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On Fri, 7 Aug 1998, Van Burnham wrote: I've got the identical problem with my Mac 512K and MO100 mouse. It moves horizontally, and the button works (the menus drop down from the title bar) but it won't move vertically. The keyboard also had some 'dead' keys, but with enough typing on them, they eventually woke up. Just dirty contacts. I cleaned out the mouse, but I haven't done anything else yet. Tony gave me some info on how the critters work, but I haven't had time to look into it yet. I still don't know if it's the mouse or the Mac with the fault. One useful thing would be the Mac's mouse port pinout, though, so that I at least know what pins to look at. And the Apple //c's, too. This is just piling up on the 'things to do' list. :/ Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/

On Sat, 8 Aug 1998, Tony Duell wrote: Blew the dirt out of the optoswitches, as well as I could. I didn't feel like braking the little wheels while trying to remove them, so I didn't. Great! I dread opening up the Mac, though, so I hope it's the mouse. Only the ROMs are socketed, and there's that nasty CRT and power supply just waiting to kill me. Excellent! Thanks. Maybe I'll wire up a spare Amiga mouse first to see what happens. :) According to the "Introduction to Amiga" book I got with my A1000, the mouse pinouts on the Amiga are as follows: 1 Mouse Vertical 2 Mouse Horizontal 3 Vertical Quadrature 4 Horizontal Quadrature 5 Mouse Button 2 6 Mouse Button 1 7 +5V (125 mA) 8 GND 9 Mouse Button 3 So I guess Mouse Vertical on the Amiga mouse would go to Y1 on the Mac, Vertical Quadrature to Y2, etc? THAT's the item I forgot to shop for today (logic probe). I finally got the replacement NiCd battery for my Amiga 3000, and a fresh roll of rosin core solder, but I felt like I should be looking for something else while I was spooking around electronics shops. Of course, I have no idea what a logic probe costs... but I found instructions on how to build a simple one in an old Sinclair book I was looking at last night. Makes sense, and doesn't sound too hairy. Once I get a logic probe. It seems a lot of people have dead or missing Apple mouses. Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/

On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, Tony Duell wrote: I've got a straight-blade screwdriver that fits. I've had the Mac open at least three times. I know it's not hard. It's just that the monitor scares me. Whether it's justified fear or not, I don't know. Actually, I HAD to open it up when I first got it home, just to get it to do anything better than display a garbled "sad mac". The MacSnap memory board that was clipped onto the chips on the motherboard had cracked connectors, and removing it allowed the Mac to boot up. <large snippage> Well I'm glad there are cheap ones. A lot more stuff will be doable once I get my hands on one of those. I should keep my eyes peeled for a 'scope, too, but I don't really know what to look for. Luckily, with classic hardware, I don't need anything terribly fast. Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/

On Sun, 16 Aug 1998, Tony Duell wrote: Yes, but I don't feel like hunting down (and paying for) a tool that's really only good for this one job. I've only got the one Mac, and I don't plan on opening it too frequently. Now, if I got a whole truck-load of old Macs and was threatened with death if I didn't open them all up, I'd certainly want the proper tool. :) [re: logic probes] I just bought a 'cheap' Radio Shack logic probe today, also 10MHz. Unfortunately, tonight I was powering it with a cheap Radio Shack power adapter, and it was screetching and had the PULSE light on no matter where I made contact. So probably I need a power supply with better filtering. I know that when I used to use this very same power supply with my Walkman, there was a very audible (and annoying) hum. Anyway, I don't know what the heck I'm doing with this thing yet. But I've only used it for a few minutes. I didn't find the problem with the Mac, but that'll come in time. I also did a very dumb thing today in that I bought the wrong connectors for the Mac->Amiga mouse cable I wanted to build. I bought one of each sex, which any lame-brained dimwit would recognize as wrong as the two machines in question use ports of the opposite sex. If I had accidentally bought two female plugs, at least I could've tested the Mac mouse on the Amiga. My excuse is that I haven't managed to get more than 4 hours sleep on any night so far this week. :) At least I'll be building up a 'spare parts bin' like the rest of you. :) <lots of good advice about scopes snipped> Thanks for the advice and info, Tony! Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/

