM and install new one). Had a IIsi and later got a cheap PowerPC through the upgrade path. I gave up for a while as Mac had its incompatible to everything else design. Played with Hackintosh for years. Now finally bought a M2 Mini pro.
Answer: a se/30 or a iici. Best of both worlds. My iici has 64 megs of parity ram, 4mb video ram with a 3D (40,000 triangles) video card. Break out bus card, 2 scsi hdds, 4x cdrom. It is a beast! System 6/7 and mac unix!
@@hicknopunk that sounds awesome. Which caps are that model?
I own a PowerBook 540c with the PowerPC upgrade. It also has a Korean keyboard. Very nice machine and has better quality plastics than other models. I’m going to review it soon.
Great! I always loved my 540c.
@@Mac84 I don’t normally review Apple products on my channel as I’m more of an x86 guy, but I got new reviews coming of my iBook G3 (clamshell), iBook G4, the aforementioned PowerBook 540c KDM, and my 2006 iMac Core 2 Duo.
I'd always recommend any of the 2001-2002 iBook G3s. They offer excellent Mac OS 9.2 compatibility and easily support up to 10.4. With a little hacking, they can also boot from USB and support built-in wireless networking. They also use a reasonably capable ATI graphics chipset, so vintage gaming is amazing on these machines.
I've been working on a lot of vintage Macs lately, and it pains me to say that they really were not built to last. Some models have plastics that weakened to the point where they will break just being handled. To that end, I personally recommend Macs that have metal cases, like the Performa 600 and similar form factors. The Quadra 630 form factors are good choices too. Although they have plastics that brittle over time, the chassis underneath them is steel. They're fairly cheap, and you can get one that sports a PowerPC processor, like the 6200.
I thoroughly agree that the Mac SE is the most reliable of the B&W Macs, and fortunately, it's still the cheapest. Unlike the SE/30, it doesn't use those surface mount electrolytic caps that ALWAYS leak, and you still have a good chance of finding one in working order. Unlike the B&W Macs that came before it, the SE supports an internal hard drive, and it has a cooling fan--very important, given the OG Macs tended to cook themselves to death.
Thing is, this is not a hobby for the faint-hearted. There's no getting around the fact that these machines are 30 or even 40 years old now, and they were built down to a cost. Most of us don't even have cars that old. There are also dangerous voltages inside them, especially Macs equipped with CRT displays, and you do not want to dork with them if you don't know what you're doing.
I have 3 vintage Macs: Performa 6300CD 100mhz (OS 7.6.1, 9.1), Blue and White G3 450mhz (OS 9.2.2, 10.4.11), Quicksilver 2002 dual 1ghz G4 (OS 9.2.2, 10.5.8). These were all purchased new at the time so no hunting around for them. Zip 100 is the common format used to transfer between them. All 3 are internet capable. The CD and floppy drives in the 6300 have been acting up lately... may have to move all vintage gaming that requires a CD to the G3 if it gets any slower reading disks. Descent, X Wing and Tie Fighter never get old! The ADB CH Flightstick Pro works so well I bought the USB version!
I do have an Apple Multiple Scan 15" display that came with the 6300 but...... the picture tends to randomly "fade out" to black when in use. When I slap the side the screen flickers white. Seems to work for a little bit after it sits off for a few hours. Not sure what to do with it. Don't want it sitting in a landfill. It's fairly yellow too. Maybe Mac84 wants to add it to his collection of printers?? Don't have the original power cable since a guinea pig chewed it and... failed at life.
This video was insanely helpful for longtime PC users such as myself. I've been interested in early Macs ever since I found a "hypercard zine" (that's also how I learned about emulation!) but what really got me interested in owning one was...
...well, this is silly, but I somehow landed on a "Mac Crash Noises" video and something about those old death chimes made me stop and really look at these machines and the systems they run. I guess there's something about Apple. Style, character... and proprietary connections ;P
Anyway, great video. I'm going to check for that Powerbook video (if you've already made it)
You are very welcome, I am very glad it was useful for you. I haven’t made the PowerBook video yet but I hope to soon. If there is anything specific you’d like it to cover, or you have a question you’d like answered, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks! 👍
The First pre Intel Mac I bought(also my second Mac I bought) was a 550mhz Titanium PowerBook G4 in pretty nice shape. It's a great starter classic Mac and can even run macOS 10.4 decently(though I'd probably recommend at least an 867mhz to get the 7500 or 9000 graphics to run macOS 10 smoother)
Excellent video Steve!! The info for new vintage Mac collectors, the new background, cool b-roll.. this video had everything!!! P.S Congrats on 7000, FIRE UP THE IMAGE WRITER we need to see that new banner 😀
Thank you!! I’m very pleased so far with everything I’ve set up (although I have some tweaks to make). I’m very excited for things to come - and yes, we’ll be printing out a banner soon! 🤓
Have to admit, just discovered your channel. But it was a good show!
