ABUG Scotland #6 - Thu 25th April 2024

[AndyMc1280]

Spanish almond cake available this evening (courtesy of my wife)

And it was jolly nice. Thanks again for organising an enjoyable evening.

Yes thanks to all. Cake was yummlets as usual. Thanks Mrs Tosk
Thanks also for help getting me + interloping beastly specced Mac SE30 opened and looked at. Also thanks for assembly and reassembly without dying (Various- Spanners Rodrigo and everyone else for moral/ practical support) as well as of course the tolerance of the group for allowing such an interloper.

[thecellartroll]

Another very pleasant evening. Thanks for organising @Tosk!

@AndyMc1280s (brother’s) Mac was an interesting thing to see inside. And absolutely no electrocutions which is a bonus.

Thanks also to @KenLowe for explaining all of the goodies that he brought along. I will hopefully bring the Beeb that they go in to the next meeting. He did mention that it would be nice to have a big Econet at one of these meetings so possibly a plan for a future event? Is there a game that could be played over an econet?

And the cake was perfect

[Tosk]

Thanks also to @KenLowe for explaining all of the goodies that he brought along. I will hopefully bring the Beeb that they go in to the next meeting. He did mention that it would be nice to have a big Econet at one of these meetings so possibly a plan for a future event? Is there a game that could be played over an econet?

Yep -we could make that the next meeting theme "econet" or networking for any retro machines.

[Tosk]

Level 9 adventure game demonstrated by Ken using a split mode screen



Checking the innards of an Apple Mac SE 30 - originally from Andy's brother who worked for NASA and the Voyager space probe missions at the time.



Circuit board of the Mac SE 30



Signatures of the team who designed the Mac.



The Mac was got to a point of initialising asking for a boot disc : so a good start.



A working Sinclair ZX80 brought in by Chris. Was the keyboard really that bad? Yes it was. Did the screen flicker on every single key press? Yes it did. Note the rock bottom price scribbled on the case "£3"



Spring cleaning an Acorn Electron keyboard by Derek



Derek mentioned that some enthusiasts use a dishwasher to clean the keys - he sticks to using manual labour.



"Honey I shrunk the Beeb". Cardboard miniatures assembled by Dave.

[AndyMc1280]

Checking the innards of an Apple Mac SE 30 - originally from Andy's brother who worked for NASA and the Voyager space probe missions at the time.



Circuit board of the Mac SE 30



Signatures of the team who designed the Mac.

Yes. Interestingly in cannibalising "some SE's from work for parts" after getting flooded by his upstairs neighbour, replacement of the rear case has created something unique, the process of putting the signatures in cases STOPPED with the SE, not every SE had them and the process was discontinued completely with the SE/30.

The Mac was got to a point of initialising asking for a boot disc : so a good start.



Yes it was much relief to get the 1989 dated battery off the board as it was just bulging.

Hard drive removal for archival was also a bonus. Unfortunately I had put the wrong image for the SE30 on the Sd card and forgot to check it had drivers for the DiiMio cpu expansion but can retrieve these when I image the drive.

Other things to note, the joys of working in a University in the mid 1990's Much "Higher spec" Motorola Macs were decommissioned. The "ROM" chip, which allowed "clean" use of the full 128mb RAM were scavenged from a later Mac II fx.

The "weird looking" networking card with 3 ports on italso came from a later Mac, most macs these went in didn't have FPU's like the SE30 so that was why there was the empty slot in the network card for one. them (IIsi, LC's and so on)

Basically it is a Mac II in a compact case, without the extra PDS slots and colour support.

I have found a place that does a recap service so will get in touch with them and see.

So, yes we got a fair way through my "To-Do list". Hopefully by the time of the "big meet" I might have something working reliably to show off.

Many thanks again

Andrew