11 Apr
2013
11 Apr
'13
2:10 p.m.
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump today, but no keyboard /
rodent / display.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the
'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some
significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
I'll try some vinegar and see how it goes, but obviously it doesn't make
sense to source a keyboard, mouse and display from anywhere if the system's
toast.
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA
monitor? Or,
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O board up to a TV and
expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that
board's only initialized after the system's booted)
Done with hard disk disconnected, obviously - but will the system even
output anything to the display with no keyboard or mouse present?
cheers
Jules
11 Apr
11 Apr
3:24 p.m.
On 11 Apr 2013, at 17:10, "Jules Richardson" <jules.richardson99 at
gmail.com> wrote:
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump today, but no keyboard / rodent /
display.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the 'VEE'
bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some significant
battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
I'll try some vinegar and see how it goes, but obviously it doesn't make sense to
source a keyboard, mouse and display from anywhere if the system's toast.
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA monitor? Or,
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O board up to a TV and expect to be able
to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that board's only initialized
after the system's booted)
If my PowerMac 8600 is any indication, yes. You should be able to.
Done with hard disk disconnected, obviously - but will the system even output anything to
the display with no keyboard or mouse present?
It /should/ still try to boot. You could always throw a floppy in.
cheers
Jules
3:33 p.m.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 17:10, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>
wrote:
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump today,
but no keyboard / rodent / display.
Is that the smooth-cornered minitower? Those things were
nightmarish to take apart, but otherwise ok.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a
video I/O board (the 'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is
that there's some significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board
PCB.
I'll try some vinegar and see how it goes, but obviously it doesn't make sense to
source a keyboard, mouse and display from anywhere if the system's toast.
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA monitor? Or,
Yes. Adaptors aren't hard to come by, and that generation of
Mac should support DDC codes from modern VGA monitors.
The absolute best adaptor to use, if you can find it, is the
Griffin MacPnP adaptor, which has a bank of DIP switches
to set the monitor sense codes (necessary for older, more
finicky Macs) and/or pass the DDC lines through. I have
a number of Mac/VGA adaptors, some of which just pass
the sense lines through verbatim and some of which have
the sense code hard wired to what the manufacturer thought
was right (for example, a 1024x768 VGA monitor came with
an adaptor that was hard-wired to declare that it only
supported 640x480 and 832x624).
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O board
up to a TV and expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that
board's only initialized after the system's booted)
Maybe. Not as familiar with this one.
Done with hard disk disconnected, obviously - but will
the system even output anything to the display with no keyboard or mouse present?
Yup! It'll boot all the way that way, though it won't be very
useful unless you have a server in the Startup Items folder
or something. If all is well, you'll see a grey (B&W checkered)
screen and a floppy with a question mark if there's no
startup disk.
If you need a mouse, I have a few spares of which I
could send one. I wish I had spare keyboards, but for
some reason, my ADB keyboard collection seems to
have shrunk.
- Dave
3:40 p.m.
On 11 Apr 2013, at 18:33, "David Riley" <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 11, 2013, at 17:10, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>
wrote:
I've seen the B&W chequered screen when my 8600 has booted properly before
interestingly enough.
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump
today, but no keyboard / rodent / display.
Is that the smooth-cornered minitower? Those things were
nightmarish to take apart, but otherwise ok.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along
with a video I/O board (the 'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside
is that there's some significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system
board PCB.
I'll try some vinegar and see how it goes, but obviously it doesn't make sense to
source a keyboard, mouse and display from anywhere if the system's toast.
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA monitor? Or,
Yes. Adaptors aren't hard to come by, and that generation of
Mac should support DDC codes from modern VGA monitors.
The absolute best adaptor to use, if you can find it, is the
Griffin MacPnP adaptor, which has a bank of DIP switches
to set the monitor sense codes (necessary for older, more
finicky Macs) and/or pass the DDC lines through. I have
a number of Mac/VGA adaptors, some of which just pass
the sense lines through verbatim and some of which have
the sense code hard wired to what the manufacturer thought
was right (for example, a 1024x768 VGA monitor came with
an adaptor that was hard-wired to declare that it only
supported 640x480 and 832x624).
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O
board up to a TV and expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if
that board's only initialized after the system's booted)
Maybe. Not as familiar with this one.
Done with hard disk disconnected, obviously - but
will the system even output anything to the display with no keyboard or mouse present?
Yup! It'll boot all the way that way, though it won't be very
useful unless you have a server in the Startup Items folder
or something. If all is well, you'll see a grey (B&W checkered)
screen and a floppy with a question mark if there's no
startup disk.