On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Doug Spence wrote: That is really not quite true, as it is the most commonly used size in computers. Simply longer than you need for other applications. Think of it as a Torx driver for those that don't want to get too close to their work 8-> - don donm(a)cts.com *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Don Maslin - Keeper of the Dina-SIG CP/M System Disk Archives Chairman, Dina-SIG of the San Diego Computer Society Clinging tenaciously to the trailing edge of technology. Sysop - Elephant's Graveyard (CP/M) Z-Node 9 - 619-454-8412 *--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--* see old system support at http://www.psyber.com/~tcj visit the "Unofficial" CP/M Web site at http://cdl.uta.edu/cpm with Mirror at http://www.mathcs.emory.edu/~cfs/cpm

On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Tony Duell wrote: Yes, I can see why a complete set might be useful. But does a regular set that one would buy at the local hardware store have the extended length Macintosh-opening driver? I think only two of the 35 (? <-- I've lost count again already) machines in my posession have _processor_ clocks faster than 10MHz, so it should do fine. :) What is 'ripple' on the power supply? :) Unfortunately my ][+ clone is quite ill, and is in increasing need of medical help. But I do have the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 schematics, too. I think there may be a few errors on the schematics, and those machines have a few custom parts, but I may as well play with those machines as anything else. When I bought my very first VIC-20, back in 1990, it was my intention to tear it apart and learn something about electronics with it. It was in a smashed up case and looked rather forlorn, and I think there was a metal screw or two that had found their way into the case. But when I got it home, the darn thing worked, and I got hooked, and I didn't want to do anything to harm my little VIC. :) That was the machine that started my 'collection'. The first machine that I had bought as something just to have around, to play with, etc, instead of as my main computer. Now I have three VIC-20s, and that original VIC is definitely in the worst shape of the three. It has a damaged cartridge connector and it now lives in a Commodore 64 case. So I may as well haul it out and use it for my originally intended purpose. Yeah, neat. I don't know how "known" any of the signals will be, though. :) These were common, but definitely NOT low-cost! I didn't bother to find out how much they were until after I had already paid for them (dammit!). The prices weren't on them, only bar codes. Something which I think should be illegal. Most of the computers in my collection cost me less than those two 9-pin connectors. (The connectors were about $5 each!) I'll have to find an INEXPENSIVE source of parts before I do that. I know of one place that is considerably less expensive than Radio Shack, but it's much more expensive in time. It takes me about two hours to get there by BMW (Bus, Metro, Walk). A lot of their parts are surplus or recycled (pulled out of murdered VIC-20s and stuff). Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/

On Sat, 29 Aug 1998, Doug Spence wrote: I walked into a chain hardware store locally and didn't have a problem finding both a torx set and an extension for the handle (or perhaps it was an extended handle torx driver?) At any rate, they are readily available. Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ever onward. September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 08/25/98]

Doug Spence wrote: Ripple is AC noise (usually incoming line frequency or a multiple thereof) on th DC supply line that has not been filtered out by the PS. Its presence is an indication of a failing or failed fileter capacitor or a load beyond design specs. Stan <<snip>>

Unfortunatly I'm in need of spares at the moment my self, I guess it's time for another Goodwill run, so I can't help you there. I've got a pair of Pluses that I'm maintaining until cousins twin girls are older (they got the computers when they were a year and a half). When getting the above mentioned computers running I discovered that it can be a real pain to find fully functional Mac Plus keyboards. I also discovered that it's handy to have one non-functional keyboard around, that you can pull keys off of, and test to make sure they are good. Then when you need to, you can replace a bad key. This takes a Soldering Iron, but about the only skill you need is not to hit yourself with the Iron :^) I've also repaired one of the fancy ADB keyboards (the ones that sell for $160 new), in its case I had to refurbish the keys themselves. First I unsoldered them, then got them working again and soldered them back on. This is not a fun proceedure, and does require a little skill (but just a little). Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |