Ladies and Gents, I present to you..: My SE/30

[vollspacken]

"Woohoo..!"

I always wanted to post some pics of my super-cool SE/30...
and what a beauty she is! but, as we all know, don't let yourself get fooled by the looks of things, it's the inside that counts...

specs:

• 128 MB ram
• 9 Gig Quantum Atlas SCSI HD (partitioned: 700MB system, 2x 4GB data HDs)
• Asante Maccon +30 Ethernet Card (RJ45 plug)
• Apple CD 300e plus SCSI
• slimmed down Mac Os 7.5
• mouse modification (I've put an Apple logo from a beaten up LC into an Apple "square"-mouse
• The Grouch trash extension and Tappy Type "typewriter sound" extention
• Word 5.1
• Exel 4.0
• iCab and Eudora

wish list:

• Micron Exceed Greyscale Gfx card and adapter for internal screen
• carry bag

to-do list

• install netBSD68k on second partition (should work really fine with the huge amount of ram and the big HD)

after a couple of minutes of using this computer, I always realize that computers haven't evolved that much from back then (o.k., WinDose pee-cees have, but compare a 1990 PC and a Mac from that era ). I can actually do almost all of the stuff I do on my tiBook on this baby (word processing, spreadsheeting, surfing the web)... I could actually listen to music -not Mp3s, 16Mhz on an 68030 with FPU is too slow for decoding-, but Aiffs on 8 bit sound pretty cheesy. I keep a couple of Kraftwerk Albums on the HD though... I sometimes use the machine as a weirdo CD player (I keep a nice pair of AKG headphones hooked up to the CD drive.)

vSpacken

o.k., here are some pics:

first, the machine sitting on my desk (hehe, notice the Kozyndan "collapsing athlete" desktop background..!)

 

[vollspacken]

here she is surfing the web and checking out the new G5 on Apple's homepage...

 

[vollspacken]

...and finally, relaxing with a little oldskool black and white "Prince of Persia"

 

[FredAkbar]

Heh...good old Prince of Persia...my family used to use an SE. We still have it, but the hard drive is corrupt, or something. I kind of wish I had a Mac Classic...just for sentimental value ...anyone else feel that way? I know you can get them really cheap.

 

[Tommy!]

aww! its so cute . Reminds me of my trusy 'ole mac plus. which still works by the way.

My game of choice, however, is Where in the USA is Carmen Sandeigo. I still haven't managed to catch her yet...

 

[Goblin2099]

Pretty slick...one of these days I'll have to upload pics of my SE signed by Nine Inch Nails. Boots straight to Kid Pix, I keep it right by the entrance to my apartment and just leave a mouse and no keyboard, so people coming in can just leave a couple doodles on the screen. Great conversation piece, too.

 

[alset]

Originally posted by Goblin2099
Pretty slick...one of these days I'll have to upload pics of my SE signed by Nine Inch Nails.

How did you manage that?

Dan

 

[bennetsaysargh]

prince of persoa is awesome! i love that game

 

[Goblin2099]

Originally posted by alset
How did you manage that?

Dan

They were doing a signing at Tower a couple years ago, my friend managed to get tickets (you had to wait on line the day before just to get tickets to wait on line the day of the signing), and he was trying to think of something cool to get Trent Reznor to sign...I suggested my SE, since Trent's a mac-geek. When my friend got there, the security guard took the SE and wouldn't let him bring it up, but once he got close to Trent he yelled out that there was an SE in the closet for him to sign. Trent called over the security guard, and asked for a small computer monitor (and winked at my friend), and the whole line got held up while the security guard fetched the SE. So, I get my signed SE, and my friend got a good 5 minutes to chat with his favorite band. Good deal, I'd say.

 

[jakel]

They sure don't make em like the used to...
We use old macs at the paper I work for, most of us have early "power pc" models and those things crash all the time and drive us nuts. however the sports editor has an ancient SE like yours and that thing is rock solid, I don't think it's been turned off in years and it never crashes!
congrats on finding one in such nice condition!

