How Many Upgrades are in this SE/30?

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Just how many upgrades CAN we shove into the Cursed Mac SE/30? Well, today we're cramming in one more - a video card for color graphics. It's the ultimate compact Mac dual headed battlestation!
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#Macintosh #PowerPC #G4

[@ActionRetro]

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[@thedivinityman]

For your car heater it is most likely the thermostat being stuck, if the fan works and there is no heat, there is an old solution that will work but is not the best, that is to poke a hole in the thermostat about the size of a ballpoint pen tip.

[@JamesTK]

@@thedivinityman thermostat being stuck is also bad for the engine ... if stuck open it would never get to operating temp, stuck closed can cause overheating... neither are great!

[@monkeyman767]

The fact that the original owner has seen the vids and commented is awesome, I love this mac, what a life it's had!

[@The_Studioworkshop]

He was probably a bit upset knowing that he sold his mac for a lot less than it’s market value + whatever it had upgraded originally… maaaybe cringed a bit when the original case was destroyed, but considering the amazing work done afterwards, he must be happy!

[@danholli123]

@Ed's Studio Workshop I agree with the sale part, but I think he's proud that it found a good home

[@The_Studioworkshop]

@@danholli123 you’re absolutely right! Turned out nice in the end, and famous!

[@The_Studioworkshop]

The flicker is caused by interference. You need to make an RF suppression shield over the card.

[@OhhCrapGuy]

I was actually thinking "gee, that card is REALLY close to the electron gun in that CRT, I hope it doesn't cause any interference"

[@AiOinc1]

@@OhhCrapGuy It's nowhere near the electron gun. That's the HV anode cap.

[@OhhCrapGuy]

@@AiOinc1 I didn't mean like proximity, I meant more like "in the path of", should have been more clear. I have no idea if enough interference gets out of the tube, though.

[@TrolleyMC]

Damn, the one few cases where that's an actual issue.

[@jomeyqmalone]

I really like the very Fischer Price primary color scheme of the soldering station. Has a fun "my first soldering iron" vibe that works with nature of the projects on this channel

[@BravoCharleses]

A Hakko 888 by the looks of it. She's a killin' machine.

[@bad_collector]

I've got a Radius Pivot with software that you can have if you want it! I don't have the card. I picked it up for $20 at the MIT flea and would love to see it go to a good home.

[@ActionRetro]

oh wow!! mind sending me an email? [e-mail]

[@macksie1984]

I look forward to watching your videos on Saturday mornings and it's becoming a tradition. It's like being a kid again watching Saturday morning TV!

[@macksie1984]

Action Retro guy just liked my comment, neat!

[@nevyn]

The cursed Mac was one of the first videos I saw from your channel, and it so cool to see how far you’ve come! Your silly and amazing hacks have been my comfort food, keeping me sane through some rough years (with side helpings of SOTN speed runs and NES reverse engineering). I now deeply desire an SE/30 with a transparent case on my desk.

[@strawbemily3182]

turning the old case into a dedicated external monitor for it would be really really cool

[@ActionRetro]

oh that's genius!

[@strawbemily3182]

@@ActionRetro be a good way to preserve the heritage of the cursed mac and get a cool matching display for the ultimate dual screen se/30!

[@bryans8656]

I always enjoy watching you try to upgrade old Macs, even when it doesn't work.

[@benjaminbaumgart3935]

Perhaps even more when it doesn't work

[@rydot]

Gah! You cliffhanger these video endings like nineties Star Trek! 😁

[@ActionRetro]

::majel barret voice:: and now, the conclusion

[@kaitlyn__L]

Oh man how could they possibly escape the Dominion internment camp

[@kFY514]

13:36 WHOA. The color depth weirdness aside, in contrast to Windows and most Linux desktops, on modern macOS you can't even have a window span across more than one monitor at all! The dimmed outline shows up when you drag the window around, but then remains only the part that's on the screen where the cursor is when you release the mouse button.

[@axi0matic]

It can if you turn off "Displays have separate Spaces" in System Preferences > Mission Control. Doing so does mean making an app go full-screen will blank the other displays though.

[@kFY514]

@@axi0matic Whoa, it really does! Nice to know, although... the default behavior makes much more sense in real life. I just found it weird that it blocks the windows from appearing on different screens. I guess it's the case of typical Apple overthinking - it makes some sense, since with separate spaces per screen, the concept of a window spanning more than one gets rather weird. But on the other hand, it "just works" on Linux desktops that way, and the window just follows its "primary" display, so why remove the option...