I love your new stage look. It's neater and I love the colored lights :D
Great stuff! I no longer have any 68000 or G3/G4/G5 Macs, but I sort of wish I did... though honestly, I struggle to think of any software I need to run on them. It's just that I loved these things so much.
im subbing to your channel, this 2021 i finally decided to collect my childhood computers as i sold or mishandled them years back. now that im a bscoe graduate i want to collect them for life. ebay for me is the last resort because importing is a risk and expensive, in my country those macs are getting rarer and rarer by the day so good thing im starting to collect them before they become e-waste or crushed somewhere in a landfill. I also want to contribute to the Macintosh depository with some vintage mac software i had on original floppies because some of them aren't even uploaded yet. might also do a vlog when i eventually buy macs, for me it's both a patience game if one is for sale locally and a rush to save them before they get destroyed
Thank you! Yes, it’s always nice to save these machines from a scrap pile… and archiving the old software is very important. I’ve uploaded countless things to MacintoshGarden.org and love that more and more people are doing the same. 👍
I have a Macintosh SE FDHD I just bought it from offer up a couple weeks ago and surprisingly the original HDD still works though it is quite loud I’m going to do a review on it sometime
Great video Steve :) it’s been a few years since I could collect any vintage Mac. My oldest systems are Mac Plus, Mystic Color Classic & my Power Mac 8500. Mostly I get a fix when I go over to John’s Mac addict barn. Have you ever made it down here to North West Florida where James & John and myself live? Cheers in a great channel.
Thank you! No I haven’t been, but I’ll have to visit one of these days.
My first Mac was an SE ... 68030 to be more exact ... and it was kind of an antique when I bought it. Prior to the Mac, I was an Amiga guy. My stepmother as a school teacher, teaching students on the Apple IIc ... actually wrote, and published a book for the Apple IIc, (and my father illustrated it.) Unfortunately the book got published about the time that the Mac SE came out, and so the book didn't do very well. My collection starts with the 68030 SE, and up through a G5, and a couple Power Macs ... (of course OS's no longer supported by apple) so I have had to upgrade ... 71yo .. retired, on a fixed income I'm down to Mac Mini. currently a 2012 running Mojave ... with a fast enough processor 2.6 i7, and 16gb ram ... that it will keep me on the internet a little while longer before I have to move to another mini.
This is gonna be an epic series!
Thank You Steve. I am not sure how I found you but I am glad I did. Collecting and playing with old Apple stuff has been a great adventure for the last 3 years. I learn a lot from you and the multiple sites. I will certainly look at supporting your efforts. You have a talent for explaining things well to the layman and yet bringing us deep into the secret tech caves. Good on you!!!
I had an ADD-ON CARD! I had a PowerMac that could boot up from a pentium, and you’d just press COMMAND RETURN to toggle between each OS.. It was pretty neat.
Great vid. Love my Mac Classic. Yep, it is slower, running at the same basic speed as the original Mac, but that's one of the things I like about it. ;-)
It's also the only Mac with copy of the OS in ROM. Yes, it's an older one (6.0.3????) but great for testing if your hard drive and floppy aren't working.
It also has the SuperDrive, so it can use 1.44M floppy disks and that makes transferring files to it much easier.
It does need to be/have been recapped (and probably have the motherboard cleaned), as it has those early 90's surface mount caps, and you'll want to watch for battery damage.
The other thing to watch out for is the memory card. It was sold with only 1M RAM, which was all on board. It supports 4M, but that requires the expansion card. If your Classic doesn't have that card, it is virtually impossible to get that card separately. If it comes with 2M, then it has that card and just needs some SIMMS to get to 4M.
You're not going to (easily) get it networked (no expansion slot), so that means the floppy is the way to transfer files.
Still, it was the first Mac that sold for under $1000 and has that original classic Mac feel.
