Teardown offers rare look inside hard-drive equipped 1990 Apple Mac Classic

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  • Reply 21 of 50
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,699member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Durandal1707 View Post





    HyperCard was such a great app. It was a real shame when they cancelled the planned QuickTime-based successor to it. It was great for doing quick-and-dirty tasks, and was brilliant as an introduction to object-oriented programming.

     

    It sure was. It was also great in that it was extendable as well. When I worked in the college's computer lab, I developed a "launcher" stack and a couple XFCNs that would look out on the network and make sure only X number copies of a particular application were running (the school had to be diligent about licensing issues).

     

    It was sad to see it go, but Apple decided that AppleScript would be a much better alternative. And honestly, developing AppleScripts became dead simple and were much more versatile as it was already built into the OS.

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  • Reply 22 of 50
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,699member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Silencio View Post

     

    Yes, I too programmed in LightSpeed / Think C.

     

    Personally, I always coveted the SE/30. It took me long enough to save up my pennies that I was able to buy a IIci on closeout in early 1993 when Apple replaced it with the IIvx, a machine I was infinitely glad to not have bought instead.

     

    The IIci was a fantastic machine for me, but still… there was just something special about those early compact Macs.


     

    The SE/30 was a beast. I always planned on upgrading my SE to the SE/30, but the price of a motherboard was just way too high - and the strain on the power supply may have been too much - just having a hard drive in it really stresses the poor thing.

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  • Reply 23 of 50
    jbfromozjbfromoz Posts: 91member

    Ahh the classic mac, just one of the great old machines. I have kept a stack of macs through the years, one day they might make a beowulf cluster that can outperform a modern day toaster!

     

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  • Reply 24 of 50
    phone-ui-guyphone-ui-guy Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by kevt View Post



    No the 68030 16MHz was the Classic II. Hamstrung by using a 16-bit data path rather than the SE-30 which was 32-bit.
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy View Post



    I was going to respond, but it got muddy on the Motorola side... The Mac Classic used a 68030 at 16Mhz. I personally accept it as "close enough" for the statement to be valid. image




    No, it was the Classic II that used the 16Mhz 68030, but hamstrung with a 16-bit data path - it only functioned 32bit internally.



    The original Classic was indeed a 8MHz 68000.



    Best of the 9" compact macs was the SE/30. Full 68030 with 32-bit data path, better graphics and an expansion slot.



    I used to buy/sell/upgrade/repair old macs and early powerbooks on ebay - until ebay got greedy and increased their fees so it was no longer viable.

     

    I should have been more clear... I thought he tore down a Classic II. He mentioned the crystal speed which was twice as fast as the Classic would have been and matches the Classic II. We know we cannot trust him to get the little details right as he was all over the freaking place. Looking at motherboards online, it does look like he tore down a classic. 

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  • Reply 25 of 50
    Apple should consider doing this http://bit.ly/1jIj15d
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  • Reply 26 of 50
    rtroianirtroiani Posts: 4member

    I took a lot of those apart as an Apple repairman, and installed a few.  I shudder to see anyone split the case with a screwdriver vs. using the Apple Case Cracker they used to provide.  Haven't seen one of them in a long time either!

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  • Reply 27 of 50
    512ke512ke Posts: 782member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy View Post

     

     

    You need to ditch that 400K drive. One of the whole points behind the 512ke is that it could use the 800K drives. :) The 512ke was my first Mac BITD. Was on Apple's 8-bit systems before that. Have you looked inside? Pretty sure my 512ke had the signatures in it.


     My bad.  It has internal and external drives.  Each is 800 now that I'm thinking about it.

     

    Ah inside?  Where inside the 'puter?  thanks!

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  • Reply 28 of 50
    boriscletoboriscleto Posts: 159member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by kevt View Post

    Best of the 9" compact macs was the SE/30. Full 68030 with 32-bit data path, better graphics and an expansion slot.

     

     

    But a dirty ROM...

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  • Reply 29 of 50
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    I have one with a 40GB hard drive in my garage. I had no idea it was rare. It runs perfect, but aside from nostalgia, it's really of no use anymore.
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  • Reply 30 of 50
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member
    ivabign wrote: »
    But how does it compare to an iphone 6 mockup?

