I wrote my PhD on an SE/30 (2 Mb - 40 Mb) in 1990 with SuperPaint 2 and MS-Word 3. I still have one in the lab and boot it from time to time to impress the students - Success guaranteed 100%. Thanks for reviving this beautiful machine

@wellcraft19

4 жыл бұрын

I so agree with you here. See my comment above.

@andrewbowers3676

4 жыл бұрын

I used to have an original Mac 128K from 1984 (Like an idiot I sold it in the late 90s when it was worthless), I bought it when I was in 8th grade from the guy down the street from my folks. Wrote quite a few essays and book reports on it!

@thihal123

2 жыл бұрын

Love that story. SE/30 was the computer Oi used throughout my high school

@howaboutsomesoyfood

2 жыл бұрын

that's awesome. I'm in my 20s but I've always had a soft spot for 80s-90s computers, especially the early Macs.

@user-rf8ls3no4e

4 ай бұрын

My screen turns on but it's blank.

That near instant boot from the "SSD" was so cool to see.

I recapped my SE/30 a few years ago. I picked up a ROMinator, a SCSI2SD, and some other goodies and have been happily click-clacking away on this old bird ever since. I love the thing. It has been in my life for a very long time. I will never get rid of it. I was lucky that my SIASIMAC issue ended with the re-cap work. Thanks for the video.

Back in 1989, the SE-30 was the computer in my studio, using it mainly with Adobe Illustrator. I had a Radius brand external B&W monitor hooked up to it as well, the rotatable one, so I used the 9" screen for menus, etc... what a great machine. I produced a lot of booklets, logos, page layouts, floor plans, and conceptual renderings with this baby! When I finally left that job, and branched out on my own, I bought an LC-III, pretty much a colour version of the SE-30. I still have a Plus, SE, and a Classic in y collection... I think it's time to boot them up and write a message on a hard drive for future collectors to read... thanks for the memories and the repair video!

Really good video. It demonstrates how persistent you are and continue to be. One of the best videos do far.

@rainbowrepair5692

4 жыл бұрын

I enjoyed it too

Great video. There's just something about classic Macintoshes that makes me happy. My favorite operating system is actually System 7, its aesthetic simplicity and ease of use, combined with great applications totally make it. Also, that SE30 boots faster than my XPS 15!

@ThisDoesNotCompute

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah, this SE/30 boots faster than any other computer I have - it’s crazy how big of a difference the SCSI2SD makes!

P.S. this is your best B-roll footage I think. I can watch this with the sound off.

@Snappers1_

4 жыл бұрын

Fitz I know right? B-roll live steps isn’t easy!

I had every MAC from the Lisa forward to the IIFX and threw them out in 2002 all were in working order... I was a Mac tech for many years... aligning that screen is a cakewalk

@dustojnikhummer

Жыл бұрын

I assume you moved? Why else would you throw them out.

Really fun video with very pleasing camera work. Great job saving that poor SE/30! Shocking to see the damage endured to that second SE/30 from that battery!

@slaquers

4 жыл бұрын

Cool to see ya here, have watched a lot of your Mac game videos

Very stoked I just found this channel! SUBSCRIBED! I have an SE/30 and an SE - along with a Wifi modem I use to get online with it from time to time. Great fun!

@wellcraft19

4 жыл бұрын

This makes me curios. Please tell us more (as I have one working SE/30 as well).

Personally; even if the board-level work on the SE/30 wasn't required to get it operational, at least you've got peace of mind that it's unlikely to just up and die on you any time soon, especially giving it that isopropyl bath to clean it up as you did.

That backlit shot where you pulled it from the IsoBath was beautiful...

Wow... can't believe it was just the RAM. Awesome lead-up, I am so glad that you resurrected that machine. Amazing work.

You might want to talk to “8-bit guy” about retrobright. He has lots of experience

@wishusknight3009

4 жыл бұрын

If it's not needed, don't do it. It just weakens the plastic.

@medes5597

4 жыл бұрын

Most computer enthusiasts don't particularly rate the 8bit guy (he's also known for being a touch arrogant unfortunately, the dallas computer scene has several issues with him). Don't get me wrong, I love his videos but he's a controversial figure among retro computer people.

