Restoration & Hack. Zenith Macintosh 512k & Hard drive with a floppy controller, wait what?

The florescent green Original Mac here: • Will it work? Original...
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Tools I regularly use
DeoxIT D5 Contact Cleaner
Hanstar 861DW Rework Station
Pro'sKit SS-331 Desoldering Station
UNI-T UT61E Auto Ranging Multimeter
UNI-T UT890D Manual Ranging Multimeter
MESR-100 mk2 ESR meeter
PINECIL Soldering Iron
PinePowerPSU
TS-100 Soldering Iron
AMTECH NC-559-ASM Flux
Kester 951 Flux pen
MaAnt Grinding Pen
Multicore 60/40. 0.38mm and 0.5mm solder
TL866 II Plus Programmer
RIGOL DHO800 70MHz four-channel digital scope
Tektronix 2246A 100 MHz four-channel analog scope
PCBs from PCBWay.com :)
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patreon.com/Epictronics
Join me on Twitter: / epictronics1
Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

[@Epictronics1]

Support me on patreon.com/Epictronics Join me on Twitter: twitter.com/epictronics1

[@cloakedalien]

I know replacing CRTs is fairly simple as long as you're putting a compatible one in, but I still find it a bit magical to see green and amber screens in compact Macs. Videos like this inspires me to gain more confidence in repairs and replacements

[@TheSulross]

Am one of those that got snookered by Jobs' flimflam. My 128K proved to be only good for doodling in MacPaint. In those days in the user groups there was an instruction sheet circulating on how to convert the 128K Mac to a 512K fat Mac. So I ordered the denser memory chips, de-soldered the old memory chips, soldered in sockets, plugged in the new chips, added a bodge wire, an voila - I had a 512K fat mac. The fact Mac was actually usable. But it was the 1MB Mac Plus with a SCSI port that I regard as the first truly viable Mac.

[@Epictronics1]

I actually have one of those hacked boards in one of my original Macs. I was scratching my head when I found it years ago. Later I found out what that hack was. I'll make a restoration video for sure

[@TheSulross]

@@Epictronics1 With that 512K Mac and external harddrive, I installed Lightspeed C and Macsbugs assembly monitor, purchased that phone book size dev manual from Apple on how to program the Mac. And with all that I learned C and Mac Toolbox, did some projects that impressed, and went onto land a career as a software developer. In first job out of university got sent to Cupertino for week of training and then programmed MacPlus computers using their MPW dev env. So I kind of owe a lot to Jobs' flimflam in the end for launching my very rewarding career. Funny how that works, huh.

[@trentbowman2117]

I'll second this opinion - my brother bought one of the 128K Macs right after it first came out. The video board went up in smoke a few months later, and after repair the Mac sat in my father's basement office for the next two years, occasionally used for MacPaint doodling. It was not a particularly usable machine until my brother upgraded it to a Mac Pus with 4MB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive. Until then, the Apple ][+ got way more use as a gaming machine and my early attempts to learn how to program.

[@OldAussieAds]

I always wanted a Mac SE with a blue screen like I saw in magazines. I didn't know at the time (but figured it out eventually) that the blue light in the photos was an illusion. Or put more accurately, the white light in real life was an illusion. These amber and green screen Macs sort of get close to my original dream.

[@SireSquish]

That is EXACTLY the correct sound of a starting up HD20. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

[@BigBadBench]

Beautiful restoration. So glad the drive is still functional!

[@Epictronics1]

Thanks! Yeah, very lucky that the drive sounds and works great

[@willgilliam9053]

that HDD was used around a smoker. thats what it looks like when smoke gets sucked into cooling systems

[@jozsefizsak]

That was very satisfying. It was so nice to see you include Gordon Shumway that I had to take screenshots. Cute touch. 😊

[@Epictronics1]

The only ALF I know of : )

[@maxtornogood]

Tantalum Caps are called "Tantrum" Caps for a reason, they'll blow their tops at any time!

