Restoring One of Apple's Weirdest Vintage Macs!

[@stixpjr]

Wow! Memories! I really didn't think the "IIsi RAM-Muncher" would still be alive almost 30 years after I wrote it and released it into the wild around May 1994!

[@gammaleader96]

I love how the internet and youtube especially at that manages to bring together people even for the most obscure topic. Very cool to see the people behind old stuff like this.

[@oceanmew]

omg amazing

[@EvilyoshiJAPAN4]

My Dad had one of these for work (he was a graphic designer at the time), this got me into computers heavily, he even trusted me to install a RAM upgrade!

[@toddholcomb1]

Great video! The IIsi was my first color Mac, and I recently restored one and upgraded it with a Daystar 50 MHz 68030 accelerator and Ethernet card, so it's no longer an lower-end Mac. You can also easily add a HD activity light by hooking up another wire to the lead by the speaker.

[@gabrielledebourg2487]

IIsi was the first computer I ever used! We had one growing up. So many fond memories of that computer.

[@static-san]

I'm coming to love your video style. Covers lots of ground at a decent clip and a nice voice to listen to.

[@BRBTechTalk]

Nice to see a niche event get so popular, it bodes well for those of us that like to make the retro PC videos. I hope they sort out the growing pains for next year.

[@tomdfrog]

ahhhh, many memories of making the most out of these in the 1990's. The IIsi made me LOVE the IIci!!! And then I worshiped the Quadra 700.

[@GarthBeagle]

Nice restoration! The IIsi doesn't get the recognition it deserves

[@PCUSER486]

The iiSi was a great unit/machine. I still use mine to this day! ❤❤

[@robsquared2]

Ah the Macintosh Twosey

[@markalancirino]

My first color Mac was a IIsi. I was lucky enough to be working for an Apple developer when it came out and got to go to the release party at the Apple factory in Fremont. I remember they had literal towers of prawns and lobster tails and tons of other food and liquor. A few days later, I went down to University Ave and bought my IIsi and 13" color monitor. It was the most exciting Mac purchase I ever made!

[@Markimark151]

The Mac IIsi is one of the best old school color Macintosh computers! They were the first color Mac computers our schools ever used.

[@Applecompuser]

My Mac Centris 650 purchased at the right time for price, performance is one of my favorite computers. It was so well built and so easy to use and the chassis was also metal.

[@aurance]

The LC was the first computer I ever had, and I remember looking at the simultaneously-released IIsi with much envy.

[@Fifury161]

Worth mentioning the "special" soft power button. It has a slot in it and the little graphic above it hints at it purpose. If you turn the button it will remain in the powered on state - it removes the soft power option.

[@dennisud]

Those 1990s Macs are my favorite 'Vintage' Macs. I had a IIci at that time in my classroom, even before they networked the school district (With Dells). So until they did, I had 6 Apple IIe's and 3 Macs all networked within my classroom. Great system back then. I wsh I had one to play my old games on!

[@ChristinaK1024]

The systems integration and design of the interior is really impressive. This was very expensive to develop

[@retrotechtive]

I had a very similar issue on my Macintosh IIci as you did with the BlueSCSI on this machine, just with the ZuluSCSI. It worked on the back port but not on the internal one - until I attached the power. The difference was that the drive would seem to work (the light would come on), but it would be completely unreliable, and never boot successfully. (I recapped it entirely, so it wasn't down to that either)

[@Fifury161]

8:54 - "user installable updates weren't really a thing back then", hardware wise that is true, however each OS update usually patched out the ROM - so much so that Apple realised that the ROM was usually patched coming to the end of the life cycle. This is probably one of the reasons why the went with ROM in RAM, not just a cost saving measure...

[@that_colin_guy]

IIsi is such a cool unit. Too small to include a CD drive so it's cases days were numbered.

[@Jonny_O]

I'm pretty sure the IIsi was the only desktop Mac that didn't share its chassis design with any other model.

[@The.Orchard]

I guess I don't need to make this exact video after all 😂. Some things like the lack of term power I discovered long ago, but the PSUs in these are a new and very disappointing experience. One thing I have read multiple places but not personally verified is that the disk cache apparently loads at the very beginning of the RAM, so it will use that onboard RAM and then displace video into the SIMMs. So in theory you don't necessarily need a utility to cause that to happen. But, having either the disk cache or VRAM stored on slow DRAM chips is going to have a performance impact. So if the utility can get around putting either one there, that's even better.

[@DOOMocrat]

Hey, my first Mac! 1st grade computer lab had these.