@Watchmeloseit2012

4 жыл бұрын

Ytbr. Nice.

@microcolonel

4 жыл бұрын

@1000 Subs with just Playlists can't you just put it in some hydrogen peroxide solution with a circulating heater? (Like a sous vide circulator) seems like it woulb be fine.

@microcolonel

4 жыл бұрын

@@wishusknight3009 I've not seen anything about that. It seems weird to me that hydrogen peroxide and heat would make plastic brittle.

As for the retro brighting issue of the yellowing returning.... this is because in nearly all of those cases people used the UV method of retrobrighting, which causes a unique property of computer plastics to go screwy. Electronics plastic discoloring comes from two sources, good old oxidation which is usually very gradual and dependent on the type of plastic creating a soft faded appearance. And then there is the fire retardant chemicals in the plastic, which causes the harsh dark yellowing were all familiar with. There are two methods for retro brighting, Heat and UV. With the Common UV method, the H2O2 will remove the plastic oxide discoloring on the surface. However the UV then reacts with the retardant caused discoloration by literally destroying it, it then leeches out of the plastic and then the H2O2 fully oxidizes it removing the color. You get a fresh look on the surface, but congrats you've also now exposed the next deeper layer of unaffected fire retardant to UV light from CFL bulbs and the sun! And unlike the top layer you just removed, you won't be able to retrobright the new yellowing as easily a second time with the same method, as the UV will again destroy it, BUT! It won't be able to leech out as effectively and the H2O2 can't penetrate down to oxidize it. This is why you need to use the heat method, use 130-150F hot water/ H2O2 bath to promote rapid surface oxidation of the plastic. The heat causes the plastic to expand on the molecular level allowing the H2O2 to penetrate deep enough to reach the damaged retardant and oxidize it... BUT the retardant remains intact and isn't completely destroyed as in the UV concentrated method, thus it does not leech out as its molecules are to large in its intact state. The result? Uniform brightening for one, AND with thr surface layer of retardant intact the deeper layers won't be exposed to UV light and so if it yellows again you can use the Heat method to effectively re retro bright it back to normal with little trouble and the effect lasts longer. However regardless no matter what, yellowing will eventually return. It will oxidize to oxygen and ANY UV light exposure over time will darken it. So in conclusion it you intend to retro bright it....don't expose it to sunlight or CFL bulbs as they will yellow them the same as they had been.

Wow! All that works just to realize that, sometimes, the solution to the problem is very simple. We're just didn't see it at first. Still, great work on this project!

Perfectly edited as Usual, Colin. I particularly like those pan shots.

My gawd, this channel is bringing back some memories. Back in the early 2000s I was big into vintage Macs, probably owning over 20 at one stage. Eventually space concerns and commonsense took over and I sold them off. One that I kept long term was an SE/30 I’d bought for a mere $25. For a few bucks more I maxed the RAM at 32Mb, popped in a (apparently rare) PDS Ethernet card and used it on and off for years. It too suffered from the display issue, but only if it didn’t get switched on at least once a month. I was under the impression is was an issue with the analog board... sometimes it’d need 10-20 mins to warm up before the sync circuitry worked properly. Thanks to the surge in old Mac collectibility after Steve’s passing I ended up selling for over $400.

@headwerkn

3 жыл бұрын

Oh, a corroded PRAM battery destroyed my IIfx too. That was a sad day...

Your content is always so detailed and satisfying to watch. Your scripts are thorough but easy to follow, and your video to accompany it is a treat. Keep up the great work!

Loved the detailed walk-through of your troubleshooting process.

My first Mac ! bought in 1989, with a student plan... I have used this machine for 9 years (System 6 through 7.5). Perhaps the best desktop computer I ever used. Thanks for the video. François (in Paris).

I had this exact same problem with my Mac SE/30 this week but I only saw this video after I'd also figured out that faulty RAM was the problem. Glad to find someone else who had an SE/30 with simasimac that was also caused by the same problem as everything I found online about the problem made no mention of faulty RAM being a potential cause.

Man, I don't know why but the sound of old hard drives is so incredibly soothing to me.

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us. I have a couple of Macs that have similar issues that seemed to daunting to get into, but you make it seem a lot more approachable.