[@Epictronics1]

They sure do! I used to just turn things on without checking for tantalums and RIFAs. I think I have had my fair share of exploding caps now :)

[@bundesautobahn7]

In Germany, tantalums have a very bland name: Tantal-Kondensator. Doesn't make them less prone to exploding.🤣

[@vhm14u2c]

When I first seen tantalum’s at radio shack, I was like, was interesting seeing something not electrolytic and was a polarized cap. Ever since I seen exploding tantalums (I exploded some electrolytic as well) the interesting factor wore off.

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@vhm14u2c : The normal ones actually are electrolytics, but for the sake of the honor of electrolytics in general it's best to only mention that with caution...

[@TheSpatialTheory]

​​@@bundesautobahn7I love this. tantalum condensator. German tends to be very literal and that's what it does. My favorite is fliegerabwehrkanone so far

[@SimonEllwood]

I would guess the 35V cap was used by the manufacturer elsewhere and was agreed as an alternate as it may well be the same or similar price to a lower voltage one. I worked in electronics for all my career and stocking extra parts always comes at a cost.

[@Epictronics1]

That sounds like a very likely explanation. I can't really see how that cap would get 35 volts. Thanks

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@Epictronics1 : As a supporting point, I know from looking at the ads in some issue of BYTE magazine from the 80s that the price difference between 35v and some lower voltage caps was around 0 to 3 cents, so a very small difference.

[@Epictronics1]

@@absalomdraconis yeah, probably way cheaper than keeping stock of two parts

[@tony359]

indeed, I worked on a board recently where I had 35V capacitors on signal lines. But also on power lines. As Simon said, having double stock comes to a cost and the extra money for the extra voltage is negligible.

[@nickwallette6201]

Yeah, that was the 1uF cap, right? Just think about how many voltages your average 1u-10u electrolytic comes in. It's the same canister size, so some manufacturers / distributors don't bother stocking anything but 25/50/100V.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Haha, I like that you put that little smiley face on that new capacitor! 🙂

[@Epictronics1]

Happy caps :)

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"Here's the list if you're playing along." You know, I have a hunch that the list is there even if people aren't playing along.

[@elfenmagix8173]

Besides a faulty 400K Floppy Drive, the issue you have is a System Error; The older "ROM A" Macs used on the 128K (Skinny) Macs and 512K (Fat) Macs can only use MFS (Macintosh File Format) Disks with up to System 3.2/Finder 4.2. 512Ke (Fat Enhanced) Macs, Mac Plus and later Mac SE can use the old system and the newer HFS (Hierarchical Flie System) with System 4.0/Finder 4.2 to System 6.08. System 7 uses HFS+ Format. Even if the disk is formatted in MFS, putting in System 4.0/Finder4.2 will crash a Mac with ROM A. That is the reason why you are getting that error. You need System 3.2 or older for that Mac 128K. I think Macintosh Garden has the Older Systems for Mac. I remember seeing System 1.0 on there a few years back.

[@Epictronics1]

I did some more troubleshooting with the drive after I had finished the video. I think I know what the fault is, I'll make a repair video. I had System 1 on those disks. I was sure they were (edit): MFS but I'll check, I might be mistaken. Great info, thanks!

[@GGigabiteM]

System 7 uses HFS, not HFS+. HFS+ was introduced with Mac OS 8.1, and you need at least a 68040 CPU to use the file system. It *may* have been backported to 7.5.5 or 7.6.1 via a system extension, but it still required a 68040 CPU, and it couldn't be used as a bootable volume. There was no real benefit to using HFS+, other than to allow for partition sizes larger than 2 GB. But with how fault intolerant HFS and HFS+ were, large partitions were just begging for massive data corruption. That, and Mac OS was a cooperatively multitasked OS that was more a knotted mess of shoestring code, than an actual proper OS. Any bit of misbehaving code would, and frequently did crash the entire system. Mac users often kept debugging tools loaded to escape dreaded bomb screens and salvage what they could before having to reboot often.

