@@ActionRetro Question: Where in the world did you find 16MB 30-pin RAM SIMMs? Those are almost impossible to source or buy. If I can get some, I can upgrade my SE/30 (finally)!
@@MikieLAX Um, sorry. OWC does not have RAM upgrades for an SE/30. The earliest models they have upgrades for are starting from 1998 and later; so, PC100/133 type up to today. I use Mode32, instead of Maxima, or get a reverse engineered ROM SIMM from Big Mess O Wires.
@@minty_Joe Really?! I purchased 4-16 MB RAM SIMMs from OWC back in February, 2021 and installed them in my Mac SE/30. Double check with them to confirm if they stopped offering these. I have the ROMinator II installed and I also use the Big Mess O'Wires Floppy EMU as a 224 MB Hard Drive through the floppy port, which has System 7.5.3 installed. However I prefer to use System 6.08 most of the time, which is installed in the internal 40 MB hard drive. While, yes, I can access all 68 MB of RAM this way in 32-bit mode, but only use one program at a time. I prefer to run MultiFinder in System 6 so I can open multiple programs at one time. However, MultiFinder is not "32 bit clean" so I must run it in 24-bit mode. Maxima allows me to access up to 15 MB of RAM in 24 bit mode for programs in MultiFinder and then use the remaining RAM as a RAM disk.
That was fun to watch. I use my Macintosh Classic almost every day for writing. It's a great distraction-free UI. The Extended Keyboard II is a joy to work with, and Microsoft Word 5.1a is more than I could ever need. Thanks for creating this video!
128mb of RAM in the early 90's would have run you over $4000. I remember putting 2 16mb SIMs in a server for someone and it cost them $1250 plus labor in about '94. Funny how my current system runs 128gb with 8x 16gb modules 30 years on.
I have 32 on my old refurbed win 10 pro HP machine from 2015. I use it for rasterizing large prints and creative suite. It could use a faster cpu and gpu long before more Ram.
Crazy how far you've come in the quality of your videos in a short period of time. I never owned a mac, never really wanted too but i enjoy your videos so much, its kinda contagious. Makes me want one for the first time.
Just discovered this channel. Very pleased to see another RUclipsr specialising in classic Macs. Great pacing and editing. Subbed. And this is an epic video for an epic classic Mac. :)
That is cool! I used to have one a few years ago, but it was destroyed in the house fire. It ran 7.1 as well, and was very smooth. I also didn't realize that you are a musician, I guess we have more in common than I knew. ;-)
The real life of a computer tech.. LOTS of head scratching, tinkering and asking why it does not work? LOL! How I miss the days! That ram looks like the much coveted 16MB 30 pin simms we Soundblaster 32 owners drooled over back in the late 90s,early 2000s, that were so expensive, you had to take a small loan out just to afford it. Now look.. cheap as dirt.. Fun times.
We had the se-30 with 2 floppy drives at my school. It had a huge portrait monitor hooked up to it. They used it for making news for the school. I even played around with it. Cool machine.
@@ActionRetro Next step: Add a SCSI to IDE and IDE to CF card adapters to "modernize" your storage. Either that or (if you can source one) an SSD SCSI hard drive. :-)
@@minty_Joe SCSI SSD tech is STILL outragousely expensive in 2020! I remember the SSD drives back in the mid 90s being $10,000 for a 9.1GB SCSI-2 drive with built in batteries and ram for back up.
@@pianokeyjoe Yeah, but it doesn't hurt to try looking. I just can't trust the SCSI to SD card options yet until they fix some issues with system lockup or no writing data to the card. Not sure if that has something to do with the controller or the media.
@@minty_Joe mm! That has to do with the CONTROLLER. I already know! Yeah the best bet is to buy a trusted and true AKAI MPC2000 SCSI to CF card drive. THOSE have been around for a long time now
My first Mac was an SE/30. Even after I upgraded to a Quadra 610, I kept it around to goof around with. I didn't let it go until after I got a Power Mac 8100/80 AV. Love the video (and the ones on the cursed SE, too), I always enjoy seeing how far those little guys can get pushed.
I just came across your video today. Thank you for the great overview. I did spot some spilled capacitor fluid around chips in the area of UE8 in your video. It's no surprise really. Fluid filled electrolytic caps don't have eternal life. Eventually it will damage traces on the motherboard, so it's best to bite the bullet and recap the board now. That involves removing the SMD electrolytic capacitors, clean the board with alcohol, then solder in tantalum replacements. As to the broken SIMM slot locks, I too have a board like that. I hate the boards with plastic tabs. Metal ones exist, but all mine are plastic. They break so easily. The poor man's fix is to use a strong rubber band wrapped around all the SIMMs. I'd recommend you take out that metal clip because if it ever falls off without you knowing it, it will short circuit components when the Mac is powered and possibly fry the board. If you don't plan to swap out the RAM, the best solution is to use hot glue in the area of the broken tabs. That will lock the SIMM in place and allow you to fairly easily remove the hot glue should you need to some day. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the suggestion of gluing it in place! That makes total sense, because I hopefully will never have to take that memory stick out of there. Thanks too for the tip about the leaky cap - I actually have not powered the machine back on since this video and I'm hoping a friend can recap it.
I still feel that the SE/30 is the best of the compact-mac line. It looks the best by far, has the best performance, best ram upgradability... it's like a Mac IIci/IIcx in a portable case. I love that little machine!
With system 6 these bigheads fly! My SE/30 had a Radius Full Page Display card because the original owner was a press. Sadly I don’t have any Radius vertical monitor to try. Mine has the battery out. I don’t want any future accident ahahaha.