Great job for sticking with the restoration on this Mac! I like seeing old hardware restored to working order.

One of your best videos yet, I hope this gets more views because it was a pleasure to watch this go from faulty to fixed.

That was satisfying to watch, Colin. Great refurbish and video!

Holy cow, Just found your channel and completely loving it. Plus to find out your in the twin cities/near loving it.

Oh darn. This video is SO well done (really professional) and so thorough, that I now feel compelled to find the two semi-broken SE/30s I’ve got in storage and get on with my project to make them happy. 😊

My second time watching this after your original release. Enjoyable to see u repair these beautiful machines. I too have a SE30 that I restored.

I get stuck in such a rabbit hole with your videos! So addictive!

looking back, this would have been an awesome machine for my family to have back in 1991, but it have have just been discontinued. We got a Mac Classic 2/40MB with ImageWriter II and Microsoft Works bundle. The Classic was still a great little machine and we made good use of it, my Dad used it for his course work at Uni, my brother and I used it for our high school work and games of course. We upgraded to the LC630 around 1995. The only issue we had with the classic was the hard drive would fail a few times, but I think that was due to how we used it, we would turn it off when not actively using it, instead of leaving it on until bed time. The SE/30 is something I would love to have in my collection one day and is probably the best classic/compact Mac to have.

I was looking foward to see this Mac again! Love it!

This reminds me my first Mac. It was an SE 4/40 that had been used by a Marine Biology TA at the University of Hawaii in the late 1980's. The last thing he'd written was a resume, which lent a poignant note to this Mac's old life. At the time (mid 1990), I was a Windows-only computer user who wondered what color the grass was on the other side of the digital divide. Thanks to a college classmate who was a veteran Apple II user from way back, it was time to search eBay for parts to upgrade this old Mac. After a year of adding this and that, the unit was an SE/30 32/540 that might surf the Internet if I could find a rare display board. I stopped the upgrade and gave it to an unfortunate Pckard Bell desktop PC user. Then I began searching eBay for a "portable Mac." This led to the lowendmac website and information about Mac laptops. After some false starts and lost bids, I bought an ex-middle-school Mac PowerBook 1400C. This led to an ex-Canadian PDQ PowerBook, and finally to a 2012 MacBook Pro. It has been "a long, strange journey" with many interesting tangents to Lenovo ThinkPads.

A quick recap is in order Also you; replaced the capacitors in the last video I see what you did there Colin...

@jackilynpyzocha662

3 жыл бұрын

I feel like "Back To The Future" with the "capacitor" phrase!

Great video, Colin. Really glad it worked out in the end - very well deserved.

Amazing video. I've been a lurking fan for a while now. Your editing is amazing. And you are a very natural speaker. I wish I had that talent. Maybe with some more practice. Thanks for this amazingly entertaining video!

Awesome restoration. A major issue - don't use rubbing alcohol - it's 30% water. Go for isopranol - you'll save yourself a lot of problems!

YES! You did it! I was hoping we’d get an update about this soon.

Love to see another SE/30 rescued. As a owner of a working one for 32 years now, I must admit it is something special to turn on from time to time...

Amazing work as always! Who knew it would be so simple?

I just subscribed to your KZread channel. I love your videos about Macintosh computers from the past. It sure reminds me of my wonderful childhood memories when I first fell in love with computers in school, particularly the Apple IIc, Apple IIe, Apple IIgs and when I was in 4th grade I was taught to use a Macintosh LC. It was so super exciting for me then.

These videos are so enjoyable to watch!

Congrats on getting it working. I have a couple SE's (Not SE/30's) I'm working on restoring. Another great video as always.

I have an se/30 that I plan to upgrade, and I didn't know about the aftermarket rom chip. Also nice to see a hard drive conversion in action. You earned a sub from me👍

I may be making a pilgrimage to this "Free Geek" place. If they've got old Mac keyboards and SCSI drives, I wonder what other goodies they might have... Brilliant show sir, I'll definitely be following some of your tips when I finally get back to work on my SE/30. That hard drive isn't going to last forever, unfortunately, and that SCSI to SD thing looks awesome!

Great video, Colin. These are neat old machines. I think I'd really love to have one of those Color Classics like you showed most of all... My family had an original Mac 512k which was destroyed in storage during Katrina, but I remember the Color Classics from my dad's job at a newspaper. They were spiffy!