[@axi0matic]

@@kFY514 It's a bit inconvenient in my opinion, as Spaces is a feature that's more useful on e.g. laptops than for people who are running multiple screens. I never use Spaces, and would rather have the ability for windows to span screens, whilst still allowing e.g. videos to go full screen without blanking the others.

[@kFY514]

@@axi0matic I guess it all depends on individual workflow/preferences. I like having individual Spaces per display, and windows spanning across screens are only useful for me if I _really_ need one big window that doesn't fit on a single screen. Which I sometimes do, but not really that often. Otherwise they are inconvenient to use and usually avoided anyway, the physical bezel in the middle of a window is rather distracting.

[@axi0matic]

@@kFY514 Using windows that span screens is a bit cumbersome for the reason you mention, but it would be nice to have the option of allowing them to, rather than just truncating them at the edge of the screen. Not so much for using the window itself, but just to help you keep track of windows in general, and to preserve the illusion that a multi-monitor space is one big desktop.

[@daspec]

That CRT has to do. This MAC demands an LCD to make more interior space available for more upgrades, reduce weight and increase its longevity, let alone have better image quality.

[@jbw121086]

make sure your coolant in your car is fulll and if it is have your blend door actuator checked out. also change the temp to all the way cold, then to all the way hot to see if that makes any difference

[@TrashfordKent]

I worked at an Apple Centre in the midlands UK. I remember radius or a distributor demoing the Radius Pivot monitor along with a Radius Rocket accelerator

[@Francois_L_7933]

I had the same heater problem in my van. The heater core in your car is probably plugged-up. You should get it to a radiator repair shop and have them flush the cooling system with some caustic agent and have them replace the thermostat at the same time. Just changing the thermostat might be enough but if you have absolutely no heat, it's probably got a bunch of stuff stuck in it.

[@ActionRetro]

yeah that's my thought after checking the blend door and actuator motor. i was going to just take a garden hose to the heater core 😅

[@Terminal423]

@@ActionRetro I had to do that to my SUV a few years back, works like a charm!

[@SimonQuigley]

@@ActionRetro I've done that before and it worked great. The crap that flushed out..

[@td4dotnet]

I love everything about that SE, thanks for the video! 🙂

[@Fred_Raimer]

Oh - I forgot - this has to be the absolute best use case for a Mac Effects case. Stunning! Museum quality!!!

[@pamparitas]

i love this little mac is a perfect concept vintage machine

[@macobyte]

Another great video Sean! I enjoy the production values and your on-screen charisma of your recent videos, but I still enjoy the endearing waving arm approach from the early “cursed Mac” videos. You’ve given that little Mac a wonderful new life.

[@SegaBoy8]

Great video! I love seeing all these mods and crazy upgrades.

[@alanharkleroad4376]

I think that thing is the reason I subscribed to you channel. Nothing like outrageous mods in old Macs

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Awesome fun! Thanks for sharing.

[@draggonhedd]

YAY. The cursed SE/30 is what lead me to your channel originally! I remember when you first got it. Always love seeing it. Time to find an amber CRT that will fit in it... I think some terminal displays or kaypro CRTs might work

[@renatoscutube]

You know something interesting - I have used a Mac only once in my life (and briefly), and yet, here I am watching all your videos about Mac mods...

[@Fred_Raimer]

Sean - Impressive Entertaining Educational You are incredibly talented and adventurous. Thanks for this and all your "shenanigans" Always bring a smile to my face!!!!

[@Sevenfeet0]

Ah memories. In college when I was a senior, the school paper sought me out to help them move to Mac desktop publishing from the older Apple ][ based system. I had an Apple ][ in my dorm room and a Mac Plus since I was working for Apple as a campus rep. We bought a Mac SE with the Radius card and monitor....serious money for us but it worked well. The biggest problems were that Pagemaker wasn't good enough to do all the things we wanted to do and Quark Xpress was barely a production application and literally broke every time Apple would update the printer driver. Eventually I bought the first Mac II on campus with a color Trinitron screen and did most of the layout work in my room alongside a girl I liked who would eventually marry me. After college I worked at Apple for a couple of years. The SE/30 was easily one of our favorite machines since it was compact but stupid powerful. We ran the office on an SE/30 server hidden in a phone closet.....AppleShare, print serving, early texting. Everything. I still have an SE/30 and my Mac II, upgraded to a IIfx. Neither has seen power in many years....almost afraid to try.