Very interesting video - one of your first Mac upgrades! I have a few SE/30s and I want to upgrade each one similar to your SE/30 for each of my sons. My rule is "if I do some major upgrades or repairs to a computer, and I screw it all back together, it will not work."
The mac is just set in 24-bits mode which mean that when it detect the RAM it puts unadressable RAM into the "system". (it even say in the boot screen 24-bits mode at 25:31)
humble beginnings :) I hope to see a vid of you outting that video card to use one day. and I gotta say, I appreciate to take the effort for making the recent videos so informative and funny. I really like the times when you sneak a funny message on the screen and the sketches :D
Congrats on the find! I am genuinely happy for you. There do seem to be a lot of them in your area, probably because they were the gigachad computer for Drexel staff and students. :)
I totally agree with your reasoning for opening and using vintage equipment like your printer. Museums have what they need and if it’s good stuff it absolutely should be used. 👍🏻
I was given one of these when i was 13 (20 years ago)- perfect condition, all accesories, carry case and everything. for some reason i put the system folder in the trash and thats not a good idea. i thought if i removed the HDD i could use another machine to fix it. i couldnt open the case, so i thought maybe if i made a small hole in the back i could access the IDE cable. i used a hammer - and the crt smashed! my dad took it all to the dump the next morning. I'll never forgive myself
I also made a mistake once that trashed a computer. I was about 10 or 11 and disconnected the power cable of an IDE drive, powered on the PC and connected the power cable back to the HDD. There was a big spark and the PC didn't POST anymore. The Pentium II's fan and the HDD spins but other then that, there's no sign of life. I didn't give a sh*t about it back then because I already had a newer and faster machine. Now I'm 24, appreciate retro computers and hate myself for being so stupid back then. I still have that computer, hoping that I'll have enough money to replace the motherboard (and the PSU if necessary).
@Temmie Flakes I'll ask around and see how much it'd cost. If it costs more than the motherboard and PSU from eBay (both listed as new), than it'll be the first option. If it doesn't than I'll get it repaired.
Chased a Plus through fleabay, ended up with an SE/30 instead... zero regrets, the thing is a total beast only really limited by the smaller than standard display resolution of its contemporaries.
I can't recall how many SE/30's Ive "maxed out" for pro's who were running Quark XPress in production work... Those ram slot clips were scary as all get out.
Amazing to find one with a colour card and fully maxed out with RAM... great find. I got one last month for $50 in great cosmetic shape but no colour card. Those are rare and crazy expensive if you do find one. Great video.
in 1999 I grabbed a Mac Classic (should have grabbed them all, but...) off the "up for grabs" surplus computer-lab table at my college with keyboard...and found a mouse in the DUMPSTER! I tucked this gem away and haven't fired it up for about a decade...I gotta go dig it out of my storage and make sure it's still working!!!! (worried about swelling diodes etc)
I used to have several of these back in the late '90's. In fact, I had at least one example of every 68k Mac at one point. Couldn't even give them away when I moved to an apartment so they went into the trash. So sad at the time, /CRY now!!
Aw! This brings back memories. I had an SE30 that I added a videocard to and maxed the then default RAM. I did a lot of Supercard programming on that thing.
What sort of advantage is there to installing the 128MB or RAM? Does the Mac run faster? My knowledge of the older Macs is scant. That's why I watch videos like these! Great Job!
Thanks Paul! For normal use, not much benefit. In fact, there can be drawbacks - the memory test at startup can take several minutes with all that memory, so I had to disable it. Aside from the cool factor though, I'm hoping to try some alternative operating systems like A/UX where that extra ram should make things a lot smoother.
It seems crazy to me that these systems were even wired to support those larger modules. They would've been silly high ceilings for the time, so what's the point of wiring in the traces when the software isn't even capable (without modification) of using a fraction of it? This is something unique to Apple, it seems, although I confess ignorance to the block diagram of 90s Macs. My frame of reference is that it would be uncommon to find PC chipsets that supported orders of magnitude more RAM than users would install at the time. I've run into RAM limitations on fairly _recent_ chipsets, trying to repurpose Core 2 or i5 systems as VM hosts, and only being able to physically address something like 8 to 64GB, which isn't nearly enough. Imagine having a Core 2 Duo motherboard that would technically support 16TB of RAM. haha It's just nuts.
This was the first computer I ever used. It was sitting on my dad's desk at home with a color monitor add-in card and a magnavox 15" CRT. I remember the hayes 2400 baud modem, the 9600 baud update, and my dad being so stoked when he bought a 1GB HD back in 1991. Ahh memories.
I also remember playing crystal quest, scsi conflicts, and nuking the entire System 7 install on it when I was 5 years old and had no idea what I was doing. The replacement was an 8500/120 which was one heck of an upgrade.
Aw man, I have a ton of nostalgia for a 386! Our first family computer was a no-name 386 desktop we bought at a yard sale, and my first computer that I personally owned was a 286 laptop I bought at a flea market at my middle school!
@@ActionRetro Nice history! I got mine with 387, 500mb (around) hard drives and a 5,25 and 3,5 inch floppies. 386 33 with a cool case. For 60$! I removed the battery which was leaking, so it will last longer. i posted a pic of my pc on reddit and people thought the case was cool looking, including myself. I have no idea what case it is and the original owner does not know it anymore either. Might put a cheap sound card in it.
To think that, at the place I was working at about 99-00 we were throwing these out by the dozen. Working units. We had fun smashing them and I remember how cool I thought the autographs of the engineers molded inside the case was. I guess they would have been worth a pretty penny by now.