Once I took a USB PCI card from a PC and installed it in my G3 desktop and it actually worked!
Brilliant video! Will definitely need to keep on top of this series
Definitely looking forward to G3 ibook recommendations. most I see on Ebay look so tired I am already dissuaded by outer appearance.
The cheapest way to find old Macs is to ask your relatives and friends. Lot of people have old Macs sitting in attics. My father had a 1Ghz eMac, not as old as the one's you're talking about, but it I was able to get MacOS9.2.2, which gives me most of that 'old mac feel.' Also dual boots to Leopard, which doesn't quite work on the web, but almost does.
The lighting in this is very nice!!
I think there’s an artist run gallery in Newfoundland still using the first apple donated to them to print labels. Or at least it was still there when I played with it in 1994.🍎
I recommend either the LC III or 475 to anyone who wants a Macintosh with lots of potential for overclocking and expansion
Yes! I’ll be recommending these, but would like to talk about recapping them, etc.
I am a iici devotee
great video. I think I knew 30% of what you explained here LOL! as a PC user it is very good educational video for 68k Mac. Thank you!
Excellent video Steve! Very informative and easy to follow. I wish I had this video 7 years ago when I first started collecting for sure.
Background looking sharp Steve! 👌🏻
very well done explainer video, i followed along and agreed with all your suggestions and comments. i have been a mac user for a long time and have collected mostly powerbooks. the only mac i don’t have still that we once owned is the Mac Classic with 2Mb of RAM, and my Quicksilver tower that died completely. The PowerBooks are a mixed bag of working and not working, but only one has stopped working for me. thanks for the great video, i hope to be able to share it with someone who needs it one day, for me it was a lovely trip down memory lane :)
Dude, I love the G3 AIO! I've wanted one of those for a long time but they are expensive!
With regards to LCD's, what about using something like the RGB2HDMI and a modern LCD? Would need some custom adapters made up to interface with the internal display cable, or if the laptop has video out capability, route the cable from the outside to the inside into the RGB2HDMI or tap into it internally (messy, but would be a last-ditch effort to salvage these machines.) Mounting would also be an issue as it's unlikely to find a modern (or even semi-modern) display with the same mount points, but again, maybe adapters can be made. Might not work for every Mac laptop, but maybe some could be saved.
Another TH-cam channel did something similar with an older PC laptop/portable, an Amstrad I believe. Granted early PC laptops were bulky, and thus had plenty of space inside to do this. But this TH-camr was able to find a modern LCD display that fit, and there was enough room to tap into the CGA out and run it internally to the RGB2HDMI. And since this mod replaced the old green LCD with a color one, this allowed for color CGA graphics. I don't want say which channel in the event that's not cool with Steve, but if it is I'll reply to this comment with a link to the video so you can get an idea of what I mean.
Plus we know from yet another TH-camr that at the very least Classic Mac's can interface with the RGB2HDMI to output video to an external display, so it's possible this could work here too. Again, if cool I'll reply with a link to it, though most of you probably already know who and what I'm talking about.
yeah, the retro geniuses out there need to be thinking about this - those old LCD displays are diminishing over time just as CRTs and spinning harddisk and floppies will eventually go caput
I just bought a $20k video card for $200 in the mid 2000s. It had dual vga out, 3d, 4 megs of ram....the ram was a pain to source as it is low latency iifx memory.
I have quite an interesting collection of Apple computers and devices.
Apple IIe
Macintosh portable (non backlit)
PowerBook 520
PowerBook 540c (with official Apple PPC upgrade)
PowerBook G3 Lombard and wallstreet
iBook G3 snow
iMac G5
iMac core 2 duo
Every generation of iPod nano/mini/touch
iPhone 2G 3G 5s and also my main phone 16th max
And my main laptop a M3 max MacBook Pro 16”
Edit:
Also have every generation of iPod shuffle and the 2nd and 3rd gen iPod classic
Solid video Steve! Can’t wait for more!
Great Video Steve I Really Love The Detail You Laid Out Great Info
Thank you David!!
about ten years ago, I had this Performa 550... The CD didn't work, nor the HDD, but the floppy did. I thought it was a lost cause. I put it out at roadside after a while of trying to make it useful... Never once thought to try an SD card solution or SSD... I still kick myself every time i think about it.
Great video, can't wait for the next part.
Any recommendations on where to buy older iPhones to collect? Obviously a place or website that is trustworthy. Thank you. 😊 Love the video.
