[geeks] Princeton Surplus Haul...

[Mark Benson]

On 16 Nov 2006, at 06:13, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

> I had a pair of Q650s, the last version of IICi type machines.

Ugh, the Q650 used the horrid later metal case taqt the IIvx and vi  
used. I used to have a 7100 which was also that style case and I cut  
my hands working on it so many times I hacked the board and PSU into  
an old IIcx case (plastic type ala IIci/Quadra 700) that had died. It  
only took a bit of light plastic surgery and it makes a much nicer  
finger friendly 7100 :P

Oh and FYI technically the PowerMac 7100 was the last IIci form  
factor type, but it was PowerPC so it never really gets counted in.

> After not powering them on for about two years, I was in the same  
> postition.

They take up room, and I have more than I can ever use, but I spent  
time restoring them and I am loathed to just junk them. They'd have  
to go to another loving home if they ever did go.

> I put them up on rescue and a few other lists free to a good home  
> and within
> a few days a NetBSD developer called for them.

Might try that if aI run out of room :o)

> That should not be difficult. Anything that will not run OSX is  
> probably
> a freebee, and later machines should be really cheap.

Anything PPC in beige is considered next to worthless these days,  
which is really sad.n Especially when you consider machines like the  
9600 are in that pile. To me the 9600 was and still is the closest  
Apple ever got to a real workstation, at least in terms of  
construction. It's just a shame that at the time the software wasn't  
totally up to the same standard.

> If memory serves, 8.5 was the last release that would run 680x0  
> code, maybe
> 8.6. Anyone know for sure?

8.1, and it only runs on 68040s. For 030s your best best is 7.1 or,  
if they will run it 7.6.1. 7.5.x are to be avoided unless desperate  
IMHO.

> IMHO the most worthwhile G3 desktop was the Blue and White revision A.

That the one that had the really horrific IDE bug. The Blue & White  
Rev 2 (they are generally numbered not lettered on the B&W) was the  
same amchine without oall the drive support bull****.

> Firewire, USB 1, ADB, 100BaseT used PC100 or PC133 SDRAM, and standard
> IDE drives.

The Rev 1 also suffers with USB problems, which were fixed in part  
the later firmware (the one with the G4 CPU lockout). Both revisions  
won't reliably support 2 high bandwidth Firewire devices on the  
internal bus (you can install a second cards for both a USB and FW  
and do it that way though).

> The original version won't support fast IDE drives, the most common  
> ones
> are 10-12g, there were a few Maxtor 20g's that worked.

Don't forget to mention also that the Rev 1 doesn't support slaves  
and chews up their disk surface eventually.

Out of all my Macs I've owned a Blue & white G3 (not a G4 but still  
going strong :o) ) for the longest and know the whole machine like  
the back of my hand (everyone is now just waiting for me to walk into  
it and knock myself out I bet ;o) ).

Oh you also missed one important point too, the B&W G3 runs OS X very  
well, especially when upgraded.

IMHO if you want to build a pre-OS X machine you could do a lot worse  
than pick up a PowerMac 9600 and a decent XLR8 or Powerlogix  
accelerator card (usually not hard to find with decent G3s on - all  
you really need) and about 512MB of RAM (I know a good source of 64MB  
sticks and the 9600 has 12 RAM slots). A couple of decent SCSI drives  
and your fixed. If you really want to put it into the zone you could  
put a Rage 128 or Radeon PCI card in, or as you are in OS 8 or 9 you  
could even use a Voodoo3. You get 5 PCI slots once you've installed a  
graphics card, which allow cheap upgrades to USB and FireWire, and  
anything else you might need.

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://mdblog.68kmac.org>
68kMac.org:
<http://www.68kmac.org>

"Introducing Macintosh Classic II - pick one out on your way past the  
trash!"