You'll need to enable 32-bit addressing in the Memory Control Panel, so that the system doesn't just leave you with 7 MB of RAM available. Maybe it was just because it was booting from the ROM, but nonetheless, a step that'll need to be taken :) These machines are fast with any Mac OS you load on there. Myself, I'm a fan of 7.5.1 - the first version that had the new 'Mac OS' boot image. It's not as bulky as System 7.5.3 or 7.5.5, more stable than 7.5, and can do more than 7.1.
Been watching your videos for a while, just seem like a decent fella, or where i come from "Sound" or "Dead On" meaning just a nice person. keep it up lad. struggling on here myself to get my channel going. seen your a bit of a musician like myself. love to hear some of your music.
Great video, I would get into the habit when inserting ram chips of touching the ground plane of the motherboard before inserting the chips. If you have built up any static and then just insert the chip, the static will flow from your body via the chip to earth when the chip touches the pins on the motherboard ram slot. And in a flash your ram is blown! I always hold the ram chip in my right hand and before I insert it, with my left hand, touch something that is part of the ground on the motherboard, such as the power supply or one of the outer edges of one of the connectors such as the rear ports on a Mac. That way if you have built up some static you will zero the potential between you and the motherboard before inserting the chip. Ram chips are so easy to blow before you even get to use them.
That’s helpful but insufficient. You really need a wrist strap, resistive anti static mat, and grounding point kit. Fortunately (as mentioned in my other comment) they’re cheap and widely available.
What is the voltage of that battery? In the old early DOS machines, those CMOS batteries (4.5 Volts) were expensive as hell, but I hacked a fix using a battery holder and common AA batteries.(Both from the old Radio Shack) Hey it worked.I still use that in the old DOS machines I run across. I recently was given 4 original IBM PC XTs from a coal company warehouse that was being torn down. Still in the box and sealed inside the plastic. None of them has ever been plugged in. Still had all the floppy disks too. Booted perfectly. Oh yea, the original green screen monochrome monitors were also included. Being retired, I spend my time repairing old PCs and putting them into the homes of low income children whose families can't afford a new machine.(I work through a church.I am located near Hazard,Kentucky.) Most of the time, I set these machines up as Linux boxes. I am all the time looking for machines people don't want or aren't using and just want rid of. The Computers For Kids Project is something I really work hard for. You might want to use nylon ties around the RAM holder to hold the Ram chip in place. Non-conductive and it does work.
You need to get a proper anti static workstation kit - resistive rubber mat, wrist strap, grounding point, etc. A towel - even one that has been washed in “anti static” softener - is not a safe place for PCBs. Fortunately, they are cheap nowadays; and widely available (Amazon, eBay, Banggood, etc).
That's one sweet machine! I have to get an SE/30 for my collection one of these days! Curious... why do you need the ROMinator-II to boot from the Floppy Emu's HD20? Is there something in the SE/30's stock ROM that discontinued support for it? My regular SE boots from the HD20 mode with its stock ROM.
The rominator II makes the machine 32 bit clean and also disables memory check, which would take a long time with 128mb of ram. I also don't think the se/30 can boot from a HD20 without it, but I'm not 100% on that one.
@@ActionRetro I wasn't sure if it would or not. I have two IIfx machines and one II. It may not be a bad idea to get one of those myself to keep around at least just for fun ;) It would still be cool to see if you could have gotten that other video card to work, just for fun at least. 😎
Sure! Here's the RAM: www.ebay.com/itm/333047150857 Here's the battery: amzn.to/2zXiIEJ Make sure they send you the 1/2 height AA size battery - once they sent me 3/4 height and I was really confused for a minute until I figured it out!
Been over 30 years since I had any of these things apart. I seem to remember we had case crackers. We had a utility called System Picker that let you bless a system folder to make it bootable. I had several 512 k Macs some SE 20s and Classics when they came out but SE 30s were way out of my price range. I can remember actually being able to read that little monitor. I use a 70 inch 4k TV today and still have trouble.
@@ActionRetro It's not so bad... I had a lot of excellent guidance from two YT channels (Branchus Creations) and JDW. Both have a lot of helpful videos that I watched to gain confidence in recapping. Check 'em out. The surface mounted caps tend to go bad on Macs of that vintage and will need to be replaced soon.
@@ActionRetro I'm sure you could do it bro. Just watch some instructional videos and practice on some other electronics you get from the scrap bin first :-)
I'm sure you know this by now, but you should *always* make sure the CRT is discharged by snaking a grounded probe under the cap and making contact with its electrode. CRT tubes operate in the kilovolt range, and have a significant capacitance. It's more than enough to kill you. They *should* self-discharge when the power switch is flipped off, but you're unlikely to notice if that functionality has failed.
If only there was something like a 'pirate ROM' for the old 1st generation Power Macs (ie. the 6100, 7100, and 8100 series). Couple that with a G3 or G4 upgrade from Sonnet, and then a couple of 128MB RAM modules for a total of 264 MB ((128+128)+8 soldered on the mobo), and an Apple HPV video card..... man, those things would be screamers! I don't know if the Pirate ROM would also otherwise allow installation of Mac OS versions beyond what Apple originally said was the maximum version supported. For the 6100-8100 series of Power Macs, it was 9.1. It would've been nice to see if they could go all the way up to Panther or Tiger (OSX).
I cant believe the pacing on this video compared to what you will become in the future. Note to future self.....take it easy. Be cool. drop the hype. just be yourself. Your a nice guy. Cheers
Timed the start up from off to all icons and text populated at :13:42 seconds. On the 128 MBs RAM sticks they each have an empty socket. What would that have been used for? It is much smaller than the sockets used for RAM chips.
The ultimate would be a SE/30 with a Micron Xceed accelerator/analog board replacement so you can get grayscale on the internal monitor, but you'd likely have to sell your house to afford it.
