I picked up a uVAX 3500 a while back, and as a gift horse it came with some fixer-upper problems, not too many, I hope. There's two drives, one dead, the other with OpenVMS 6.0. It comes up fast enough but runs a few minutes then starts hanging for 5 minutes or so. Paging from the dead drive I wonder? It's a station and as such boots on the graphics hardware so I can't capture output but I thought errors WRT paging may have gone by. Q1: Where are the commands for showing and setting physical page files buried? Q2: Can I boot from serial console without pulling the graphics cards? TIA for the QIO. John A.

Check SYS$UPDATE:SWAPFILES.COM. That will cover the page, swap, and dump files on the system disk. If there are any not on the system disk, you need to look through the startup files to see where they are used. It depends on the system. IIRC the QBUS systems require pulling the graphics cards as there isn't a switch to set to tell the system to use a serial console. -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

If this machine does have DOS compatiable it will say: Performa 630CD DOS compatiable otherwise... Undo two screws on rear panel for the logicboard and get hold of small handle and pull and wiggle firmly. Out comes this motherboard w/ memory, PRAM battery etc. If it has another daughterboard plugged into '040 socket, you got DOS compatiable board w/ 1 socket for ram, two sockets for mac cpu (LC040 33MHz) and other one is for 486dx2 66. On the logicboard, 2 slots for ram, all ram is non parity, FPM, 70ns or faster. If the small slot w/ small opening at rear panel is filled by a small card, might be a network card. The HD, CD and floppy comes out from front end. HD is IDE (!!), CD is 2x scsi apple rom, floppy is manual inject. Not bad little (even it's bit bulky) box other than that, it's just low end machine w/ limited expansion. I hope you paid very little for it. Cheers, Wizard

I agree...great site. I use it as a jumping-off point for various news items each day. The direct URL for info on the machine, including specs and upgrades, that he is looking for is: http://www.lowendmac.com/quadra/q630.shtml Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

Actually Lowendmac shows it as being the last 68040-based Mac, clocked at 33mhz. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

Yes, and though the software to support this apparently auxilliary CPU seems to have been installed, the 486 itself isn't present. Too bad, but I didn't snag the MAC's in order to run a '486. It's apparenly not so simple figuring out what's installed, hardware wise, though. Apparently there's some sort of system search facility somewhere, but it's not a trivial thing finding it. That teensy 12" screen doesn't help when you're half-blind as many guys my age are. There's a program (somewhere) called "FINDER," though I'm not convinced it's for the purpose of finding something. What I need to find out is how to find the FINDER. Then, of course, I have to figure out how to drive it ... <sigh> will it ever end ... Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Geoff Reed" &lt;geoffr(a)zipcon.net&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 3:37 PM Subject: Re: OT: paging MAC expert(s) --- What's a Performa? first degraded

The Finder is a critical part of MacOS. If you're in some sort of filesystem browser where you can look through drives, double click on things, etc., that's the Finder. I strongly doubt it's missing, or the system probably would not boot. -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm stuck in the fourth lotus position." -

A program that will give you more info than 'System Profiler' is called TattleTech. Even the current beta still supports running on System 7.X and a 68020 cpu. It can be had at: http://www.tattletech.com You should be able to download it, copy it to a PC-formatted disk and be able to read the disk on the Mac. You'll need Stuffit Expander on the Mac to unarchive it though. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

Richard, I can email you a self extracting archive of the latest beta if you want. It's just over 500k and would be simpler than find a non-PPC version of Stuffit Expander. All you would have to do is copy the .SEA file to the Mac's desktop and then run it. Let me know. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

He'd have to make sure he got an older version that supported the 68k Mac's though, as the current versions are PPC-only and require at least OS 8.1. I believe I have a 68k version here on an old Earthlink software CD. That version will work on a 68k Mac with OS 7.0 or above. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