The Macintosh classic is so cute 😄
Excellent informative video! I love the Mactracker app! I don’t know if it’s available for Android, as I currently have it on my iPad Air 2.
Thanks! They used to even have a version for the old iPod video (if memory serves). 🤓
I'm assuming you meant having someone recap the logic board of a classic not just recapping it yourself. I just ordered a set of caps for 9$... lol I will say though thank god for Adrian's Digital Basement because I was previously too afraid to tackle this project and have personally sadly thrown a few classics back into the scrap bin when I found out they didn't work in the past. Going to attempt it for the first time soon and hopefully get this Classic II up and going!
As I often say in my repair live streams, I fully encourage people to repair their own systems if they are comfortable with doing it themselves. Good luck getting your Classic II working!
Great advice. Nice job!
Thank you!!
Well suddenly I feel the urge (again) to look into buying some 68K beige mac goodness!
I got a macintosh classic and it looks great but its crashed recently and ive gotta check the logic board for leaked caps, if its not that the hard drive is dead
It's a real pity that the SE/30 is particularly susceptible to the Bad Capacitor Plague, as it is my favorite of the classic Macs and the one I lusted after back in the day. I was lucky enough to acquire one a number of years ago at a local university's surplus equipment sale for next to nothing (this way way before the days that retro was popular with the cool kids, otherwise I'm sure they would have charged an arm and a leg for it!) but alas it is in need of work, and my soldering skills, uh, let's just say that they leave much to be desired. :-(
Yes, they are becoming harder to find! Hopefully you can get it fixed, check out my website www.mac84.net, for when I have availability again.
agree 100% on your recommendations great video Steve.
Thank you Dan!
Mac84: “which Mac should you buy?”
Me: YES
I am considering a Macintosh (original, se, classic, or color) that has been re-capped with tantalum capacitors as an educational tool for my pre-schooler. My rationale is that these models have the “Autostart” feature, so he can eventually learn to stick in a 3.5” disk and power on the computer to play Reader Rabbit or Oregon Trail. I find the iPad games marketed for his age to be distracting due to too many in-game options or overly complex UI. Does this sound like a bad idea?
Please can you review Power Mac G3 tower? I do have 333mhz 1mb cache version
Great intro video I learned a lot thanks
Hi, I have watched a lot of your video's on Macs and was wondering if you are familiar with the 4000, 5000, 6000 series of macs that have bus speeds of 40mhz, when the CPU speeds are 75 to 300mhz. Are oscillators what is keeping these macs at 40mhz? If so can the oscillator be changed to speed things up. I read that the 6360 is the first mac to have a better board with better memory that did not limit the computer. However, the bus speed is till 40mhz. I appreciate any information you might have on this situation.
I have an Apple 300/1200 modem in box with original paperwork from 1984. Any idea on value?
I enjoy vintage computers and found this video very interesting. I do not currently have a vintage Mac although that may change so I am looking forward to parts 2, 3, etc. of this series. Are they in the works or have you already released them under a different name?
Thanks! Yes they are in the works, they will be released under the same name. So please stay tuned - thanks!
@@Mac84 great! I subscribed so I'll be looking for them.
This really makes me want to use a B&W PowerMac G3 I found! But it needs a new PSU and feet/handles as all of them are broken or have cracks in them…
God, I love these videos so much...
Great content! I guess the Mac SE I bought was not a bad choice for $25 CAD... I just need to repair it now. Is there schematics easily obtainable for these machines? Recapping is easy, but troubleshooting ... sometime not so much. I get the big checkboard screen on bootup which might be fix by recapping only, but it might also be something else.
Thanks! Sounds like a good deal on the SE! Send me a service message on my website (www.Mac84.net/services) - I’ll reply to you with some resources that I’ve found that are helpful.
Melt all the powersupply connections, re-cap. Should work.
I'm 21 and for some reason I am watching this
nice video! be careful about recommending S-Video cables to replace ADB ones. many cheaper cables have the bottom two pins (which are ground in S-Video's pinout) shorted together, and to the sheath. this is not good for old macs.
Yes, I should have emphasized "the pinout should be the same" more when I spoke. But this is correct, thankfully most well-known cable makers don't take this shortcut. I looked through my collection for a badly made cable to use as an example, but I haven't found one yet. When I go more in-depth about input devices in another part, I will mention this as something to be aware of. When in doubt, use a mulitmeter! :-)
Do the PowerPC Mac recommendations next!
