Hello everybody.
I was wondering if anyone out there had an old Mac Portable (the Mac
laptop) that they'd want to sell. I really don't want to pay all that much
for it, and I don't need anything all that fast (I don't know all that much
about Macs), but it needs to run at least System 6.0.5. The main reason
that I'm looking for one, is that my school uses mainly Macs (the only PC's
that they have are a few XT's that you need to turn off the lights to read
the monitors), and I don't have a Mac. Whenever I'm working on a project,
I'm confined to the 40 minutes of classtime to get it done. I'm not
looking for a full-sized Mac, because (1) I don't have the room, and (2), I
sort of need the portability, because It's not very often that I'm at home
before 8:30 or 9:00 PM, and at that time I don't really feel like working
on stuff for school.
All I'm really asking is that it works, and can run System 6.0.5 (that's
what my school uses).
As always,
ThAnX in advance,
--
-Jason
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#-1730318
I just started paying attention to garage sales this month, because of
this list and because my traditional computer supply (Salvation Army) has
dried up. I'm very glad I have! Last weekend was my first trip out,
but I only managed to find two sales (one of which was in the paper) but
this weekend the garage sale season seems to have begun in earnest.
There were only two sales listed in the paper for my little town, and one
of these was just up the street and around the bend, so I went there
first. I ended up buying an Apple /// for $2 and carrying it home on my
bicycle! (Not an easy task). I then went back for the cheap green Amdek
monitor for another $2, because I have far more computers than monitors.
I had to ask if there were any disks to go with the machine, and I was
handed a box that I went through until I found one with a label that read
"Apple ///", so I knew the disks matched the computer. There were no
manuals.
After plugging the thing in at home and finding that the beast worked, I
went out again. I must've visited five more places (by following signs on
telephone poles) before I came across the next thing that was mildly
interesting: a Commodore filing cabinet with the chicken-lips logo. Not
exactly related to this group, I suppose, and not the kind of thing I
collect, but interesting nonetheless.
Several stops later I hit the jackpot. Not for me, so much, but for a
friend of mine who is out of school, out of work, bored, and constantly
coming over to my place to play video games on my computers. :) This was
obviously the home of a computer nerd like myself, as there was a complete
Apple ][+ clone system and a complete Commodore 64 system for sale, as
well as a large box full of books.
I picked up four books: "The Explorers Guide to the ZX81", "Timex/Sinclair
Interfacing", Jim Butterfield's "Machine Language for the Commodore 64,
128, and Other Commodore Computers", and the "Commodore 64 Troubleshooting
& Repair Guide".
I also picked up a complete(?) boxed GEOS 2.0 set (which probably
should've stayed with the 64 system, come to think of it) and the owner
parted out the joystick for his Apple ][+ (mine fell apart years ago).
Total cost was $10.
I rode straight home from this place, called my friend, and had lunch. He
showed up with his car, and we went back to that place together to pick up
the C64 system. He got a boxed C64 (old brown one), boxed 1541, 1802
colour monitor, dot matrix printer with Commodore serial ports on it, 1351
mouse in box with docs, 300bps modem in box with docs, a couple of books,
a hand-killing Atari joystick, a boxed copy of Atarisoft's "Track and
Field" with 3-button arcade controller, and datasette, for $35.
Then we went over to the next town, because there was supposed to be some
huge 40-family sale at some apartment complex, but there wasn't anything
interesting there (perhaps everything was gone by then).
I spotted a sign for another garage sale on the next street, so we walked
over there. There I picked up an Intellivision with 6 boxed cartridges
(Sea Battle, Vectron, Sub Hunt, Utopia, Chess, Armor Battle) and a BIZARRE
piece of IBM equipment: an external 5-1/4" floppy drive, model 4869.
