Restoring the Macintosh Plus

The 8-Bit Guy

Being from the I.T. field, I am familiar with these SCA drives. I even have an adapter laying around somewhere to convert them to 50-pin. Many of my old Sun Sparcstation machines used these drives, as a matter of fact. But the truth is, if I wanted to use a 9 GB SCSI drive in my Macintosh, they actually did make those in the 50-pin version as well. And yes, they are more "modern" than the ones from the 1980s but you still can't buy them new.

Dale Mahalko / Plawerth

I have a solution to your problem of finding working SCSI drives for antique computers. But I'm using the most advanced modern hot-plug style SCSI drives available, which perhaps is not exactly "authentic". <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DA62S-iihA" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DA62S-iihA</a> (I am nowhere near as professional a videographer as you, I just slapped this together on an iPhone with Youtube Capture, and my hands shake.. sigh..)

BastetFurry

Anything that can run OS 9 and some OS 9 exclusive games, like Marathon. Or games that play better on it, like Civilization or Sim*, because they could use the native GUI toolkit to make their game better. Like Colonization on the Amiga, which used the Workbenchs GUI toolkit and as such was very nice to play on that system. In short, an episode that shows some ways to play Mac games without selling an arm, a leg and the firstborn. ;)

Dark Azial

I loved the VIC-20 and the Commodore 64 that my friends had, I was the odd duck in the neighborhood and couldn't trade with anyone. My next project would likely be a commodore 64.I have an old Amiga 500 Waiting for love now in storage, but that will wait for another day

The 8-Bit Guy

I've thought about it.. But when you say "classic" do you just mean anything running OS 9 or below? Or do you have a specific era in mind, such as the black and white compact Macs?

BastetFurry

Could you make a video on what Mac to get if you want an inexpensive Mac Classic experience besides using Sheepshaver?

Lorin Millsap

I think that's awesome that you are offering a capacitor kit.

Peter Metzger

I was just telling my wife last night that our computer lab at school was full of Apple IIe's and only two had color monitors. It was always a race to see who could get to them first ^_^ As long as we're sharing childhood computers, our first was a secondhand TRS-80, and the first new computer we got was a 486-SX33 with 4MB RAM and, if I recall correctly, a 250MB HDD. Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 5.0, 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives; we later added a 4x CD-ROM drive and upgraded to DOS 6.22.

That cool, but I think I'll end up NOT getting that type of old mac. I have been thinking of getting a mac with OS 9 or older, but that is not for me. Thanks for showing it to me!

BastetFurry

My childhood machine should be a bit easier to recreate. A 386-DX40 with an ET4000, 4 MB RAM, 3½" and 5¼" disk drives, a 210 and a 80 MByte Harddisk, all running under DR-DOS 6. The soundcard, a Gravis Ultrasound of all things, came half a year later with another 4 MByte of RAM for my birthday. :D

The 8-Bit Guy

But no love for the VIC-20? (Just saying because that was my first computer!) Yep, all of the Apple II systems we had in school had the green monochrome monitor.

The 8-Bit Guy

I have two different ones.. and neither one works worth a darn... so that's why I don't use them. Maybe I just need a better one?

Great video as always! One cheap and easy way to make desoldering a bit more efficient and enjoyable (in addition to the flux suggestions below) is a simple "solder sucker" desoldering pump. You can probably get one for less than 10 bucks.

Dark Azial

I wanted to say how much I liked this video. I has inspired me to finally tae the plunge in recreating my childhood computer. I am figure I am roughly your age, if a tad older. I was first introduced to computers at a club on a VIC-20. Many years Later, my dad got me an Apple //c with a sony kx-14cp1 color monitor. I want that exact computer back. The monitor is rare and hard to get, and frankly expensive, but I am getting older and I think I don't care. Some people get motorcycles, cars, planes, and women to spend money on. I want an old monitor and a dusty computer I can lovingly restore. Then I want to track down an original box copy of Ultima 4. That was the game that came with my computer. My dad bought that monitor just so I could see it in color since almost all the monitors were black and white. Thank you for bringing all it back.

Fedor Alexander Steeman

I find this a fascinating watch. I only have a superficial knowledge of electronics. As a teenager, I participated in some evening courses in it, but I only understood half of it and was terrible at soldering; always making a mess. I have the general idea of what a resistor does and that it's colour coded, but no idea about the capacitor. Still, I found this interesting to watch as it was presented in a way that I got a sense of what was going on.

The 8-Bit Guy

Well, I figure from this point forward, anytime I personally recap a machine and have to do the research to figure out which caps to buy and use... I might as well make a kit for it to save other people the trouble. So yes, I will add other machines in time as I do them myself.

Ooh! Recap kits? Are they just for the Plus? Or are you gonna do other machines too?

Another great video! Keep them coming!

Lorin Millsap

Great video. Good to see an old machine come back to life. I remember my Mac Plus. Swapping 800k floppies.