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Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

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Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#21

Post by anthk »

smackeyacky wrote: post #7

You have to applaud this guy, getting an ethernet card and a video card in an SE/30 would have been impressive way back in the 1980s, let alone now. From memory at the university, we had Fastpath boxes (maybe before they were bought by Shiva). At one point about a decade ago I got nostalgic for classic macs and hooked 512 up in my garage with a Fastpath. Took me a while to get enough working localtalk adaptors and wh…

Or just a gopher client against gopher://hngopher.com :D.

gopher://magical.fish has lots of sites.

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#22

Post by anthk »

NoGravitas wrote: post #16
AstixAndBelix wrote: post #10

Sometimes I think that if it weren't for heavy cryptography and graphical interfaces, I could do so many things online even with a computer as old as this one. I could browse a textual version of HN, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and even post and comment things! Sending HTTP packets to an open API has been a kids game for decades, unfortunately companies just don't want you to hack together your own solution

I've been reading Gopher under MacOS 8.1 (emulated) over the holidays, and it's been nice. Light WWW sites work in Netscape 3 on it, but you have to offload https to a proxy because it's not compatible with modern TLS.

- gopher://hngopher.com , gopher://magical.fish , http://68k.news and , as a sinkhole, gopher://gopherddit.com

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#23

Post by helf »

moloch-hai wrote: post #8

Need to get A/UX running on it now. I only found out decades later that I could, eventually, have crammed 32MB into the 8 slots of my SE/30 I bought "maxed out" at 8M.

What’s really fun is you can upgrade the SE/30 to 128Mb

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#24

Post by deltarholamda »

The SE/30 was one of the all-time great computers. The form factor was very intimate, and even portable-ish if you needed it to be.

With Mode32 you could install 128MB of RAM. This was an insane amount of memory back in the day. With full RAM and the SCSI port, they made pretty good file servers once you stuck an ethernet card in the PDS slot.

I had one that I used for programming back in the 90s. I used BBEdit (v4 I think), which was (and still is) a great text editor. Later, I installed NetBSD on it and used it as a local mail server. It was by far my favorite computer.

I don't understand why someone isn't making a more modern computer in this form factor. Okay, you're not going to want to watch a movie on a 10-12 inch screen, but for a dedicated "I'm going to do computer things now" computer, it's very inviting.

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#25

Post by solardev »

deltarholamda wrote: post #24

The SE/30 was one of the all-time great computers. The form factor was very intimate, and even portable-ish if you needed it to be. With Mode32 you could install 128MB of RAM. This was an insane amount of memory back in the day. With full RAM and the SCSI port, they made pretty good file servers once you stuck an ethernet card in the PDS slot. I had one that I used for programming back in the 90s. I used BBEdit (v4 I…

Well, your average Chromebook has a similar screen, more power, built-in battery, and can run Linux. And Ye olde Beaglebone or Android computer on an HDMI stick is more portable and more powerful. And if you want a new Mac, well, the Mini is an amazing machine in a tiny package, or there's also the Intel NUCs. Or for gaming, the Shuttle PCs, Razer Tomahawk, etc. Or just connect your iPad to a keyboard.

Don't get me wrong, I loved those old Macs too, having learned Logo and Hypercard on them. But most of that machine was the CRT monitor plus huge components. You can pack a lot more into a lot less these days. I do miss the "cute" factor though. They were loveable in a way that modern machines just aren't.

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#26

Post by SomeHacker44 »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

That's the electronics equivalent of sticking a jet engine in a Cessna, very nice! I really love this kind of hack, instead of ending up in the landfill someone has a ton of fun, learns a lot and breathes new life into a bunch of old hardware. Obviously it's not going to be able to hold its own against modern hardware but who cares, as long as itches get scratched it's all in the game. If you look at crate upon crate…

Cessna did this half a century ago themselves and called it a Citation. :)

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#27

Post by prmoustache »

deltarholamda wrote: post #24

The SE/30 was one of the all-time great computers. The form factor was very intimate, and even portable-ish if you needed it to be. With Mode32 you could install 128MB of RAM. This was an insane amount of memory back in the day. With full RAM and the SCSI port, they made pretty good file servers once you stuck an ethernet card in the PDS slot. I had one that I used for programming back in the 90s. I used BBEdit (v4 I…

> I don't understand why someone isn't making a more modern computer in this form factor. Okay, you're not going to want to watch a movie on a 10-12 inch screen, but for a dedicated "I'm going to do computer things now" computer, it's very inviting.

In a non CRT world it doesn't really make sense. You could say that the NUC/micro computers with a VESA mounts and all-in one and iMacs are its successors.

I used to wish someone would sell a laptop in portrait format but nowadays you can really build that out of a tablet + external keyboard or a laptop/tablet convertible.

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#28

Post by moloch-hai »

helf wrote: post #23
moloch-hai wrote: post #8

Need to get A/UX running on it now. I only found out decades later that I could, eventually, have crammed 32MB into the 8 slots of my SE/30 I bought "maxed out" at 8M.

What’s really fun is you can upgrade the SE/30 to 128Mb

Wow, really? Are there 16MB SIMMs that fit?

I seem to recall I had thought the MacOS GUI subsystem limited it to 16MB, anyway, by packing data into the high byte of addresses... Maybe a later release fixed that?

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#29

Post by lostlogin »

prmoustache wrote: post #27
deltarholamda wrote: post #24

The SE/30 was one of the all-time great computers. The form factor was very intimate, and even portable-ish if you needed it to be. With Mode32 you could install 128MB of RAM. This was an insane amount of memory back in the day. With full RAM and the SCSI port, they made pretty good file servers once you stuck an ethernet card in the PDS slot. I had one that I used for programming back in the 90s. I used BBEdit (v4 I…

> I don't understand why someone isn't making a more modern computer in this form factor. Okay, you're not going to want to watch a movie on a 10-12 inch screen, but for a dedicated "I'm going to do computer things now" computer, it's very inviting. In a non CRT world it doesn't really make sense. You could say that the NUC/micro computers with a VESA mounts and all-in one and iMacs are its successors. I used to wish…

The Nuc is excellent, and the big ones (ghost canyon etc) take a pci card. With 10gb networking and Proxmox or ESXi you have a great little server that is pretty portable.

Re: Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30

#30

Post by pcurve »

AstixAndBelix wrote: post #10

Sometimes I think that if it weren't for heavy cryptography and graphical interfaces, I could do so many things online even with a computer as old as this one. I could browse a textual version of HN, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and even post and comment things! Sending HTTP packets to an open API has been a kids game for decades, unfortunately companies just don't want you to hack together your own solution

I used these old machines. You'd be surprised how slow these machines are even for the most basic things! Like typing, opening folders, etc. :)
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