[@joachimgelhaus]

This was before Apple invented glue

[@andresbravo2003]

This weird Mac might’ve been strange.

[@krzysztofsielewicz4161]

Hi, could you please point me to the battery replacement board (the one with CR2032 battery)? Thanks!

[@williampmcd8548]

In those days 8 megabytes of RAM was a game changer.

[@bluephreakr]

I find it exceedingly strange how people replacing electrolytic caps with _other_ electrolytic caps don't figure out some way to press-fit them into a header of some variety. Could someone enlighten me on why more people don't just make these things easily removable as one would DIP chips? Is there any way to _securely_ do as such, similar to how old-school fairy lights are fastened?

[@wiwingmargahayu6831]

never had a chance to use macOS but i had a chance for other things Sir

[@SENATORPAIN1]

The things I could do with an 80 megabyte hard drive.

[@DJRobbie54]

I never had a Mac computer, They Were nice machine's at the time when I saw them in action. but now a POS machines Not worth the effort to fix up. Just my opinion. A POS.

[@goclunker]

Pro-tip from the car world: to release those plastic cable holder connectors that have the two teeth (look like a tree), use a socket from a socket wrench set. A small one will squeeze the tabs at the same time making it easy to pop off

[@nickwallette6201]

In the computer world, screwdriver kits usually include a nut driver for hex-headed screws, which works pretty well. Or the tube from a pen. :-)

[@goclunker]

@@nickwallette6201 pretty much the same thing, yes, a e-hex bit for standoffs will usually work

[@RikerJoe]

I completed a restoration of a IIsi where the PSU was a gooey mess from cap juice that even ate some of the traces on the logic board PSU connector. Yuk! I also made the same mistake on needing to provide external power for a BlueSCSI to work. Thank you for the explanation on using the RAM muncher to use up the extra RAM not used by the onboard video and thus improve overall performance, which I’ll add to my IIsi when I return from Spring Break vacation. Nice video, Colin!

[@just_passing_through]

I still think Macs of this era are the most beautiful computers ever created. The still look amazing all these years later. True works of art.

[@ricl7413]

Silicon graphics computers were pretty nice and had some colour to them. For those that remember when these were available they were easy to open and easy to upgrade and fix when needed. Far more eco friendly than anything you can get now and certainly what companies claim to be.

[@just_passing_through]

@@ricl7413 True. In all honestly, nothing thrills me quite like a Burroughs B205 console. I don’t think anything ever will. (google it)

[@goclunker]

@@ricl7413 the crap we get now is built with planned obsolescence, mostly, because we reached a performance plateau

[@xerzy]

This era in general had outstanding industrial design. SGIs are indeed remarkable, and so were, say, the NeXTcube and the Sharp X68000. Guess people got tired of having good things in life, though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

The Acorn A5000 was pretty cool too 😊

[@vintageMIDI]

Excellent video. There's something quite satisfying about restoring well-engineered electronics. The 80s/90s offered quality equipment that was built to be repaired and restored and appreciated. Quite obvious you love these classics. Keep it going!

[@bryans8656]

I always enjoy watching you work on old Macs, but I especially like that desoldering gun. That is clearly worth the investment.

[@StenIsaksson]

I work in electronic manufacturing. SMD department. That flux you use, I think it's banned in manufacturing these days because it's way too strong and can corrode the board itself. These days it's mostly used in old repair shops, not in modern manufacturing.

[@theshadowman1398]

Simply love retro Macs. That's why I have a G4 MDD that has a dual 1.25 ghz CPU an OS9 install and a very hard to find serial expansion card if I need to use a serial device.

[@GianmarioScotti]

Tantalum caps can fail, too. And when they do, they go with a bang.

[@TDub_ADV]

The IIsi was a good machine. I always enjoyed working on those tool less cases back then. The LC, Si and Ci were just a joy to work on.

[@TheJurassicJunkie]

Great video! I always love your Macintosh in-depth coverage.

[@helfire23]

Thanks for featuring #BlueSCSI v2! I'm actually getting a IIsi from Joel today too so perfect timing to review all the things I'll need to do.

[@KYUBIMATIAS]

Great episode. That BlueSCSI seems like a life-saver for these older systems.

[@PotatoFi]

It is, and it’s cheap enough to easily outfit an entire collection of vintage SCSI-based Macs. I love mine, and plan to buy many more.