Right now, I'm pretty concerned about how to crack open the box without breaking it, so I can inspect the hard disk to see what it is, physically. Does anybody have a recipe for doing that? Moreover, I imagine I'll use one of the considerably larger IDE types I've set aside from PC use to replace the drives now in the machines. It's safe to assume, however, that NOT any IDE drive will work, since Apple Computers, Inc. didn't like folks buying hardware at a resonable price from someone else rather than allowing Apple to gouge them. (part of the MAC culture, I guess) I note, also, that the CDROM is SCSI. That being the case, I'd like to see whether there's room for a SCSI HDD in the box. There certainly is room in the system (logically). That would work even better, since I have lots of extra SCSI drives. Have any of you MAC gurus got experience with replacing MAC IDE drives? It looks as though the drives in the boxes are 250 MB or so, which might be adequate for some things, but I doubt it would be adequate for internet activity. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" &lt;spectre(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 10:59 AM Subject: Re: OT: paging MAC expert(s) --- What's a Performa? http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Klemperer ----------------------------------------------

Most Mac's, other than the earlier compact ones, are pretty easy to open. Some don't even have screws holding the case lid on, just pull tabs at the back of the lid. Others, such as the II series, have little tabs that must be pushed in while lifting on the lid. The problems with using hard disks other than those provided by Apple is pretty much limited to SCSI drives. I've never had a problem with popping a 3rd party IDE drive into one. Unfortunately, this also applies to SCSI CD-ROM's, though there are ways around that for using 3rd party CD's as well. If your 630 already has an internal CD-ROM it is likely to be an Apple drive anyway, so you wouldn't have to worry about this. I'd personally stick with the IDE hard disks so as to avoid the inability of formatting 3rd party SCSI drives. Depends on what you're going to use. Netscape 3 is pretty much as high as I'd go on that old of a machine, though versions up to about 4.08 are usable on non-PPC Mac's. For light use, using System 7.5.5 (which is available freely on the 'net), 250 MB isn't bad. System 7.5.5, as has already been pointed out, is less RAM hungry than 8.1 and it also takes up less disk space. That's what I'd stick with on a 68k Mac. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

By that point in the Mac development cycle, Apple had pretty much decided that users easily gaining access to the internals of their machines was a Bad Thing; the so-called 'hacker' mentality of the Apple II days had fallen out of favor. Couldn't let the magic smoke out, you see. The Performa 637CD sitting on the table in the next room was a pain to open, and getting the case off only gave me access to the metal enclosures surrounding the guts of the machine (more screws, sliding, etc). Mike Richard Erlacher wrote: <snip>

Actually, other than some of the low-end models from the mid-90's, and of course the early compact Mac's, most of the cases have been pretty easy to get into. Examples are the 6100, all of the G3/G4 minitowers, and even the Color Classic with it's slide-out mainboard. The current tower cases are a dream to work in with the way the mainboard drops down with the side panel. Of course, some of the most horrid case designs were those like the 8500/9500 series where you had to remove the whole mainboard from the machine to do something as simple as a cache or RAM upgrade. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

According to Aladin's download page, 5.5 is the last version that supports the 68k processor and System 7.1. I checked the Earthlink software CD (from 1999, which includes software for both PPC and 68k Mac's) and it included version 4.01. It's a good source for the older internet software for 68k Mac's though, with Netscape 3, OT 1.1.1 and everything else needed to get online. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

True. It appears that all (?) of the older versions are available on their ftp site... ftp://ftp.aladdinsys.com/pub/_old/mac/StuffIt_Expander/ This directory seems to have versions 4.0 through 6.0.1. Mike Jeff Hellige wrote:

gwynp(a)artware.qc.ca wrote: Macs saw a lot of lab use. There were some special interfaces and software ( LabVIEW ) for them. They can be used to control experiments and equipment. So if you have NuBus interface cards, an old mac is just what is needed. gwynp(a)artware.qc.ca wrote: > > On 17-Nov-2001 Richard Erlacher wrote: > > I've downloaded TattleTech, but where, now, do I find the Stuffit > > Expander? > > You're best bet is to buy a Mac Addict or other magazine that has a CD-ROM > (you do have a CD drive?). Older Macs don't "boot-strap" very well. Yes, > you can get a SEA (self-extracting archive) of Stuffit, but it won't do > you much good. Mac OS has 2 forks per file. One for data, the other > for code. When you download a file or when you copy a file from a PC > formated disk everything goes into the data fork. Doing something > equivalent to "chmod +x file.sea" is impossible on Mac OS without an > external program, like say Stuffit. *sigh* If you are lucky, you'll have > a recent version of Mac OS which includes Stuffit. > > I find this to be one of the most incredible "features" of Mac OS. Apart > from that, as long as you have a real computer nearby, using a Mac isn't > that bad. > > > -Philip

