A Major Hardware Restoration
Jul. 18th, 2021 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerPeople who were able to use Macintosh SE/30 computers have wound up to this day ready to praise them as the most powerful (stock) machines squeezed into “the original Mac form factor.” In a theoretical way I might have wound up among them; around the beginning of the 1990s my father was able to get one of those computers through his work, and he carried it home every so often. When years later, though, someone at the Apple users group that used to be set up in my area offered me a well-worn SE/30 CPU (with the red stripe alone all but worn off its Apple logo), I accepted the generous gift but was left wondering if I’d just welcomed trouble. I’d already seen a good many comments online about the modern necessity of replacing the surface-mount capacitors on the “logic board.” When I tried to start up the computer (with the “Floppy Emu” I ordered to use with a working Macintosh Plus I’d got my hands on some years earlier) to note a bare trickle of sound out of the headphone jack and a hard drive that didn’t respond to the basic formatting software, I could accept the truth of those comments. While I did buy a “learn to solder” kit and poked away at it for a while, the thought of doing that with anything valuable did continue to feel intimidating.
After having left the SE/30 in my basement for several years, though, stumbling on a clever programming exercise promising “full-screen 1-bit video” did get me thinking again about that extra physical hardware downstairs and whether it wasn’t too late to seek out one of the small businesses to be found online that offer capacitor replacement services. With a bit of searching I did happen on one in my own country, although I didn’t see a lot of other testimonials about Anola ReCap. Resorting to the Torx bit of an adjustable screwdriver I’d bought a while ago with the thought it could be lengthened to the point of reaching the deep-buried screws, I managed via a few online hints to work the computer open for the first time and get its logic board disconnected. There was a lot of gumminess around the capacitors; when I sent off a photo to Anola ReCap I wasn’t offered any certainties, just the promise I wouldn’t be charged for something that couldn’t be restored to operating order with their own test chassis. With the thought it was hedging a bet, I also extracted the circuit board from the Color Classic my father had bought used when work took the SE/30 away from him and issued him a Compaq; I took that controversially restyled computer with me to university a few years later, but soon supposed it had grown too poky to really handle getting online even then and asked for money to buy a Performa 5200. Taking a Color Classic logic board out is much less involved as opening an SE/30 anyway.
The boards did make it through the mail all right and Anola ReCap got to work, but not that long afterwards I was confronted with an email back that while the SE/30 board had cleaned up to find everything restored, two tiny capacitors on the bottom of the Color Classic board had burned out when I hadn’t noticed and the machine couldn’t be powered up any more. While unfortunate, I do know from some people who have grown fond of those computers over the years the logic boards from later, larger “all-in-one” Macs can be loaded into a Color Classic chassis with varying amounts of effort. In any case, a working SE/30 now seemed a closer possibility.
At least wanting to test the computer’s old hard drive again I managed to get the circuit board back into it, but the hard drive still wasn’t interested in responding. I therefore resorted to the “SCSI2SD” card I’d ordered; while it seems more complicated to get working than other recent solutions, I’ve happened to see plastic brackets have been worked up to attach them alone in the “expansion card” position so the computer doesn’t have to be disassembled to get at the SD card again. With my parents and I now both fully vaccinated I had some help to get the computer opened up again and the hard drive and an old network card extracted; the stock SCSI cable that had hooked up the hard drive only just managed to reach between the card in its different position and the motherboard connector, but with the encouragement of a second opinion everything did get back together.
I started off trying to pull myself up by my unaided boostraps and install system software using the Floppy Emu, but while I had the SCIS2SD configured well enough for HD SC Setup to recognize it I kept getting error messages trying to reformat the SD card. At last, I resorted to a different set of steps online to install a preconfigured disk image on the card (which, as I said, could be extracted without resorting to a screwdriver and risking exposure to the back of a cathode ray tube), and things worked quite well now. I started installing a few programs in a very ample amount of disk space and went so far as to compose a first draft of this post on the old hardware; how much more I can really get around to doing with it remains the big question, of course. The computer does have more pep than my Macintosh Plus and Apple Desktop Bus keyboards lack the clunky-clacky feel of a Plus keyboard, but I’ve also already noticed the charming “1-bit wallpaper” extension I’ve used in emulation and on the Motorola 68000-powered Plus seems readier to glitch on the SE/30; that might have something to do with its 68030 CPU.
After having left the SE/30 in my basement for several years, though, stumbling on a clever programming exercise promising “full-screen 1-bit video” did get me thinking again about that extra physical hardware downstairs and whether it wasn’t too late to seek out one of the small businesses to be found online that offer capacitor replacement services. With a bit of searching I did happen on one in my own country, although I didn’t see a lot of other testimonials about Anola ReCap. Resorting to the Torx bit of an adjustable screwdriver I’d bought a while ago with the thought it could be lengthened to the point of reaching the deep-buried screws, I managed via a few online hints to work the computer open for the first time and get its logic board disconnected. There was a lot of gumminess around the capacitors; when I sent off a photo to Anola ReCap I wasn’t offered any certainties, just the promise I wouldn’t be charged for something that couldn’t be restored to operating order with their own test chassis. With the thought it was hedging a bet, I also extracted the circuit board from the Color Classic my father had bought used when work took the SE/30 away from him and issued him a Compaq; I took that controversially restyled computer with me to university a few years later, but soon supposed it had grown too poky to really handle getting online even then and asked for money to buy a Performa 5200. Taking a Color Classic logic board out is much less involved as opening an SE/30 anyway.
The boards did make it through the mail all right and Anola ReCap got to work, but not that long afterwards I was confronted with an email back that while the SE/30 board had cleaned up to find everything restored, two tiny capacitors on the bottom of the Color Classic board had burned out when I hadn’t noticed and the machine couldn’t be powered up any more. While unfortunate, I do know from some people who have grown fond of those computers over the years the logic boards from later, larger “all-in-one” Macs can be loaded into a Color Classic chassis with varying amounts of effort. In any case, a working SE/30 now seemed a closer possibility.
At least wanting to test the computer’s old hard drive again I managed to get the circuit board back into it, but the hard drive still wasn’t interested in responding. I therefore resorted to the “SCSI2SD” card I’d ordered; while it seems more complicated to get working than other recent solutions, I’ve happened to see plastic brackets have been worked up to attach them alone in the “expansion card” position so the computer doesn’t have to be disassembled to get at the SD card again. With my parents and I now both fully vaccinated I had some help to get the computer opened up again and the hard drive and an old network card extracted; the stock SCSI cable that had hooked up the hard drive only just managed to reach between the card in its different position and the motherboard connector, but with the encouragement of a second opinion everything did get back together.
I started off trying to pull myself up by my unaided boostraps and install system software using the Floppy Emu, but while I had the SCIS2SD configured well enough for HD SC Setup to recognize it I kept getting error messages trying to reformat the SD card. At last, I resorted to a different set of steps online to install a preconfigured disk image on the card (which, as I said, could be extracted without resorting to a screwdriver and risking exposure to the back of a cathode ray tube), and things worked quite well now. I started installing a few programs in a very ample amount of disk space and went so far as to compose a first draft of this post on the old hardware; how much more I can really get around to doing with it remains the big question, of course. The computer does have more pep than my Macintosh Plus and Apple Desktop Bus keyboards lack the clunky-clacky feel of a Plus keyboard, but I’ve also already noticed the charming “1-bit wallpaper” extension I’ve used in emulation and on the Motorola 68000-powered Plus seems readier to glitch on the SE/30; that might have something to do with its 68030 CPU.