[@g4z-kb7ct]

I had a couple of 105MB Rodime HDDs back in about 1989 on my Amiga 2000. They only lasted about 1 year then died and the same thing also happened to a friend so your Rodime HDDs are likely to stop working any day now ;-)

[@Epictronics1]

I have a few of those later SCSI Rodime drives too, but I think they are only 20MB. We'll find out if they work when it's time to restore a matching Mac

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Excellent video as always! Thanks for sharing

[@Epictronics1]

Thanks Rudy!

[@helldog3105]

Now I want to modify my 128K mac to have an amber screen. That looks so good!

[@Epictronics1]

Very happy with how it turned out :) But I think the hacked fluorescent green original Mac is equally nice.

[@thomasandrews9355]

I restore analog boards for customers and yep, those solder joints are one of the first things I fixed.

[@theprofessor8517]

He didn’t lie - it was the first Mac they saw and it came out of the bag. They sold it eventually. It’s not a fake, just had more ram. Most everything else was the same.

[@Epictronics1]

It's interesting how Jobs chose his words carefully. "what's in that bag" It was deceitful though. The original Macintosh couldn't do what it did at that stage

[@phill6859]

​@@Epictronics1it could do everything, but it would have to pause to load from floppy. The original "Sequences shortened"

[@johnathanstevens8436]

Thankfully one of the engineers thought to put some resistors into the Plus to make it capable of 4MB in the field.

[@tigheklory]

Fun video as always! I hope some day you get a Coleco Adam computer!

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

I would recommend two other things to try before going to the magic eraser (which is abrasive): - Window cleaner (don't underestimate it's cleaning action, compared to plain old IPA and denatured alcohol) or something that contains soap or cleaning agents. - Acetone (often works well on stubborn markings)

[@mmmlinux]

Acetone melts most plastics though. You’ll just end up with a smudgy melty mess.

[@KC9UDX]

Kroil.

[@Inject0r]

16:17 that looks like goop to make the cover stick to it. :)

[@Epictronics1]

That stuff is so weird!

[@AnthonyRBlacker]

I am guessing that very large cap in the power supply has that thick glue or probably an insulator, just in case it presses against the top of the case of the power supply. I don't know that it would actually short the cap, but it could cause interference.. maybe?

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Interesting that you just happened to have a spare tube of the right size sitting around, without even the protective film taken off it yet! Hmm, but I would've waited until I had everything mostly together before removing that sheet, just to protect it from hand-/fingerprints and myself from having to wash it prematurely.

[@Epictronics1]

I picked up that tube at Computer Reset for another project, but another KZbinr beat me to it :) They had a pallet full of these tubes. I wish I had grabbed a few more, you never know when you need a spare tube

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

What a collection!

[@aftertheendtimes]

Nice channel you got ;) Interesting topic around these Mac's =) Btw are you from sweden, ?...your accent sounds swedish, =) Love Cheers

[@mrtesticlease4638]

floppy is named "Systen 1"

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Interesting, I wouldn't have expected the disk's image to stay on the desktop after ejection anyway. We (my parents) had a Mac Plus at our store and an SE at home and I don't remember seeing the disk icon stay on the screen after ejection even with more memory anyway.

[@mistermac56]

The drive icon will stay if you use eject disk in the menu. It will disappear if you drag the floppy icon to the trash, which will eject the disk.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Oh, I had forgotten about that, @@mistermac56!

[@RonLaws]

I'd argue that the on stage mac isn't really a fake, it's just a part of a slightly dishonest stage performance that showed off a model that would be a later model than the one they were initially releasing. A common practice these days sadly :)

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

I guess you could put a 3.3 and a 1.1 muF cap. in series to get the average for your 2.2, but then that might be more trouble than it's worth.

