Kat's Classic Macs

A relative of mine had a purple tray-load G3 iMac for many years. Last year they bought a new printer which required 10.3 or later. The iMac was still running Mac OS 8.6!

I knew they liked the form factor, so I found a blue slot-load G3 iMac for sale locally for only $30, which already had enough memory and disk space (the tray load did not). I put Tiger (10.4) on it, plus Open Office, and the printer driver. They have come forward only a couple of years in hardware, but at least 6 years in software. Tiger seems kind of slow (on just about any G3) but they don't seem to mind.

A teacher had given me a red tray-load for possible repair, but it had the flyback transformer problem and seemed hopeless. I was able to fix up the purple tray-load by replacing the CD-ROM and adding memory. I gave it to the teacher running Mac OS 9.1 and most of the software we used to run in my wife's iMac computer lab. She planned to donate it to a student family.

Even though the iMac computer lab had been closed for several years, all but one of the education web sites we had linked to were still there -- that really surprised me. Unfortunately, I still have a red tray-load iMac with a bad flyback taking up space...

Toward the end of the 2006 school year, we gave away about nine more Mac systems, mostly PowerMacs with modems or ethernet for cable. It is more work to prep these than the simple compact Macs with ImageWriters I used to give away, and the recepients are not as satisfied. Yes, they can get on the web, but cannot access many of the popular sites these days, even with Mozilla WamCom.

Still trying to figure out how best to sell off extra stuff. Probably going to post systems on Craig's list (Orlando) and Yahoo auctions (because they are free), and parts on LEM swap list and 68kmla.net trading post (also free). eBay only makes sense for items that may fetch a good price. These include Quadra 840AVs, a IIsi with a ROM SIMM, the AEHD+ floppy drive, and maybe Quadra 650s set up for A/UX. And there seems to be demand for ethernet interfaces.

My personal computing has moved to beige G3s but I'm still on Mac OS 9.1. Both systems have Jaguar installed on a second drive but both Jaguars have problems. I also have 2 spare beige G3s. The laptop I use, a 190cs, is starting to have display issues. I have 2 blueberry clamshells needing a little work which should take over.

The classic Macs to keep include several accelerated SEs, 2 Color Classics with 550 logic boards, 2 LC 575s, 2 Quadra 700s, and an 8500 with the DOS card. My AppleShare IP server is a 7100/80, but I might switch it to a 6100 with G3 card to use less power and space.

Another long time between posts! We finished out the 04-05 school year giving away almost 30 Macs, the largest number yet. Completely cleared all the powermacs I wanted to give away, but still the storage area is overcrowded!

During the summer I had some more non-Mac work to do, and now I have a second job programming at home, so there's not been much time to fool around with old Macs. I've wanted to do more selling of excess stuff, at really low prices just to move it, but always seem to procrastinate.

I've got a pair of clamshell iBooks and I think all the parts needed to make them work properly. From previous experience I need to set aside a big block of time to open, change parts, and re-assemble an iBook.

The other machines new to me are beige G3 desktops. I've made 2 good ones out of 3 donors, and one is already running OS X Jaguar. To be useful they need more memory (at least 256M) and larger hard drives, but I expect to swap one of them in for an 8500 we've been using at home for several years.

For my other 8500 I've been sitting on a 180 processor, 512K cache, 12x CD, a couple of PCI cards, and 3x the existing disk space, so one of these days I'll give it a major upgrade. The 8500 fits in my desk space where a desktop G3 does not. Maybe I'll find a mini-tower beige G3...

I just finished replacing the power-in board on a dual USB iBook. The take-apart and re-assembly is quite involved, but the instructions on pbfixit.com were pretty clear.

I've been giving away lots of desktop Macs to kids in the school. The top-end "internet Mac" has a PowerPC, at least 64M RAM, 1G hard drive, CD-ROM, 28.8 or better modem, and StyleWriter II, 1200, or 1500 printer. I try to include a monitor that can do at least 800x600, but some of them are limited to 640x480.

For those that are not going to pay for internet access, the "color Mac" is a Quadra with 20M RAM, 700M hard drive, CD-ROM, StyleWriter II, and 640x480 color monitor. This one also includes a Grolier encyclopedia CD-ROM. For both these models I warn them they will have to purchase their own ink cartridge and give them the Canon part number.

Finally there is the compact Mac, a Classic II with 6M RAM, 80M hard drive, and ImageWriter II. So far only one person has asked for that this year.

We use the original iMac keyboards in the computer lab because their width (15.5") makes the table space less cramped than extended keyboards would (not to mention they came with the bondi 333 iMacs that populate 2/3 of the lab). One of the keyboards quit working, and it caused the computer to flash the folder icon on startup, as if the hard disk had failed. I didn't figure out that it was the keyboard until after changing several parts, I simply didn't plug in any USB cords and booted the iMac from the CPU power button. Pretty odd that a bad keyboard can prevent the computer from booting.

In another classroom, a wild kid had ripped the USB cable out of a sage iMac keyboard. I got some used bondi keyboards that had lost some keys. It turns out there are two styles of keyboard that look identical. The space bar from the sage fit in one of the bondi keyboards, but the rest are a mismatch for the other bad keyboard. Live and learn.

Update: I am now convinced that the color I call "Bondi" is actually "Blueberry". The early clamshell iBooks, the Blue & White G3 towers, the 333 tray-load iMacs and the 350 slot-load iMacs all came in blueberry, not bondi. Even though they look at lot more like bondi (in the appearance controls) than blueberry (in the fruity ads)!

One problem that has vexed me for some time has been burning CD-ROMs that can boot a Mac. I've gotten pretty good at making them for Quadras and early PowerMacs: Set up a real volume on an external SCSI drive, use Toast 3.5x, burn volume, optimize for speed, and switch on the bootable checkbox.

But I was never able to create a working one for an iBook until yesterday. The trick is to use Toast 4 (even the OEM version, which is all I had) and just follow the instructions: Mac files and folders, create new CD, and add the System Folder first. I never could make a bootable iBook CD in Toast 3.5x.

Now I have a bootable 9.2.2 install disk with Disk Warrior and TechTool added, and was able to use it to rescue an iBook that could not be repaired by Disk First Aid.

One of the links from this blog goes to the Low End Mac article "What Works, What Doesn't", which quotes an Apple study that says that "Rebuilding the Desktop worked 0% of the time that it was tried." Well, just yesterday it worked for me on 2 different problems with 3 Macs. Two of them were fairly new CRT iMacs running 9.2.2, and had generic icons all over the place.

One of the older CRT iMacs would not run the internet tutorial that appears under the Finder's Help menu. The file it seemed to be looking for was identical on other Macs that worked fine. There was a script that could be opened in the Script Editor, and inside it was trying to open the app by its creator code. Seeing that I rebuilt the desktop which fixed it.

I suspect that copying things with Network Assistant may not always update the desktop properly. Fortunately it has a feature to remotely rebuild desktops without a restart.