Apple had been naming all computers using the 68030 processers with an "x", such as the IIx and IIcx. When it came time to put the 68030 processor into the SE series, they unfortunately decided that calling it the Macintosh "SEx" wasn't the best marketing idea, so they settled on "SE 30".
Where can I find the ram you used? I want to do the same thing to my SE/30 which has a Garrett's Workshop rom simm (GW4402B). It is happily installed in a blue MacEffects case
I hope you've done it since, but I would start such a restoration with cleaning the board, giving it a vinegar treatment (clean spilled electrolyte from caps), recap the board and then go for upgrades, etc..... later, probably recap the analog board as well... but that's just old me :D
HI there. I just watched your video and really enjoyed it. I recently picked up an SE/30 and my first task was to recap the board because, as @JDW mentioned, the electrolyte will eat it up. I went to the nice people at @Console5 and they sent me kits for the PSU, analog board, and logic board. Unfortuantely, when I went to do the smoke test following the recap, something exploded. Bad sign. I opened it up and saw a cap that was all burnt up. Not sure what I did. The soldering job was solid and the caps were all in the right spots. And for sure, I had them oriented in the right direction. I posted to 68kMLA and sure enough...I soldered all the caps in backwards. The line on the tantalum caps goes to + not -. Apparently the package came with such a warning, but my dog tore up the package so I never saw the warning. I am grateful that after your nearly ruining your SE/30, you were able to get it to run like I did. Thank you so much for this video. It's helpful to us noobs in retro as we destroy a lot.
I've got an SE/30 that I recapped and have the same ROMinator chip but I couldn't get mine to boot with 64MB of 4x 16MB RAM sticks, mine have less chips per RAM stick so I wonder if it's something to do with the RAM density.
@@JohanNilsson1966 yup. I still have the shell of one I use for junk storage in the garage. My plan was to macmini it with a small point of sale flat screen but we had a family tragedy and they had to go. I think I had 10 color classics (1 and 2's) a few monochrome classics, 5 SE/30s and a couple others. Got them from a school. At the time I would buy ethernet cards and get them working on the internet and my kid and his cousins would tinker with them when they weren't in the diablo LAN room.
Very cool! Totally not jealous AF 🥺
Thanks!
@@ActionRetro Question: Where in the world did you find 16MB 30-pin RAM SIMMs? Those are almost impossible to source or buy. If I can get some, I can upgrade my SE/30 (finally)!
@@minty_Joe OWC; and look for Maxima on one of the legacy Mac Software Libraries, which will allow you to use more than 8 MB when in 24 bit mode.
@@MikieLAX Um, sorry. OWC does not have RAM upgrades for an SE/30. The earliest models they have upgrades for are starting from 1998 and later; so, PC100/133 type up to today. I use Mode32, instead of Maxima, or get a reverse engineered ROM SIMM from Big Mess O Wires.
@@minty_Joe Really?! I purchased 4-16 MB RAM SIMMs from OWC back in February, 2021 and installed them in my Mac SE/30. Double check with them to confirm if they stopped offering these.
I have the ROMinator II installed and I also use the Big Mess O'Wires Floppy EMU as a 224 MB Hard Drive through the floppy port, which has System 7.5.3 installed.
However I prefer to use System 6.08 most of the time, which is installed in the internal 40 MB hard drive.
While, yes, I can access all 68 MB of RAM this way in 32-bit mode, but only use one program at a time. I prefer to run MultiFinder in System 6 so I can open multiple programs at one time. However, MultiFinder is not "32 bit clean" so I must run it in 24-bit mode.
Maxima allows me to access up to 15 MB of RAM in 24 bit mode for programs in MultiFinder and then use the remaining RAM as a RAM disk.
That was fun to watch. I use my Macintosh Classic almost every day for writing. It's a great distraction-free UI. The Extended Keyboard II is a joy to work with, and Microsoft Word 5.1a is more than I could ever need. Thanks for creating this video!
Thanks hamster! My favorite thing about these computers is how modern they feel after using them for a few minutes.
I've got a Classic as a present recently. How do you make your work on the Classic collaborate (file exchange, networking) with your other computers?
I’m glad you use it for something really productive, good to know that people get real use out of these great old machines
5.1a was the best version of Word before it became bloatware. still use it on my SE/30.
Hacky-af paperclip + electrical tape is just the best sort of bodge. 10/10 RAM upgrade.
128mb of RAM in the early 90's would have run you over $4000. I remember putting 2 16mb SIMs in a server for someone and it cost them $1250 plus labor in about '94. Funny how my current system runs 128gb with 8x 16gb modules 30 years on.
Holy crap! My MacBook Pro has 16GB and it feels like it’s enough
My computer seems like it has the perfect amount of ram with 2 2gig sticks of ddr3 ram soldered onto the motherbord
@@MaxOakland 16GB is enough for basically everything in my experience.
That’s a waste of ram
I have 32 on my old refurbed win 10 pro HP machine from 2015. I use it for rasterizing large prints and creative suite. It could use a faster cpu and gpu long before more Ram.
Crazy how far you've come in the quality of your videos in a short period of time. I never owned a mac, never really wanted too but i enjoy your videos so much, its kinda contagious. Makes me want one for the first time.
One of the most relatable and educational videos related to the Mac. Thank you for sharing!
Just discovered this channel. Very pleased to see another RUclipsr specialising in classic Macs. Great pacing and editing. Subbed. And this is an epic video for an epic classic Mac. :)
That is cool! I used to have one a few years ago, but it was destroyed in the house fire. It ran 7.1 as well, and was very smooth. I also didn't realize that you are a musician, I guess we have more in common than I knew. ;-)
But did it _cause_ the fire? 🧐
The real life of a computer tech.. LOTS of head scratching, tinkering and asking why it does not work? LOL! How I miss the days! That ram looks like the much coveted 16MB 30 pin simms we Soundblaster 32 owners drooled over back in the late 90s,early 2000s, that were so expensive, you had to take a small loan out just to afford it. Now look.. cheap as dirt.. Fun times.
