Thursday, November 29, 2007

My SE/30 is alive!

Earlier this month, Miller informed me that Freecycle Seattle members can recycle their old machines for free, and indicated that we might be better off without extra old hardware floating around. I countered with the offer that I would get rid of any hardware that wouldn’t work (or wasn’t worth repairing/saving). I had mused earlier that it would be sad if my SE/30 didn’t work, and now doubly so. But, I got it out of its long storage spot and turned it on and got the blinking question mark diskette icon! Well, all that means is my hard drive isn’t spinning up any more. I was able to coax my System 7 era Disk Tools 3.5” diskette in (boy, the ejector sounds like it is really having a difficult time working), and got it to boot.

I pointed it out to Miller, and we both agreed that it’s nice to see that some thematic elements that make a Mac a Mac are retained even to this day.

So, now that I’ve wiped off the crud that had grown(?) on it while in storage, is it worth trying to find someone to fix the hard drive? Or is it just something that I should replace? Anyone have an ethernet to old skool Appletalk solution and/or is it worth it to try and hook it up to the internet again?

Tomorrow, I get to see if my Duo 280 will boot in its docking station.

3 comments:

kmitcham said...

Wow. SE/30 love. Did the Duo work? I always thought that was such a clever machine.

Anonymous said...

OK technosloth means slowly but this might qualify for an ubersloth response;My SE/30 refused to boot in like manner and I remembered a folk remedy from the days of proper computing Fortran Algol et al. Removed Disk drive stuck it in plastic bag and into deepfreeze overnight, refitted rebooted and all was well with the world. This has now lasted some 6 months.

Anonymous said...

I found confirmation of pre fortran and algol folklore ;removal of harddisc into plastic bag and stick overnight in deepfreeze was enough to make the disc function on reboot. This emergency repair has so far lasted 6 months
tom.healy@ecosse.net