I figure someone important must have an opinion on the Commodore 64,
because there was an earthquake (4.5 on the Richter scale) while we were
setting it up to test it. :)
Anyway, not everything was perfect. The Intellivision doesn't work
100%... background graphics are OK, but most of the games have totally
munged sprites. It looks like the sprites are being read out of the wrong
area of memory. Oh, and background graphics ARE screwed up in Sub Hunt as
well... not that it really matters, as all of the docs for that game are
in German for whatever weird reason. :)
There was NO useful software for the Apple ///, only something called
"Apple /// Utilities" that let me make a backup of itself. There was also
an incomplete copy of Pascal 1.0.
Going by the info I gleaned from checking out the system config saved on
the Utilities disk, the system was set up to have two floppy drives and a
hard drive, but I saw no signs of any extra stuff at the garage sale.
There are TWO Apple /// Profile I/O boards in the machine, though, as well
as a parallel printer card.
The power supply of this machine makes a LOT of noise. Is it supposed to?
I found out that there is a monitor built into the machine, too (press
Control-OpenApple-Reset) but apart from dumping memory eight bytes at a
time and the ability to change the values stored in bytes, I can't figure
out if the monitor can do anything. Some of the hardware is very Apple
][ish, though... when romping through memory with the monitor, I of course
stumbled into $C000 and beyond, and the speaker sounded in the correct
place, and the screen switched to high-res mode.
Is this thing just a glorified Apple ][ with an incompatible OS?
I took the machine apart, too, and I found a place for a battery on the
motherboard, with no battery or battery cover in it. Does the /// have a
system clock?
Oh, and it has 256K, and the chips are neat little brown chips with gold
plates on their backs. 4164s. They look just like the ones in my weird
PET expansion board, except that the pins aren't gold.
I heeded the warning sticker and didn't open the power supply. :)
There was a loose screw, and another spall flat piece of metal, roaming
about inside the keyboard. :/
Does anyone know if the Apple ][+ or //e can be made to read/write Apple
/// disks in any manner that would be useful for getting files to it? Or
do I have to get software for it in actual disk form at first, before I
can get the thing to do anything useful?
Can the /// emulate a ][?
Now, on the subject of that weirdo IBM 4869 disk drive... what does this
plug into? The guy I bought it from said it was for an old PC. It has a
37-pin connector on the end of its cable. It's LARGER in two dimensions
than even a Commodore 1541 drive. Its power switch is very high quality.
:) Would this be a 160K drive? I haven't ripped it apart (yet) to see
how many heads the thing has.
Pretty cool day, though. It looks like I'll be doing this quite often in
future. :)
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
FOR TRADE:
- Osborne 1 (with copy of Osborne CP/M system disk)
- Kaypro 2 (good condition, no boot disk, though it's available through
the cp/m archive)
- Commodore PET 2001 (full size graphics keyboard version, looks great,
one small hole drilled in front panel, probably for a switch)
- Tandy Color Computer 1 (good condition, some cosmetic wear at hand
positions)
- Macintosh 128 with keyboard and mouse
- Macintosh 512 in original box with keyboard and mouse
- VIC-20 in original box with PS
- Commodore 64 in original box with PS
- Timex-Sinclair ZX1000 (no PS but it takes standard 9VDC I believe)
(game systems)
- Vectrex system, very rare, yes this is the original *vector graphic
monitor* console game system by Milton Bradley/GCE
- Odyssey^2 system, PS, joysticks, in original box
- Intellivision system, captive joypads & integral PS
- Colecovision system, 2 controllers, PS
WANTED:
- Exidy Sorcerer
- Processor Tech Sol-20
- Apple II (no suffix)
- Apple Lisa
- Apple ///
- Compucolor II
(software, parts, etc.)
- TI 99/4A disk operating system cartridge
- Expansion Interface for TRS-80 Model I
- Tandy floppy for TRS-80 Model I
- DOS master disks for Apple II+
- Tandy Color Computer I 5.25" disk software
Kai
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, Doug Spence said:
>Does the PS/2 not have any 5.25" drive bays? Weird. :) I'm not an IBMer
>so I don't know these things, though I *think* one of the machines I used
>to do CAD work on was a PS/2 of some flavour.
