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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : worth restoring old mac IIsi ?
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| zeitfest Guru  Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 622 |
I have an ancient mac IIsi from ages ago. The disk died decades ago, iirc it would boot but not from the disk so I think a simple disk replacement would get it going again, a Quantum SCSI. Probably a cheap ask on ebay. It would be interesting from a historical point of view (System 6!). But, is it worth it ? I can't see anyone buying it. 80 Meg disk, 5 meg ram....68030...oooohhh.... also a trinitron CRT...It did boot in two seconds though. I think it might be time to reclaim the space (didn't want to rush things  ) |
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hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
 my site |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5160 |
A lot of the old computers are very collectable. I recently went through the process of restoring my old Microbee computer, for no reason other than to enjoy the experience, plus it had sentimental value to me, my first real computer. It had a few issues, but got it all working thanks to a online community of Microbee enthusiasts. A few months later I took it to a "show and tell" with a local computer group. Some of the group had no idea of how early computers worked, and we used the Bee as a teaching tool and wrote a few programs on it on the fly to display ascii characters. So after all this time, the Bee was still useful. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| al18 Senior Member  Joined: 06/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 231 |
Yes, it's worth restoring old Macs. There are modern alternatives to replacing the SCSI drive, such as the RaSCSI and MacSD, both available on www.Tindie.com First, pop the cover on your Mac and remove the dead 3.6v 1/2 AA PRAM battery if you haven't already done so. Hopefully the battery acid has't dissolved all the circuits around the battery, |
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Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9757 |
I recently sold my old Sinclair ZX-81 in it's original(but tatty) box, complete with Sinclair PSU and 16KB RAM expansion thing for $1 reserve, and it ended up selling for $170!!!! The ZX81 DID NOT EVEN WORK - I stated that in the auction, and suggested it was only good for parts hence the $1 reserve, but then what it ended up selling for staggered me! The ZX81 was pretty much useless even when it was released, with only 1K of RAM. The 16KB RAM-pack made it much more attractive, but it suffered BADLY from the notorious expansion-pack connector. Breath near it, and the machine would crash as you've suddenly screwed with it's RAM capacity while powered. Back in the 80's, I think the official solution to this - from Clive himself - was to use blu-tak to hold the RAM pack to the computer so it could not move and break the connection! Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8298 |
I have a load of Sinclair stuff that I've bought/been given over the years. I doubt if most of it'll fetch much because the important thing to get this stuff saleable is as much original packing, manuals etc. as possible. It always helps if it's working, but that's of secondary importance as many buyers are looking for stuff to put on display. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2832 |
A couple of things to check before binning the hard drive:- Is it trying to boot from a floppy drive? If it thinks a disc is inserted it may not try to boot from the HD. Check the switches in the FDs. Dried out capacitors in the power supply may stop the HD spinning up. Dead CMOS battery may mean it can't recognize the HD. |
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| zeitfest Guru Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 622 |
My memory of the time was, the system time was ok and it would apparently reinstall system 6 to the hard disk, but then restarting would revert to the dud disk sign. So I think it is a dud MBR or disk. That was a long time ago (I was still using mainframes!, I moved on to using a very early Windows 3 box at the time). Good point about the PRAM cell, that will definitely now have expired so I will check it out too. There is another aspect, that is that the IIsi is actually in a carton underneath an equally ancient Laserwriter IIf weighing half a ton.. lifting is a bit iffy. |
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