If you need a mouse, I have a few spares of which I
could send one. I wish I had spare keyboards, but for
some reason, my ADB keyboard collection seems to
have shrunk.
My 8600 kind of in dire straits and it's difficult to get a new OS install on it (due
to a failing drive) and I don't want to put too much more effort in to it right
now...so I could give you my ADB keyboard if you need.
- Dave
4:19 p.m.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 18:40, "Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
If you're ever looking to get rid of the 8600 itself, I can give
it a good home. :-)
- Dave
I've seen the B&W chequered screen when my 8600 has booted properly before
interestingly enough.
Nothing wrong with it; it's just the first screen that comes
up (somewhat analogous to the BIOS POST screen on a
PC).
If you need a
mouse, I have a few spares of which I
could send one. I wish I had spare keyboards, but for
some reason, my ADB keyboard collection seems to
have shrunk.
My 8600 kind of in dire straits and it's difficult to get a new OS install on it (due
to a failing drive) and I don't want to put too much more effort in to it right
now...so I could give you my ADB keyboard if you need.
4:26 p.m.
On 11 Apr 2013, at 19:19, "David Riley" <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 11, 2013, at 18:40, "Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
If you're ever looking to get rid of the 8600 itself, I can give
it a good home. :-)
I'm willing to give it up. It needs a good cleaning however?some plastic is also
missing from the casing. It's got a G4 upgrade and about 384M RAM iirc. IDE
controller and USB 1.1, too.
Contact me off-list if you're interested. I'm sure we can work something out.
I've seen the B&W chequered screen when my 8600 has booted properly before
interestingly enough.
Nothing wrong with it; it's just the first screen that comes
up (somewhat analogous to the BIOS POST screen on a
PC).
If you
need a mouse, I have a few spares of which I
could send one. I wish I had spare keyboards, but for
some reason, my ADB keyboard collection seems to
have shrunk.
My 8600 kind of in dire straits and it's difficult to get a new OS install on it (due
to a failing drive) and I don't want to put too much more effort in to it right
now...so I could give you my ADB keyboard if you need.
- Dave
7:40 p.m.
On 11 Apr 2013, at 19:26, "Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
On 11 Apr 2013, at 19:19, "David Riley" <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
I also have a VGA adapter for it and it has the AV personality card.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 18:40, "Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
If you're ever looking to get rid of the 8600 itself, I can give
it a good home. :-)
I'm willing to give it up. It needs a good cleaning however?some plastic is also
missing from the casing. It's got a G4 upgrade and about 384M RAM iirc. IDE
controller and USB 1.1, too.
I've seen the B&W chequered screen when my 8600 has booted properly before
interestingly enough.
Nothing wrong with it; it's just the first screen that comes
up (somewhat analogous to the BIOS POST screen on a
PC).
If you
need a mouse, I have a few spares of which I
could send one. I wish I had spare keyboards, but for
some reason, my ADB keyboard collection seems to
have shrunk.
My 8600 kind of in dire straits and it's difficult to get a new OS install on it (due
to a failing drive) and I don't want to put too much more effort in to it right
now...so I could give you my ADB keyboard if you need.
Contact me off-list if you're interested. I'm sure we can work something out.
- Dave
12 Apr
12 Apr
11:28 a.m.
On 04/11/2013 05:33 PM, David Riley wrote:
Are they just a straight-through wiring job (in which case does anyone know
the DA15 pinout?) or are they SoG as someone mentioned? I don't think I've
got anything here that'll accept SoG, so that makes things a little more
complex (and there'd perhaps be no gain in building an adapter vs. buying one)
On Apr 11, 2013, at 17:10, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, that's the one - and it is indeed a complete nightmare to take apart.
Perhaps it was better when new and the plastics have gone more rigid with age.
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump
today, but no keyboard
/ rodent / display.
Is that the smooth-cornered minitower? Those things were nightmarish to
take apart, but otherwise ok. > I'll try some vinegar and see how it goes
Well, it cleaned up well enough, at least visually - but there are no signs
of life when the power switch is hit (no PSU fan activity, nothing). I'll
see if I can work out the PSU wiring, as I'm not sure if it needs the
system board present to function, and it'd be nice to verify that the PSU
is working before going any further.