Every PS/2 that I've ever seen (note: this does not mean All PS/2's... just
the ones I've seen) didn't have a 5.25" port at all... not even their tower
"servers". I suspect it was IBM (trying to) setting a new standard... again.
>OK, that makes it useful. Would you happen to know what the pinout is of
>the 37-pin connector, so that I can try to make use of the drive without
>modification? Is it even possible to buy a matching female 37-pin
>connector?
IIRC, it's just straight thru with the last/first 3 pins unused... but I'd
have to look at the cable or ring some pins to be sure (and yes, I'm a
packrat...).
I also believe that you can still get 37-pin D-sub connectors thru the
Mouser Electronics catalog. Good people to work with... I had 3 distinct
problems with my first order (totalling $40USD) and they took care of all
of them at their expense (shipped some closeout SMD resistors *overnight*
because they forgot them in the package... their expense... that's their
policy, despite my not being in a rush for them!) Try http://www.mouser.com .
>Interesting. How are the drives interfaced to the CoCos? I've got a
>CoCo1, CoCo2, and CoCo3, but I've never found a disk drive for these
>machines.
All CoCo controllers take Shugart standard drives (now called IBM standard
drives... IBM's taking over again!) altho RSDOS limits you to 35 tracks,
SSDD, 156K disks (the original Shugart drives) without patches... which (of
course) I have. RSDOS can handle a max of 2 DSDD 80 track drives with
patches (more accurately... they look like 4 SSDD 80 track drives, with :2
the backside of :0 and :3 the backside of :1) but 1.44Meg storage thru
RSDOS is really good! OS-9 can handle 3 DSDD 80trk drives!
>> If you (or anyone) needs more info on this drive, lemme know. But I can
>> tell you, that just taking it apart is *fun*, if you have 3-4 hours to get
>> it apart and back together. I've had mine disassembled 3-4 times now, to
>> figure where to cut holes & stuff for my cable mods.
>
>Heh. I couldn't even get mine apart, because of the two six-pointed
>screws on the bottom. The screws have a lump in the middle so I can't use
>a flat-blade screwdriver as I did when I had a similar problem opening my
>Mac 512K.
There are three ways to get into the case, only one of which I recommend.
The first method involves a chainsaw and a 12lb (5.5kg) sledgehammer... If
you have to ask, you don't want to know. ;^>
The second method would require an appropriately sized Torx screwdriver and
a Dremel tool with drill press attachment. You would need to drill a small
hole in the end of the Torx driver to accommodate the post in the screw.
While this method is the safest to the drive, it's also the most work.
Method 3 (which is the one I used) requires a pointed instrument (like a
leather awl) and a regular (flat-head or slotted) screwdriver that just
fit's into 2 of the points of the Torx screw (the screwdriver tip of my
tiny Swiss Army knife worked perfectly). Use the awl to bend the post over
as much as you can, and this *should* (no guarantees, YMMV, yadda, yadda,
yadda...) get you enough room to get enough of the slotted screwdriver into
2 of the star points and extract the screw.
As the case is built like a Sherman Tank, once the screws are removed, deep
six them. I've been running mine for 3 years without the special screws
with no ill effects.
Anyway, I hope this helps, and enjoy the drive!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, Doug Spence said:
>...and a BIZARRE
>piece of IBM equipment: an external 5-1/4" floppy drive, model 4869.
Actually, if one worked in an IBM shop, they were quite commonplace...
especially when the PS/2's came out. The PS/2's had *no* way to hook an
internal 5.25" floppy (due to size of case... and IBM's wanting to create a
new standard...) so you had to go external if you wanted/needed to share
data with other machines with 5.25" drives.
>Now, on the subject of that weirdo IBM 4869 disk drive... what does this
>plug into? The guy I bought it from said it was for an old PC. It has a
>37-pin connector on the end of its cable. It's LARGER in two dimensions
>than even a Commodore 1541 drive. Its power switch is very high quality.
>:) Would this be a 160K drive? I haven't ripped it apart (yet) to see
>how many heads the thing has.