We had the se-30 with 2 floppy drives at my school. It had a huge portrait monitor hooked up to it. They used it for making news for the school. I even played around with it. Cool machine.
that’s cool. when was that?
@@MaxOakland mid 90s.
I do believe you won the auction I was also bidding on.
Sorry! It has a good home!
@@ActionRetro Next step: Add a SCSI to IDE and IDE to CF card adapters to "modernize" your storage. Either that or (if you can source one) an SSD SCSI hard drive. :-)
@@minty_Joe SCSI SSD tech is STILL outragousely expensive in 2020! I remember the SSD drives back in the mid 90s being $10,000 for a 9.1GB SCSI-2 drive with built in batteries and ram for back up.
@@pianokeyjoe Yeah, but it doesn't hurt to try looking. I just can't trust the SCSI to SD card options yet until they fix some issues with system lockup or no writing data to the card. Not sure if that has something to do with the controller or the media.
@@minty_Joe mm! That has to do with the CONTROLLER. I already know! Yeah the best bet is to buy a trusted and true AKAI MPC2000 SCSI to CF card drive. THOSE have been around for a long time now
My first Mac was an SE/30. Even after I upgraded to a Quadra 610, I kept it around to goof around with. I didn't let it go until after I got a Power Mac 8100/80 AV.
Love the video (and the ones on the cursed SE, too), I always enjoy seeing how far those little guys can get pushed.
I just came across your video today. Thank you for the great overview. I did spot some spilled capacitor fluid around chips in the area of UE8 in your video. It's no surprise really. Fluid filled electrolytic caps don't have eternal life. Eventually it will damage traces on the motherboard, so it's best to bite the bullet and recap the board now. That involves removing the SMD electrolytic capacitors, clean the board with alcohol, then solder in tantalum replacements. As to the broken SIMM slot locks, I too have a board like that. I hate the boards with plastic tabs. Metal ones exist, but all mine are plastic. They break so easily. The poor man's fix is to use a strong rubber band wrapped around all the SIMMs. I'd recommend you take out that metal clip because if it ever falls off without you knowing it, it will short circuit components when the Mac is powered and possibly fry the board. If you don't plan to swap out the RAM, the best solution is to use hot glue in the area of the broken tabs. That will lock the SIMM in place and allow you to fairly easily remove the hot glue should you need to some day. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the suggestion of gluing it in place! That makes total sense, because I hopefully will never have to take that memory stick out of there. Thanks too for the tip about the leaky cap - I actually have not powered the machine back on since this video and I'm hoping a friend can recap it.
I still feel that the SE/30 is the best of the compact-mac line. It looks the best by far, has the best performance, best ram upgradability... it's like a Mac IIci/IIcx in a portable case. I love that little machine!
My favorite compact Mac design is the color classic. this one is pretty awesome too
With system 6 these bigheads fly! My SE/30 had a Radius Full Page Display card because the original owner was a press. Sadly I don’t have any Radius vertical monitor to try.
Mine has the battery out. I don’t want any future accident ahahaha.
Aw man, a full page display would be so cool!
Very interesting video - one of your first Mac upgrades! I have a few SE/30s and I want to upgrade each one similar to your SE/30 for each of my sons. My rule is "if I do some major upgrades or repairs to a computer, and I screw it all back together, it will not work."
"son of a gun" is the most American thing I ever heard. 😂😂😂
Ironically, it was first used in 1708 by the Brits...
42:20 Did it load the whole OS into RAM? It's showing only 7mb available.
Loading an OS into literal RAM is not a very good idea, especially with older systems...
The mac is just set in 24-bits mode which mean that when it detect the RAM it puts unadressable RAM into the "system". (it even say in the boot screen 24-bits mode at 25:31)
humble beginnings :) I hope to see a vid of you outting that video card to use one day. and I gotta say, I appreciate to take the effort for making the recent videos so informative and funny. I really like the times when you sneak a funny message on the screen and the sketches :D
Congrats on the find! I am genuinely happy for you.
There do seem to be a lot of them in your area, probably because they were the gigachad computer for Drexel staff and students. :)
I totally agree with your reasoning for opening and using vintage equipment like your printer. Museums have what they need and if it’s good stuff it absolutely should be used. 👍🏻
I was given one of these when i was 13 (20 years ago)- perfect condition, all accesories, carry case and everything.
for some reason i put the system folder in the trash and thats not a good idea.
i thought if i removed the HDD i could use another machine to fix it.
i couldnt open the case, so i thought maybe if i made a small hole in the back i could access the IDE cable.
i used a hammer - and the crt smashed! my dad took it all to the dump the next morning. I'll never forgive myself
Aw man that's a tragedy!
Sometimes a man has to do, what he has to do! And learn, what to do better next time ... :D I'm fully with you!
I also made a mistake once that trashed a computer. I was about 10 or 11 and disconnected the power cable of an IDE drive, powered on the PC and connected the power cable back to the HDD. There was a big spark and the PC didn't POST anymore. The Pentium II's fan and the HDD spins but other then that, there's no sign of life.
I didn't give a sh*t about it back then because I already had a newer and faster machine. Now I'm 24, appreciate retro computers and hate myself for being so stupid back then.
I still have that computer, hoping that I'll have enough money to replace the motherboard (and the PSU if necessary).
@Temmie Flakes I'll ask around and see how much it'd cost. If it costs more than the motherboard and PSU from eBay (both listed as new), than it'll be the first option. If it doesn't than I'll get it repaired.