[@volvo09]

The convenience looks great, however I like leaving spinning disks in my retro machines. Part of the charm is listening to the drive click away as the system loads software. New hard drives are super quiet so I don't have that same fondness for newer mechanical drives, but the old ones are always satisfying to listen to.

[@PotatoFi]

@@volvo09 This is a 100 percent valid reason to stick with spinning disks.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@volvo09 yeah I think if my first computer didn’t have that clunky head motor so I could “hear it thinking” it wouldn’t have had half the charm for me. Plus the distinctive noises it made as it unparked, and less-so when it parked.

[@OldAussieAds]

@@volvo09 I agree with you there. How’s this for irony? I have a real Commodore 64 connected to a modern flash based disk drive. It lets out the occasional beep so you know it’s working. On the other hand, the VICE emulator on my Raspberry Pi (Retro Pie) actually emulates the sound of the 1541 disk drive when loading. My brain gets more of a kick loading up games on the emulator as a result. Sound was a huge part of the memories.

[@andrefelixstudio2833]

Excellent video I used to have a LC 475 which I use to use to put a 114 page magazine together!

[@jonathankleinow2073]

System 7.1 with the desktop pattern of green boxes is my favorite version of System 7. It's what I had as a kid on my LC III and Quadra 650, and it reminds me of many happy hours spent playing SimCity 2000. Very good job!

[@OldAussieAds]

I also used that desktop pattern on our LCII and Performa 5400. I was so lucky to have such kick arse computers throughout my schooling.

[@TMS5100]

@4:09 one of my best purchases ever. i no longer dread repairs.

[@compu85]

I've overclocked my IIsi to 25mhz. It required flipping the fan around, when some part on the logic board gets too hot it starts getting memory corruption. With the fan blowing directly on it it's completely stable. The internal video can drive a portrait display, too!

[@FlyboyHelosim]

We had an Apple similar to this in the I.T. room at high school. One quirk, and certainly strange addition considering how serious Apple comes across, was if you held down the power button on the keyboard long enough it would make a car crash sound. That was always very bizarre and something we messed with a fair bit to spice up otherwise fairly dull I.T. lessons. Anyone know why this sound was even there?

[@misterhat5823]

Why not just replace are the caps in the power supply. Saving a few dollars and then having to take it back apart in the future just seems foolish to me. All electrolytics will eventually fail.

[@p_mouse8676]

Yeah I am always wondering the same. I have repaired an awful lot of old electronics (since it's part of my professional job). Like you said eventually they will go. Often taking a lot of rare and hard to get other components with them. I have had a couple of scopes not long a go. Both went with a banger, lots of smoke and I had to basically desig an entire new PSU board since most of the tracks were gone.

[@tonybossaller4074]

When I saw the title, I assumed you were tackling the IIcx with its weird 16/32-bit bus. The IIsi was a breeze in comparison. One of my jobs long ago had both and I could never make the IIcx work well. Eventually swapped it out for an LC II/III (can’t remember which).

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

90s Macs are always interesting, even if they were considering “obsolete” soon after they were released. Just something you don’t see nowadays, the fact you can disassemble the entire machine without tools is very cool to see. The only thing holding it back is really just the plastics, but still a cool machine regardless. Great video!

[@JerryBiehler]

I got a IIsi when I was a kid and they were new. Combined with a NEC Multisync 3FGx monitor. Eventually I overclocked it to 25MHz.

[@dave928]

i pulled my IIsi out of being in storage for 20+ years. battery blew up, the motherboard is half covered in corrosion, totally shot. pulled the RAM, floppy and Daystar card. that was about all that was left. 🤕

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

Awesome! I had a IIsi from 1990 to 1997. I loved the hell out of it! I even had a co-processor card for it. Ah! the adapter to turn it into pds... that's why my co-processor card never worked! Or could have been because it was used and didn't come with software. (I got the card as a gift for doing work experience at a Mac store in 1995)

[@mactechnc]

Thank you for making this video. I have a IIsi in my building I am going to restore once I am finished with my Color Classis and Power Macintosh G3/233MHz Beige computers. Question: Is there a site I can order the MeowTOAST PCD you used? Also, did you only have to solder the CR2023 holder to the MeowTOAST PCB? Thank you! Randy

[@TheInfamousLegend27]

love that you got the "glarses" gun hehe

[@eformance]

Tantalum caps can fail in other ways: dead short. I've had bad tantalum caps on old boards several times. In one case the computer wouldn't power up, in another when it powered on the cap exploded.

[@teg24601]

I love that look of the IIsi. It is sort of cute. We just have to watch out for Action Retro, he'll get ahold of one, and figure out how to put an accelerator in it that will run a 604e. :)

[@ITGuyinaction]

👍 👍 👍 I really admire your videos and your collection! That's wonderful! I'm trying to do sth similar but first steps are so challenging... Although with Macs I don't have too much experience... Great video!

[@BilisNegra]

Ah the days when a "midrange computer" cost nearly 4 thousand WITHOUT adjusting for inflation... Well, at least Macs did...

[@DanielleWhite]

That explains something I remember about the relative performance of the IIsi models on the helpdesk where i worked in the mid-90s!

[@kimkimpa5150]

Awwwwww, Brahcnus doesn't have an entry for Quadra 700. My Q700 PSU still works fine, but was thinking of recapping preemptively. Acutally I'm kinda suprised that there's not alot of information on the Q700 PSU caps out there, given that it's one of the most sought after models in the 68k range.

[@blomegoog]

There were no such thing as Apple Stores, and worked for an Apple VAR and we sold a ton of IIci, cx, si, lc, fx, etc. Sears and Circuit City were selling them branded as Performa 600, etc. The John Sculley era was the best times for Mac. Now, not so much. Apple is a phone and watch company. Thus they dropped the full name Apple Computer, Inc.

[@wlpaul4]

This was my first family computer. I knew about the 1MB thing, but had no idea about RAM Muncher. That would have been clutch years ago.

[@sneekeruk]

You could overclock that 030 with no issues, my first amiga 1200 came with a dkb cobra with a 20mhz 030 at 28mhz from factory, and I had it running at 40mhz, it even managed 46mhz but the mmu had issues. 030's don't really get warm even when overclocked. I think I just stuck a passive heatsink on it when it was at 40mhz.

[@chriscutress1702]

I remember using a IIFX that was loaded with early ProTools software (4 channel Pro Deck & Pro Edit) which was SOTA at the time. Soon new combined software called ProTools was released which allowed 4 channels and later 8 channels using the IIFX platform. Great little computer for the time. We also had a IISI which was a second editing machine but it never expanded beyond the original software(Pro Deck & Pro Edit) and was much slower with the processing of audio samples.

[@puciohenzap891]

The FR301 is worth Every.Single.Penny Not gonna lie, these Macs look super high quality - Sony PSU with all 105*C caps as well.

[@needfuldoer4531]

The IIsi's PDS is actually electrically compatible with the SE/30's. The only differences are that SE/30-compatible PDS cards don't have a 68882 (since the SE/30 already has one) and they're shaped a little different so they clear the steel chassis.

[@johnlarro6872]

Got me pining for the old days lol... Miss my Quadra 840av... but even the old LCIII that served me through half of the 90s.

[@WildRapier]

I swore off of Apple in the early 90's, when trying to output chemistry lab results to disk (3.5"). No eject button on the drive, nothing I could do would eject the disk. Now I needed the info on the disk the next day to submit. 45 minutes later, I find someone that could sort it out. They drag and drop the floppy disk icon into the recycle bin.......and the disk ejects! All I needed to know about Apple. Not much has improved, proprietary, expensive...I wont even get into the buck the system connectors, chargers etc. Decent OS though, if you want your hands tied at every corner.

[@catharsisproductions4175]

Any recommendation on BlueSCSI version that's compatible with a Macintosh SE

[@munnsie100]

My mum had a IIsi from new, here in Australia, but sadly gave it away before I was born. I would’ve loved to have it in my collection. This era of design, leading up until the PB G4/MBP was my favourite, unique, identifiable from afar, and still very svelte to this day.

[@Raintiger88]

I've been watching a lot of these retro Mac vids lately and you guys kinda make me jealous. From the days when I fell in love with the ][+ to my first PC purchase of an LC. . .I miss those days and this community makes me want to try to find an LC with a ][e card. Problem is, I lost all my apple/mac disks long ago and doubt I can relive those glory days.

[@scifisurfer8879]

I owned a IIci and later I got to play a bit with a IIsi because we had a couple of them at a news magazine I worked for in the 90s. It was definitely not as fast. The production department all had PowerMac 7200/120s (I owned a 7200/90 at the time). Definitely faster.

[@Raptor50aus]

The famous and horrible "Elna" brand caps. Both of my Sony Indextron tvs I need to send to a guy in Texas to be restored as they are suffering bad cap leakage from Elna caps too.

[@magmajctaz1405]

I was "introduced" to the Mac Plus in middle school. Then we worked on LCs and LCIIs. In high school my Turbo Pascal teacher had a IIci. For that reason, when you first booted the wrong image in your video, I realized the boot screen was "too new" for this vintage of Mac. Thanks for this flashback!

[@awesumonpvp4286]

Just food for thought regarding the use of the bluescsi or any flash drive for that matter…. while I understand it’s necessary in cases where a mechanical drive is unavailable, but it seems to me like a bit of a cheat when using old hardware? Isnt the charm of old hardware mostly the nostalgia of it being just what it was? This is comparable to dropping a new engine or other modern mechanics into a vintage car…. It’s still cool and fun, but there’s something to be said for experiencing it just the way it was…. listening to the clickiking and grinding of the old hard drive. If you swap out one component with modern hardware, why not swap them all out? Not trying to take away from people enjoying the hobby, just a thought? Love the videos Colin, keep it coming!

[@EnvAdam]

10:54, I love me some RP2040, good MCU, I basically use them for everything lol. edit: I wonder if there is any reason I should make a PR on their git repo to integrate the RP2040 onto the main board instead of using a pico, there is probably good reason why they used a pico over a onboard RP2040.

[@designingbywave]

Solid is a good way to describe the IIsi, it’s a nice entry-level 68K Mac. Full color and none of the 16/32-bit issues that the LC had.

[@calzonemaniacsvideocorner0804]

You said it best. These parts were really only rated for ten, maybe fifteen years, not almost 35.

[@egmccann]

The Mac IIsi and Quadra 700 were my introductions to mac ownership. The person I got them from was just getting rid of them, said it was "a mac and a hard drive or something." Given the state of PC cases at the time (sharp edges with the mandatory blood sacrifice to work on anything,) these were amazing. I'd had several - lost them as a result of a move. Still miss those systems.

[@brianehni5918]

I owned a model train store back in the 90’s, with POS running on an SE. We did an inventory sort and it took the whole weekend. After getting a IIsi, it only took 15 minutes. My old partner still has the IIsi.

[@rgdickenson]

I repaired a IIsi last year. Fun project. I was aware of the video/ram issue but not of the IIsi Ram-Muncher init option. I'll be tracking a copy down for sure.

[@cozywest0721]

IISi, LCII, Quadra 700 ! Once I dreamed New Computer world then.But now that is not what I expected .

[@notsoseagatey]

replacing the HDD is a good idea. those early quantums had rubber problems

[@faneuil1]

literally just walked into my mom’s house found my old IIsi and pulled out the PRAM battery. phew. No leak!

[@croissant-king]

Why not go with aluminium polymer capacitors? Best of both worlds - authentic appearance and no possibility of leaks.

[@JamieBainbridge]

After using even a cheap Chinese vacuum de-solder gun, absolutely no way I'd go back to solder suckers or braid for through hole parts.

[@shadowj5639]

I had one of these, but the only thing it did fast was depreciate. Though I somehow scored a graphics card, memory and 270MB hard drive while working as a student. I sold it as soon as the Power mac clones came out.

[@JoriDiculous]

Over prices and not as powerful, but Mac (Apple) always got the designs so right on their PC's.

[@danielktdoranie]

If you had that math coprocessor and like 64MB of RAM you could run NetBSD

[@Madness832]

There was a bunch of those at my high school. And a few of my buddies, and I, changed the error sounds (on random machines) to burps & farts.😄😄

[@RetroHoosk]

Thanks for the tip on the RAM Muncher INIT, had no idea that was a thing and I usually just increased the disk cache in the past. Will try this out on my IIsi later! :D

[@PatMcCarthy420]

These were the computers that were at my middle school. I learned everything I needed to about Apple from these PCs 😂

[@TheSulross]

even though started with the classic compact Mac, have to say that the IIsi is my most favorite form factor - so much so that wish could get a modern Mac in that manner of case (but, of course, that would be ridiculous - especially as in the era of wide screen flat panels, there would be no display to set on it that would look asthetic. A by-gone era for sure...

[@iszotic]

If this Apple product is weird because it's actually repairable... yes it's weird.

[@derekw6811]

I wonder how many owners didn’t know about that Mac OS extension back in the day. Probably most.

[@be236]

I had Mac IIsi in my collection a few years back, but unfortunately sold it as I was running of space to store it... alas, wish I had kept it.

[@bashdachivo]

1700$ that’s MacBook Pro m1 territory… never even heard of this thing lol the 2si

[@pseudotasuki]

How much money did Apple save by limiting the internal SCSI bus to one device?