Macintosh 128k with a Sad Mac...

I have an idea. Why dont you tilt it out the window?

That's not terribly helpful.

Rev, the RAM may be soldered, not socketed, but it never ceases to amaze me how many things I've 'repaired' by simply taking them apart and putting them back together again.

What are you using as a boot device? I've had the sad mac before from corrupted system installs.

If all else fails, you could give the mobo a bath.

BTW, be careful with the 128. It was a 128 or 512 that was the only Mac that's ever 'bit' me while doing repairs. This was years ago, and a less experienced eeun...who forgot to keep one hand behind his back while trying to remove the anode cap. It was an interesting pain, right up my right arm, and across my chest...lasted about an hour. I can't tell you how disappointed I was it didn't give me the ability to do the Uncle Fester light-bulb trick.

Nice acquisition, BTW. Gamba's got images of the early System disks...but I'm sure you've already stocked up.

hehe... I was actually going to try taking it apart for just that reason... well, that, and I wanted to get a pic of the signatures...

I'm assuming that it is attempting to boot from the HD. I was going to try botting from the system disk, but there is some weirdness with the floppy drive. I can't tell if there is a disk in there already or not. I'll take another look at it when I get home tonite.

I haven't known it long enough to be comfortable bathing with it.

If it comes to it, I will have someone else play with the 'shocky' parts...

Thanks. The guy included what looks like all of the original disks and docs. I don't know if the disks are any good, but the manuals are in good condition. There's even this cassette tape guide to MacWrite and MacPaint... I don't have a tape player any more, though.

128K Macs have no HD, so that's not your problem.

The ram is soldered to the logic board and so cannot be 'reseated'.

A bum floppy disk in the drive can easily cause a sad Mac to appear, so the first order of biz should be to check for, and eject, if one is present. There's a paperclip sized hole for that purpose. Or try holding down the mouse button on boot to eject the disk, though I'm not certain the 128K supports this.

It wouldn't be surprising if the included ~20 year old disks are no good, floppies aren't known for their robustness. Still, it's easy to find the proper disk images, all that's additionally required is another Mac that can write 400K floppy disks.

I googled "ComputerCraft macintosh" - ComputerCraft is referenced in this article, appears to have been a chain (?) of computer stores contemporary to the Macintosh's introduction.

I'm curious to see if you've got a 'virgin' 128K, or if it's had a 512K RAM upgrade done at some time in its life. FYI, untouched (not upgraded) 128Ks are uncommon to find these days, and so the desirable traits of originality and rarity usually equal greater value.

dan k

Thanks for the ComputerCraft info... How come I couldn't find that? hmmm...

Anyway, taking a closer look at this thing has just been made exponentially easier by the fact that my company still has a Mac Cracker sitting around... I love this place...

I'll do some tinkering and post more tonite...

Well, the verdict is in...

I had help taking it apart and cleaning the floppy drive. Now I have a mecanically functioning floppy drive. I did some more research and beleive I have ID'd it as a "virgin" 128k.

It still won't boot.

It beeps, then displays a Sad Mac with the code 040283 below it, and there's little jigglies on the screen. I researched the code, and it seems that the RAM chip at G6 on the motherboard has failed.

So now what?

I could see if I can find an MT4264 Apple RAM chip, solder it in, and see what happens. Finding the chip would be the hard part, I think, as I would want to replace it with the exact part, not just compatible.

Or I could sell what I have.

What would you* do?

(* you means the collective plural 'you', indicating every one of ya)

If you've got the space for a working classic Macintosh, I say fix it. If it ain't working it ain't worth selling, so better you fix it yourself and have a genuwine bit of Mac history. Resurrecting it yourself makes the artifact even more interesting as a keeper.

I reckon it won't be too difficult to find an otherwise dead 128K logic board from which to scarf a proper chip.

dan k