[@Epictronics1]

I need to place an order for caps this week anyway, I might as well just order a 1uF 35v

[@lindoran]

Bypass caps keep emi out of the mains which "should" also be bypassed at the drop down transformer in your area. Typically frequencys going on inside that computer aren't a concern to modern filtering and conditioning systems

[@Epictronics1]

Thanks for sharing!

[@stefanegger]

17:30 wow I never knew Rifa also made ICs. I always thought they make those popping x caps. Crazy, hope it's not the same quality 😅

[@Epictronics1]

First time I see RIFA chips too!

[@stefanegger]

@@Epictronics1 hope last time, too 🤣✌️

[@jensschroder8214]

Don't forget to order the 2.2 µF tantalum

[@Epictronics1]

I forgot! Thanks :)

[@sharzy7209]

I have never seen an Apple external hard drive before. Would be super cool if someone took a broken one and moded it to house modern nvme ssd's with a USB-C interface. Or better yet they look big enough you could probably somehow fit a mini GPU in there making it external storage + gpu.

[@KC9UDX]

No. And please stop cannibalising keyboards.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@KC9UDX Amen. No. It would not be cool to take a historical relic and Dremel it into submission to be something that the owner tired of after six months and then threw away. If the thing works, leave it to be what it is.

[@chrisgallant9889]

Maybe you should have tried to get the original presentation that Steve Jobs had in that famous video. Try to get it to run on that 512k. See how it would look on an amber screen.

[@tookitogo]

Get it from where? It was never released AFAIK.

[@Epictronics1]

I'd love to! If I can find a copy. It would also be interesting to see what happens if I try to run it on an original Mac..

[@Epictronics1]

@@tookitogo Maybe someone could make a copy? It's probably an easy task for someone who was in software development at that time? I have a copy of the speech synthesizer used in that demo (SAM) That's what I used in this video when Mac was talking

[@retrohaxblog]

Awesome video! ... as usual :)

[@Epictronics1]

Thank you!

[@tony359]

very nice restoration! I knew about the "cheat" from one of the Steve Jobs movies. What do you use to replace the RIFAs? Those are different than the one I use, which are not cheap! The RIFAs are there to filter noise OUT of the system if not mistaken. Whether this still applies in 2023 I do not know but power supplies normally have filter capacitors on the mains nowadays so I'd say yes. I like to keep them - also any shield that exists in the computer.

[@Epictronics1]

Thanks Tony! Here's the Y cap I used: www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/80-C971U472MVWDBAP

[@nickwallette6201]

Agreed. They're not _strictly_ necessary, but they're not there simply because they PCB had extra space to fill . . . :-)

[@Ivo--]

I guess you could always put 2 2.2 uF 16v caps in series to get a 1.1uF 32v cap.

[@Epictronics1]

I should have thought of that. Thanks

[@bobweiram6321]

In addition to its elegant design, the original Macintosh was stunning in its aesthetics. It demanded the highest standards from every piece of software and hardware developed for it. It's the reason why it revolutionized entire industries, including publishing, video, design as well as the computer industry itself.

[@Epictronics1]

I should have mentioned it in the video. I think these early Macs were pretty spectacular

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Why is it that in that old version of the Finder, the hard drive comes up as a floppy one instead, even though they should've created an icon to go with that hard drive that Apple knew they'd be selling?

[@Epictronics1]

Well, the Rodime drive is connected to the FDD controller of the Mac. It's quite possible that the Mac can't see the difference.

[@nickwallette6201]

It's quite likely that old version didn't even know about hard drives. The first version of MS-DOS didn't even support directories. HDD support came later.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"This may not show up too well on camera, but in real life here, [it] looks really ugly." Um... this IS real life. Just because something's being seen on video instead of _in person_ doesn't mean it's "not real life." And just because something's in person doesn't even mean it is real life. Don't get real life and being _in person_ mixed up.

[@senilyDeluxe]

Now... should you replace the RIFA ... err ... CHIPS!? ... on the hard drive controller (next to the head actuator stepper motor)?