@@TeionM83 Man that is sad I would love to see it fixed
Chased a Plus through fleabay, ended up with an SE/30 instead... zero regrets, the thing is a total beast only really limited by the smaller than standard display resolution of its contemporaries.
Try finding an external video adapter and monitor. I saw a video about a guy hooking it to an external monitor!
I can't recall how many SE/30's Ive "maxed out" for pro's who were running Quark XPress in production work... Those ram slot clips were scary as all get out.
Nice Find That Pirate Rom Is A Nice Upgrade I used Mac IIFx Rom To Get The 32Bit Clean Rom On My SE30
I'd give just about anything to find an SE/30! Such an awesome machine!
Amazing to find one with a colour card and fully maxed out with RAM... great find. I got one last month for $50 in great cosmetic shape but no colour card. Those are rare and crazy expensive if you do find one. Great video.
Thank you so much! Wow, $50 is a great price for a nice one.
18:11 Peter Griffin trying to throw the dead frog out of his window 😂
in 1999 I grabbed a Mac Classic (should have grabbed them all, but...) off the "up for grabs" surplus computer-lab table at my college with keyboard...and found a mouse in the DUMPSTER! I tucked this gem away and haven't fired it up for about a decade...I gotta go dig it out of my storage and make sure it's still working!!!! (worried about swelling diodes etc)
I used to have several of these back in the late '90's. In fact, I had at least one example of every 68k Mac at one point. Couldn't even give them away when I moved to an apartment so they went into the trash. So sad at the time, /CRY now!!
Aw! This brings back memories. I had an SE30 that I added a videocard to and maxed the then default RAM. I did a lot of Supercard programming on that thing.
My grandparents had one just sitting around in a junky barn, and it works fine!
You should retrobrite it ;)
What sort of advantage is there to installing the 128MB or RAM? Does the Mac run faster? My knowledge of the older Macs is scant. That's why I watch videos like these! Great Job!
Thanks Paul! For normal use, not much benefit. In fact, there can be drawbacks - the memory test at startup can take several minutes with all that memory, so I had to disable it. Aside from the cool factor though, I'm hoping to try some alternative operating systems like A/UX where that extra ram should make things a lot smoother.
@@ActionRetro This is running system 6? More RAM might be really useful if you ever decide to upgrade. Or if you go wild with multitasking
It seems crazy to me that these systems were even wired to support those larger modules. They would've been silly high ceilings for the time, so what's the point of wiring in the traces when the software isn't even capable (without modification) of using a fraction of it?
This is something unique to Apple, it seems, although I confess ignorance to the block diagram of 90s Macs. My frame of reference is that it would be uncommon to find PC chipsets that supported orders of magnitude more RAM than users would install at the time. I've run into RAM limitations on fairly _recent_ chipsets, trying to repurpose Core 2 or i5 systems as VM hosts, and only being able to physically address something like 8 to 64GB, which isn't nearly enough. Imagine having a Core 2 Duo motherboard that would technically support 16TB of RAM. haha It's just nuts.
This was the first computer I ever used. It was sitting on my dad's desk at home with a color monitor add-in card and a magnavox 15" CRT. I remember the hayes 2400 baud modem, the 9600 baud update, and my dad being so stoked when he bought a 1GB HD back in 1991. Ahh memories.
I also remember playing crystal quest, scsi conflicts, and nuking the entire System 7 install on it when I was 5 years old and had no idea what I was doing. The replacement was an 8500/120 which was one heck of an upgrade.
I just found the same! Now I need 2 of them, and to upgrade, as super-functional book ends that may or may not be networked together ~
I actually wanted to buy a MAC SE, but did not have the tool's to fix one. So i bought a 386 :)
Aw man, I have a ton of nostalgia for a 386! Our first family computer was a no-name 386 desktop we bought at a yard sale, and my first computer that I personally owned was a 286 laptop I bought at a flea market at my middle school!
@@ActionRetro Nice history! I got mine with 387, 500mb (around) hard drives and a 5,25 and 3,5 inch floppies. 386 33 with a cool case. For 60$!
I removed the battery which was leaking, so it will last longer. i posted a pic of my pc on reddit and people thought the case was cool looking, including myself. I have no idea what case it is and the original owner does not know it anymore either. Might put a cheap sound card in it.
And be careful with that FLYBACK! Or YOU.. will FLY WAAAAY BACK lol!
I played this video at x1.5 speed and given how languid the original was including the commentary, it helped move things along nicely.
Awesome find! None of us are lividly jealous!
To think that, at the place I was working at about 99-00 we were throwing these out by the dozen. Working units. We had fun smashing them and I remember how cool I thought the autographs of the engineers molded inside the case was. I guess they would have been worth a pretty penny by now.
😐😬
The clean sound is very great✨
IF it was originally a Macintosh 128k , we would call it Macintosh 128mb
wow I had an SE in college and the SE/30 was something I drooled for. I think we had some in the labs but they were dual floppy. Just used on the net.
What was it like using the internet on them?
@@MaxOakland no internet. But after a few years had a dialup modem. Slow.
The problem with troubleshooting is that sometimes trouble shoots back.
Hearing that ram click in is so satisfying
I have two of that exact ice cube tray. Random thoughts. ☃️
I didn't know that 30 pin SIMMs came in 16MB. Also, it's unbelievable that a battery that is older then me still works
At 29:36 About the Macintosh Finder has system 6 taking 8 Megs of ram. How did that happen? Ramdisk?