The size of the drive is mainly because of the PS & case (the case is
*very* well RFI shielded)... the drive itself is a standard 1/2 height 360K
40TKDSDD 48TPI drive, with a standard 34-pin edge connector. I have one
sitting on my desk at home, modified to use a standard cable (read: hole
cut with dremel tool in top of case to fit cable) so I can use it with
either my PC or with my Tandy CoCo3. *Very* nice drive. Trying to find a
few more, so I can floppyize my CoCo2 and CoCo1.
If you (or anyone) needs more info on this drive, lemme know. But I can
tell you, that just taking it apart is *fun*, if you have 3-4 hours to get
it apart and back together. I've had mine disassembled 3-4 times now, to
figure where to cut holes & stuff for my cable mods.
Enjoy!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
Hi,
The Apple /// I picked up last weekend has one annoying flaw, and that is
a *very* loud power supply, that seems to get louder the longer the
machine is powered up.
I think this thing becomes even louder than our 1950s-era Westinghouse
refrigerator. (OK, perhaps an exaggeration, but the sound seems to
carry farther.)
There is nothing obviously functionally wrong with the computer - it boots
up fine, there's no wavering or glitching in the display, nothing to say
that something might be wrong.
Except the buzzing.
It makes me nervous.
Is this noise normal, or is it a sign that something is about to go
kablooie? And if something's wrong, is there any way of knowing which
part is about to go?
It looks like the power supply should be easy to repair, but I don't know
what I'm doing with these things. I know it's been stated here that power
supplies should be checked before powering anything up, but I don't really
know how to do that, and sometimes I'm just too impatient to see my new
toys running.
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
Here's another one. Hope someone finds a use for this...
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Newgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: (fwd) Take my PET, please!
Ok, forgive the corny subject line...
I have a C=PET 4016 here that is in a serious state of disrepair. When I got
it, it wasn't working and I tried to fix it up to no avail. In it's current
state, it's little more than a big metal & plastic paperweight to me. I'm
GIVING IT AWAY (You pay S&H) to anyone on one condition: That you try to fix
'er up or use the parts to fix another commodore computer. I don't want to
see this go to the dumpster, folks. It deserves better.
I'm even willing to throw in a few C64 disks for taking it away :)
If interested, respond via email - dross4(a)niu.edu
Dave Ross / Doc Watson | "Make me one with everything," said the
dross4(a)niu.edu | Zen Buddist to the hot dog vendor.
- - - - - - - - - - - -+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Long live the C=64/128!| http://www.cs.niu.edu/~z956832/homepage.htm
--
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
At 08:47 PM 5/21/97 -0400, William Donzelli wrote:
>And of course, grab hold of every spare chip available off of donor machines.
>
>William Donzelli
>william(a)ans.net
>
I have found what seems to be a decent supply of eproms. I was looking at
an old 2400 baud fax modem for my pc, and noticed that it had what looked
like an eprom on it. I pulled the chip and peeled off the label, and it was
a 27256 eprom. I also bought a 2400 baud modem at a thrift store for $2.00
and it had a 27128 eprom in it. This was cheaper than buying the eprom by
itself. I paid $3.00 for a 2764, and didn't even price a 27128. I am going
to start picking up all of the old cheap, almost worthless modems and
grabbing the eproms out of them. You can probably pick up the modem for
less than the price of the eprom that it holds. If anyone else knows of a
cheap source of eproms or other chips, share it with us.
Isaac Davis
idavis(a)comland.com
indavis(a)juno.com
| Yes, sir! That's the card. If you'd like more info, I *think*
these are
| detailed in my 1989 Tandy Computer Catalog I have at home...
Yep! Page 25,
"Now you can run Apple IIc educational and game software on your Tandy
1000...with the TRACKSTAR 128 adapter. Imagine having the best of both
worlds in one computer...Supports the use of Apple joysticks or game
port devices such as Muppet Learning Keys. [???]"
$399.95
Kai