Will do! 👍
Excellent advice. I was wondering what is the external floppy drive you show at time point 19:41? Is that for the 500 series?
Thanks! That is for the PowerBook 2400 series.
I’m about to buy my first in years, and I’m going to get the quicksilver and find the dual cpu upgrade card hopefully. Id like to run adele linux and use it as my everyday pc. Anyone think There’s a better choice for me? I’m looking for the oldest possible every day driver with big upgrades
Keep in mind CPU upgrades are hard to find for vintage Macs and often expensive ($300+) and may not be supported by non-Mac OS systems. Heck, even the way Mac OS originally utilized dual CPUs wasn’t even distributed across all apps and features.
Linux isn’t a magic cure for old hardware, even with CPU upgrades. The system bus and I/O limitations can be big barriers. There may also also be sound and graphic acceleration hurdles to overcome.
It’s fun to run this stuff and tinker for sure, and I encourage that, but for a multitude of reasons I’d never use 20 year old hardware as a daily driver. For unique apps and functions? Sure. But not everything.
From the power supply to the processor, these systems are all on borrowed time.
If you really want to play with a dual processor PPC Mac, get a G4 or G5 with them and skip the upgrade cards. You’ll get a faster system bus and memory too.
Or even play with the dual Xeon Intel Mac Pros, they are SUPER cheap these days but can keep up with modem demands quite well.
Can we install a CD drive in a Macintosh classic??
I just recently got a PowerBook G3 Pismo It came with everything like the original charger and it was in pretty good condition but after once I got it to my doorstep after trying to install 10.4 tiger on it the hard drive died and almost caught on fire and then I had to replace the ribbon cable and replaced it with a M.2 to SSD and I happen to turned out that the SSD bought was too big So the kernel keeps crashing and can’t progress anything until I unplug it got any advice
You can hopefully startup form a Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger disc and erase / partition the SSD into more suitable sizes.
Sadly there is barely any Classic Mac around here locally. Once in a blue moon there's one and most of the times people know its rare and want lots of €.
Thank you for the helpful video. Very insightful, and helpful. I recently acquired a Macintosh Plus. I am looking to write floppy disks for games from Macintosh Repository Website. Based on my research, a simple USB floppy won't format the disk correctly for the Plus. From my understanding, I need to get a floppy ush, download the content to the floppy, insert it into a desktop that has a floppy disk drive, copy it onto the desktop, copy it onto another floppy disk, and then can insert it into the Plus. Do I have that correct? So I need to go out, and find a desktop that has a floppy disk, or is there a simpler solution. Thank you!
The cheapest solution to load games and apps on a Mac Plus is with a BlueSCSI (DB25) hard drive emulator.
This’ll save you from getting hard to find 800K disks and another actual Mac with a floppy drive (and the limitation of space).
There are plenty of videos online about the BlueSCSI and Mac Plus. I highly recommend it.
@@Mac84 I appreciate you reply! I have done some more digging, and found that users either use BlueSCSI, or Floppy EMU. I'm leaning toward Floppy EMU. What are your thoughts? Thank you!
The floppy emu emulates a floppy disk. You need a separate boot disk and a separate disk for games or apps etc. This limits you to using one floppy at a time and endless swapping. You are also limited to 800K sized disks and apps etc. If you’ve ever used the system like this, you’d know this is not ideal.
The BlueSCSI (db25/external model) is the way to go as it emulates a hard drive. It gives you an unlimited hard drive and makes it far easier to transfer files from a modern system or try out another OS version. The BlueSCSI is also lower cost than the FloppyEmu.
Don’t get me wrong, the FloppyEmu is great, but the hard drive solution would be better in this case.
Thanks for the Vid , I am a Mac user since 84 too, have like 100 macs laying around 😊lots of macii, why this don’t startup ? Any hints ! Cheers
You're welcome! Some Macintosh II models have two PRAM / clock batteries. You can "jump start" them without a working battery by applying voltage to certain points. But two fresh batteries are needed to get the machine working fully. Some batteries are soldered on, so you'll need to cut them out and replace them with a battery holder of some type. The issue could also stem from leaking capacitors on the power supply or logic board, which can cause the machine not to function.