You'll need to enable 32-bit addressing in the Memory Control Panel, so that the system doesn't just leave you with 7 MB of RAM available. Maybe it was just because it was booting from the ROM, but nonetheless, a step that'll need to be taken :) These machines are fast with any Mac OS you load on there. Myself, I'm a fan of 7.5.1 - the first version that had the new 'Mac OS' boot image. It's not as bulky as System 7.5.3 or 7.5.5, more stable than 7.5, and can do more than 7.1.
Clever use of an ice cube tray!
Been watching your videos for a while, just seem like a decent fella, or where i come from "Sound" or "Dead On" meaning just a nice person. keep it up lad. struggling on here myself to get my channel going. seen your a bit of a musician like myself. love to hear some of your music.
Nostalgia overload 👍
I can't believe you are putting the components down on a towel.These older components are quite sensitive to stray static.
Cool video man! I really enjoyed it!
Great video, I would get into the habit when inserting ram chips of touching the ground plane of the motherboard before inserting the chips. If you have built up any static and then just insert the chip, the static will flow from your body via the chip to earth when the chip touches the pins on the motherboard ram slot. And in a flash your ram is blown! I always hold the ram chip in my right hand and before I insert it, with my left hand, touch something that is part of the ground on the motherboard, such as the power supply or one of the outer edges of one of the connectors such as the rear ports on a Mac. That way if you have built up some static you will zero the potential between you and the motherboard before inserting the chip. Ram chips are so easy to blow before you even get to use them.
Aw man thank you for that tip!
@@ActionRetro I hope it saves you blowing some chips. It has served me well over the 30 odd years I have worked as an IT Support guy.
That’s helpful but insufficient. You really need a wrist strap, resistive anti static mat, and grounding point kit. Fortunately (as mentioned in my other comment) they’re cheap and widely available.
What is the voltage of that battery? In the old early DOS machines, those CMOS batteries (4.5 Volts) were expensive as hell, but I hacked a fix using a battery holder and common AA batteries.(Both from the old Radio Shack) Hey it worked.I still use that in the old DOS machines I run across. I recently was given 4 original IBM PC XTs from a coal company warehouse that was being torn down. Still in the box and sealed inside the plastic. None of them has ever been plugged in. Still had all the floppy disks too. Booted perfectly. Oh yea, the original green screen monochrome monitors were also included.
Being retired, I spend my time repairing old PCs and putting them into the homes of low income children whose families can't afford a new machine.(I work through a church.I am located near Hazard,Kentucky.) Most of the time, I set these machines up as Linux boxes. I am all the time looking for machines people don't want or aren't using and just want rid of. The Computers For Kids Project is something I really work hard for.
You might want to use nylon ties around the RAM holder to hold the Ram chip in place. Non-conductive and it does work.
Nice gutair collectiong man!
As a broadcast engineer, I totally cringed when you brought out the binder clip and electrical tape!
Boleo
so instead of the binder clip and tape, what would you do?
@@keancv Magnifier, tweezers, superglue, the broke piece, and a lot of patience. I have done this repair before and it sucks.
You need to get a proper anti static workstation kit - resistive rubber mat, wrist strap, grounding point, etc. A towel - even one that has been washed in “anti static” softener - is not a safe place for PCBs. Fortunately, they are cheap nowadays; and widely available (Amazon, eBay, Banggood, etc).
That's one sweet machine! I have to get an SE/30 for my collection one of these days! Curious... why do you need the ROMinator-II to boot from the Floppy Emu's HD20? Is there something in the SE/30's stock ROM that discontinued support for it? My regular SE boots from the HD20 mode with its stock ROM.
The rominator II makes the machine 32 bit clean and also disables memory check, which would take a long time with 128mb of ram. I also don't think the se/30 can boot from a HD20 without it, but I'm not 100% on that one.
@@ActionRetro I wasn't sure if it would or not. I have two IIfx machines and one II. It may not be a bad idea to get one of those myself to keep around at least just for fun ;) It would still be cool to see if you could have gotten that other video card to work, just for fun at least. 😎
Ok, but what can you do with it?
All you need now is one of those MacCon PDS ethernet card. So you can get onto the interweb of the 90s. It is pricy, but really awesome.
If he wants to keep the external monitor card, he can just hook up a Raspberry Pi running Slirp to the serial port and get online with MacPPP. BTDT.
Macintosh moment
can you provide links to the RAM and battery?
Sure!
Here's the RAM: www.ebay.com/itm/333047150857
Here's the battery: amzn.to/2zXiIEJ
Make sure they send you the 1/2 height AA size battery - once they sent me 3/4 height and I was really confused for a minute until I figured it out!
Been over 30 years since I had any of these things apart. I seem to remember we had case crackers. We had a utility called System Picker that let you bless a system folder to make it bootable. I had several 512 k Macs some SE 20s and Classics when they came out but SE 30s were way out of my price range. I can remember actually being able to read that little monitor. I use a 70 inch 4k TV today and still have trouble.
Are you going to recap the logic board?
I want to, but I've never tried soldering surface mount stuff before. I'm a little intimidated.
@@ActionRetro It's not so bad... I had a lot of excellent guidance from two YT channels (Branchus Creations) and JDW. Both have a lot of helpful videos that I watched to gain confidence in recapping. Check 'em out. The surface mounted caps tend to go bad on Macs of that vintage and will need to be replaced soon.
@@ActionRetro I'm sure you could do it bro.
Just watch some instructional videos and practice on some other electronics you get from the scrap bin first :-)
@@slayerfans Thanks man, I've definitely been practicing :)
Did you look around the SMD caps on the logic board? Are the legs silver color or dull gray/green? If green it needs caps ASAP!
Haha. When I saw you first messing with the ram, my first thought was those are easy to break. LOL! But nice and cheap solution ya got there ;-)
Oh yeah, did ya find an ethernet card ?