    Well-connected analyst Ming-chi Kuo says the answer is: Andre Young.
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  • Reply 31 of 50
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy View Post

     

     

    I should have been more clear... I thought he tore down a Classic II. He mentioned the crystal speed which was twice as fast as the Classic would have been and matches the Classic II. We know we cannot trust him to get the little details right as he was all over the freaking place. Looking at motherboards online, it does look like he tore down a classic. 


    yeah that guy has no idea what he is talking about

     

    Off the top of my head the macs came out as

     

    Original Mac - 128K

    Mac 512

    Mac Plus

    Mac SE

    Mac SE/30

    Mac Classic 

    Mac Classic II

     

    The signatures stop after the Mac 512, as far as I am aware the last know Mac with visible signature was the Mac II FX and if you have one of those it is rare since those were on the actually PCBA and was removed shortly after they first shipped.

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  • Reply 32 of 50
    jbfromozjbfromoz Posts: 91member

    i have a IIfx with 2 radius rocket 33 mhz 68040 upgrade cards in it! love that box!

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  • Reply 33 of 50
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member
    Nice to see a thread on AI that isn't photo-bombed with pictures of Windows 8 laptops and talk of how Intel's Bay Trail is gonna lay waste to all of Microsoft's enemies.
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  • Reply 34 of 50
    Terrible video quality even for 90s.
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  • Reply 35 of 50
    vl-tonevl-tone Posts: 337member

    "...relatively rare hard drive-equipped Mac Classic"

     

    Rare? I don't think I've ever saw a Mac Classic that did not have a hard drive.

     

    I had one and did my own teardown back in the days, and broke the end of the CRT yoke... :) Had to buy a replacement monitor.

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  • Reply 36 of 50
    rkevwillrkevwill Posts: 224member

    I had a Classic for a while, but sold it and purchased a used SE30 instead. Used it for quite some time, till I bought a 7600.

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  • Reply 37 of 50
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member

    I threw my Mac plus away when hitting it on the side would no longer change the screen from a small white dot in the centre to a normal desktop.

     

    Maxed it out at 1MB from the 256k it came with.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post

     

     

    Still have my Macintosh SE - original owner since late 1987, but this one was an original floor model so it has a manufacturing date of 1986. And it still works. In fact, several years ago, I had it set up in a small bakery and coffee shop where I worked and developed custom HyperCard stacks for a customer order tracking database and a gift card program. It was getting too much abuse, so I decided to replace it with a cheap iMac I found on eBay and switched everything to web-based.

     

    Over the years I made the following upgrades to it...

     

    Maxed it out at 4 MB

    Upgraded the floppy controller to FDHD, high density drives (1.4MB HD floppies)

    Bought an external 45MB Jasmine hard drive

    Replaced the second internal floppy with an internal hard drive (I think there's a 120MB HD in it now?)

    Installed an Asante ethernet card to connect it to my LAN after I bought my "Bondi" iMac. (I used the Mac SE as a file and print server.)

     

    Was a great little machine. I mainly used it for programming - anyone remember LightSpeed C, which later became THINK C?


     

    I threw my Mac plus away when hitting it on the side would no longer change the screen from a small white dot in the centre to a normal desktop.

     

    Maxed it out at 1MB from the 256k it came with.

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  • Reply 38 of 50
    tjwaltjwal Posts: 404member
    My Mac plus went to the graveyard years ago but I still have an SE/30 and an LC 630. The SE/30 was a great machine, the LC not so much. I really should see if they'll still boot up.
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  • Reply 39 of 50
    zabazaba Posts: 226member
    silencio wrote: »
    Yes, I too programmed in LightSpeed / Think C.

    Personally, I always coveted the SE/30. It took me long enough to save up my pennies that I was able to buy a IIci on closeout in early 1993 when Apple replaced it with the IIvx, a machine I was infinitely glad to not have bought instead.

    The IIci was a fantastic machine for me, but still… there was just something special about those early compact Macs.
    The ||ci was a real workhorse for us back in the day, I remember doing some photoshop retouching, quite complex, before Photoshop had layers and having to version save, running out of disk space so unable to save your final piece, I even had to delete some applications in order to save a file at one point. The ||ci never got turned off, I remember lifting the lid and having a nap on the soft dust pillow that had accumulated on top of the gibbons inside. I do miss those days as a graphic designer where the mac killed off a few industries and we had to become typographers and repro specialists. I am definitely old school, if you've not specked up type to send off to a typesetters then had to paste up your artwork with a scalpel and spray mount it to art board with extensive use of rotring pens and a repro camera, then overlay it with markup and cmyk refs for a repro house you will never fully understand how revolutionary the Mac really was in changing the industry. But has it also lost true craftsmanship in the process?
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  • Reply 40 of 50
    thetsartthetsart Posts: 11member
    A 1984 Mac Classic?! Why would Apple Insider post this? With the first few words out of his mouth, this Heck guy illustrates he obviously doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Have some credibility, take it down.
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