The battery is rated at 4.5V, by the way, not the 3.6V common to a lot of
machines. I assume it's non-rechargeable; can anyone confirm that? (If it's
not then I can easily supply power from 3 AA's just for testing purposes)
1) Is it
possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's
VGA monitor? Or,
Yes. Adaptors aren't hard to come by, and that generation of Mac should
support DDC codes from modern VGA monitors. The absolute best adaptor to
use, if you can find it, is the Griffin MacPnP adaptor, which has a bank
of DIP switches to set the monitor sense codes (necessary for older,
more finicky Macs) and/or pass the DDC lines through. I have a number of
Mac/VGA adaptors, some of which just pass the sense lines through
verbatim and some of which have the sense code hard wired to what the
manufacturer thought was right (for example, a 1024x768 VGA monitor came
with an adaptor that was hard-wired to declare that it only supported
640x480 and 832x624).
Hmm, I'd assume that in the absence of any DDC info it'll default to some
crappy resolution rather than outputting nothing, surely?
If you need a mouse, I have a few spares of which I
could send one.
Thanks - I'll keep that in mind. Funny how even quite-common stuff such as
this seems to have all but disappeared!
cheers
Jules
12:24 p.m.
On Apr 12, 2013, at 2:28 PM, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>
wrote:
Good luck; battery corrosion can be a big deal. I was lucky
with my Quadra 700; the battery was located at the top of the
motherboard and had dripped all the way down and eaten a leg and
a pad off a surface-mount hex inverter. I'm lucky in that the
affected leg was the power pin, which meant I could easily
white-wire the Vcc from an adjacent chip; if it had been an
actual signal pin, I might never have found where it went.
The PSU is probably pretty similar to an ATX supply in that the
motherboard pulls a pin high or low to soft-switch the supply
on and off. I'm having trouble finding a pinout for the 6400's
PSU, but try finding the +5V standby with a meter first. If
that's not present when the thing is plugged in (no fans should
be running), it might be toast. If you're able to find the
power-on wire (often gray, but who knows), it's active-high
(pull to +5V standby, not ground like ATX supplies). Try
pulling it through a resistor first; you don't want to short
anything out too hard if you have the wrong pin. 1K ought to
do it, though you might need something like 100 ohms to pull
the pin strongly enough. I don't know for sure.
This is a page which details the connections from the Alchemy
motherboard in the 5x00s, which I think was the same as the
6x00s in a different case. You could use that to figure out
which PSU wire is which. The original is dead, so please
pardon the long Internet Archive link.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040609201611/http://www.icedevil.nildram.co.uk…
Are they just a straight-through wiring job (in which case does anyone know the DA15
pinout?) or are they SoG as someone mentioned? I don't think I've got anything
here that'll accept SoG, so that makes things a little more complex (and there'd
perhaps be no gain in building an adapter vs. buying one)
Most Macs actually weren't SoG, to my knowledge. Some of the
68K ones were, and you could certainly get video cards that
were (you needed them for a lot of third-party monitors that
used 3xBNC or 1xBNC (for monochrome)). It's generally a
straight-through adaptor that maps right on to VGA with no
trouble. The pinout is pretty easy to find online. The last
entry on this page (straight from Apple) details the adaptor
pinout that came with the Apple Studio Display CRTs (Apple's
last CRT monitors, which moved to the VGA DE15 plug but came
with an adaptor for older machines). That's what you'll want
to make if you're making one.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA44937?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Most machines will. Probably all PowerMacs will; they'll
most likely default to 640x480, which actually wasn't all
that crappy until about Mac OS 8 (and that was more the
fault of application designers than anything else). It's
obviously WAY too small for the modern web, but most
browsers you run on that machine probably won't handle
the modern web that well anyway (with the exception of
Classilla, which uses the mobile layout, so screen size
might be OK there).
Some machines can be a pain about it; I know my Quadra 700
won't even initialize the display if it doesn't see some
sense codes (the Apple ones, since it doesn't do DDC), but
that's somewhat unusual. It's also a much older machine.
It's actually pretty easy to find on eBay or Craigslist,
but it's not as common as, say, PC mice and keyboards. Nor
as cheap. I'm kicking myself for throwing out three Apple
Design Keyboards about ten years ago; they weren't great
keyboards, but I find myself short on any ADB keyboards
these days and don't have the motivation to get them on
eBay.
If you're looking for a good one, find an Apple Extended
Keyboard (or Apple Extended Keyboard 2). They're good
keyboards with real keyswitches and nice tactile feedback
(and not as loud as a Model M), and durable as hell. I'm
actually using one on my 2011 iMac through a USB/ADB
adaptor because it's so far above anything Apple sold
since. Some of the keys are... reluctant by now, but the
keyswitches are actually easy enough to open back up and
"revitalize" by bending the leaf springs out a bit.