I'm sure you know this by now, but you should *always* make sure the CRT is discharged by snaking a grounded probe under the cap and making contact with its electrode. CRT tubes operate in the kilovolt range, and have a significant capacitance. It's more than enough to kill you.
They *should* self-discharge when the power switch is flipped off, but you're unlikely to notice if that functionality has failed.
And yes, I did say "cathode ray tube tubes".
Where did you get the Dataram SIMM from?
If only there was something like a 'pirate ROM' for the old 1st generation Power Macs (ie. the 6100, 7100, and 8100 series). Couple that with a G3 or G4 upgrade from Sonnet, and then a couple of 128MB RAM modules for a total of 264 MB ((128+128)+8 soldered on the mobo), and an Apple HPV video card..... man, those things would be screamers! I don't know if the Pirate ROM would also otherwise allow installation of Mac OS versions beyond what Apple originally said was the maximum version supported. For the 6100-8100 series of Power Macs, it was 9.1. It would've been nice to see if they could go all the way up to Panther or Tiger (OSX).
just wondering why u keep turning off the SE instead of shutting down properly?
I cant believe the pacing on this video compared to what you will become in the future. Note to future self.....take it easy. Be cool. drop the hype. just be yourself. Your a nice guy. Cheers
What happened to the boot chime?
Timed the start up from off to all icons and text populated at :13:42 seconds. On the 128 MBs RAM sticks they each have an empty socket. What would that have been used for? It is much smaller than the sockets used for RAM chips.
A blob of hot glue for those ram slots, that's all you need.
Hi, Thanks for the tuto. I need to test it on my Mac SE 30.
Can you send a link to the RAM SIMMs you purchased?
Use UV GLUE. Its plastic that cures with uv light. Its the best option
Well, lots of face palm moments in this video :-)
128 MB late 80s Mac would of been awesome for DTP. Even upping a 1MB mac to 4MB was noticeable back then!
My first computer from the early 1990s maxed out at 6MB of RAM. That is what stopped me from installing Windows 98 on it.
I bought mine new for over $4200 ..... before I added an external monitor board. It fed my family back in the day (DTP and graphics)
You have been rominated now get to the chopper! 🤣
Did you ever find out what the deal is with that video card? I have one of those from my SE/30 (with out the video connector portion)
The ultimate would be a SE/30 with a Micron Xceed accelerator/analog board replacement so you can get grayscale on the internal monitor, but you'd likely have to sell your house to afford it.
Oh yeah I'd love to find one of those. I might just actually sell my house for it too lol.
That grey scale board is the one they should reproduce!!.. for SE/30, SE ( and Classic if possible)
JTHM ON THE WALL FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where in the world did you find that memory??
Apple had been naming all computers using the 68030 processers with an "x", such as the IIx and IIcx. When it came time to put the 68030 processor into the SE series, they unfortunately decided that calling it the Macintosh "SEx" wasn't the best marketing idea, so they settled on "SE 30".
"I have ruined things before, so I am gonna play it safe" - meanwhile has the whole mainboard/motherboard on a towel...
Where can I find the ram you used? I want to do the same thing to my SE/30 which has a Garrett's Workshop rom simm (GW4402B). It is happily installed in a blue MacEffects case
OMG the serious and abnoral Sean from way back. i Kinda like the new 2022 Sean which is quacky and fun..... ;)
Is the original batt a 1/2 AA?
I found a working one at my local antuqe stopre for 50 dollars, they didn't know it was a computer and they thought it was a TV
I have that exact computer
I hope you've done it since, but I would start such a restoration with cleaning the board, giving it a vinegar treatment (clean spilled electrolyte from caps), recap the board and then go for upgrades, etc..... later, probably recap the analog board as well... but that's just old me :D
He finally showed his face LOL
HI there. I just watched your video and really enjoyed it. I recently picked up an SE/30 and my first task was to recap the board because, as @JDW mentioned, the electrolyte will eat it up. I went to the nice people at @Console5 and they sent me kits for the PSU, analog board, and logic board. Unfortuantely, when I went to do the smoke test following the recap, something exploded. Bad sign. I opened it up and saw a cap that was all burnt up. Not sure what I did. The soldering job was solid and the caps were all in the right spots. And for sure, I had them oriented in the right direction. I posted to 68kMLA and sure enough...I soldered all the caps in backwards. The line on the tantalum caps goes to + not -. Apparently the package came with such a warning, but my dog tore up the package so I never saw the warning. I am grateful that after your nearly ruining your SE/30, you were able to get it to run like I did. Thank you so much for this video. It's helpful to us noobs in retro as we destroy a lot.
Has anyone tried updating the CRT with a LCD or similar screen?
I've got an SE/30 that I recapped and have the same ROMinator chip but I couldn't get mine to boot with 64MB of 4x 16MB RAM sticks, mine have less chips per RAM stick so I wonder if it's something to do with the RAM density.
It might be that you have composite SIMMs www.lowendmac.com/ram/index.shtml
I had like 5 of them... went to recycle I still find them as give aways
Not SE/30's, right? They have always been quite rare. Classics on the other hand...
@@JohanNilsson1966 yup. I still have the shell of one I use for junk storage in the garage. My plan was to macmini it with a small point of sale flat screen but we had a family tragedy and they had to go. I think I had 10 color classics (1 and 2's) a few monochrome classics, 5 SE/30s and a couple others. Got them from a school. At the time I would buy ethernet cards and get them working on the internet and my kid and his cousins would tinker with them when they weren't in the diablo LAN room.
@@bioglassmusic i hate this. i want a color classic so much
@@MaxOakland if I run across a CC1 or 2 i'll post a link for ya
16MB SIMMs? That's crazy. 128MB is the same ammount my Power Macintosh G3 Blue and white came with.