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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

#31

Post by samtheprogram »

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.

What are you using for the proxy? I am interested in breathing life into a OS 9 eMac I have.

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

#32

Post by deltarholamda »

solardev wrote: post #25
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 w…

> You can pack a lot more into a lot less these days.

True, but even so, there is no reason to not have a little tower with a friendly face sitting on a desk, even if it's mostly empty space. Or use the empty space for something, like a door to a cubby where you can store a game pad.

If you need mobility a laptop is great. But sitting hunched over at a desk using a laptop is not nearly as good as sitting upright with the screen at a more ergonomic height.

Maybe it's all just nostalgia, but I think we got a lot of things right back in the day, and the toaster Mac was definitely one of those things.

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

#33

Post by retrac »

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…

A clever hacker has gone and ported a modern SSL library to System 7, plus SSH [1]. Runs on a 68030+ Mac. OpenTransport, not MacTCP. And I imagine key exchange takes a few minutes... but yeah, you can ssh into a contemporary machine over the open Internet using a Mac SE/30 under System 7. (You could also just run NetBSD on the thing and run an entirely modern stack, in theory. The SE/30 can take 128 MB of RAM. It's one of the oldest machines out there that can run a current operating system! Though I'm unsure whether Firefox would finish loading before the heat death of the universe.)

[1] https://github.com/cy384/ssheven

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

#34

Post by macintux »

jacquesm wrote: post #19
scarface74 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never had those issues with SCSI. By 1996 I had a Zip drive, a Jaz drive, an external CDROM drive and two external hard drives connected to my PPC 6100 without issues.

Pure luck. Seriously. I wished I could get back all the hours I spent tracking down termination issues. And don't get me started on 10base-T.

10base-T or 2? I had ongoing nightmares with the latter, BBN R&D used it extensively and we’d have entire network segments flood with noise when someone bumped an AppleTalk repeater in the data closet.

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

#35

Post by drewzero1 »

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…

That's kind of how I use my Surface Pro. I keep it docked on the desk and carry it with me if I need it to be portable. If I could build/buy a computer this size with an integrated screen and one or two PCI slots in the back, I'd be all over that.

Several years ago I built a few "lunchbox" style portable-ish PCs by bolting a monitor on the side of a SFF desktop, adding feet and a handle, and integrating a power strip so I only needed one power cord. I'd like to try that again with updated components. Think Compaq Portable III[0] but with a micro ATX or mini ITX.

0: http://oldcomputers.net/compaqiii.html

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

#37

Post by helf »

moloch-hai wrote: post #28
helf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I believe it requires a 32bit clean ROM, but, yeah, you can.

Lemme dig up some links.

edit

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/sonmyl/se30_m...

https://charlieharrington.com/my-new-old-apple-macintosh-se3...

https://lowendmac.com/2016/memory-upgrades-mac-se30/

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

#38

Post by OnlyMortal »

retrac wrote: post #33
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…

A clever hacker has gone and ported a modern SSL library to System 7, plus SSH [1]. Runs on a 68030+ Mac. OpenTransport, not MacTCP. And I imagine key exchange takes a few minutes... but yeah, you can ssh into a contemporary machine over the open Internet using a Mac SE/30 under System 7. (You could also just run NetBSD on the thing and run an entirely modern stack, in theory. The SE/30 can take 128 MB of RAM. It's o…

I recall GUSI on the Mac. A socket style interface that sat on top of OT and MacTCP, depending what was available.

Made life easier.

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

#39

Post by jacquesm »

macintux wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure luck. Seriously. I wished I could get back all the hours I spent tracking down termination issues. And don't get me started on 10base-T.

10base-T or 2? I had ongoing nightmares with the latter, BBN R&D used it extensively and we’d have entire network segments flood with noise when someone bumped an AppleTalk repeater in the data closet.

Well, to be fair I was thinking of repeaters and hubs before switched became the norm, but now that you mention it, I do have a couple of horror stories regarding 10base2 as well. In particular, to stay 'on topic' regarding termination, or lack thereof. And those neat insulation piercing taps :(
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