← @mejs Twitter archive

Vlado Vince

@mejs

First the physical shape - the front has a small crack, but luckily I found the piece inside, so hopefully I'll be fixing that and it won't be too noticable

2/26/2022, 6:13:27 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Secondly - the screen and/or MB. When I tried it at vcfed swap meet, the screen wouldn't turn on at all, but after I messed with the cut-off adjustment, I got these horizontal lines.

2/26/2022, 6:13:30 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Thirdly - no chime! This only has soldered RAM, so I hope that's not it. Maybe ROM trouble? Who knows! Speaker definitely working.

2/26/2022, 6:13:31 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Um scratch that. I don't think any memory is soldered here. This computer appears not to have any 😅

2/26/2022, 6:22:29 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

While I'm waiting for my RAM I'm doing some additional testing on the SE, as I suspect there are more problems. From what I understand, even without memory it should play a sound indicating a problem -- mine does nothing. The speaker does work.

2/28/2022, 1:03:09 AM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

So I went around checking signals on the cpu and the roms, and while I see normal signals on all address and data lines on the cpu, the roms show just a high state on D0. That seems wrong?

2/28/2022, 1:03:11 AM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I didn't read this correctly - it's A8 that's stuck on high.

2/28/2022, 8:28:53 PM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Welp I guess it's A8 on the hi ROM that's busted. I put an room in there to test and A8 works just fine. However it's just a 27256 and I need a 512 kilobit 27512 eprom to replace the built in ROM...

2/28/2022, 8:40:34 PM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Maybe not.

2/28/2022, 8:42:47 PM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

This is what A8 looks with hi rom in place. So something is happening, just with very low voltage

2/28/2022, 8:50:32 PM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

For comparison, this is what A13 looks like

2/28/2022, 8:51:50 PM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I'm still waiting for my Mac SE memory, so I've given up troubleshooting issues that I don't even know exist (like the possible problem with address lines). Instead I've been trying to fix the monitor, and so far I haven't had much luck there.

3/2/2022, 10:13:56 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I also found what I believe to be the same issue in The Dead Mac Scrolls on pages 166 - 169. I've tried replacing all 3 resistors and 1 transistor referenced. The only one I didn't do is replacing SN74LS38N since I don't have a spare. But I did try it in my Galaksija and it works

3/2/2022, 10:20:58 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

In the meantime I've recapped the whole logic board and about half of the analog board capacitors. I don't think that's got much to do with my screen issue though.

3/2/2022, 10:29:01 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I'm currently also try to fix this cute ADB mouse and I'm pretty baffled by the problem. It will only sync up and work if you frantically press the button while plugging it in...

3/3/2022, 1:02:42 AM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

If I just plug it in, I'll get this unclean wave at >200 Hz. No sync, can't use mouse, can't even use track pad (I'm testing this on my PowerBook)

3/3/2022, 1:04:29 AM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

But! If I frantically click, and then plug in, every few times I'll be able to get sync and the mouse will work

3/3/2022, 1:05:31 AM

Favs: 0

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I fixed this old Apple ADB mouse by soldering the two grounds (one from pin 4, the other from DIN shield). Thx @squeezeonein for the tip to check power! Obviously something else on this board caused it, but this appears to be a reliable fix.

3/4/2022, 6:22:19 PM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Back to the Mac, I now recapped the analog board, with no improvement to my horizontal lines problem. I should finally have the memory tomorrow so I'll hold on until then...

3/5/2022, 1:18:47 AM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

My Macintosh SE memory is here!! Very nice packaging

3/5/2022, 12:24:50 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Installed and the jumper is switched to 2M/4M. Fingers crossed!

3/5/2022, 12:25:59 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Woohoo it works!!!!

3/5/2022, 12:26:28 PM

Favs: 4

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Trying to get into 800k Disk Tools I picked up at vcfed.... And no luck so far. This disk also wouldn't boot in my PowerBook so it may just be bad 😔

3/5/2022, 12:51:54 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

And the Mac can boot!!

