Vintage Macintosh Mainly Neat Stuff: Obscure Apple computer hardware and software
Vintage Macintosh Dayna MacCharlie -- Very weird, very cool. The MacCharlie is an expansion box for the original compact Mac for running MS-DOS PC software. This section includes the MacCharlie manual and operating software. My experience configuring MacCharlie as a web server is included here.
400KB Floppy Drive Maintenance -- How to strip, clean and lubricate a 400KB floppy drive mechanism from a Mac 128/512 or Lisa.
400KB Drive Comparison -- A quick visual comparison of the 400KB floppy drive mechanisms used in the Apple Lisa 2 and the Apple Mac 128/512K.
Apple Floppy Drives -- A brief description of the various floppy drives produced by Apple for the II, IIII and early Macintoshes.
"Build Your Own Macintosh and Save a Bundle" (Review) -- A 1991 book that describes how to assemble Mac parts into a PC case.
"Fix Your Own Mac: Upgrading & Troubleshooting" (Review) -- A 1993 book that may be useful to people new to working on 68K Macs
The Ugly Mac 128 -- An example of the sort of Mac you could build by following the advice in "Build Your Own Macintosh and Save a Bundle".
20 Ways to Misuse an Orange386 NuBus PC Card -- An introduction to the Orange386 PC card for the Mac II family.
Bumper List of Apple Part Numbers -- A list of 700 or so Apple part numbers for Mac systems, monitors, printers, PSUs, video cards and repair parts. The list covers nearly all 68K Macs and some early PPC Macs.
"The Power User's Manual" (Review) -- A 1986 book containing hints and tips for the pre-System 6 Mac user.
Notes on the Hard Disk 20 (HD20) -- Information about Apple's first hard disk for the Macintosh family.
Dove MacSnap Expansion -- Photos of the popular Dove RAM and SCSI expansion options for the Mac 128/512K.
Vintage Radius Documents -- Technical information about Radius (including SuperMac and E-Machines) products for the Mac. This information was extracted from the Wayback Archive's 1997/98 snapshots of the Radius web site.
Original Mac 128 M0001 Packaging -- Photos of box and accessory kit for an original Mac 128.
Douglas Adams's Mac IIfx -- How I came to acquire one of Douglas Adams's old Macs.
Hacking the Pippin -- A few tips on hacking Apple's Pippin games console/internet appliance (Bandai Atmark and Atworld).
Orange Micro Documents -- Technical information about Orange Micro products for the Mac, including OrangePC DOS/Windows cards. This information was extracted from the Wayback Archive's 2003/04 snapshots of the Orange Micro web site.
Unboxing a Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) -- Photos of box and accessory kits for a brand new Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh.
Unboxing a Mac Classic -- An interesting comparison with the TAM.
Old Macintosh Networking Primer describes the components that make up an ethernet network and some TCP/IP basics.
Old Macintosh System Software and TCP/IP describes what software you need to install to use TCP/IP on a Mac. The guide covers System 6 through to Mac OS 9.x. It includes specific information on configuring MacTCP.
Sharing Your Internet Connection with an Older Mac describes how you might access the internet using your existing dial-up or broadband connection.
Internet Access with System 6 -- The simplest and most comprehensive guide to getting a System 6 Mac onto the internet using a dial up connection, MacTCP and MacPPP.
Using a Shared OS X Printer -- How to configure Mac OS X to share a modern USB printer for use by older Macs running System 6 onwards.
TCP/IP on the Mac 512K -- How to run a TCP/IP stack and Telnet client on a standard Mac 512K.
LocalTalk networking is built into all vintage Macs and the Apple IIgs so it is a cheap solution for sharing files and printing. With the right (second hand) hardware you can also add your Apple IIe or a PC. These pages outline what software and hardware is available for sharing files with your old Apple computers.
This page last updated: 14 October 2008
Copyright information: If you wish to use any images on these pages, please contact the author, Phil Beesley on beesley@mandrake.demon.co.uk.