Hacking Custom Audio into the Cursed Macintosh SE/30!

[@nottrevorallen]

i like to think the og owner is out there watching this with a single tear in his eye rn

[@heyhocodyo97]

@Thomas Khari Lame

[@salamiwallnut]

Fun fact: the original owner found this series. Tuens out he got that computer in the 2000s for cheap and then semi-modernized it because he was broke I think.

[@nottrevorallen]

@@salamiwallnut is there a comment on this video somewhere? thats sick i kanda wanna see this lol

[@curvingfyre6810]

I have deep respect for the person who originally hacked together this mac. Jank computers give me life, and honestly, it sometimes saddens me that completely out of date hardware is more expensive than bog-standard current hardware these days.

[@awsomewe360]

I love a project like this, just because the Mac was already modded out the gate, so you don't have to get people who winge every time you "modify a collectors item". I like seeing all that could be crammed into that SE frame!

[@nynexman4464]

Love this series. That CD rom though, it needs to be blue again. It just looks so wrong in beige.

[@Mac84]

Great work Sean! It's great fun seeing this machine continue to live on and thrive.

[@ActionRetro]

Thanks man!

[@JeremyLevi]

You definitely need to hook up the CD audio so it can play out through the speaker as well. Maybe some sort of small mixing circuit needed? Hard mode: also kajigger it to output on the rear speaker jack.

[@koztech]

The "Cursed Mac" should become the mascot for your channel, but beware, it's probably plotting to eventually take over...

[@ActionRetro]

🤣

[@TribitFanOpex]

@@ActionRetro Play Diana Ross it's your move on it.

[@brianlindgren1445]

Yes the CD ROM definitely needs to be painted to match the color scheme. The original drive was blue and the tray was black - which looked pretty slick :) (you should be able to remove the tray face when painting) maybe try that look?

[@beepyshenanigans]

u the og owner??

[@brianlindgren1445]

@@beepyshenanigans 😉

[@beepyshenanigans]

@@brianlindgren1445 yes?

[@knghtbrd]

I still think it would be really cool if the person whose mac this originally was would comment on one of these videos.

[@zapakitul]

This thing is going to become the most sought-after Compact Mac in the world, I swear. We need to get you a Micron Grayscale graphics card for this baby o7

[@ActionRetro]

Aw man I would so love to find one of those

[@greggv8]

@@ActionRetro I think there was a project to make new internal greyscale adapters for the compatible Micron Exceed PDS video cards. There were far more of the cards made with the ability to put greyscale on the internal CRT than there were the adapters to connect the cards to the CRTs.

[@ActionRetro]

@@greggv8 Man, that would be amazing to have

[@msthalamus2172]

I'm glad you keep coming back to this Mac! Lots of possibilities in there. Too bad color CRTs have different dimensions. How cool would a color CRT in an SE/30 be?

[@harrisonkelly]

Wait I’ve just seen that you’ve got 13k subs, with the quality of your videos I thought you had lots more!

[@ActionRetro]

Thank you!

[@harrisonkelly]

Action Retro not a problem!

[@BBHexKey]

Okay so couple of things.. usually speakers intended for mounting on CRTs or inside of them have a shield around the magnet. Secondly, could've had an easier time mounting that speaker just using a couple of rivets. Does look nice though ^^

[@xPLAYnOfficial]

I think the next upgrade here is cable management. An upgraded PSU and neater cables will go a long way towards making this insane machine even better.

[@ActionRetro]

Oh yeah I've been trying to a find nice flexible scsi cable for the inside. I think after everything is permanently mounted I'm going to try to match the length as short as possible

[@eDoc2020]

@@ActionRetro People sometimes would split a ribbon cable into several pieces to make it more flexible. There's a chance of it messing with signal integrity but if you have spare cables it's worth a try!

[@APOTwixx]

I've been waiting for you to return to this "Cursed Mac"! YEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Very Cool Sean Can't Waite to see the new Paint job On it

[@RikerJoe]

Enjoying your cursed SE/30 series! If you are not going to use the PDS slot, you can make use of the back opening to mount your SCSI2SD so that you can switch out your SD card. Colin at This Does Not Compute did that with his, and designed a 3D printing bracket for mounting the SCSI2SD. I did the same to my SE/30 and it works like a charm!