3/5/2022, 1:27:37 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

So this is proof of concept more than anything else, since I have a single 800k disk. Moreover, it's got a bunch of bad sectors, so I formatted it with the Powerbook and it had just around 550K available, enough for the System Folder to boot into, but nothing else

3/5/2022, 1:30:43 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I need to figure out why it's only seeing 2MB memory though

3/5/2022, 1:33:41 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

In any case, it's very exciting to have the Macintosh SE running just in time for #MARCHintosh2022. Hopefully I'll have something fun to show on it soon.

3/5/2022, 1:36:45 PM

Favs: 11

Retweets: 1

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Wow, with the brightness adjusted the horizontal lines seem to be gone completely!!

3/5/2022, 10:14:46 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I can boot from scsi2sd since it has a DB-25 connector!

3/5/2022, 10:46:49 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Or rather I can attempt boot since the SE doesn't seem to like my Powerbook install...

3/5/2022, 10:47:21 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Well I disabled all extensions and it still won't boot, so it seems like I might need to do a clean install... But first I need to figure out a way to move my scsi2sd setup to bluescsi, since that's the one I want to use in my PowerBook.

3/5/2022, 10:52:35 PM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Wooo! Turns out bluescsi just uses raw images, so I created one from my scsi2sd sd card with DD, and then I just renamed it to had. It boots!

3/5/2022, 11:52:17 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

i renamed it to .hda lol darn autocorrect

3/5/2022, 11:58:23 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

And now I've got System 7.5.3 running on the SE! It is pretty pretty slow though.

3/6/2022, 1:22:13 AM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

So it's likely that this Mac SE was fully functional from the start! However, while waiting for the RAM I replaced the capacitors on the logic and analog boards, a few resistors and the transistor on the video board. Whether that fixed any problems ahead of time - I don't know!

3/6/2022, 1:50:23 AM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

And now we've got a small AppleTalk network running between the SE and the PowerBook! I picked up a few Apple talk transceivers, and one PhoneNet transceiver with RJ11 on one end of cable and DIN-3 on the other. I also had to terminate the second RJ-11 port with a resistor.

3/6/2022, 12:43:50 PM

Favs: 5

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Playing a game of Glypha from the PowerBook on the SE. What a wonderfully weird networking protocol!!

3/6/2022, 12:49:57 PM

Favs: 4

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Omg you guys I got the hard drive from this SE working!!

3/11/2022, 11:36:01 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I've got to back this up somehow while it's still alive!!

3/11/2022, 11:36:33 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Since I don't want to risk turning it off, I'm copying all the files manually to my PowerBook's SD card over AppleTalk

3/11/2022, 11:46:17 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

This might have been used by Olathe Daily News in Olathe, Kansas

3/12/2022, 12:16:13 AM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

My backup is complete. I'm going to try to boot from it now!

3/12/2022, 12:17:00 AM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

And it boots! It's wild to me that they used this with System 4.2 until 1999 when this computer seems to have been last used

3/12/2022, 12:24:30 AM

Favs: 9

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

So I don't think this was used at a newspaper after all. I found a lot of PII and I'm pretty sure I identified the owner. I won't be sharing any private info obviously, but this computer was used by a software developer.

3/12/2022, 12:37:14 AM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

The hard drive is a 20MB Rodime RO652. The SE didn't come with a scsi cable, and the seller said the HD was dead, so I assumed it wouldn't work. But I figured I would try it nonetheless. At first I got a SCSI check condition message - the drive was detected but couldn't spin.

3/12/2022, 1:41:48 AM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

So I opened it up and confirmed it wasn't spinning. I started the Mac and when it failed to spin I just gave it a tiny nudge with a screwdriver. It started and it has been working since!

3/12/2022, 1:43:06 AM

Favs: 5

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I upgraded the original install from 30+ years ago to 6.0.8 and it still runs pretty smooth!

