[geeks] Princeton Surplus Haul...

Thu Nov 16 03:04:14 CST 2006

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 08:21:44AM +0000, Mark Benson wrote:
> Ugh, the Q650 used the horrid later metal case taqt the IIvx and vi  
> used. I used to have a 7100 which was also that style case and I cut  
> my hands working on it so many times I hacked the board and PSU into  
> an old IIcx case (plastic type ala IIci/Quadra 700) that had died. It  
> only took a bit of light plastic surgery and it makes a much nicer  
> finger friendly 7100 :P

Interesting, It has been a few years since I was inside one, but
it seemed to be the same to me. :-)

> Oh and FYI technically the PowerMac 7100 was the last IIci form  
> factor type, but it was PowerPC so it never really gets counted in.

I should have remembered that, I had one once. I wasn't thinking of 
PPC machines at all.

> They take up room, and I have more than I can ever use, but I spent  
> time restoring them and I am loathed to just junk them. They'd have  
> to go to another loving home if they ever did go.

That's the way I felt. Mine had upgraded RAM, relatively large hard
drives, and fresh batteries. They also had the next to impossible to
find AAUI transceivers.

> Might try that if aI run out of room :o)

While I assume MacOS is more of a curiosity these days than anything
else, the BSD variants are still actively being tested on these machines.

> Anything PPC in beige is considered next to worthless these days,  
> which is really sad.n Especially when you consider machines like the  
> 9600 are in that pile. To me the 9600 was and still is the closest  
> Apple ever got to a real workstation, at least in terms of  
> construction. It's just a shame that at the time the software wasn't  
> totally up to the same standard.

I don't think I know that one. I had one that was the last PPC before the
G3 came out. It used a 4.5 volt battery no one had, and 5v DIMMS that
were impossible to find here. It could only go up to 128m, and the most
I could find for it was 96m. 

On the other hand it worked fine in MacOS and ran Yellow Dog 3 quite well.

> 8.1, and it only runs on 68040s. For 030s your best best is 7.1 or,  
> if they will run it 7.6.1. 7.5.x are to be avoided unless desperate  
> IMHO.

Ok, I haven't had an 030 machine for a long time. Someone promised
me a SE/30 they had lying around last summer, but I have yet to
see it. I did get an almost perfect Mac Plus without keyboard and mouse
last summer, fixed it up, and was able to give it away in a few days.

The person that took it was going back to the U.S. for a visit
and was going to get a new keyboard and mouse there.

7.5.3 was "just right" IMHO. 7.5.1 was too buggy, and 7.5.5 had some
features removed. I don't think I've ever used 7.6.1.

7.0.1 and 7.5.x are free and Apple still provides them via download,
7.1 is not and is hard to find, 7.6.1 is not free, but I understand
there were plenty of disks around.

> 
> > IMHO the most worthwhile G3 desktop was the Blue and White revision A.
> 
> That the one that had the really horrific IDE bug. The Blue & White  
> Rev 2 (they are generally numbered not lettered on the B&W) was the  
> same amchine without oall the drive support bull****.

No, the original machine had the bug. Revision A was the official name
for the upgraded version.

> The Rev 1 also suffers with USB problems, which were fixed in part  
> the later firmware (the one with the G4 CPU lockout).

I have that firmware installed and the G4 unlockout patch. Too bad I
don't have the G4 to go with it. :-)

>  Both revisions  
> won't reliably support 2 high bandwidth Firewire devices on the  
> internal bus (you can install a second cards for both a USB and FW  
> and do it that way though).

That's difficult. USB 1 cards are almost impossible to get, but they
do work, USB 2 cards only work with the NEC chipset AFAIK. The VIA
ones only work for mice and keyboards. There may be other ones besides
the NEC, but in Israel, on the VIA ones are available. :-(

> Don't forget to mention also that the Rev 1 doesn't support slaves  
> and chews up their disk surface eventually.

I don't understand the chews up the disk problem, could you explain it more.
I did have several drives go in mine, but I thought that was because they
were old to start with.

> Oh you also missed one important point too, the B&W G3 runs OS X very  
> well, especially when upgraded.

I thought I mentioned it. If you have a slow enough CD ROM or DVD ROM
drive for the original version to work, it will install Tiger out of
the box. A revision A unit will load it with no problem at all.

You can upgrade it to a gig of RAM if you can find the correct DIMMs.
It takes 4, and the max chip size is 128m, so you need 256m, 8 chip
DIMMs to do it. If you can get them 4 PC/133 DIMMs work great, I've
had some memory work when it was different, but others only worked when
I had four of the exact same DIMMs in it.

Geoff.
-- 
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