[@bamdadkhan]

the game doesn't work properly because you're on os 8.1.. a machine like this would run a lot better with 7.6.1 or even 7.1..

[@ActionRetro]

Yeah that's what I was thinking too afterwards.

[@orektez]

@@ActionRetro i bet that mpeg player would work better as well

[@1Soniccool]

Yeah that’s true because Mac OS 8.1 needs more CPU power to run and System 7 doesn’t need power from the CPU to run.

[@lozahe]

It’s a good thing you didn’t mount the speaker up front. The magnet could have potentially wiped out any Jazz Drive you inserted. 😬 but I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you. 😉😂 Love how it’s coming out. 👍🏼👍🏼

[@half-fast-tech]

I love finding a machine like this that is so far gone. It means you can have your way with it with no regrets. Keep on keepin' on.

[@robluce2111]

Should've bought some shielded speakers instead, for less magnetic interference with the CRT

[@PuffyRainbowCloud]

And it desperately needs a stereo setup

[@StevenIngram]

As someone who watches Adrian's Digital Basement, he recently made a discovery that some old Macs used their RF shield to ground their analog board, if the RF shield has been removed... no audio due to a grounding issue.

[@ActionRetro]

Oh interesting!

[@StevenIngram]

Here's the video where he made the discovery and worked out a fix. I hope it helps with you scenario. :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIvIY6mEnNOrkNk

[@proxythe1337]

I think the original modder threw all the speakers in for MOAR loud. Would be cool to have a few speakers in this thing so it's just shockingly loud to anyone not expecting it.

[@Fiddlesticks86]

The Cursed Mac and the souped-up G4 cube are by far my favorites on your channel!

[@ActionRetro]

Thanks!!

[@dotmatrixmoe]

Cursed Mac: I am, your computer. Speakers: NOOOOOO

[@Den_Switch]

i was waiting for this.

[@adonvonpanzern]

You actually dont need to discharge the crt on the se/30 on most cases as it was one of the first machines with an automatic discarding circuit

[@kargaroc386]

Mpegdec also plays .mp2 and .mp1 audio, and those work *way* better on 68k machines than mp3 does. Just need to find an mp1 encoder.

[@sinisterpisces]

I love these videos. It's always a lovely night for a curse when they come across my feed. I wonder if, since the speakers are unshielded (I assume, since they can distort the CRT) they're picking up some sort of background interference that's causing the hiss? I'm not great with audio stuff, but usually when I run into background hiss it's either (1) a cable failing/not plugged in all the way; or (2) interference. Maybe there's a filter you can wire in that might help?

[@TheDustin151]

I was waiting for this video.

[@AngeloTelesforo]

I think you need to adjust vertical and horizontal settings on the analog board as well. It seems there’s a lot of unused real state all around your screen. Try midi and mod files!

[@greggv8]

The old Macs usually had big empty borders on the monitors because they wanted them to be 72 dots per inch, just like their LaserWriter printers. Why? So that what was on the screen would be *exactly* the size it would print, as though people would be holding their printouts onto the screen to check them. That was also why it took Apple a long time to have monitors that supported more than a single resolution. Being able to change resolution would mean only one would be 72DPI. They carried the metaphor of the digital pasteboard a bit too far. People using computers for publishing layout quickly got used to the disconnect between the sizes of the screen and the print - especially as publishing software became available for PCs and the multi-resolution monitors they had well before Apple decided that was something they should also have.

[@5thaltaccount547]

Did you know there was a company that made 255/256 grays? For the SE/30? I think even a color mod of sorts for these but they’re exceptionally rare, if you could somehow find one, that’d be really cool.

[@brianlindgren1445]

That would be sick!

[@ZeroWalker26]

This little thing is just awesome and uniqe in it´s own way. So now all you need to do is re-paint it to get it to look nice.