I only ever used a Mac SE as a kid, so when you hit that switch and it made that soft little chime rather than that fierce ancient BEEEEEP, that seemed like an anachronism.

OMG that demo of the audio settings!!!! It's like I was still there. Thank you so much!!!

One of the better classic macs. Thanks for the video!

Hey man! I'm new to the channel, and really enjoying your content so far. Very cool retro tech videos, and the production quality is superb.

I changed the batter holder in my SE/30 to a CR2032 Battery holder which now I don't have to worry about exploding battery. The screen alignment you can adjust that on the analog board were the CRT gets its high voltage, there should be a paper guide covering the bottom of the board.

the mechanism of the floppy drive looks fascinating !

Thank you for the video. It was nostalgic and entertaining. I have same Mac SE/30 with same problems and battery damage.

Dude I’ve learned so much about my passion for retro tech from watching you. Thank you!

Really enjoyed watching this! Love seeing retro apple computer videos :) Keep it up!

you're the man!!! you have motivated me to unpack my se30 and get it going again!!!

The SE/30 was the best Mac investment of the late ‘80’s. it stayed current much longer than many other Macs. I do love my Color Classic w the the mystic pizza mod

Good video. Great topic. Excellent presentation and flow!

It's a beautiful machine, no doubt. I have one myself and just love passing by it everyone and again.

Great video on every aspect ! Congrats

That's neat. I appreciate your appreciation for vintage hardware.

I did a write up on what I called the Ultimate System 7 years ago back when I was in high school. The Mac SE cost a small fortune back then, and was a very nice computer. My first Macintosh was a mac classic. In school we used mac plus and even had a scanner. Mac's are so much fun! Just seeing a pixelated scanned image back then was awesome!

Great, splendid, WONDERFUL :) Thank you very much for this very very intereting video. I'm an Apple fan since I'm maybe 4 years old, I was nearby born with the Macintosh (I'm from June 1984), and my first one was an SE/30. I really want to begin restoring some old Apple computers for years but could not find the time to begin dealing with this. Now I have place at home (a great garage), I can start this and my first projets will be a Macintosh Plus and my old SE/30... Hope they will come back to life. Also, i always wanted to restore a Lisa but never saw one in real since I was maybe 3 or 4. I have discovered a new Computer museum 30 km from home, which has received old Apple ones and at least 3 Lisa's but no one knows if they are working, they must be tested prior to be powered on, and, of course, beginning with the power Supply. This is a chance, they need a fan and I need the computers to be repaired, we are speeaking about doing it together. Great project as Lisa's are really very difficult to find today, or crazilly expensive when you see people trying to sell one "Non-Working exemplar" for two thousands or more dollars... Thanks again. Michel

Worked for a DJ company back in the 90’s and used this machine. Loved it! I remember the external hd was 40 mb!😀 Also had a Classic too. Boss had a Power Book 5300. Amazing what it could do. We’ve come a long way !

I still have the SE/30 I bought used back in 1991. I upgraded it over time with an 040/33 128k cache Daystar and Radius Pivot color card and display. It also had its scsi bus nearly maxed out while it was my main box, with cdrom, scsi network interface, scanner, and extra drives. I even still use it to this day on occasion to do some music composition and gaming!

Loving all these

Glad to see you taking things in stride, while still figuring things out. If I didn’t know any better, you and 8 Bit dude are friends, but you handle yourself with much less arrogance, which I greatly respect.

I’m really glad to hear it was just the worm gear grease screwing up the floppy loading. I have about 10 Macs with supposedly bad floppy drives laying around that I got from a hoarder and am trying to restore. Time to make a trip to Autozone I think.

This guy is through and obviously a hardware fanatic. Highly skilled.

It must be at least 25 years or more since I used one of those Macs. I joined a company after having used mainly Vax/VMS Systems and using DecMate word processor to using Mac's for word processing and report writing.I was impressed by the GUI and simplicity. Ahh memories.