[@callesandlund1204]

This is just wonderful!! 😁

[@ThatTonybo]

Even your car looks like it's had shenanigans happen to it. You're consistent!

[@Azteca_X]

Can’t wait for the next video!

[@dragonrider6875]

I love the content, keep up the great work. I can't wait to see you nexted cursed machine!!

[@andersn1989]

Ha, weird seing an SE/30 running Wolf 3D :-D Would love a video about your cursed SE/30 booting in System 7.1.1 and comparing the speed of it running Wolf3D vs. newer systems. As a kid I used to play Wolf 3D a lot on an LCII with 10 MB RAM and it was very playable in 320x240 (with not many extensions enabled) - the 68030 16 mhz on 16-bit bus like your Color Classic. Also how much RAM of your 128 MB RAM did you allocate to Wolf3D in Get Info? I personally remember quite a boost going from 4 MB only (with virtual memory turned on) to 10 MB without VM on. And the amount of and types of extensions loaded also mattered a lot for the performance. Did a lot of extensions optimization to get the best gaming performance from that machine.

[@notanimposter]

Now that you have the Pivot card in an un-cursed SE/30, you need the real Pivot monitor.

[@kirishima638]

You should have used Marathon for your performance comparison.

[@stpworld]

System 7.5.3 can also do native eithernet and connect online depending on the machine your using. I have it online.

[@AiOinc1]

Fun fact there is actually an upgrade for some compact Macs that lets you have an internal color display. I hope one day you find one to make this as cursed as possible.

[@adventuregamer6499]

i watched those videos when they first came out, i binge watched all of your content lol

[@thomasquemar969]

In order to play Wolfenstein fullscreen at 320*240 look for a little system extension called Wolfenzoom.

[@markaz2kk]

0:21 Atoto stereo! They are definitely great!

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

great video, that's pretty cool shit man!

[@JapanPop]

Rarely and I envious of others, but 2 working se/30s with external graphics AND the one exorcized and amazing unicorn se/…40 is too much. Awesome content man.

[@billermanthegreat]

@actionretro I got the same radio in one of my cars you have in the intro to your video. Pretty neat unit i'll say!

[@bretsteinmetz3342]

This is the kind of mod I wish was still possible with today’s Apple. Great video! I’d totally love to see a transparent 27” iMac!

[@CodeProfessor]

You could say it's "Upgrading the Mac SE to its full color potential!"

[@creepyhobo5211]

Thanks for voting! Keep it up! 👍🏼

[@nysaea]

the insanity never ends and I'm here for it xD

[@bradnelson3595]

Sean, one of my first upgrades after purchasing my SE/30 in November of 1991 was to purchase a RasterOps ColorBoard 264 SE/30 for (yikes) $635.00. As the same time I purchased an Apple 13: RGB Monitor (yikes again...$750.00) to attach to it. It worked well that way for a number of years. It made a huge difference in the usability of this computer (PageMaker, Illustrator, all the usual suspects of the early "desktop publishing" days). But my SE/30 wasn't quite the Frank-en-Mac that you have going there. But when I later purchased the Jasmine BacPac 180 (megabytes, not gigabytes...and don't even ask about the price), it did sort of turn into an Igor-a-Tosh with that hump on its back. (The Jasmine BacPacs attached to the back of the Mac and thus the whole unit was luggable, if not actually portable...and port it I often did.) Nice job on adding the second monitor. Boy, that brings back memories.

[@ActionRetro]

Oh wow, what a MONSTER back in the day!

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

WoW very cool Sean Did Not Know you could run that dual monitor setup on the SE

[@jwoody8815]

Wolfenstien "poorly optimised for a mac" is an under statement, my old AMD 386 DX40 'Garage sale parts special" on Windows 95 with 8MB of RAM ran it smoothly at 640x480 (as did doom) circa 1997.

[@elbiggus]

That cursed Mac was the first video of yours I watched!

[@ceruleanserpent387]

Yes, upgrade it more MORE

[@MarcosCodas]

“No matter the personal and financial toll”. My VW bus restoration project in a sentence.

[@rexhollingsworth9715]

Color LCD screen upgrade time!

[@msthalamus2172]

One more upgrade idea: replace the 9" monitor itself with a color screen! Bonus points for fitting a color *tube* instead of some kind of LCD (Good luck with the neck!) :D

[@spokehedz]

I'm glad you grew into your body, from your simple floating-arm beginnings. That is some real character growth. :D

[@JakeR0bH]

The cursed king has returned!

[@alistairmcelwee7467]

Really interesting. We Mac Plus owners salivated over SE/30 in late 1991. And, ... upgradable! (Also, maybe try wearing handcuffs for your next video. Will help your gestures.)

[@mattreedah]

You are doing the lord’s work

[@destroyer6470]

Gotta love the xj, 4.0 gets toasty but the blend door says not today lol

[@superpacman256]

Would totally love to see a color screen modded in there using the video card.

[@Sir_Uncle_Ned]

If the heater in your car is not working, that means engine coolant isn't reaching the heater core, so you will need to have a mechanic look at that system to see what is causing this to happen. Yes, cars use their engine coolant for the cabin heater. You've got heat from the engine travelling through the coolant pipes anyway, may as well tap a bit off into a small radiator to heat the cabin.

[@knightsun2920]

My dads workplace had one of those cards in a Mac Se in the day

[@KatriceMetaluna]

Maybe some day you could replace the 040 with an 060?

[@MikeFromDownUnder]

Love this❗❤

[@samw8221]

You know what would make a great pairing with the clear case? A green phosphor display like what Adrian’s Digital Basement did with one of his Mac Classics!

[@dnacenturion]

The last upgrade is going to be the gray scale card if not it's not the ultimate mac

[@channelite]

I liked your old videos with just the hand.

[@blunderingfool]

I am 100% BLUNDER ENABLED! Also, you may say the Radius Pivot is the holy grail of CRT monitors, but I say the Sony GDM-FW900 is the Holy F-ing Grail!!! in response. =P

[@ActionRetro]

username checks out!

[@Gunstarrhero1]

try overclocking the pivot card, a faster clock might wield faster draw times on screen, so your 040 high res might draw a bit better.

[@richardbanks2669]

I remember back in the day there was a mod you could do to drive the internal crt at 640x480 and/or greyscale - is something like that still possible? I assume it needs a dual output graphics card, and then takes one of those outputs and feeds it back into the internal crt

[@lithiumsulfate7361]

It also required a neck board swap, but it makes the internal screen look beautiful

[@olepigeon]

One more "final upgrade" could be installing an LCD screen using an RGB2HDMI tophat for a Raspberry Pi W as done over at Adrian's Digital Basement. It can convert the TTL signal directly from the motherboard and drive an LCD screen.

[@rigues]

Wow, a maxed-out SE/30 with a COLOR display would be very nice!

[@jaybeedub]

@@rigues That truly does seem like the dream. If the goal is to maximally upgrade the machine, the internal screen has to be upgraded.

[@olepigeon]

@@rigues I know it supports Color QuickDraw, but I don't think it'd give it color. Would still require a color video card. But it would give him an insane amount of space for even more upgrades without the CRT neck being in the way.

[@JeffTiberend]

Awesome video. I wonder if he found the video card that lets you run grayscale on the internal SE/30 display.

[@GeeFunk84]

0:29 Yay!

[@neeneko]

Huh. Did not realize you were in PA. Neat.

[@arthurreid6108]

So when do we get a video of you tearing apart the dash of that XJ to do the blend door and/or heater core?

[@BillBates1]

This is just absolutely wonderful!!

[@christopherdecorte1599]

Be cool to see some mods with the 2005 g4 emac.

[@john_ace]

I most likely know the person who owned the Xceed grayscale card you will use in the next video 🙂

[@treowayne]

The first thing to do when the heat isn't blowing hot is to check the coolant level. Do not open the cooling system when hot. Check the coolant level. Add coolant if low. If the coolant is low, figure out where it is going. I think you're driving an XJ Cherokee. Some model years are prone to head gasket failure. Other likely suspects for coolant loss are the coolant hoses, water pump, and radiator.

[@ActionRetro]

yeah coolant level is good, then i checked blend door and actuator which seem fine. i think the heater core might be clogged. it is an XJ

[@rcars2]

@@ActionRetro You have my sympathies. As a fellow XJ owner from that generation and having done that job, it is neither fast nor fun to replace the heater core. If ya haven't done so already (and of course if ya don't smell coolant inside like it's leaking) you might get away with attempting to clean the inside out with CLR and rinsing through with a garden hose.

[@wallyhackenslacker]

I'm honestly surprised classic MacOS can handle the dual monitor setup with different video modes that well! I would have imagined that setting the external monitor to anything other than 1-bit B&W would crash the OS.

[@jaybeedub]

Well the OS was capable of running colour on different newer models of Mac, so the OS code is there to work on more capable machines.

[@KenKeenan1973]

When Apple added multi-monitor support to macOS Classic back in the day, they _did_ pay a lot of attention to getting it right, probably because that configuration of built-in B&W monitor with external colour monitor was very common with graphic designers at the time. I remember reading about it in BYTE or one of the other computer magazines at the time where they particularly called out how you could have a window straddle 2 displays with different colour depths and it would Just Work

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

DOOD! I bought that exact Sony monitor new at Fry’s in 1998.

[@fsfs555]

Nice. I have some Interware Vimage cards for these. Sadly they won't drive the internal monitor, so I'd like to find an Xceed for one of my SE/30s. Some people were doing a reproduction attempt but last I checked it appeared to have some feature creep and was getting a little grandiose. It has been a while though so maybe I should check back.

[@joshpayne4015]

That Sony monitor is da bomb!

[@MistahMatzah]

An incredibly special, impossible to find upgrade card from Germany. I know what you've done, you mad lad.

[@PekMinister]

Its just mesmerizing how much fast an Amiga is with a 040 board than a Mac with the same cpu

[@bluppy1]

I will love to see the “cursedtosh” with an internal coloured crt hehehehe

[@greggv8]

My guess is you found a rare Micron Xceed video card with the adapter to put greyscale video on the internal CRT and connect an external color monitor. Am I correct in assuming that 040 upgrade is made to plug into the IIci cache slot, also used on the IIvx and IIvx? If that sideways connector is IIci style, then it ought to be able to take a DayStar PPC 601 upgrade.

[@MistahMatzah]

Makes me wish I'd waited a few months, I only managed to snag a bare PCB riser card from Bolle that was left over from his final production run, before the one with the ethernet was released.

[@EirikrTinkerTries]

I’m really curious to find out what the specs of that graphics card are going to be! (And don’t forget that RF Shield)

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

And he unleashed the curse again...

[@caprature]

Have you ever come across one of the grayscale cards for the internal monitor on the se 30?

[@jefffrasca4054]

So. Chrysler put a 40 amp fuse to protect a circuit with components only capable of handling 20 amps on your Jeep. Your blower motor has likely worn out and draws too much current which can ruin both the fan speed switch and the resistor pack that steps down the voltage into the fan. And those components get fried before the fuse even gets warm. I need to redo mine again too. I tried putting mosfets in to get the switch out of the main current path, but I need to rethink that. Some folks put automotive relays in to keep the switch out of the current path. Good luck!

[@ActionRetro]

Appreciate this! Turned out the heater core just need a good garden-hosing :) heat works again!

[@jefffrasca4054]

@@ActionRetro awesome! That's probably the easier fix.

[@The_Studioworkshop]

Dude! How about a colour CRT monitor in it? All you need is a 9 or 10 inch Colour CRT monitor!!!

[@retropuffer2986]

Nice NeXT keyboard! That might mean you have a NeXT sitting around. 🤔

[@Pentium4Proot]

I wonder if you could find a colour crt that will fit into the se-30 case, then you could have colour inside the mac.

[@charlesjmouse]

It's strange seeing Wolf 3D running on an '040 with issues yet is fine fully cranked on my 12Mhz IIgs... as you say 'optimisation'. (also no issues on a RiscPC with a 30Mhz ARM 600) I really need to dig out my SE/30 some time - back of a (heated) garage for years in bits after the SCSI HDD died.

[@kaliban4758]

Next switch the b and w crt for a color one

[@wdd6864]

Can you try running Speed Doubler from Connectix? Version 8.1.2 was very good at optimizing the MacOS up to 8.6. Would like to see the benchmarks for it

[@connarcomstock161]

Sometimes I like to lay on the floor and pretend I'm a carrot.

[@meominest3407]

What's up, Doc?

[@PNPRetro]

Sometimes I like to lay under a carrot and pretend I'm a floor

[@billyrob612]

As a fellow Pennsylvanian, I can confirm it's cold

[@cwaldrip]

Next I guess you could remove the b/w crt and replace with an lcd or color crt maybe, if the board supported it

[@ActionRetro]

I've kind of gone back and forth on this idea - i kind of like that we're pushing it as far as possible with the original screen and motherboard! still feels like the original machine, just ridiculously upgraded