[geeks] Mac Quadra is up and running... Tee-hee!

[Simeon Johnston]

> As in "oooh fok, no OS" (I hope!?)
> 
> I found that my wifes (otherwise) idle Mac uses the same keyboard/mouse =
> as the new Quadra 660AV I am trying to set-up, so I took them to it, =
> hooked up one of my *two* mac video adapters (I have way too much =
> stuff!), and powered-up.

Just a quick note....
All pre USB macs use ADB keyboards.

> Thanks to everyones help last night, the Quadra 660AV is up and running - I don't yet have the ethernet adapter, but I have found a source for the cable at $1/ea (unfortunately, there is nothing else at the site I want, well, that I can justify - $15 used keyboards and $15 used mice are not very appealing... though I am attracted to the refurbished Expert Mouse trackballs (4 button)...).

The mac is made for 1 button.  It may not help you much to get a 4
button mouse.
:)
A 2 button is very helpful though.  I don't know what I'd do w/ 4.  Also
depends on the software support.  To use all 4 buttons you'll need to
drivers for it.  Some of them are pretty sad.
I'd learn how to use the mac first before getting any fancy peripherals.

> Any way, after installing System 7.6, I deleted all the software that was pre-installed (Office 97 for PPC, Acrobat that wouldn't start) and now have a whopping 300 Meg available on a 500 meg HD! And, that is *with* a copy of the old system folder!

Ya.  Those old systems took up very little room.

> The machine was sorta peppy (with no software running, what would slow it down!), but I decided to up the RAM - I pulled the one supplemental 4 Meg SIMM and put in 2x 32 Meg Parity SIMMs, 68 Megs just makes me feel better ;^). Tonight I will try non-parity SIMMs (I forgot I had them, looks like I have three sets of 2x 32 Meg SIMMs FPM non-parity), but they should work fine, as the RAM I pulled was non-parity.

System <=7.6.1 are always peppy.  68MB RAM is all this thing will take. 
It's maxed out now.
:)

> My next issue will b to find a browser to start getting software on the machine - I suppose there is some sort of browser on the System 7.6 CD (HotDog or some such silly named browser), correct?

Probably Netscape 3 or something.  I would find the latest Netscape for
68k.  Otherwise I'd try to find a good lynx port if you don't care about graphics.
It'd be faster for normal surfing. :)
iCab has a 68k version.  It's a very nice browser but is only a preview
release.  It will expire after a while.  Other than that I'd take it
over Netscape any day (once they fix the Java).

> I set the screen to 8XX x 6XX as that was as high as I could go with thousands of colors (1024x786 only offered 256 colors) - can VRAM be upgraded on this box? I'd love to go 1024x768x(thousands)...

Non upgradable 1MB VRAM - GURU.  That's all it'll do.  Maybe a different
NuBus Vid Card...

> I guess I am going to be learning about Macs now ;^) - any good reference/software sites for a newbie? I've spent some time on www.lowendmac.com, but I am wondering if there are other good sites I just haven't bumped into yet...

I personally like www.mackido.com.  Very good humor section too.
http://machardware.about.com/mbody.htm
http://w3.trib.com/~dwood/oldmac.shtml
http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/

And games are always the best way to learn...

http://www.oldmacgames.com/
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/m68kg/
http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/recreation/classic-mac-games.html

A quick google search.

Have fun!!

sim