[@lorenzoporciani]

You should for sure give a try to audio exciters instead! They use the entire surface they're attached to as "the cone" of the speaker, there's a science guy called "tech ingredients" that did some videos about those :D

[@ActionRetro]

Ooooh nice I'll check this out

[@crmccluskey]

So this had been a really fun series. Thank you. A couple things -- have you done a VRAM check? That might explain some of the lagging in the game and MP3 decoder. Also for health and safety demos like discharging a CRT please demo it correctly. You are discharging the CRT to ground that is not connected to anything --- so it's not a ground. In fact with your ground point, the chassis could become live with 20kv and the best path to ground may be from the anode cap, to the chassis, though you, to ground. That would be the makings of a bad day. At a minimum leave the power cable plugged in, but with the power supply turned off. In the moderate case, you can add a clip lead to a cable that only had a single conductor to the outlet ground (this assumes the ground is tested to work prior). In the ideal case, add an isolated ground via a solid copper stake to the outside (how deep deep deep depends on geology), and run a grounding cable from that isolated ground to your tool avoiding the AC lines all together. Ideally removal of the anode cap would be done with an anode probe that can confirm that there is no longer a charge on the CRT. Also keep in mind that the CRT is like a battery, so it can be discharged one minute, and have a charge on the anode again a couple hours later. Either way, great series, but please stay safe.

[@CocoaEm]

That's the dag ground of the crt. That's def gonna discharge it.

[@ZeroGDucks]

You have inspired me to continue cursing my Power Mac 7500. I've already got a 3D printed pet button, spray painted case and scsi2sd. Now I must add this amplifier 😉

[@JrArevaloJose]

I saw your picture Mac shenanigans so I was convinced and had to check out your Chanel lol

[@fryke]

"sounds like a CD player from 2002..." - erh... So it sounds perfect, then? CD-players were kinda perfect sounding from the first time I heard one in the mid 1980s. I guess this shows your age and my age. :)

[@Chris_403]

Was not expecting Ricardo Montalban to show up. Bravo

[@stevencarlson5422]

you should also cut a hole or have small holes for the speaker so it would sound better and not be muffled by the case

[@kaitlyn__L]

Aww, he’s not a villain; he’s just a misunderstood antihero! Edit: oh hey, is that a redone intro? It seems to match the music better :D

[@ActionRetro]

Haha antihero! I haven't redone it yet, maybe you're just getting used to it :) I'm planning on remastering it once Resolve 17 comes out though!

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@ActionRetro perhaps! The shutting down at the end just seemed quicker to me!

[@willm5032]

I have a set of those creative speakers. They're really nice for the size and the price :)

[@wh0sjcks0n]

yay were bsck

[@lewisfilby2394]

Hello Mr. Retro - I'm wondering what those little folder-tabs are at the bottom of the desktop. Those look cool - can I get those on OS 9? Would be really handy to store a bunch of aliases for a bunch of applications, or a documents folder

[@gamepad3173]

maybe at the time when Firewire was faster than USB. but I'm digging this cursed Macintosh.

[@The_Studioworkshop]

Load wave files on it mate! Easy peasy!!!!

[@brianlindgren1445]

yes that should work way better and sound way better. Much less cpu power needed to decode the audio format.

[@Oxide445]

I think the single speaker is a start, but whomever used this had a whack ton of speakers in there. Get some magnetic shielding to cover the speaker drivers and pop a few more in there. It didn't seem to like mp3's too much, but maybe midi files would work?

[@brianlindgren1445]

Here’s an idea: replace with the Jaz drive with a dual SD card reader. One SD slot could be for your OS and the other for whatever. Jaz made sense in late 90s/early 2000s but not so much today...

[@computercloset6165]

Found a blue and white Apple Studio Display CRT on Facebook for $100 yesterday, but the seller told me their toddler kept getting to it and they donated it to Goodwill. Instantly my heart sank :( I live in Arizona, (Phoenix area) and around here the goodwills ship all CRTs off to be "recycled". The seller did go back to the goodwill and ask if they could have it back, and they said they would search the trucks and warehouse but so far no luck :(

[@IoIxD]

I think the slow MP3 playback might be why the previous owner skipped the logic board and wired the speakers straight to the CD drive. You should wire them up to both. Also I know this is an SE/30 but its a bit of a missed opprutunity not playing Macintosh Plus on it, I hope you do that eventually.

[@ActionRetro]

Haha such a good idea for that song

[@brianlindgren1445]

True... the benefit of playing music w the CDROM is that you can enjoy high quality audio without using CPU

[@SilverX95]

if you do replace the power supply make sure you add some overhead, its better to have a PSU that overrated then one that under rated

[@ActionRetro]

Oh yeah, it's going to be a 300 watt PSU

[@SilverX95]

@@ActionRetro nice

[@oofingberg]

you should paint the cd drive like the old one

[@ranger-station9565]

You need to paint the CD ram drive blue like the other one, and maybe the keys on the keyboard

[@2Old4Toys]

Should use a midi file for sound testing

[@strule]

I don't remember if you maxed out this computer, if not would be a great idea

[@mephustowest1876]

I love this series on the cursed Macintosh. I love this computer, but I have to disagree with you on the Star Trek movie comment. I believe that Star Trek the Motion Picture is the best.

[@ActionRetro]

That's my second favorite!

[@mephustowest1876]

​@@ActionRetro I always loved the V'Ger reveal. Wrath of Kahn is good too. :) I cant wait to see more on the cursed Mac

[@aftereffect-synthesiavisua6146]

I love this song x)

[@mediocrefunkybeat]

You need an old priest, a young priest, some holy water and a leather-bound copy of The Bible. Then this Mac might get sorted...

[@woodss82]

Mac’s were ahead of their time in those days.

[@vasya_cat]

Your intro on 1.75 speed is cool sounding

[@Rudofaux]

I'm surprised you didn't get shielded speakers for the Cursed Mac. You wouldn't have to worry so much of magnetic interference.

[@goeland4585]

The Mac84 link is missing in the description! kzbin.info/www/bejne/eoHJdIOVo7yhkLs

[@ActionRetro]

Ah crap thanks!

[@goeland4585]

@@ActionRetro Thanks for the entertaining project! :)

[@goeland4585]

Ah and it's " _was_ missing" now hehe

[@JapanPop]

I have those same Creative speakers :)

[@MrStevetmq]

I noted when you was trying to discharge the CRT you used the case as ground and thats OK BUT without it plugged in there is no connection to ground. So it would not be discharged.

[@staso28]

That poor cursed Mac :) But the sound is good :)

[@rager1969]

You probably could've soldered the nuts to the speaker to make screwing it in easier.

[@reitrace]

god platinum theme on a b&w mac is so cursed

[@3v068]

theres the audiophile in me that wants to tell you why those areas are terrible speaker placement options and then theres the computerphile in me that knows its the best option.

[@danholli123]

Aren't the face places of the disk drives the same?

[@mr.e.b.4697]

Dude, if I send you my cube, could you fix it? I have tried USB and DVD. I don’t know what specs it has but it likes to retain DVDs. I have burned so many CDs and DVDs trying to get it to work. I also tried boot via USB.

[@fragglet]

Normally I think drilling holes in an SE/30 might get you a few critical comments but this thing ... go right ahead

[@FennecTECH]

An extra mod

[@5thaltaccount547]

Imagine if this thing could somehow run Minecraft 😂 but I doubt CPU accelerated Minecraft would be possible realistically

[@Arcadecomponentscom]

Anyone else catch the image on the screen moving from the speaker magnets when he was first showing off the new speakers? :)

[@theprotester5171]

Just curious, but where did you get the speakers you used ? And what brand were they?

[@CrazyMan_Engineer]

You should match the color scheme of the Jaz drive for the rest of the machine.

[@sleora]

Do you plan on putting a color crt inside or leaving it black and white ?

[@ActionRetro]

There's something about the black and white that really adds to the experience for me. I'm considering finding a grayscale card though.

[@nilswegner2881]

@@ActionRetro I hate the fact that Apple made Machines with b/w Screens at a time when Things Like the Amiga were already Out and could Display thousands of colors...but to each their own, i would Love to see an se 30 with a color Screen but I guess a mystic modded color Classic would be the same Thing If Not better

[@ActionRetro]

@@nilswegner2881 Yeah I totally agree with you. I think for me, it's the thought of pushing the machine as far as possible while still keeping the spirit of it alive, warts and all. I would LOVE to see an SE/30 with a color CRT, but for me, I want to keep mine B&W

[@nilswegner2881]

@@ActionRetro I get it, it's just not what I would do if I even had one of those machines, right now my only 68K machines are two stock Amiga 500s with 68000s in them.

[@mikipank]

if the characters from Star wars are computers then this is dart vader!

[@JaymeEduardo]

Paint the cd front cover blue again...

[@ActionRetro]

I'm so happy that everyone wants it blue again lol. Blue it shall be!

[@tritylaminh2xo531]

hmmm I use the "Stereo" headfon jack whith aktiv speakers.

[@big_b_wolf1236]

Where can I get that desktop wallpaper lmao?

[@gabrielloresto8328]

Try downloading google so you can watch youtube

[@stevencarlson5422]

you have to paint that cd drive also just so out of place

[@malcolmstiefel1]

Would you consider selling that extra case, we would like to put together a watchman style Mac mini custom…

[@tradito]

5:44 dude, you're doing it wrong. you need the power cable to be connected to the computer so the charge can actually flow to the actual ground...

[@systemchris]

Still trying to work out how the owner done music production on such a small screen

[@IoIxD]

Lots of scrolling most likely.

[@nathanmead140]

I have been making music on my smartphone which has a smaller screen than this mac so it should be easy to do on there. if anyone is wondering what app I'm using it's called midsequer 2.

[@IoIxD]

@@nathanmead140 It does not have a smaller screen. Your smartphone may be smaller physically, but it has a higher resolution, which means that more can be fit onto the screen. While your phone is probably at least 1080 pixels wide, this mac's screen is 512 pixels wide.

[@markvickroy6725]

@@IoIxD exactly. Its resolution not so much as size

[@AlexandrTVOfficialChannel]

Try adding a working webcam!

[@linkthehero1234]

“Sorry teacher, my computer isn’t good enough for Zoom”

[@gp3328]

I thought that post meant it would get hot and loud because you ran the ppc Minecraft server on it🤦

[@ActionRetro]

Hahaha well, I am thinking about what kind of server I *could* run on here lol

[@gp3328]

@@ActionRetro make it a NAS with a tiny motherboard and a ton of hard drives I would love to see that.

[@SirKenchalot]

Can barely hear the audio which is a problem in a video about audio.

[@SordidEuphemism]

AR, would you consider swapping the tube for an identically-sized flat panel, or is that too close to sacrilege for the Cursed Mac?

[@ActionRetro]

Honestly, something about the CRT really makes this for me!

[@RedmondMonk]

that's begging for an accelerator or ethernet upgrade

[@AngeloTelesforo]

6:20 I did that! 🙁 I killed my Classic...

[@ActionRetro]

Oh no!!

[@bandiras2]

Lemme bash a bit your new speakers more. The old speakers had full paper membrane. That old thing just last forever. Your new speakers have rubber on the sides. In a short few years, it will disintegrate, and turn to flakes, or goo. It sounds way better tho, but it will die.

[@ActionRetro]

This is a really good point that I hadn't considered - thank you!

[@Rolatnor]

I'd replace the crt with an lcd but I'm evil

[@rhysholdaway]

Should ditch the Jazz Drive for a Disc emulator or Card slot for the SCSI to SD adapter.

[@robsquared2]

I was with you til the trailer. That's not star trek 4.

[@radcheckinski6300]

Sand and paint the cursed mac silver!

[@ethanwindows4489]

that would look nice!

[@michaeltaylor184]

But can it run Minecraft

[@smileyface8124]

BIG SPERKER

[@xaviasys1419]

slideshow intensifies