- Dave
On 04/11/2013 05:33 PM, David Riley wrote:
Nope. It was just a terrible design for the case. It was awful
when it was brand new, too; I have some scars from them. The
Alchemy motherboard itself wasn't total garbage, but I think the
6400/6500 cases were some of the worst that Apple ever designed,
maybe after the PowerPC-era all-in-ones (the 5x00, G3 AIO, eMac,
later iMac G3s).
On Apr 11, 2013, at 17:10, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, that's the one - and it is indeed a complete nightmare to take apart.
Perhaps it was better when new and the plastics have gone more rigid with age. I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump
today, but no keyboard
/ rodent / display.
Is that the smooth-cornered minitower? Those things were nightmarish to
take apart, but otherwise ok. > I'll
try some vinegar and see how it goes
Well, it cleaned up well enough, at least visually - but there are no signs of life when
the power switch is hit (no PSU fan activity, nothing). I'll see if I can work out the
PSU wiring, as I'm not sure if it needs the system board present to function, and
it'd be nice to verify that the PSU is working before going any further. The battery is rated at 4.5V, by the way, not the 3.6V
common to a lot of machines. I assume it's non-rechargeable; can anyone confirm that?
(If it's not then I can easily supply power from 3 AA's just for testing purposes)
I've definitely seen people use 3xAA holders as replacements for
them. Most RTC/CMOS batteries (which is basically what the PRAM
battery is) are non-rechargeable because you get about an order
of magnitude more energy out of the non-rechargeable chemistry.
I wouldn't expect this one to be rechargeable either, but I'm
not 100% certain.
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector
up to a PC's
VGA monitor? Or,
Yes. Adaptors aren't hard to come by, and that generation of Mac should
support DDC codes from modern VGA monitors. The absolute
best adaptor to
use, if you can find it, is the Griffin MacPnP adaptor, which has a bank
of DIP switches to set the monitor sense codes (necessary for older,
more finicky Macs) and/or pass the DDC lines through. I have a number of
Mac/VGA adaptors, some of which just pass the sense lines through
verbatim and some of which have the sense code hard wired to what the
manufacturer thought was right (for example, a 1024x768 VGA monitor came
with an adaptor that was hard-wired to declare that it only supported
640x480 and 832x624).
Hmm, I'd assume that in the absence of any DDC info it'll default to some crappy
resolution rather than outputting nothing, surely? If you need a
mouse, I have a few spares of which I could send one.
Thanks - I'll keep that in mind. Funny how even quite-common stuff such as this seems
to have all but disappeared! 
2:39 p.m.
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013, David Riley wrote:
The PSU is probably pretty similar to an ATX supply in
that the
motherboard pulls a pin high or low to soft-switch the supply
on and off. I'm having trouble finding a pinout for the 6400's
PSU, but try finding the +5V standby with a meter first. If
that's not present when the thing is plugged in (no fans should
be running), it might be toast.
No familiarity with that particular machine, but did you provide a LOAD
for the power supply? Many supplies can not be tested without a load. A
car headlight works pretty well. A dual filament bulb with one bad
filament is fine for this, and worthless to anybody else.
14 Apr
14 Apr
4:53 p.m.
On 04/12/2013 02:24 PM, David Riley wrote:
The PSU is probably pretty similar to an ATX supply in
that the
motherboard pulls a pin high or low to soft-switch the supply on and
off. I'm having trouble finding a pinout for the 6400's PSU
Just an update on this - with the 5x00 bus pinouts that you gave me, I was
able to confirm that the 6400 is the same (at least as far as the PSU
signals) - so thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, it's also confirmed that I've got a dead PSU; I've got no
+5V on the standby/TRKL line at all. I've done a few basic checks for open
diodes, transistors etc. on the AC input side, and things seem OK there.
I think I have a spare ATX PSU from a PC somewhere, so I may try that if I
can contrive something to marry up the different power-on signal (or I
suppose I could just hit the power switch on the back of the Apple and then
turn the PSU on manually, just for testing purposes) - there's probably no
point my spending time fixing the Apple's PSU if the system board is toast
anyway...
cheers
Jules
7:23 p.m.
On Apr 14, 2013, at 7:53 PM, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>
wrote:
On 04/12/2013 02:24 PM, David Riley wrote:
A simple open-collector inverter made from a general-purpose NPN
transistor should do fine. If you Google hard enough for it, you
can find examples; you'll probably at least need to put a resistor
on the base so you don't blow it up, but you might not need one on
the collector. If you can't find anything, let me know, I probably
have an example stored somewhere. Of course, if you're just going
to make a wiring harness for the ATX supply and wire the thing on all
the time, that solves your problem too. But the switch on the Mac
itself is only going to switch that power-on line; if you have an ATX
supply with a switch on it (which seem to be rarer these days), that
would do the trick.
If it turns out your logic board is OK, do consider trying to repair
your power supply; the 6400/6500 ones seem hard to find on eBay. Be
sane about it, though; my Quadra 700's PSU had a bad connection in
the transformer which supplied the +5v standby, which is basically
unfixable (there's absolutely NO WAY I'd be able to find a
replacement for that part; I probably could have reverse-engineered
the schematic and figured out how to MAKE one, but it wasn't that
precious to me since Q700/IIci/IIcx power supplies are pretty
reasonable on eBay).
- Dave
The PSU is probably pretty similar to an ATX
supply in that the
motherboard pulls a pin high or low to soft-switch the supply on and
off. I'm having trouble finding a pinout for the 6400's PSU
Just an update on this - with the 5x00 bus pinouts that you gave me, I was able to
confirm that the 6400 is the same (at least as far as the PSU signals) - so thanks for the
link.
Unfortunately, it's also confirmed that I've got a dead PSU; I've got no +5V
on the standby/TRKL line at all. I've done a few basic checks for open diodes,
transistors etc. on the AC input side, and things seem OK there.
I think I have a spare ATX PSU from a PC somewhere, so I may try that if I can contrive
something to marry up the different power-on signal (or I suppose I could just hit the
power switch on the back of the Apple and then turn the PSU on manually, just for testing
purposes) - there's probably no point my spending time fixing the Apple's PSU if
the system board is toast anyway... 
8:46 p.m.
[I]f you have an ATX supply with a switch on it (which
seem to be
rarer these days), that would do the trick.
Maybe. The ATX supplies with switches I've seen have the switch in
series with the mains, so it just allows you to hard power-down without
losing ground - it doesn't allow you to manually force the supply to
power up.
Or are you talking about a switch that _does_ override the wiring
harness's "please power on" line? I've never seen one, but that
doesn't mean they don't exist....
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
9:13 p.m.
On 14 Apr 2013, at 23:46, "Mouse" <mouse at rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
In my experience it did if I shorted the wires that connect to the main board for the
switch.
[I]f you have an ATX supply with a switch on it
(which seem to be
rarer these days), that would do the trick.
Maybe. The ATX supplies with switches I've seen have the switch in
series with the mains, so it just allows you to hard power-down without
losing ground - it doesn't allow you to manually force the supply to
power up.
Or are you talking about a switch that _does_ override the wiring
harness's "please power on" line? I've never seen one, but that
doesn't mean they don't exist....
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
9:29 p.m.
On Apr 14, 2013, at 11:46 PM, Mouse wrote:
Oh, yes, I assumed he'd be hotwiring the "power on" low. Should
have mentioned that. You could always wire up a switch for *that*
if you wanted to, but if the supply already has a mains switch,
it's much easier to just wire the power on line to ground and use
that.
- Dave
[I]f you have
an ATX supply with a switch on it (which seem to be
rarer these days), that would do the trick.
Maybe. The ATX supplies with switches I've seen have the switch in
series with the mains, so it just allows you to hard power-down without
losing ground - it doesn't allow you to manually force the supply to
power up.
Or are you talking about a switch that _does_ override the wiring
harness's "please power on" line? I've never seen one, but that
doesn't mean they don't exist....
15 Apr
15 Apr
6:11 a.m.
On 04/14/2013 09:23 PM, David Riley wrote:
Yes, should do - although I'm leaning toward just faking it for a simple
test. Connect up ATX PSU so that the Apple has +5V standby, then hit power
switch on the Apple, then hook the PSU's PS_ON line to ground to turn the
supply on.
I'll definitely be looking at fixing the Apple's PSU fault though if it
seems that the system board is alive (this era of Apple isn't really my
thing, but OTOH vintage computers of any description are almost impossible
to find here, so it doesn't feel right to give up on it!). Although, maybe
I should look at home much a keyboard's going to cost me first... :-)
Oh, having pulled the sub-woofer out, there's some rust on the chassis
beneath; it makes me wonder if the machine got wet at some point and that
killed it (with the battery corrosion coming later).
cheers
Jules
Unfortunately,
it's also confirmed that I've got a dead PSU; I've got
no +5V on the standby/TRKL line at all. I've done a few basic checks
for open diodes, transistors etc. on the AC input side, and things
seem OK there.
I think I have a spare ATX PSU from a PC somewhere, so I may try that
if I can contrive something to marry up the different power-on signal
(or I suppose I could just hit the power switch on the back of the
Apple and then turn the PSU on manually, just for testing purposes) -
there's probably no point my spending time fixing the Apple's PSU if
the system board is toast anyway...
A simple open-collector inverter made from a general-purpose NPN
transistor should do fine.
24 Apr
24 Apr
4:04 p.m.
On 04/14/2013 09:23 PM, David Riley wrote:
If it turns out your logic board is OK, do consider
trying to repair
your power supply
Another update - things got busy and I only just had a chance to look at
this again yesterday. Powering up via an ATX PSU produces a "bong" sound
from the speaker, which I'm assuming means that
that the system board is at
least somewhat healthy (as I'd imagine that the
tone is CPU-driven rather
than some form of startup circuit).
I seem to have absolutely no DA15 connectors in the junk box though, so
I'll have to order one before I can test the video output (hmm, unless I
can severely chop a DB25...)
cheers
Jules
4:14 p.m.
On Apr 24, 2013, at 7:04 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
On 04/14/2013 09:23 PM, David Riley wrote:
If you hear that and nothing afterwards, it's a good sign; my
recollection is that the "bad news" sound (which can come either
before or up to a few seconds after the startup chime, depending
on whether it fails during the memory test or not) is a rather
noticeable car crash.
If it turns out your logic board is OK, do
consider trying to repair
your power supply
Another update - things got busy and I only just had a chance to look at this again
yesterday. Powering up via an ATX PSU produces a "bong" sound from the speaker,
which I'm assuming means that that the system board is at least somewhat healthy (as
I'd imagine that the tone is CPU-driven rather than some form of startup circuit).
I seem to have absolutely no DA15 connectors in the
junk box though, so I'll have to order one before I can test the video output (hmm,
unless I can severely chop a DB25...)
You *might* be able to, but it's a lot of trouble. They're
usually pretty cheap and available, since they were used on
everything from PC joystick connectors to AUI ports. Not as
ubiquitous as DB25, for sure, but not nearly as hard to find
as the Dx19 they used for the floppy port (which has a non-
standard D-shell size without a real name, so Dx19 or D19
usually suffices).
- Dave
12 Apr
12 Apr
4:38 p.m.
On 2013 Apr 12, at 11:28 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
On 04/11/2013 05:33 PM, David Riley wrote:
Here are some schematics for video adapters I have used with 90s-era
Macs.
http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/videoAdapters.pdf
The first one is one of those with the DIP switches on the adapter.
The last one is a homemade cable (15-pin-Mac)-to-VGA cable that I use
with a VGA LCD, essentially the same as the first one but with a hard-
wired display code.
(Also there is VGA to Sun adapter - for a while I used two chained
adapters to drive a Sun 19-inch monitor from a Mac G3.)
The absolute best adaptor to
use, if you can find it, is the Griffin MacPnP adaptor, which has
a bank
of DIP switches to set the monitor sense codes (necessary for older,
more finicky Macs) and/or pass the DDC lines through. I have a
number of
Mac/VGA adaptors, some of which just pass the sense lines through
verbatim and some of which have the sense code hard wired to what the
manufacturer thought was right (for example, a 1024x768 VGA
monitor came
with an adaptor that was hard-wired to declare that it only supported
640x480 and 832x624).
Hmm, I'd assume that in the absence of any DDC info it'll default
to some crappy resolution rather than outputting nothing, surely? 
11 Apr
11 Apr
3:37 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector
up to a PC's VGA
monitor? Or,
I'm not familiar with that specific model, but if it's the old style
Mac video connector, adapters to VGA are widely available. I use this
one with my older Macs:
http://www.amazon.com/Adapter-DB15-Male-HD15-Female/dp/B0016OC1J2
I think the design is widely cloned, I've seen it under a number of brands.
IIRC, you can wire your own cable provided the monitor supports
sync-on-green (best to check if that machine is SOG, I'm not sure if
that's true of all Macs from that time). Some adapters may handle
SOG... some may not.
-Andy
3:58 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Jules Richardson <
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the
'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some
significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
You *need* the battery for the system to boot. It's probably a 1/2 AA 3.6V
lithium. Given the age and the corrosion, you probably need a new one.
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O board
up to a TV and
expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that
board's only initialized after the system's booted)
No, the video out will default to the display connector until you boot and
get into the Sound & Video control panel to change it.
4:07 p.m.
On 11 Apr 2013, at 18:58, "Jason McBrien" <jbmcb1 at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Jules Richardson <
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Really? When was the 6400 released? Is it old-world + open firmware? If not, that would
explain why my 8600 does and the 6400 won't.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the
'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some
significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
You *need* the battery for the system to boot. It's probably a 1/2 AA 3.6V
lithium. Given the age and the corrosion, you probably need a new one.
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O
board up to a TV and
expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that
board's only initialized after the system's booted)
No, the video out will default to the display connector until you boot and
get into the Sound & Video control panel to change it.
4:23 p.m.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 19:07, "Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
Really? When was the 6400 released? Is it old-world + open firmware? If not, that
would explain why my 8600 does and the 6400 won't.
They're *both* OldWorld machines. I don't recall which
version of OF each one used, but NetBSD's macppc site
has a table.
- Dave
2) Can I hook the composite out on the video I/O board
up to a TV and
expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that
board's only initialized after the system's booted)
No, the video out will default to the display connector until you boot and
get into the Sound & Video control panel to change it.
4:21 p.m.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 18:58, Jason McBrien <jbmcb1 at gmail.com> wrote:
That's my recollection of how the AV Quadras worked, but
I wasn't sure if that carried over to the terminal OldWorld
machines.
- Dave
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Jules Richardson
<
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Most Power Macs of that vintage will boot without one, or
with a dead one. Later ones had issues because the PMU
would crash, making it difficult to start up.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the
'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some
significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
You *need* the battery for the system to boot. It's probably a 1/2 AA 3.6V
lithium. Given the age and the corrosion, you probably need a new one. 2) Can I hook
the composite out on the video I/O board up to a TV and
expect to be able to see something at boot time? (I'm not sure if that
board's only initialized after the system's booted)
No, the video out will default to the display connector until you boot and
get into the Sound & Video control panel to change it. 
5:28 p.m.
On 12/04/2013, at 8:58 AM, Jason McBrien <jbmcb1 at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Jules Richardson
<
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Don't those compact Performa machines use a square 4.5V alkaline battery?
And yes, I do believe that they require a battery to start.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the
'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some
significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
You *need* the battery for the system to boot. It's probably a 1/2 AA 3.6V
lithium. Given the age and the corrosion, you probably need a new one.
6:41 p.m.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 20:28, Chris Pye <pye at mactec.com.au> wrote:
On 12/04/2013, at 8:58 AM, Jason McBrien <jbmcb1 at gmail.com> wrote:
I had forgotten about those batteries. Man, those machines
were a pain. The web seems to agree about the booting
thing, though I've found that with a lot of Macs that will
give a chime but not boot all the way when the battery is
dead, they'll boot if you do a restart (with the button if
your machine has one, or cmd-ctrl-power on the keyboard
otherwise). My LC475 does that, for example.
- Dave
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Jules Richardson
<
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Don't those compact Performa machines use a square 4.5V alkaline battery?
And yes, I do believe that they require a battery to start.
It seems to have 128MB of RAM installed, along with a video I/O board (the
'VEE' bit, I suppose) and Ethernet board. The downside is that there's some
significant battery corrosion toward the bottom of the system board PCB.
You *need* the battery for the system to boot. It's probably a 1/2 AA 3.6V
lithium. Given the age and the corrosion, you probably need a new one. 
6:45 p.m.
On 12 April 2013 02:41, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
I had forgotten about those batteries. Man, those machines
were a pain. The web seems to agree about the booting
thing, though I've found that with a lot of Macs that will
give a chime but not boot all the way when the battery is
dead, they'll boot if you do a restart (with the button if
your machine has one, or cmd-ctrl-power on the keyboard
otherwise). My LC475 does that, for example.
Aha! I've seen that too. Did not realise that was the cause.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
7:16 p.m.
On Apr 11, 2013, at 9:45 PM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
On 12 April 2013 02:41, David Riley <fraveydank at
gmail.com> wrote:
I mostly see it in PMU-based machines, which mostly means
NewWorld machines, but not exclusively. The LC475, being
a 68K machine, is obviously not a PMU machine, but it had
some issues booting cold if the battery was dead. I was
always able to boot it (as well as a lot of later Macs
with the same issue) with a force reset/warm boot.
The 6400 series was near the end of the line for the
OldWorld architecture. It wouldn't surprise me if there
weren't some oddball architectural features in there. Do
I recall correctly that the slotted motherboard is pretty
much the same form factor as the Quadra/LC 630 with the
weird card-edge connector for the I/O?
- Dave
I had forgotten about those batteries. Man, those machines
were a pain. The web seems to agree about the booting
thing, though I've found that with a lot of Macs that will
give a chime but not boot all the way when the battery is
dead, they'll boot if you do a restart (with the button if
your machine has one, or cmd-ctrl-power on the keyboard
otherwise). My LC475 does that, for example.
Aha! I've seen that too. Did not realise that was the cause. 
7:38 p.m.
New subject: Tektronix graphic systems available across the pond (Belgium)
I got the following email from a previousTektronix Support Engineer.
Located in Belgium. He does want some money for the stuff, not just
giving it away. There are some interesting items available so I hope
someone on his side of the pond can make a deal. I did get his permission
to post it here, so go at it.
Bo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sirs ,
Are you interested in acquiring following computer stuff at a fair
reasonable price ?
It concerns :
Two Tektronix scientific graphic computers 4052 full
options.
All the user manuals and service manuals.
The hardware diagnostic ROM set with manual.
Thereby several boxes with original spare parts and firmware rom sets
and memory
chips.
All the replacement boards from the service department
, exception a
display-board.
A couple of MAGTAPE interchangable read/write units.
12 brandnew magtape cardridges.
Both 4052 do work. A brand new spare 4052 CRT is also available.
A Tektronix "CPM/86" computer model 4170 with options F30 and F31.
The 4170 has 5 optional RS232 connectors to interface whatever RS232
devices.
There is a RS232 connector for the main video terminal
like the
Tektronix 4208
and one RS232 for connection with a host computer.
A 20 Mbyte HARDDISK drive is build-in. A spare 20 Mbyte drive is also
available.
The harddisk contains all the support software.
Lots of 5-1/4 inch large floppys with the CPM operating system and
FORTRAN +
graphic Libraries.
Utilities like "KERMIT"is present as well as
the "TEKNICAD"
application (Say , TEK's equivalent to AutoCad).
The 4170 wheighs 23 Kilo's = 46 Lbs.
The dimentions are 60 X 60 X 23 cm = 0,6 x 0,6 X 0,23 meters.
To complete the story , I have 3 (three) graphic terminals Tektronix
model 4208
with keyboards.
The complete set of original service microfilms (98
views per sheet)
INCLUDING the Optical microfilmviewer.
The microfilm is about hardware, the options, the
"cpm" OS ,
fortran86 +Libs , and all the application software
and libraries of the 4170. All technical schematics as
well
As extra I offer free of charge a graphic color workstation monitor
(20"-SONY , 1280 x 1024).
This color monitor can be connected to any DB15 VGA
connector of any
PC ( R G B H V)
I used to work as support engineer for Tektronix.
Tell me if you are interested for this stuff.
Sincere Greetings, Florent Van Vlasselaer. Belgium.
Florent Van Vlasselaer <B25-florvv at skynet.be>
10:40 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:10 PM, Jules Richardson <
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump today, but no keyboard /
rodent / display.
...
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA
monitor? Or,
There used to adapters available that would let you connect VGA monitors to
Macs. These normally (or often, at least) had DIP switches to let you
select what size of monitor to emulate (in effect, setting the maximum
resolution).
11:35 p.m.
On 12 Apr 2013, at 01:40, "Raymond Wiker" <rwiker at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:10 PM, Jules Richardson <
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
If you need a basic one, these guys have several hundred.
http://www.weirdstuff.com/cgi-bin/item/25311
I found a Mac Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump today, but no keyboard /
rodent / display.
...
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA
monitor? Or,
There used to adapters available that would let you connect VGA monitors to
Macs. These normally (or often, at least) had DIP switches to let you
select what size of monitor to emulate (in effect, setting the maximum
resolution).
12 Apr
12 Apr
5:10 a.m.
On Apr 12, 2013, at 1:40, Raymond Wiker <rwiker at gmail.com> wrote:
Again, Macs of that vintage dealt with the DDC codes in the
VGA monitors just fine; if you have an adaptor that connects
them straight through, you'll be good. There are lots of cheap
ones that should do it, but I know that at least the Griffin
MacPnP adaptor (one of the ones with DIP switches) had a
setting to pass them through.
- Dave
I found a Mac
Performa 6400/200VEE at the dump today, but no keyboard /
rodent / display.
...
1) Is it possible to wire the 15-pin monitor connector up to a PC's VGA
monitor? Or,
There used to adapters available that would let you connect VGA monitors to
Macs. These normally (or often, at least) had DIP switches to let you
select what size of monitor to emulate (in effect, setting the maximum
resolution).
4034
days inactive
4047
days old
32 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
amh＠POBOX.COM -
b4＠gewt.net -
bobalan＠sbcglobal.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
jbmcb1＠gmail.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG -
pye＠mactec.com.au -
rwiker＠gmail.com