You know what I miss from that era? The extension that would allow Oscar the Grouch to pop out of the trash can. What I mean is - Macintosh really had this different vibe back then. You could easily customize everything about your experience in a way that was very exploratory. How many hours of my youth were wasted screwing around in RezEdit or in making cool icons? Yes, it's super cool there are things like Swift Playground these days - I'm glad we live in an era where I don't have to pirate Symantec Pascal like I did when I was 13 and wanted to learn how to code. But, I wish the overall user experience were more the fun and creative feel we once had rather than a very slick but overly corporate one.
I had one with a 10baseT network card about 20 years ago. I ran NetBSD on it and punched a hole open so anyone could log in. I think I posted about it in the NetBSD IRC channel back in the EFNet days.<p>You started up System 7 at first and then clicked on the launcher and it would reboot into NetBSD. This was like 1.something ... might have been 1.5?<p>I had some external SCSI drives for it in the low GB range and I believe a CDRW. I think the ram was at 128MB (might have been 96)<p>I had compiled Mozilla 0.9 or so for it (whatever was current) and it actually ran (compiling took I think 4 days because I compiled it <i>on</i> the SE/30). You could see the elements of the interface render to the screen in human time.<p>I distinctly remember seeing each button come in to view and then slowly typed in "slashdot.org".<p>I used it as an X terminal as well, using the -broadcast option to log into an HP-UX 10.20 machine. I ran sam and CDE on that tiny monochrome screen. So ridiculous.<p>It was a glorious waste of time.<p>Just looked in my old email archives --- this was indeed from 2002. Right, 20 years it is then.
Ah, I also bought a SE/30 recently, as part of a batch of an upgraded 128->plus, an original SE, and my prize: the SE/30. All working too.<p>The reason I bought the SE/30 is because it's the computer I had on long term loan for my very first "paying" gig as developer, I was 17: making the software that drove the audio system for the Lille (FR) brand new metro lines back then.<p>Wrote the software in Turbo Pascal, to run on a smaller mac -- it had a GPIO card that drove 2 big REVOX tape reels, and was rewinding them in sequence while the other played elevator music. It also had a selector and an 'alarm' button to trigger <i>digital</i> announces from the control room, in case of problems on the metro line. The audio played on 10th's of stations, for years.<p>After a few mishaps (finding tapes torn to completely shreds in the computer room, because the 'beginning of tape' signal hadn't worked really well after rewinding!) it worked absolutely flawlessly until late 1999. I should have charged more :-)<p>It also had an easter egg! It was playing an 'happy birthday' message to <i>myself</i> every year, in every stations, early day on my birthday. Nobody ever complained :-)<p>I eventually returned the SE/30, and was given a PowerBook 140, which wasn't as fast, but hey, <i>laptop</i> baby, and, I still own that one!
There is just something perfect about the original Mac series.<p>When Steve Jobs saw the Xerox Alto, he thought "well, <i>obviously</i> all personal computers are going to be like this", which is pretty much how I felt upon encountering the Mac for the first time (not until 1990).<p>My opinions tend to be pretty weak these days (like a three-handed economist), but with a typical teenage passion, I could not understand why anyone would use Windows, or how Windows could even exist when the Mac was there.<p>When I finally got my own (i)Mac in 2000, it was no longer quite so perfect. Although, I think the OS X 10.3 - 10.5 era got close.
> Write Apple-Script to automate turning on 32-bit addressing automatically and setting the correct date every time I turn on the computer<p>Rob Mitchelmore wrote the Force32 extension which is made for Macs without a PRAM battery. It makes sure 32-bit addressing is enabled during startup. (Note that since a restart is required after enabling 32-bit addressing, it will automatically restart during the first cold boot).<p><a href="https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/force32" rel="nofollow">https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/force32</a><p><a href="https://github.com/cheesestraws/Force32" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/cheesestraws/Force32</a>
In that post he links to "the 6th most 'notable' Mac ever" over on Six Colors where they created a Top 20 of all-time list.<p>How that list failed to include the "Jurassic Park" computer, the gorgeous Quadra 700, truly made me sad. It's a machine where, if you need to take it apart, you can remove every single component - even the PSU and motherboard - with only ever needing to remove a single screw. (You can even remove the PSU's fan w/o needing any tools.) The rest is so beautifully designed that you can pop release all of it: floppy drive, hard drive PSU, speaker, motherboard, etc.<p>The 1 single screw holds the drive caddy to the case. That's it. And it's a design strategy that I'm willing to bet at least 50% of Quadra 700 owners back in the day didn't even realize was sitting on their desks.<p>By the way, the mini-desktop machine could be stood vertically or laid on its side - it was up to the user. Simply breathtakingly incredible design.