3/13/2022, 1:08:57 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

But I'm struggling to find a web browser that would run on it. SAMBA browser developed at CERN was supposed to be able to run on it, but it crashed, just like Netscape

3/13/2022, 1:11:39 PM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I'm playing around with MacPaint, and I strongly feel that every program should have a Goodies drop down menu

3/15/2022, 9:04:48 PM

Favs: 23

Retweets: 4

Vlado Vince

@mejs

A Mac self portrait 😌

3/15/2022, 9:17:21 PM

Favs: 6

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I got a modem working on the SE and now I'm trying to navigate FTP using commands. I had to go back to system 7.5.3 since MacTCP wouldn't load on 6.0.8 for some reason

3/18/2022, 12:14:43 AM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Now this is podracing 😎

3/18/2022, 12:16:22 AM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

And success! I got @aradiogurl's Cracked Mac website, running on a Macintosh Plus, loaded on my SE via modem connection. It took a while until I found a browser that worked, but I had luck with Mosaic 1.02 on System 7.5.3 #MARCHintosh2022

3/18/2022, 1:54:02 AM

Favs: 19

Retweets: 5

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I love this logo

3/18/2022, 1:58:45 AM

Favs: 5

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I got another @BlueScsi, this one came with instructions printed on an ImageWriter II!

3/18/2022, 4:58:16 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

All assembled and ready to go. I love the attention to detail and ability to connect power and activity LEDs.

3/18/2022, 5:00:06 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Now I need to figure out how to image the 20MB drive that came with my SE. I already made a manual backup by just copying the files.

3/18/2022, 5:01:42 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

It took me a long time, but I managed to image this drive. I ended up using scsi2sd, connected to DB-25 with scsi ID 1, and booted into 7.5.3. I then used Disk Copy 6.3.3 to image the 20MB HD. When I tried w/ ver 6.1.2 it failed saying that you need 68020 to compress an image

3/19/2022, 9:51:35 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

But once I took the image, I still had to dd it into a bootable image, since it only had the system partition. I took one of the premade rascsi .hda images and dd'd my image into it. I was then able to boot into the HD image via the bluescsi

3/19/2022, 9:52:56 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I added a CR2032 3V battery to my SE because I was getting tired of having to reset mouse sensitivity every time I booted it (battery and holder polarity flipped in the photo, I corrected this before installing)

3/20/2022, 10:26:48 PM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I also checked out the easter egg on the SE that shows you 4 photos of the Macintosh team #MARCHintosh2022

3/20/2022, 11:13:41 PM

Favs: 6

Retweets: 1

Vlado Vince

@mejs

You access the photos by hitting the interrupt key on the side of the logic board and typing G and address 41D89A on the ROM

3/20/2022, 11:17:17 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Good folks at @nycresistor have a great write up from 10 years ago about exploring this easter egg on an SE found on the street in Brooklyn, and how the easter egg was implemented in the ROM https://www.nycresistor.com/2012/08/21/ghosts-in-the-rom/

3/20/2022, 11:19:45 PM

Favs: 4

Retweets: 1

Vlado Vince

@mejs

I reconfigured my powerbook bluescsi with DB-25 for quick data transfers! I'm already using the scsi2sd in my powerbook, and bluescsi is much more flexible for data transfers

3/22/2022, 12:44:08 AM

Favs: 1

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

It's too late for marchintosh, but I got an Apple Keyboard II for my SE. No more ADB emulation with an Arduino!

4/14/2022, 7:25:19 PM

Favs: 3

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

The keyboard is in good condition but it does need a wash. The owner had this odd bumped layout with stickers. Never seen this 12 number layout before.

4/14/2022, 7:26:43 PM

Favs: 2

Retweets: 0

Vlado Vince

@mejs

Before/during/after. This keyboard was nasty!

4/14/2022, 11:24:46 PM

Favs: 7

Retweets: 0