I used to service these back in the 1980's. By far, one of the most common failures was the solder points under the flyback transformer that feeds high voltage to the CRT. Look closely at those solder points. You may find little dark circles around the pins where the solder has cracked. Reflowing those solder joints is the easy fix if you don't get reliable or stable video.
You know, for being such an expensive computer for its time, you would think Apple’s engineers would have caught that issue regarding the flyback transformer.
@ungratefulmetalpansy I think it's a combination of stress from the weight of the transformer, heat buildup inside the case and on the pins from the relatively high current through the primary. Once the solder softens from the heat, it thins, raising it's DC resistance a bit, making it heat even more until it separates. Then it arcs and that widens the gap even further. These original macs got quite warm inside since Jobs didn't like fan noise and forbade a case fan in the design.
Last weekend I reflowed the solder for the flyback on my Apple IIGS monitor. It would go out periodically-usually once it got hot. Sometimes slapping the side of the display brought it back. After a reflow, all is well.
@@worldofretrogameplay6963 The story of Apple ? In 1989 the engineers where I worked had a couple of HP Vectra 286s with Colour displays. They bought the Mechanical engineer a 20" NEC colour Monitor that cost more than this Mac Classic. Meanwhile the Management demonstrated their Management Superiority by having Macintosh Pluses on their desks so they could use Microplanner to plan the next few years work on their 9" monochrome screens
Also, the Classic is the only Macintosh with a bootable system in ROM! Hold Cmd-Opt-X-O when turning on, and it will boot to an onboard copy of System 6.0.7.
When I recapped this machine, I was SUPER EXCITED TO TRY THAT since I’d never had a Classic in my possession before. And it worked great. Pretty neat feature.
@@AstroKitty16 I'm going to guess that he and I are roughly the same age so fatherly figure really doesn't it, but we can all use another good influence in our lives.
The wobbly CRT is likely caused by the capacitors on the analog board being worn out. I have a Mac LC all in one that had the same issue - I had to replace all the capacitors on the analog board to get the issue fixed. And there are a LOT of capacitors on that one, so it's way more annoying than re-capping the logic board!
I also have a CRT with a wobbling image. It's from 2002, though, so not *that* old. I hope I can identify a blown capacitor and I hope that replacing that one will fix the problem. 😀
@@meiklman It sucks because in my case none of the capacitors LOOKED bad. Every cap looked fine. Even all but one tested fine with a capacitor ESR tester (and replacing just that one didn't fix the issue!). I guess some of them will just deteriorate in a way that's imperceptible to us but not to electronics.
@@Jimmy42222 Wow, that REALLY sucks. I think I'll just leave it as it is then. I only use the CRT for testing different graphics cards and modes anyway, cause it is not as picky as LCDs.
Agreed, I tested Clint’s logic board in my Classic II after I recapped it, and did not see that effect. Exactly what I expected. I’ll bet the analog board needs a recap.
James capacitors can look great, even when they’ve deteriorated on the inside. There are quite a few tables floating on the web, containing information about several types of capacitors, their capacitance (including margin in percentage) and their theoretical ESR values (in ohms). The measured values of the capacitors should definitely be within margin, shown in those tables. Anything diverging from those tables should definitely be considered bad or cheap junk.
LGR is pretty much the only RUclips channel that actually relaxes me. It's like I am repairing my favorite computers (which I'm too young to have experienced myself, and I wish I had) while sitting on a leather reclining chair, wearing sweatpants and my SpaceX hoodie, eating a Jersey Mike's sandwich, while it is raining heavily outside in late winter (where the snow is mixed with mud, and everything is cold and raining).
@@dlinkster agree with ADB and LGR, never seen VWestlife. Can I recommends BigCliveDotCom? Particularly if you are of an electrical bent, very chilled stuff.
@@dlinkster As well as agreeing with you on VWestlife and Steven Raith about BigCliveDotCom I also enjoy Tech Tangents (and I am not even going to attempt to type his channel's former name). I find the videos very relaxing and interesting, like LGR's are, but with some jaw dropping stuff thrown in (such as his 'RAM upgrade, the hard way' video). I also recently stumbled across My Mate VINCE, which is basically a bloke trying - quite successfully - to fix a wide variety of gadgets/toys/whatever. EDIT: I do also watch some ADB and 8-Bit Guy, amongst several others, but for that relaxing vibe and 'gentle excitement' I recommended TT and MMV as they don't seem to be in the same circle of creators who know/reference each other. EDIT2: Ha ha. After my previous comment I decided to watch a random older TT video, one which I hadn't watched yet, and what does he do at the end? He tells ppl to go and watch an LGR video for more info on General Magic's OS! I think that's so cool.
It didn't relax me when he kept reaching around the back next to the high voltage video drive board without looking where he was putting his hand. Handling boards without a wrist strap could also kill equipment (although not him).
I love to put on Adrian's Digital Basement before I go to bed to decompress brain. He's like the Bob Ross of technical old computer repairs. Always learn something new!
It’s so fascinating to see how far computers have come to what we use today. But there’s just something so appealing about old computer hardware that just seems more physical and interactive. And the fact you can actually fix individual components yourself for the most part.
Here's a tip to not crossthread screws: turn counter clockwise until you feel the screw suddenly going down, people look at me like I'm crazy when I do that but meh
I thought everyone knew this one, so it's good that you're sharing it for those who don't. It's a HUGE lifesaver for a lot of things, especially older electronics.
The vintage 68k macs are pretty special to me. I used to run a website dedicated to Mini vMac and software that would run on the mac. Haven't touched it in years.
@Petraplexity Comment apparently got reported. It's still up, but I can't even tell you what the link is haha. Just search for system608, it's a wordpress site.
I noticed that only the space key on the keyboard is yellowed and has the fire-proof chemicals in it. I'm glad Apple decided to save that key in the case of a fire.
The other keys are made out of PBT instead of ABS which doesn't yellow the same way. Spacebars still tended to be ABS because PBT shrinks more as it cools so getting the spacebar right is hard. IBM was just about the only one brave enough to make a PBT spacebar on their keyboards
I almost cried watching this one, the Mac Classic was the very first computer I broke down as a kid, it has been 25 years since I last saw one, it really gave me feels to hear that 'bong' again.
I work at a community college where we used to have this model of Mac along with other compact Macs (down to the old Mac Plus.) We kept them in service for basically as long as we possibly could since we didn't have a lot of budget. At the point where drives would stop spinning, we used to take the drive cage out, walk out of sight of end-users, and rap the drive smartly with the handle of a screwdriver. About 8 out of 10 times, the drive would spin again and work long enough to get any important data from it. Sometimes it would work for AGES after doing that. If you have nothing to lose, I'd suggest giving that a try...
I would love more Mac content - this was a blast! I just picked up a Pismo Powerbook G3 and have been replaying a lot of games from my youth on it. Got me back into the vintage Mac mindset so this was very welcome :)
Christ, bro, you're making me want to hunt one of these up at a swap meet or something. Having said that I've always been fascinated with the tiny little Macs having only used them in school for basic functions and school work back in the day. Personally my family had a Macintosh Performa PowerPC that we got in early 1996 shortly after my grandfather passed away. Grandma thought it would have been a morale booster for us kids not to mention our school system was using mostly Macintosh computers at the time as most schools did because of Apple's educational initiatives. First got onto the world wide web in 1998 with AOL on a 28.8 k dial up modem and I had no idea what an impact it would be. I would never be the same. It's also amazing to think and know that because of exponential growth in technology that I'm holding the equivalent of possibly a few hundred of my childhood computers in the palm of my hand as I write this. Having said that nostalgia is a powerful thing and though completely impractical these days it would be kind of neat to have either a black and white Mac, a Macintosh Performa, or an Apple II just as a hobby or something to mess around with. I've always been a fan of technology and it's part of my daily life.
Over the last couple of years, I've collected quite a few compact Macs and other 68K Macs. They can be a lot of fun! The Floppy Emu and the SCSI2SD devices are DEFINITELY your friend on these LOL. I finally, just last week, got the SCSI2SD adapter working on my maxed out Plus. When I got it, it came with an external SCSI hard drive (long since dead), so I just put the SCSI2SD (v5.1) in the external enclosure, and once I found the settings to tweak on the SCSIUTIL, it came right up. You can't have enough SCSI2SDs lying around when it comes to these! ;) Although, my Classic II actually still has its working, mechanical hard drive.
Im starting to love Blerbs more and more. Its like a quick fix tech video to take you through the week. Thank you and appreciate it, keep up the good blerb!
If he ever cracks open some new old stock, pops the bag and says "nice hiss", you know he has some 80's MREs buried beneath a stack of cannibalized cases.
It’s amazing that on my phone I can see individual pixels of the monitor. That’s how sharp displays are today. Really cool project. Wish I could grab one some time :-)
The main caps on the analogue board like to leak and can cause all sorts of problems from low voltages to wobbly screens and exploding components (in my case). I just finished a repair on one of these very machines with extensive damage on the analogue board from leaking caps. I highly recommend replacing the main caps around the transformer and giving the whole board a really good clean in IPA. If you can bath it to remove any leaking electrolytic, might need to remove the paper speaker first though. Shame the old scsi HDD didn't work, the one that came in my Classic still spins all be it makes odd noises from time to time and does give the odd read error so is on its way out. Will probably have to go the SCSI to SD route myself. Looking forward to see what you do with this machine, personally I don't know a thing about the MAC system so hopefully I can learn some stuff from you. Great videos as always.
You got lucky for sure. I still have the Mac Classic I grew up with but the battery exploded, so it's been a game of replacing components trying to get it working again. We found that some caps did leak on my analog board though something definitely blew on it. It would be a good idea in general to take a good look at everything as even if it's functioning, it will probably need some servicing.
What's worrying me... I love this channel more than LGR... I like such one-take, raw videos without any fancy editing. Feels more authentic and fun to watch lol.
I had a SE/30 a long time ago (like late 1990s) and I had drilled a hole in the side to give the HD a whack to get over the "stiction" problem. The HD spindle lubrication would get a little stick when cold but a sharp whack would loosen it enough to start spinning up.
Nice!! I’m in the process of repairing the exact same model. The 512k RAM chips on the motherboard are bad, so they need to be replaced. *The inside of those Macs remind me of a cluttered garage.* I used to repair Commodore Amiga and Atari ST computers for a living back in the day. Believe it or not, the motherboards for the aforementioned computers were similar in some ways, and most of their chips (including their CPUs) were socket mounted, making them easy to replace. What about the classic Mac, you ask? Heck no! Like I said previously - they’re like a rat’s nest filled with cables and boards everywhere. So if you haven’t figured it out by now, classic Macs are a pain in the ass to work on. *NOTE:* When repairing a classic Mac, ALWAYS turn it on first. The computer will provide error codes related to any internal hardware issues. These error codes can be easily found by doing a simple search on Google. *Side note:* There are 3rd party companies out there who still manufacture replacement chips and boards for the classic Mac. You can find these reputable sellers on eBay with dirt cheap prices.
This video makes me sad because I have TWO macs of this era and they both are ruined from leaky batteries (I bought the second one for cheap in the hope I could merge it with the first to produce a working system, but of course it would have the exact same issue!). But at the same time I'm happy for you getting extremely lucky here :)
i loved the old macs (from the Performa up till the old MacPro), easy to open and you could replace parts not like the ones that are glued together, buggy software updates, etc. there were some issues with the first model of every series through, e.g. the first PowerMac with IDE could only use one device on each connector
If you don't have one yet I highly recommend a FloppyEMU for these macs. I've got a PowerBook 100, Classic, Classic II, Color Classic, and LC 475 and it makes transferring files a breeze. The SD pops out, open an HDD image on my modern PC with HMVExplorer, and I can download and copy over all I want from Macintosh Garden or Macintosh Repository. The only 'complication' to this is that the PB 100, Color Classic, and LC 475 don't have external floppy ports(well, the PB does but it's HDI and I have no adapter for it) but you share the HDD over Appletalk from one of the classics and it'll browse like a local drive, albeit slower. I typically get a bunch of stuff to copy then walk away and let them transfer for a while.
I remember maintaining a SE that was a server for a classroom of classics. If you turned it off for the holidays, the internal drive would suffer from stiction and it wouldn't warm up. The fix was to mount it with a long internal scsi cable and a molex power extension, and "flick" it like tossing a pizza base. The soft-hammer didn't ever work.
That era Quantum drives are just the WORST. A couple years ago I went through all my vintage PCs and took out and tested all the hard drives. There were 8 Quantum drives of that vintage. 7 were dead.
I had a Mac SE30 that sat in four inches of flooded basement... and I pitched it. Now I’ll never know It could have ever been revived without getting out a soldering kit. That mother board on the bottom definitely took a bath. Completely immersed
My first computer ever was one of the power PC ones, the 7200/75mhz. I don't even like Macs today, and the old Mac OS operating system was way too closed to be fun to mess around with, but I have some extreme nostalgia for the older mac models because of these childhood memories of messing around with a few shareware games on an old power pc mac.
It's possible the RW heads are just stuck to the platters. I have found on old drives if you give them a quick spin while powered up, that can dislodge the heads. Sometimes you may need to spin it and stop it with your other hand to give it more force. There is always the risk you may rip the heads from the arm though. But as it's already essentially a dead drive. I know I had to do this with OLD ST506 (MFM) drives. Newer drives lift the heads when powered down.
I'm working on one of these right now. Just waiting for some new snips to arrive so I can solder the new caps to the analogue board. Just finished retro-brighting it an hour ago and damn is it looking fresh! Please, PLEASE recap the analogue board and reflow the connections. That's the big one that many people overlook. P.S. if you don't know: hold down CMD+OPT+X+O when flicking the power switch. You'll boot into system 6 held in ROM and you can set it as a startup disk.
My old Quantum drive (1 GB) from my 1993 IBM Aptiva still works, will have to send you a video someday. She clicks a little but not anything more than you'd imagine.
Haven't really looked into it much due to lack of time. I just know the last time I started it up it threw up the dead Mac icon with a code that translated to a ram error.
If slapping the side of the Mac fixes the screen issue, you might just need to reflow or resolder the power connector on the analog board. Worth a shot
@@antonpreacher2900 I mean, they are very specific, so I do understand to some extent - but if they were say £40, I'd buy without thinking and I'd probably grab more than one, but if you're working on multiple vintage machines it's certainly not a no-brainer drop-in.
I have always wondered what a new Macintosh with the classic shell design but a LCD screen and modern hardware would be like. A Mac 128K was my first computer.
Watching this while programming a 16x16 LED matrix in C++ using the SPI Linux kernel interface of a RaspPiZero in a terminal on a different monitor. I think I'm having some sort of nerd overload here!
Don't know if it will bring your HDD back to life but, when I worked for a Uni here, I had to get a bunch of old desktop style mac classics ready for an auction and a bunch of them wouldn't boot cos the hard discs had ceased up, I think I fixed about 12/18 of them by just giving them a swift bash on top and it sprung back in to life! So maybe giving the hard disk a bit of a shock on a table will do the trick? I mean you've got nothing to lose :)
I happen to have what I believe to be nearly every piece of paperwork (user manual, warranty, etc) for the Apple II that I rescued from a storage unit. If you're interested, I'd be more than happy to send them to you. One or two pages (literally) got mildly stained from an old bottle of soy sauce, but they are 99% fine. It's a rather large stack of paperwork.
And when I say "more than happy to" what I really mean is, I specifically rescued them to make sure they wound up with someone who would be happy to have them, and not wind up in a trash bin somewhere. Nothing depresses me more than artifacts from the past being destroyed.
The MacBottom reminded me of my old Atari ST Mega4 which had an external 60Mb hard drive in the same size case as the ST that sat underneath the main PC. And 60Mb seemed unimaginably large at the time. Ah, those were the days.
Ah the mac classic, one of my favorites :) Good luck with the scsi2sd, I could never get one to boot on a mac classic with 7.5.3, maybe something weird with the formatting? not sure but tried all kinda ways I could think of. Ended up just using a FloppyEmu from BMOW instead which worked absolutely wonderfully.
I used to service these back in the 1980's. By far, one of the most common failures was the solder points under the flyback transformer that feeds high voltage to the CRT. Look closely at those solder points. You may find little dark circles around the pins where the solder has cracked. Reflowing those solder joints is the easy fix if you don't get reliable or stable video.
You know, for being such an expensive computer for its time, you would think Apple’s engineers would have caught that issue regarding the flyback transformer.
@ungratefulmetalpansy I think it's a combination of stress from the weight of the transformer, heat buildup inside the case and on the pins from the relatively high current through the primary. Once the solder softens from the heat, it thins, raising it's DC resistance a bit, making it heat even more until it separates. Then it arcs and that widens the gap even further.
These original macs got quite warm inside since Jobs didn't like fan noise and forbade a case fan in the design.
@@loughkb Oh, wow for real? I wonder how the computer ran well without good ventilation.
Last weekend I reflowed the solder for the flyback on my Apple IIGS monitor. It would go out periodically-usually once it got hot. Sometimes slapping the side of the display brought it back. After a reflow, all is well.
@@worldofretrogameplay6963 The story of Apple ?
In 1989 the engineers where I worked had a couple of HP Vectra 286s with Colour displays. They bought the Mechanical engineer a 20" NEC colour Monitor that cost more than this Mac Classic. Meanwhile the Management demonstrated their Management Superiority by having Macintosh Pluses on their desks so they could use Microplanner to plan the next few years work on their 9" monochrome screens
Also, the Classic is the only Macintosh with a bootable system in ROM! Hold Cmd-Opt-X-O when turning on, and it will boot to an onboard copy of System 6.0.7.
I always forget about that!
Isn't it 6.0.3? 😁
Wow, Smart
When I recapped this machine, I was SUPER EXCITED TO TRY THAT since I’d never had a Classic in my possession before. And it worked great. Pretty neat feature.
There's an invisible folder tree that has all the names of the development team, too. I think it's inside the ROM disk's System Folder.
This man truly is the “Bob Ross” of our generation.
@@AstroKitty16 I'm going to guess that he and I are roughly the same age so fatherly figure really doesn't it, but we can all use another good influence in our lives.
Laugh react
...or David Attenborough.
Maybe we should update the name for him. He's a Rob Boss, of our generation.
@@SlavicCelery That sounds more of a suggestion than a name. :D
The wobbly CRT is likely caused by the capacitors on the analog board being worn out. I have a Mac LC all in one that had the same issue - I had to replace all the capacitors on the analog board to get the issue fixed. And there are a LOT of capacitors on that one, so it's way more annoying than re-capping the logic board!
I also have a CRT with a wobbling image. It's from 2002, though, so not *that* old. I hope I can identify a blown capacitor and I hope that replacing that one will fix the problem. 😀
@@meiklman It sucks because in my case none of the capacitors LOOKED bad. Every cap looked fine. Even all but one tested fine with a capacitor ESR tester (and replacing just that one didn't fix the issue!). I guess some of them will just deteriorate in a way that's imperceptible to us but not to electronics.
@@Jimmy42222 Wow, that REALLY sucks. I think I'll just leave it as it is then. I only use the CRT for testing different graphics cards and modes anyway, cause it is not as picky as LCDs.
Agreed, I tested Clint’s logic board in my Classic II after I recapped it, and did not see that effect. Exactly what I expected. I’ll bet the analog board needs a recap.
James capacitors can look great, even when they’ve deteriorated on the inside.
There are quite a few tables floating on the web, containing information about several types of capacitors, their capacitance (including margin in percentage) and their theoretical ESR values (in ohms). The measured values of the capacitors should definitely be within margin, shown in those tables. Anything diverging from those tables should definitely be considered bad or cheap junk.
The Classic has a copy of Mac OS built into the ROM! After turning it on, press cmd-opt-x-o
LGR is pretty much the only RUclips channel that actually relaxes me. It's like I am repairing my favorite computers (which I'm too young to have experienced myself, and I wish I had) while sitting on a leather reclining chair, wearing sweatpants and my SpaceX hoodie, eating a Jersey Mike's sandwich, while it is raining heavily outside in late winter (where the snow is mixed with mud, and everything is cold and raining).
Adrian’s Digital Basement and VWestlife also relax me. Clint is just amazing.
@@dlinkster agree with ADB and LGR, never seen VWestlife. Can I recommends BigCliveDotCom? Particularly if you are of an electrical bent, very chilled stuff.
@@dlinkster As well as agreeing with you on VWestlife and Steven Raith about BigCliveDotCom I also enjoy Tech Tangents (and I am not even going to attempt to type his channel's former name). I find the videos very relaxing and interesting, like LGR's are, but with some jaw dropping stuff thrown in (such as his 'RAM upgrade, the hard way' video). I also recently stumbled across My Mate VINCE, which is basically a bloke trying - quite successfully - to fix a wide variety of gadgets/toys/whatever.
EDIT: I do also watch some ADB and 8-Bit Guy, amongst several others, but for that relaxing vibe and 'gentle excitement' I recommended TT and MMV as they don't seem to be in the same circle of creators who know/reference each other.
EDIT2: Ha ha. After my previous comment I decided to watch a random older TT video, one which I hadn't watched yet, and what does he do at the end? He tells ppl to go and watch an LGR video for more info on General Magic's OS! I think that's so cool.
It didn't relax me when he kept reaching around the back next to the high voltage video drive board without looking where he was putting his hand. Handling boards without a wrist strap could also kill equipment (although not him).
lmao spacex 🤢
I love to put on Adrian's Digital Basement before I go to bed to decompress brain. He's like the Bob Ross of technical old computer repairs. Always learn something new!
Totally, they're super chill and a great way to wind down with some classic tech.
I've been watchin Adrian's Digital Basement lately a lot and I'm feeling some attraction towards these old Macintosh machines.
Same!
Ditto
I thought this was an Adrian's Digital Basement video at first, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was LGR!
They're great but they're absolute nightmares in terms of reliability and maintenance.
@iwashere That would be nice but I live in Europe, Hungary :)
It’s so fascinating to see how far computers have come to what we use today. But there’s just something so appealing about old computer hardware that just seems more physical and interactive. And the fact you can actually fix individual components yourself for the most part.
¨Chewbacca SaurusRex¨ ? OMY !!!!
Here's a tip to not crossthread screws: turn counter clockwise until you feel the screw suddenly going down, people look at me like I'm crazy when I do that but meh
I do this too, and people stare at me for a second before saying "Lefty Loosey, righty-tighty!" almost every. time.
Nice trick, have to keep that in mind next time.
I thought everyone knew this one, so it's good that you're sharing it for those who don't. It's a HUGE lifesaver for a lot of things, especially older electronics.
Yea that feel when the threads end and the screw drops into position. I do this with bolts on cars also..
The vintage 68k macs are pretty special to me. I used to run a website dedicated to Mini vMac and software that would run on the mac. Haven't touched it in years.
Mini vMac is great!
@Petraplexity Comment apparently got reported. It's still up, but I can't even tell you what the link is haha. Just search for system608, it's a wordpress site.
Great Video Clint, I remember using these computers back in high school, I always loved the sound of the eject mechanism on the floppy drive
I noticed that only the space key on the keyboard is yellowed and has the fire-proof chemicals in it. I'm glad Apple decided to save that key in the case of a fire.
The other keys are made out of PBT instead of ABS which doesn't yellow the same way. Spacebars still tended to be ABS because PBT shrinks more as it cools so getting the spacebar right is hard. IBM was just about the only one brave enough to make a PBT spacebar on their keyboards
I almost cried watching this one, the Mac Classic was the very first computer I broke down as a kid, it has been 25 years since I last saw one, it really gave me feels to hear that 'bong' again.
It always feels great when you finally get a computer that hasn't run for years to boot.
My favorite part is getting old drives working because it's like a digital time capsule
I legit just got my 1st gaming pc i bought at like 11 years ago 2 run and had the maddest throwback in my life
I work at a community college where we used to have this model of Mac along with other compact Macs (down to the old Mac Plus.) We kept them in service for basically as long as we possibly could since we didn't have a lot of budget. At the point where drives would stop spinning, we used to take the drive cage out, walk out of sight of end-users, and rap the drive smartly with the handle of a screwdriver. About 8 out of 10 times, the drive would spin again and work long enough to get any important data from it. Sometimes it would work for AGES after doing that. If you have nothing to lose, I'd suggest giving that a try...
Shorty had them Mac bottom case, boots from the drive...
The whole machine was looking alive...
Solder reflowed
Caps on the flo
Voltage too low, low, low, low
Apple's fuzzy beams
Boots with the whirr (with the whirr!)
The whole LAN was looking at her
I've been using a Mac Classic to draw pixel art in Mac Paint, it's so cool. Love these little machines
I would love more Mac content - this was a blast! I just picked up a Pismo Powerbook G3 and have been replaying a lot of games from my youth on it. Got me back into the vintage Mac mindset so this was very welcome :)
Christ, bro, you're making me want to hunt one of these up at a swap meet or something. Having said that I've always been fascinated with the tiny little Macs having only used them in school for basic functions and school work back in the day. Personally my family had a Macintosh Performa PowerPC that we got in early 1996 shortly after my grandfather passed away. Grandma thought it would have been a morale booster for us kids not to mention our school system was using mostly Macintosh computers at the time as most schools did because of Apple's educational initiatives. First got onto the world wide web in 1998 with AOL on a 28.8 k dial up modem and I had no idea what an impact it would be. I would never be the same. It's also amazing to think and know that because of exponential growth in technology that I'm holding the equivalent of possibly a few hundred of my childhood computers in the palm of my hand as I write this. Having said that nostalgia is a powerful thing and though completely impractical these days it would be kind of neat to have either a black and white Mac, a Macintosh Performa, or an Apple II just as a hobby or something to mess around with. I've always been a fan of technology and it's part of my daily life.
Over the last couple of years, I've collected quite a few compact Macs and other 68K Macs. They can be a lot of fun! The Floppy Emu and the SCSI2SD devices are DEFINITELY your friend on these LOL. I finally, just last week, got the SCSI2SD adapter working on my maxed out Plus. When I got it, it came with an external SCSI hard drive (long since dead), so I just put the SCSI2SD (v5.1) in the external enclosure, and once I found the settings to tweak on the SCSIUTIL, it came right up. You can't have enough SCSI2SDs lying around when it comes to these! ;) Although, my Classic II actually still has its working, mechanical hard drive.
I love using actual disks, but they can be a pain, so anything that makes the old machines more comfortable to use is welcome.
My elementary school district had so many ancient PCs I was using one of these in like 2002.
I just found this channel after not knowing it existed, looks like I have more LGR content to binge :) great vid.
Im starting to love Blerbs more and more. Its like a quick fix tech video to take you through the week. Thank you and appreciate it, keep up the good blerb!
"Hmm cleaned and lubed floppy drive. Nice." Reminds me of SteveMRE1989 haha.
'Nice lube'
Nah man, its nothing like Steve's videos... it isn't on a tray. 😁
Let's get this out on to a tray... Nice! :D
If he ever cracks open some new old stock, pops the bag and says "nice hiss", you know he has some 80's MREs buried beneath a stack of cannibalized cases.
@@The_Keeper oh but it IS on a tray you see, a floppy drive tray. XD
It’s amazing that on my phone I can see individual pixels of the monitor. That’s how sharp displays are today. Really cool project. Wish I could grab one some time :-)
Electrolytic Leakiness is going to be the name of my new emo band.
Could be a FutureFunk band too.
I thought Adrian's Digital Basement's recent series of Mac Classic repairs was pretty great.
Sure was, I watched every minute!
Adrian is definitely worth watching! I appreciate the way he works through problems. Also, like Clint, he has a joyful persona.
The main caps on the analogue board like to leak and can cause all sorts of problems from low voltages to wobbly screens and exploding components (in my case). I just finished a repair on one of these very machines with extensive damage on the analogue board from leaking caps.
I highly recommend replacing the main caps around the transformer and giving the whole board a really good clean in IPA. If you can bath it to remove any leaking electrolytic, might need to remove the paper speaker first though.
Shame the old scsi HDD didn't work, the one that came in my Classic still spins all be it makes odd noises from time to time and does give the odd read error so is on its way out. Will probably have to go the SCSI to SD route myself.
Looking forward to see what you do with this machine, personally I don't know a thing about the MAC system so hopefully I can learn some stuff from you. Great videos as always.
I could watch this for hours. Your voice is the what they‘ve come up with the word relax for.
I have a 2GB Quantum drive in my 486 DX2 I found in the loft/attic. Been sat up there for 20 years. It works great! ✨👍🏻
3:47 I'm guessing North Carolina as of now.
Nice to see some Classic Macintosh Love ❤️
I often forget how beautifully simplistic these machines were.
"apple bong"? Ah yes... I too have witnessed this.
😂
*Stoners have entered the chat* 😂😂
I believe that it was sometime in college... Wasn't it?
high off apples
Those were common in college.
So I've heard
You got lucky for sure. I still have the Mac Classic I grew up with but the battery exploded, so it's been a game of replacing components trying to get it working again.
We found that some caps did leak on my analog board though something definitely blew on it. It would be a good idea in general to take a good look at everything as even if it's functioning, it will probably need some servicing.
Another Compact Mac brought back to life! I love these babies. Great work!
What's worrying me... I love this channel more than LGR... I like such one-take, raw videos without any fancy editing. Feels more authentic and fun to watch lol.
I had a SE/30 a long time ago (like late 1990s) and I had drilled a hole in the side to give the HD a whack to get over the "stiction" problem. The HD spindle lubrication would get a little stick when cold but a sharp whack would loosen it enough to start spinning up.
Can we all appreciate the thumbnail... beautiful.. honestly
Apple: "A $5 component of your macbook is broken. That'll be $1000 to fix."
Mac bottom: "Oh yes daddy, hurt me!"
I love when an old floppy works so smooth
Nice!! I’m in the process of repairing the exact same model. The 512k RAM chips on the motherboard are bad, so they need to be replaced. *The inside of those Macs remind me of a cluttered garage.*
I used to repair Commodore Amiga and Atari ST computers for a living back in the day.
Believe it or not, the motherboards for the aforementioned computers were similar in some ways, and most of their chips (including their CPUs) were socket mounted, making them easy to replace.
What about the classic Mac, you ask? Heck no! Like I said previously - they’re like a rat’s nest filled with cables and boards everywhere. So if you haven’t figured it out by now, classic Macs are a pain in the ass to work on.
*NOTE:* When repairing a classic Mac, ALWAYS turn it on first. The computer will provide error codes related to any internal hardware issues. These error codes can be easily found by doing a simple search on Google.
*Side note:* There are 3rd party companies out there who still manufacture replacement chips and boards for the classic Mac. You can find these reputable sellers on eBay with dirt cheap prices.
That floppy drive makes such an awesome sound.
LOVE these hardware videos! Thanks for the upload, Clint.
Fun fact Clint, if you hold down "apple option x o" during startup, you can boot into a built in System 6 ROM image.
8:34 "Hey, we got a bong, that's something."
Who knew Clint and/or '80s Apple were into blazin' 420?
🔥🌳
That was more of a '70s Apple thing, '80s Apple was all about the cocaine and Pepsi.
(And the Mac Classic was a '90s machine.)
Why have I never heard of this before? It reminds me of 2010 era LGR and that's amazing!
This video makes me sad because I have TWO macs of this era and they both are ruined from leaky batteries (I bought the second one for cheap in the hope I could merge it with the first to produce a working system, but of course it would have the exact same issue!). But at the same time I'm happy for you getting extremely lucky here :)
What a thing of beautiful beige packaging.
"You just gotta stick things where they fit"
True
it's amazing to finally see one that is not all rusted inside due to the battery exploding and spraying acid everywhere
Yeah I got real lucky.
i loved the old macs (from the Performa up till the old MacPro), easy to open and you could replace parts
not like the ones that are glued together, buggy software updates, etc.
there were some issues with the first model of every series through, e.g. the first PowerMac with IDE could only use one device on each connector
Midweek blerb? Hell yess!
That eject mechanism sound takes me back to the LC. Mmm...memories.
Gorgeous green/white mech keyboard.
If you don't have one yet I highly recommend a FloppyEMU for these macs. I've got a PowerBook 100, Classic, Classic II, Color Classic, and LC 475 and it makes transferring files a breeze. The SD pops out, open an HDD image on my modern PC with HMVExplorer, and I can download and copy over all I want from Macintosh Garden or Macintosh Repository. The only 'complication' to this is that the PB 100, Color Classic, and LC 475 don't have external floppy ports(well, the PB does but it's HDI and I have no adapter for it) but you share the HDD over Appletalk from one of the classics and it'll browse like a local drive, albeit slower. I typically get a bunch of stuff to copy then walk away and let them transfer for a while.
I have had success with several old stuck hard drives by giving them a twist of the wrist. If it breaks free you can hear movement while doing so.
I remember maintaining a SE that was a server for a classroom of classics. If you turned it off for the holidays, the internal drive would suffer from stiction and it wouldn't warm up.
The fix was to mount it with a long internal scsi cable and a molex power extension, and "flick" it like tossing a pizza base. The soft-hammer didn't ever work.
That era Quantum drives are just the WORST. A couple years ago I went through all my vintage PCs and took out and tested all the hard drives. There were 8 Quantum drives of that vintage. 7 were dead.
Remember the "Fireball"? Rarely do you see a product so aptly named.
I remember Micropolis having a line of AV rated drives in the late 90s that ran so hot they died reeeeeeally quickly.
@@CantankerousDave And of course the IBM Deskstar series that was so unreliable it acquired the nickname "Deathstar"...
@iwashere I ran a small IT department that had bought that line of drives exclusively for our machines - we had about 25% fail in a two-year span.
@iwashere Don't remember now that it's been so long, but probably.
That floppy drive reject system is cool. Never seen one of these work before.
My own first computer I win back in the day. Many fond memories and curses at its proprietary-ness.
I'd love to see more Apple content from you in the future, Clint! Don't care if its a blerb video or a full-on LGR vid- anything would be awesome!
I had a Mac SE30 that sat in four inches of flooded basement... and I pitched it. Now I’ll never know It could have ever been revived without getting out a soldering kit. That mother board on the bottom definitely took a bath. Completely immersed
Computer Bob Ross. That's what blurbs is. I love it.
love the BLURBS! keep up the great work man!!!
love adrian's digital basement
My first computer ever was one of the power PC ones, the 7200/75mhz. I don't even like Macs today, and the old Mac OS operating system was way too closed to be fun to mess around with, but I have some extreme nostalgia for the older mac models because of these childhood memories of messing around with a few shareware games on an old power pc mac.
It's possible the RW heads are just stuck to the platters. I have found on old drives if you give them a quick spin while powered up, that can dislodge the heads. Sometimes you may need to spin it and stop it with your other hand to give it more force. There is always the risk you may rip the heads from the arm though. But as it's already essentially a dead drive. I know I had to do this with OLD ST506 (MFM) drives. Newer drives lift the heads when powered down.
I'm working on one of these right now. Just waiting for some new snips to arrive so I can solder the new caps to the analogue board. Just finished retro-brighting it an hour ago and damn is it looking fresh!
Please, PLEASE recap the analogue board and reflow the connections. That's the big one that many people overlook.
P.S. if you don't know: hold down CMD+OPT+X+O when flicking the power switch. You'll boot into system 6 held in ROM and you can set it as a startup disk.
My old Quantum drive (1 GB) from my 1993 IBM Aptiva still works, will have to send you a video someday. She clicks a little but not anything more than you'd imagine.
8:34 "Ayy, we got a bong! That's something!"
Got one of those that has dead ram (according to the boot error code). Worked when I got it a few years ago but died while sitting pretty on my shelf.
Ram for a classic is cheap and easy to find afaik, unless by died you mean something worse then that.
Haven't really looked into it much due to lack of time. I just know the last time I started it up it threw up the dead Mac icon with a code that translated to a ram error.
If slapping the side of the Mac fixes the screen issue, you might just need to reflow or resolder the power connector on the analog board. Worth a shot
Mac Bottom drives you make the rockin’ world go ‘round.
"Just gotta stick things wherever they fit" - I'm sure Quagmire agrees... :P
Giggity
I wish those SCSI2SDs were cheaper. I need one for my Powerbook.
The price of those little things are just too much. I don't get it.
@@antonpreacher2900 I mean, they are very specific, so I do understand to some extent - but if they were say £40, I'd buy without thinking and I'd probably grab more than one, but if you're working on multiple vintage machines it's certainly not a no-brainer drop-in.
I dream for the day when Adrian, David (The 8-bit Guy), Clint, and Retro Man Cave do something together. One day I hope this happens.
Oh yeah, that'd be great. Just David and Clint would already be a massively good thing.
"it is what it is" Man that line has a whole different meaning now. ;-)
I have always wondered what a new Macintosh with the classic shell design but a LCD screen and modern hardware would be like.
A Mac 128K was my first computer.
These old all-in-one Macintosh computers are just cute with their relatively small screen and thicc bezels.
Watching this while programming a 16x16 LED matrix in C++ using the SPI Linux kernel interface of a RaspPiZero in a terminal on a different monitor. I think I'm having some sort of nerd overload here!
I'm trying to fix a hard drive at the same time, working on tech is best supplemented with watching tech.
I had a clip on 16mhz 68010 upgrade processor board for Mac classic. Fun little machine.
That's a nice setup! Maybe the CRT wobble gets better over time when the system warms up?
Cool! Adrian did an SE30 video today and now LGR.. yes!
I have never used a mac, but I have to say that one is pretty neat looking
Ask Adrian, from adrian's basement he is a Expert for repair :) an Apple Classics THank you for that Video.
Don't know if it will bring your HDD back to life but, when I worked for a Uni here, I had to get a bunch of old desktop style mac classics ready for an auction and a bunch of them wouldn't boot cos the hard discs had ceased up, I think I fixed about 12/18 of them by just giving them a swift bash on top and it sprung back in to life! So maybe giving the hard disk a bit of a shock on a table will do the trick? I mean you've got nothing to lose :)
This is better than any ASMR.
Thanks for the video Clint. Appreciate it.
Love the Blerbs!!!
Clint reminds me of a younger me. Before the weight of the world crushed my spirit.
I happen to have what I believe to be nearly every piece of paperwork (user manual, warranty, etc) for the Apple II that I rescued from a storage unit. If you're interested, I'd be more than happy to send them to you. One or two pages (literally) got mildly stained from an old bottle of soy sauce, but they are 99% fine. It's a rather large stack of paperwork.
And when I say "more than happy to" what I really mean is, I specifically rescued them to make sure they wound up with someone who would be happy to have them, and not wind up in a trash bin somewhere. Nothing depresses me more than artifacts from the past being destroyed.
The MacBottom reminded me of my old Atari ST Mega4 which had an external 60Mb hard drive in the same size case as the ST that sat underneath the main PC. And 60Mb seemed unimaginably large at the time. Ah, those were the days.
This feels like an Adrians Digital Basement colab even though Adrian isn't even in the video! :D
8:34 the swat team when they raid a streamers house and dont see any felony activity
Ah the mac classic, one of my favorites :) Good luck with the scsi2sd, I could never get one to boot on a mac classic with 7.5.3, maybe something weird with the formatting? not sure but tried all kinda ways I could think of. Ended up just using a FloppyEmu from BMOW instead which worked absolutely wonderfully.
For the crt wobble, just use the good old fist smack on top 1-3 times.
Wow how incredibly clean, did you clean it? Or did it come in such a wonderful condition?
🎵 Mac Bottom Files, they make the Macintosh go round 🎶