Farrrrr outttt...... solid work mate, very persistent, well done

Awesome restoration! I really need to get a keyboard and mouse for my Classic II

So satisfying seeing these PCs restored

The hard drive actually came out of that SE/30, it was wiped in an external SCSI enclosure which must have handled the termination and scsi id for it. Glad to see that the parts from the second SE/30 were able to help you get this one up and running. I am in the same boat when it comes to retro-brite, for the most part I am ok with the discoloration on computers in my collection, but I do want to try more experimentation with it.

@ThisDoesNotCompute

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I suspected this SE/30 had seen some work over the years. Only two of the RAM sticks that came with it matched and I had a feeling that the drive had been haphazardly replaced (given the bracket situation). If the external enclosure had a SCSI terminator on it, then that explains why you were able to wipe it. If you think it would be useful, I can drop off the damaged motherboard -- some of the traces need to be bodged around, but it could be salvageable. Thanks again for your help!

I wish I had the room to set up a separate retro office, at which point I'd very much like to once again have my Mac Plus 1MB, or a similar such as the SE30, etc... I do currently have other retro machines packed away, but my first computer was made when I was, back in 84. It was new to me by around 1990, and it was my world. Purchased second hand from the actual inventor and patent holder of Miracle Ear hearing aids, as well as some other items, it came with so so much. Image writer 1 and 2, accessory fan that mounted in the carry handle area and turned the Mac on with a top mounted switch rather than the typical rear one. Everex 20MB external SCSI HDD... Two external floppies along with the internal of course... and every bit of software ever made for the platform, quite literally. From database to CAD to office to games to any and everything.. all with their original spiral bound books and cases. And I just gave it all away back in the late 90's after getting my first PC in 97, seeing no value in it then... being a young asshat. The diversity, rarity of many items, and complete nature of the set would have easily netted thousands in value today, and I just tossed it. So seeing this, especially it booting from floppy... man is that a familiar and fondly remembered sight. The thing that made it magical back then though, was the learning... It was just this entire world unfolding as I taught myself, well... everything. Then given my age and timeline, my schools all had LC computers... LC1 through 3's, which I was always able to migrate "newer" software from, System and Finder versions, etc... copy them to floppies, bring em home, and improve on my old 1984 platform, which was truly no lesser than the LC's back at the school, simply less a color screen. Which MY GOD did I long for. I used to fantasize about swapping CRT tubes out, etc... I wanted color in the worst of ways back then, lol. Needless to say, when I got that Packard Bell Multimedia 233MMX in 97, the world and it's limits grew exponentially. Allowing me to teach myself how to overclock, what 3d cards were, how to overclock those, how to water cool with peltiers, surgical tubing, pumps / reservoirs, etc. What a time. . . A time that no matter how many old things I get today, I can't replicate.

Working on these machines machines in the 90's I remember that ram was finicky, that it had to be the right ram chip. So I'm not surprised by what you had to go through. So fun to see that machine. There was programs like cricket and I think SPSS at the time for statistical analysis. But I remember cricket was so cool to use and super fast. I wonder if there's any copies of cricket out there.

I Hope you do another video on this Mac, and do a Retro-bright on it, the 8-Bit Guy use this process with a very high success, maybe you could ask him for some tips, but if you watch a few videos on his channel you will get the way on using retro-bright. I really like your videos and the way you speak and explain everything. I'm a big fan from Brazil!

I like the yellowing tbh, has character and charm.

I worked on one of these at my second newspaper job. It also had an external monitor... that was the same as a legal sheet of paper (8.5 x 14). And the monitor swiveled between portrait and landscape! It was amazing to work with, and much more versatile than "coding" text with a Compugraphics typesetting system.

Those floppy drive whirring noises make me happy. :')

Great job.. in 1989 I didn’t even know computers really existed.. I had other interests at the time. Thanks it was entertaining to watch you.

great video Collin

You may have taken the long way around, but you ended up with nice SE/30. Well done.

Another super cool computer. I LOVE old Macs 🙂 You are amazing at this! If I had your skills I would definitely be repairing old Macs like this. Would love to have an Apple IIe to use for typing 😂

I actually got ahold of an SE/30 recently and managed to rebuild it, painted it with a nice matte black paint and clear coat, and while it does work, it has issues. The floppy drive doesn’t read correctly, the SE/30 logic board itself doesn’t even work right as it has these strange corrupted screen images when it boots so I had to use an original SE board, and the display is slightly tilted, though it isn’t super serious. I did order a SCSI to SD unit and a floppy EMU, so it should have far more improved functions very soon, but I hope to one day have my SE/30 board looked at and tuned up so I can use it, as it’s the board I want to use.