Richard Erlacher skrev: The Performa series was Apple's old brand for the home computer market. Most Performas were also available as either LCs, Quadras or PowerMacs. The 630 contains a 33 MHz 68LC040 processor, an IDE (!) hard drive, a CommSlot for modems or ethernet cards, an LC PDS slot and possibly cards for video and TV. It uses 72-pin SIMMs. The motherboard slides out from the back after you've removed some plastic panels. It plugs into a backplane in the front. Yes, there was a version with a PC bridgeboard, the 630PC. A 486 on a card, exploiting the Mac resources. -- En ligne avec Thor 2.6a. Was ist ein Erwachsener? Ein Kind, das vom Alter aufgepumpt ist. --- Simone de Beauvoir

I have about a dozen I have collected up cheap. My plan is to replace the LC processor with a full 040 (with fpu), drop in a big cheap IDE drive and use them as network storage and other servers. They are about the least likely old mac for trying to salvage something out of.

Yes, I saw that. What's still a little murky is how best to exploit the thing in the context of "normal" (if there is such a thing) home computing. I certainly don't know what's normal. There's software installed that's undocumented (unsupported by registration doc's), so it will have to go, but I'm not interested in going out and buying software to load the thing up so that it can do some basic correspondence. They both have Claris Works loaded, but since there's no CD and no doc, I have to say it's got to be flushed. Too bad since that purports to have all the stuff that's needed. There's even a (single) copy of the manual suggesting that the software stayed wherever these boxes came from. (makes my skin crawl to end a sentence with a preposition, but it would sound too "stilted" to construct the sentence correctly ... ) You've gathered by now, I'm sure, that there were actually two complete systems rather than just one. One has a Stylewriter II and the other has a Color Stylewriter 2400, not that I know what the differences are. Unlike what I originally read the drive size to be, these are, indeed, the minimally equipped Performa 630CD, with a CD, 8 MB of RAM and a 250 MB hard disk. They have essentially useless (2400 Baud) GV Teleport Bronze modems, which I guess I'll upgrade in order to make the system useful for internet browsing, and I suppose it won't hurt to upgrade the things to 36 MB of RAM. I'm still in the throes of figuring out how, exactly to equip these things with "legal" software, or at least useable software that I can install myself, so that I can get back to where I started if I have to, without having to make a major investment. I've had some useful suggestions, and I'll get back to doing this stuff after Turkey Day, since I have to put away my toys in the meantime. My SO knows where I sleep, so I have to do this ... <sigh> ... the sacrifices one makes ... Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Maginnis" &lt;celt(a)chisp.net&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 9:52 AM Subject: Re: OT: paging MAC expert(s) --- What's a Performa? noticed 630CD. disk run

I've drawn the conclusion that the only real memory-hog is the Netscape browser. A couple of folks have advised me to install a 32MB simm for that purpose alone. It would certainly be a shame to make the system buckle when browsing just because it lacks RAM. Does anyone know otherwise? It would be a waste to invest in expanding the RAM if it's unwarranted, though I've never heard complaints about too much RAM. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stan Barr" &lt;stanb(a)dial.pipex.com&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 12:27 PM Subject: Re: OT: paging MAC expert(s) --- What's a Performa? thing I'm it since since copy would

Have you got hands-on experience with Netscrape on the MAC with <20 MB? That makes a difference, since I can then configure both boxes the same way, having the required parts in house. It seems that of the two 32MB simms I've got left, only one is a "for-sure" functional one. The other, ... well ..., lets just say I'm not so sure. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Allain" &lt;allain(a)panix.com&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 9:04 AM Subject: Re: OT: paging MAC expert(s) --- What's a Performa?

Netscape is a memory hog, but will run in as little as 8MB. V4.08 uses about 12-14MB in my system, but more RAM never hurts...except the wallet! Go look at iCab: http://www.icab.de/ faster and smaller. I think the preview version is still free for the moment. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com The future was never like this!