Just a note related to the SCSI2SD device mentioned in the article ...<p>I recently bought four of these for use with various SGI and ran into a minor difficulty and the maker of these devices went <i>well beyond the call of duty</i> to assist me and provide suggestions, etc.<p>On a Saturday.
Find a copy of the game, Crystal Quest. I think it was the best of the early arcade style games.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Quest" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Quest</a>
SE/30's are the best. Here's a summary of some other modern and contemporaneous upgrades available: <a href="https://nickpunt.com/blog/se-30th-anniversary/" rel="nofollow">https://nickpunt.com/blog/se-30th-anniversary/</a>
We had The Oregon Trail as part of teaching materials in our school in the 1980s.<p>In the <i>UK</i>.<p>Most of us in my class didn't know where Oregon is, really did not care about a story of woefully unprepared people who chose to make a journey for reasons of absolutely no consequence to a British nine year old, and to this day likely bear a grudge against an entire US state.<p>I got into an awful lot of trouble for submitting the minimum possible homework on that. Other kids: fifteen pages of detailed drawings and stories. Me: two A5 sides of completely disinterested made-up diary.<p>It was my only real rebellion.
I still have my old SE/30. It's still working. Has the Ethernet card installed, so it's even marginally useful.<p>I also picked up my old 512k "Fat" Mac from my aunt's house where I had it stored for 20 years. Powered it up. Bright white screen, perfectly sharp, works perfectly. Not bad for a machine that debuted in 1984.
Niice, this is great. I really need to recap and otherwise tidy up my SE/30. Just dreading opening it up and finding a bunch of leaked capacitor fluid... Guess I better get on that!! Uh and the Mac Plus, too... >_> The one downside of having lots of old computers is you have to take care of them too!
I read every article about classic Macs. Like many of us, these computers are where I got started with my tech love. That said the only thing I really miss is Flying Toasters. Okay, maybe a spacial Finder as well.
The SE30 was the first real computer I was working on. The company my father worked for started to implement computers at the desks of most people. During the day they learned how to use them. In the late afternoon and evenings he did his regular work as a team lead. Me, being 14 was often at his work place (him being a single dad had me helping at the photocopy machine and stuff). And I was allowed to work/play on the computer.<p>Shortly thereafter I got my own Macintosh Classic with 4mb RAM and 40 MB hard disk.
There was a video I saw a while back of one of these connecting to Google. It took a while but when it loaded it was surreal like wow, this old technology works today.<p>Also if you like this stuff there's popular channels out there like Adrian's Digital basement or 8bit guy, etc...<p>Side note: the movie Jobs (2013) was dramatized and all that but it had a cool scene, when those circuits drew something on a screen. I am aware of Xerox Alto and all that. But still the concept of making something so new... idk that's cool would like to be part of that. Also those chips seem more tangible than an i7 or something. You could almost mentally map which chip goes to what part of the screen.<p>I will say I'm past it though, I don't really covet old tech just because of performance. I do to some degree like old Chromebooks using Linux.
I have spent most of my early computer years playing Sierra games and (Beyond) Dark Castle on a Mac SE.<p>Still a marvellous memory!<p>[my father brought one day a CD300. It was supposed to be a revolution. Well ok, I used it to listen to Pink Floyd CDs while playing King Quest ;)]
Can someone explain why removal (as opposed to replacement) of the PRAM battery is necessary? How is this different from any other CMOS motherboard battery? Is there a fault in the circuitry that causes the battery to fail catastrophically?
That was the first Mac I really, really wanted. Beefy (for the era) processor, still the great form factor.<p>Sadly, I didn't actually get a Mac for another 10 years, but the SE/30 lives on in my head. Had I extravagant amounts of free space in my office, I'd track one down to run as a hobby.
As a tip, which I learned the very hard way, I now keep the machines upside down (or, in some cases, on their sides) in a way the exploding components face the ground so that, if they decide to destroy the computer, gravity will prevent the fluids from digesting the board.
Surprising how expensive these were. Apparently the original price for this was around $4k - maybe $9k modern eqv.<p>128MB of RAM would have been <i>insanely</i> spendy in 1989. Somewhere around $30k modern eqv.<p>So the total equivalent cost would be as much as a higher spec Mac Pro.
As someone who owned an SE/30, I had an emotional roller coaster. Like, really?!?!?! You dare use a custom firmware?!??!<p>Oh, but...YES! The memories! <i>chef's kiss</i>
score! Honestly I like BBEdit to this day for text, and the vector drawing programs. No mention of postscript printing, but that works well (pre-Level III postscript). Very fast interface for most things, even faster than many desktop computers today for native Mac software. I definitely kept my OS install disks and amenities, but it is somewhat humbling to read about entire ROMs and SCSI hacks here.. not easy! very nice to see it on YNews.