Best intro ever... it dont even need words!

That the video I like! Great quality, entertaining, and useful as well. +Like

What a relief to see that little guy finally boot

I'm glad you save it!

My memories of personal computing in the decade of the 80s tended to revolve a lot around being frustrated with storage device speeds - whether floppy or harddisk Putting a modern solid state storage device in place of those old 80s spinning relics is just the tonic to kind of give those computers a new lease on life - makes them significantly better than they were back in the day. That's actually kind of a fun part of the retro computing hobby - hopping up those old 80s retros with some select modernizations here and there (but I suppose that kind of offends the sensibilities of those that are totally into the authentic restoration side of things)

I really enjoyed the video and the process of troubleshooting Also I always liked this design it’s very iconic

Fascinating watch! I still have my 1989 SE/30 sitting in the basement, and amazingly it still boots with System 6 - just as last time I actively used it (mid-90s). And it is still fast (booting up that is - faster than my iMac or MacBook Air). It was well loved as I bought it specifically to write my thesis on. And looking back at it, I still wonder how I managed to spend all that money without being declared totally insane at the same time. Now based on the video, I wonder if I should not inspect and replace that battery soon... Watching this clip hopefully also triggered a long dormant project: getting the data off the hard drive. Mine was an early model that did not have the SuperDrive (hence only 720kB) and not able to read or write to FAT for lame DOS compatibility. I have a number of Aldus PageMaker files that are too large to migrate via floppy.

My favorite Macintosh of all time.

Nice one Colin ☺️ glad you could make this machine to work again! I have very find memories of my first Mac, a LC-II that I'd like to have again, and I know it's a newer machine than yours ☺️ btw.. what happened to the tdnc podcast episodes? Ciao!

I love the word "troubleshooting". It reminds me of duckshooting in an arcade 😁. But seriously, thanks for a great video! Your commitment and love of these old machines is amazing!

Thank you for the good video - it explains a lot and the simple solution is always the best one! I have worked on many SE/30s (and compact Macs for that matter), and I cringed at a few things whilst watching this video (btw I am not having a go at you): 1) 2:14 - You didn't show the part where you removed the power cable from the logic board, but you should always remove the little analog board on the back of the tube to prevent any damage. Trust me, I have broken at least 2 tubes (maybe 3) by pulling the power cable excessively, bumping the little analog board and breaking the nipple on the tube. It's not a good feeling where you hear a big suction for 2 seconds and you know you have broken the tube. 2) 6:08 - The 4x SIMMs on the left appear to be all matched - always recommended. The 4x SIMMs on the right are not only mismatched with brand but also speed (I can't read all the numbers.) To avoid crashes 80ns or slower (90ns or 100ns) should be used. The 70ns will work but will lead to crashes eventually. 3) 11:44 - Whoever opened this Mac had used a flat blade screwdriver, which leaves little marks in the casing. A MacCracker should be used, but I have opened up so many now that I could usually pull them apart by hand ie right hand on the front and left hand on the back and wiggle them apart. I got so used to this method my success was 99/100. I had to use a MacCracker on one of them cos it was too tight. Anyway, apologies for the long comment. I will hopefully have something up soon...

Great video as always.

I have an se/30 I got off of shopgoodwill, and it has this same issue. I've been planning to do this stuff for a while, so it's good to have a video explaining good places to check.

@minty_Joe

4 жыл бұрын

My advice if you plan to replace the capacitors on the logic board: Use the 2 pencil soldering iron technique. You can buy 2 small profile size irons and recap more successfully than TDNC or Adrian Black did. Watch how much heat you apply and be very gentle. Don't replace with the same looking caps; go for the new orange tantalum type that Adrian Black used, as they don't suffer from defective electrolyte material inside. I've done recapping a long time ago and got out of it, due to time and other things in my life.

Used to work on old of these. Love to get another one - so I could throw it off the roof. Had a Mac Plus too, then a LC11. The LC was real crap.