[@Epictronics1]

I noticed those too! Never seen a RIFA chip before. I wonder if they are just branded or if RIFA actually made chips back then. I googled but couldn't find much

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"This is Alf's old drive" even though he's got an IBM back there instead.

[@SonicBoone56]

Oof, I wouldn't use a magic eraser on plastic for that long. The texture is probably completely gone now.

[@Epictronics1]

I was worried too, but It actually turned out very nice. I only use abrasives as a last resource because of the mentioned risk

[@SonicBoone56]

@@Epictronics1 thank god. I've seen some channels go straight for the magic eraser.

[@voltare2amstereo]

Amber MacinHerd

[@KC9UDX]

Sometimes the board is marked with the wrong polarity!

[@Epictronics1]

Yes, Never seen it myself, but apparently, that happens too

[@KC9UDX]

@@Epictronics1 I've seen it a few times. Just enough to really cause problems.

[@gentuxable]

Didn’t it say Become a veteran at the end? Is it promoting Steve’s thermo nuclear war?

[@Epictronics1]

I think he was trying to say -Become a Patron. I'll have to ask

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Haha, "feetS"?

[@burntoutelectronics]

How do you find compatible CRTs

[@Epictronics1]

I just test them in different displays and hope for the best :)

[@cylurian]

Where can I get my 512K restored?

[@Epictronics1]

Check with your local vintage computer club

[@vhfgamer]

You asked if people should replace rifa caps or just remove them. My opinion is that ABSOLUTELY replace them. There is a TON of garbage on the AC power lines, and you don't want that getting into your computer. Even more so now than it was in the 1980s. Also regarding that 1uf 35 volt cap. Sometimes engineers who are designing the device will up the specification for the voltage on the cap in order to buy leeway for some other issue, such as ESR or heat dissipation.

[@tookitogo]

The RIFA caps are more for preventing noise from getting _out_ than stopping it from getting _in._ The power supply is a switch-mode type, so it doesn’t really care about the incoming power quality too much, since it gets rectified right away and stored in the input capacitor before anything else.

[@Epictronics1]

Oh, okay, I was thinking it might have to deal with some nasty spikes. Thanks for sharing

[@Epictronics1]

@@tookitogo Interesting. My semi-vintage Mac from 2009 is sending a crap load of noise to my audio gear. When I turn it on, I get sounds in my speakers that remind me of tuning a radio.

[@tookitogo]

@@Epictronics1 That shouldn’t be happening. Is the Mac the audio source, or is it causing noise even when another audio source is selected?

[@tookitogo]

@@Epictronics1 The components that protect against surges and spikes are MOVs. I don’t know off the top of my head whether these old Macs have MOVs in their power supplies or not. A surge protector power strip can be used, of course. (And inside it are MOVs.)

[@skonkfactory]

Why not just mount the tube upside down?

[@Epictronics1]

I just assumed that wouldn't work

[@skonkfactory]

@@Epictronics1 If the yoke is the right way up, it'll work just fine. The electrons don't know which way up the gun is.

[@skonkfactory]

Bonus: you don't expose the analog board to static from the high voltage lead

[@Epictronics1]

@@skonkfactory Surely, I cant change the position on the connector? The image would be upside down

[@skonkfactory]

@@Epictronics1 The orientation of the image is defined by the orientation of the yoke.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"Half of the weight of this drive..." but then... "Here's our hard drive..." which that plate isn't part of the weight of. Interesting.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Yuck, I wouldn't want to have an orange/amber-only Mac screen either. Just B/W for the B/W machine.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

OK, so it's NOT an actual _fake._ There's a difference between a prototype upgrade and a fake.

[@Epictronics1]

I'd say that presentation was pretty deceitful. The original Mac couldn't actually do what it did on that stage

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

@@Epictronics1: * "...What the one _on the stage_ did." Even if that's deceitful, that doesn't make the Mac he was using a "fake Macintosh."

[@SmoggyLambGG]

*HACK* -intosh