What was that ADB to whatever-phone-jack-keyboard-plug-was-called adapter you showed briefly? I was looking for an adapter to go the other way in order to use the original 60% keyboard on an SE/30, but I couldn't figure out what search terms to use to find anything other than the ADB to USB adapters.
There may be an adapter out there to do what you describe, but I'm unaware of one. The adapter I show lets you use a PC PS/2 keyboard on a Mac 128K/512K/Plus: th-cam.com/video/91SE12Kqfac/w-d-xo.html
@Mac84 Thanks! I realized that was probably what you had when I did some further digging. Theoretically I could go from the phone plug to USB then from usb back to ADB using two adapters but that seems a little silly even if it worked, and with just a little bit more code savy than I currently possess it shouldn't be too hard to patch together a proper diy arduino or teensy type adapter since from what I've found both ends of the problem have already been solved in different open source projects. Just need to take the phone jack input protocol code from one project and the ADB output code from another (or vice versa) and get them to play nice on one arduino board... but I've put that idea on the backburner for now, I already spent too much on the SE/30 I'm waiting to arrive from Ebay and will certainly need some TLC, I don't need to drop another hundred on an M0110 and an extra project right now! 😅
Just found your channel, subbed.
Thank you! 👍
So you showed many incorrectly labeled macs on eBay. The one that stood out was the SE labeled "original Macintosh" but another common mistake seems to be with the "original iMac." If you're referring to the first iMac ever sold, it's an egg-shaped, bondi blue colored iMac with a slot-loading optical drive and an infrared port on the left side. Many people see the slot-loading iMac G3 and call it "original iMac" because it was sold for much longer and is therefore more common. Another point of confusion is that the iMac G5 and the first Intel iMac come in the same case design, so eBay sellers can get easily confused about that. Then there's the many generations of white iBooks.
do you (or anyone) know of any 802.11g PC cards that have os 9.x drivers?
Even System 7.0 was bit of a memory hog, when compared with 6 (7.5 was only worse I think since that really did improve system 7, as opposed to 7.1 etc), since it introduced advanced features like virtual memory for the first time, it was a similar story with windows 95, both need at least 4mb to boot at all…
7x was better at dual tasking I seem to remember
Do a video On the apple computer 1
How in the world do you solve the battery issue for those old laptops? Got a 145B that’s dead in the water due to the battery likely being dead:(
If memory serves, with my PowerBook 145 I had to solder a battery holder to the logic board. My original PRAM battery holder was rusted and the battery was dead. After removing that and replacing it, it works well. My PowerBook works without the main battery present as I run it off the power adapter.
@@Mac84 Sounds like a need a better PSU then.
That shirt is really cool! Is that design available somewhere?
Thanks! I made it myself, you can get one here: mac84.creator-spring.com/
Good vid!
Where'd you get that shirt?
Thanks! I made it myself, you can get one here: mac84.creator-spring.com/
Who recaps in USA, in particular Seattle or Spokane area?
The vintage Mac you should buy: the one you can afford
PowerMac 4400 all the way!
You've probably answered this question a million times before but where can I get that shirt?
:-) I have it available here, along with a few other neat things: mac84.creator-spring.com
Wheeeeeee!
Like comparing a PlayStation, Xbox AND Nintendo thank you very much! XD
Wow, I don’t even care about Apple, but somehow I watched the entire video without realising it
wheeeeeee!
I don’t know why i watched this
I don’t have a need for an older Mac, and I especially do not have the space for one
Ummmmm, they will be faster than modern machines unless you still run win2k embedded with no hdd.
A Powermac G4 quicksilver or MDD non FW800 at 1 ghz or higher. These machines can natively run OS9 which means they can run everything and are upgradable up the wazoo.
Oh and do all yourselves a favor and leave the hateful tubes in the past where they belong
Do you have any Mac's to give me 😄🙂?
I want to buy an old Mac so I can play Sim Ant and Sim City.
That's a good reason! But hardware repairs can be challenging. You can try out the excellent emulators online, like this one: infinitemac.org/ that should be able to play those titles well. But it's hard to beat real hardware!
Thanks for a super interesting and insightful video!
I'm intrigued by the statement at 17:43 about the need to recap all machines except possibly the original SE. What makes the original SE the exception? I recently took ownership of a working SE FDHD that had been sitting abandoned since the 90s, and have been considering whether I should recap it or not...
It doesn't use SMD caps, the electrolytics are much more reliable axials. Not ever seen one that has failed caps.