 

[vollspacken]

Originally posted by jakel
They sure don't make em like the used to...
We use old macs at the paper I work for, most of us have early "power pc" models and those things crash all the time and drive us nuts. however the sports editor has an ancient SE like yours and that thing is rock solid, I don't think it's been turned off in years and it never crashes!
congrats on finding one in such nice condition!

one of the reasons for the SE and SE/30 being so rock solid is the fact that they are massively over-engineered... nice machines! I recommend that people get an SE/30 though, since you can put in large quantities of ram (I actually ordered my 128MB on US eBay - for $21 incl. s&h overseas). I also put an FPU on the Asante ethernet card...

the problem with the SE is not only the slower processor (68020@8Mhz), the lacking "superdrive" (you can only use DD-disks instead of HD-floppies), but also the limited amount of ram. I think the SE/30 is the only "classic" compact mac that lets you have more than 12MB. it also has build in color quick draw so you can surf the web, and you could actually put in the ROM from an IIfx or IIsi to get it 32bit "clean" (or you download mode32, that's what I did...). by doing so, you can actually "use" the ram that is bigger than 8MB.

I also had an LC but that machine just sucked in comparison (what a piece of poo, jeez!!!). I pompletely cannibalized it (for the Apple logo, the ram, the power supply, the disk drive) and gave the enclosure to my dad who plans to turn it into an external SCSI enclosure for an additional HD and a ZIP...

vSpacken

 

[mc68k]

wow. i'm impressed. i like the color apple logo on the ADB mouse. prince of persia is a perfect example that it's not graphics that make a game fun for years, but rather original well-executed ideas.

i plan on modernizing to the max a IIci i rescued from certain doom. System 6.0.8 boots in about 5 seconds on it.

 

[capitalhood]

WOW!!

I used to have a mac plus and the power pc 71 but they both sailed into the sunset... Sigh... Anyway thats so cool i ad no idea a mac se could do the web, huh. Ohh and how did you get system 7? it probably came with 4 or something.

 

[mc68k]

Re: WOW!!

Originally posted by capitalhood
Anyway thats so cool i ad no idea a mac se could do the web, huh

u might find this interesting-- a mac plus on the web

the plus was introduced a year before the SE (1986)

 

[vollspacken]

Re: WOW!!

Originally posted by capitalhood
I used to have a mac plus and the power pc 71 but they both sailed into the sunset... Sigh... Anyway thats so cool i ad no idea a mac se could do the web, huh. Ohh and how did you get system 7? it probably came with 4 or something.

we still had system 7.5 on the original disks from our first mac (IIci) at home. I also have all kinds of other stuff on original floppies and CDs: Xpress 3.1.1, photoshop 3, Illustrator 7, word 5.1, exel 4, tons of adobe stuff and so on... I don't have after dark though

you can actually download older software from Apple here (including system 7.5 and other stuff you need for networking and surfing the web), and this homepage as well as this one (German, but there is an English version too) will help you with the configuration and slimming down of os 7.5 (you will want the features of 7.5 but the snappyness of 7.1)...

www.lowendmac.com is ALWAYS a good source for information and links (hacks-hacks-hacks )

and you will need the best disk tool there is: Lido7, you can find it here

here is some more information and good!!! links in addition to lowendmac

and you will find all your favorite oldskool games at the macintosh garden and here...

*cough - cough - cough*

hope this get's some of you hooked up on compact mac dope

vSpacken

 

[ahunter3]

That is indeed one purty little box!

I never had an SE/30, mine was a modded SE. You're right, you could not put anywhere near that much RAM in the Plus/SE/PB100 computers. The SE in its original native form would only take 4 MB, tops. Mine ended up having an accelerator card from Applied Engineering that gave it a 40 MHz '030 processor (which was astonishingly fast with System 6 or 7.0.1) and also supported up to 16 MB of RAM, although the RAM support was a real hack and you could not load anything into RAM (application, OS, etc) larger than 4 MB, in other words the 16 MB consisted of four 4-MB discrete chunks. That still enabled it to make real use of multitasking, letting me run a dozen programs simultaneously.

One of these days I'm going to cannibalize the innards of a modern Mac and stuff them into a MacSE carcass.

 

[trebblekicked]

vSpacken-that's awesome. that was the first mac i ever used. well done, well done, well done.

mc68k- thanks for the link to the mac plus webserver. i got a kick out of that.