EEVblog #414 - Apple Macintosh SE Teardown - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 22, 2013, 09:51:14 pm
content: What's inside a vintage 1988 Apple Macintosh SE?http://www.nycresistor.com/2012/08/21/ghosts-in-the-rom/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6522http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/motorola/AM26LS32.pdfhttp://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/chipdata/mc3488.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bushttp://amazingdiy.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/am5380pc.pdfDave.

author: Stephenniall
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2013, 11:02:24 pm
content: Great !, I had one of these as my first repair, Fitted it with new caps !Stephen.

author: JoannaK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2013, 11:37:18 pm
content: What apple (woz actually) was good at was the minimizing the hardware. There was very little extra in them. And since those were solf as high price executive machines the performance was not important, it was a status item.And yes.. at that time corporations would have not even purchased any computer with good color graphics or audio since that would have been 'a toy or game machine'.

author: Slothie
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2013, 11:50:31 pm
content: I have the same problem as you - I have a dozen or so old computers that I have no practical use for but can't bear to part with. An old Atari 800XL and even older Atari 850 interface I used with a terminal simulator ROM as a terminal for my Linux box, but it was more a novelty than useful - although I did manage to convince one guy I'd ported Linux to the Atari for a couple of minutes before he spotted the 850

author: mamalala
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 22, 2013, 11:56:40 pm
content: It's not a reset button on the keyboard, but the power on/off buttonGreetings,Chris

author: niclatrique
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 12:36:59 am
content: Hi Dave !Have you see that even in '89 Apple was ready for the 2000 year bug ?Look at the computer 45 seconds from the end, you'll see a date from saturday january 12th of 2013 !Yeah, back from then, they put four digits year number !Bill Gates is moneywise ! (Because he didn't !)See ya,Nick from eastern Canada ( yes I do speak french !!! )

author: niclatrique
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 12:39:37 am
content: Hi DaveHave you see that even in '89 Apple was ready for the 2000 year bug ?Look at the computer 45 seconds from the end, you'll see a date from saturday january 12th of 2013 !Yeah, back from then, they put four digits year number !Bill Gates is moneywise ! (Because he didn't !)See ya,Nick from eastern Canada ( yes I do speak french !!! )

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 12:40:04 am
content: Made in USA. In the Fremont plant . There's a video on youtube that shows a full tour of that plant. The building was Later sold to Maxtor and became a Diskdrive assembly line. After Maxtor got borged Solyndra claimed that building before they built their own.The INS8048 is a ROM version ( not an OTP ) of the 8048 made by NS. Strange they didn't use their own COP4xx series...Kinda funny. Driven by a Motorola 68K , supported by a Microchip PIC and an Intel CPu in the Keyboard..

author: Baliszoft
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 12:51:58 am
content: Ridiculously slow. I am wondering how apple survived at all. Compare it to the commodore amiga 500 for example. Same era.

author: Alana
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 01:10:42 am
content: That old SimCity... i'd leave this unit just for this game :d Actually my first PC game, about 1994.

author: krivx
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 01:48:39 am
content: Quote from: Baliszoft on January 23, 2013, 12:51:58 amThere is a huge difference in power between the two but I don't know if it's really fair to compare them - we're talking Jan '84 for the Macintosh and Oct '87 for the A500. However, the Commodore 64 came out two years before the Mac and Geos was released in '86 which had many of the features of the MacOS, despite running on an 8bit CPU.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 01:50:12 am
content: I have a quick 4 minute follow-up video showing the developers photos easter egg.Alternate channel material or main channel?Dave.

author: JoannaK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 02:03:38 am
content: The A500 was not the first Amiga model. The Amiga 1000 was released at 1985 and it had allmost identical hardware than later A500.Most difference between A1000 and A500 was on chipset refinement (=cost cutting) and the OS updates. But the 4 channel digital audio, 640*512 (pal) color screen with dedicated hardware acceleration (blitter, line draw etc) all were at earlier 1985 machine.And it even had 2 button mouseI just wonder what I shoud do with my A1000, and my original C64 and...

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 04:51:15 am
content: Got the original in the basement.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 05:14:41 am
content: Nice teardown! I have an even older Mac Plus collecting dust in my parents garage and keep it for nostalgic reasons, as I used to program on those for high school. I remember one year our high school upgraded their Macs and gave all their older machines to us whiz kids.... Thats how I got it. It was like Christmas all over again!I remember having the same problem finding a torx to open up my Mac and was also surprised at finding the signatures in there printed on the inside of the case. I still have a whole bunch of floppies but who knows if they work anymore.I also have an Atari 600 XL, my first computer which I learned BASIC on, complete with a cassette drive and a few game cartridge like pacman, moon patrol, etc. I don't have the heart to throw it out. Unfortunately they don't fetch much on ebay and so they will eventually be doomed to the scrap heap. Even my kids would get bored with it unless they get into electronics hacking.

author: RetroSwim
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 05:16:33 am
content: Cool that there's a replacement battery on there too.So many vintage Macs floating around out there with their original batteries on them, often damaged beyond repair by battery leakage...

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 06:21:25 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on January 23, 2013, 03:49:28 amYep.Here it is:Dave.

author: Mercator
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 08:25:43 am
content: Maybe you can get an old dot-matrix printer and a modem for that and use it as some kind of EEVBlog Telefax.A more modern device could get data from a webpage and send it to the mac via the modem input. A small program would then print everything that comes in via that input and instantly print it. This way you could print the questions during a live show or just display them on the screen.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 08:43:26 am
content: Quote from: Mercator on January 23, 2013, 08:25:43 amI was going to do that with an Arduino, but using the mac interesting...Dave.

author: Mercator
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 09:11:32 am
content: It would have this old retro telefax feel to itYou could even make a whole new segment (e.g. "The EEVBlog Telefax") where you rip off a page of questions from the dot-matrix printer and answer them. It could be realised by using a sticky forum thread that gets read by an arduino or some other device. This way you could ban spammers or only allow for one question per user and per episode. The others get ignored automatically.

author: Baliszoft
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 09:44:36 am
content: Cant really say anything good about this computer, especially after seeing the easter egg video.They surely had (have) a giant ego, im wondering how it could fit in the rom. "Stolen from apple computer", hmm. Sounds quite familiar, too.. Even though the shield with the signatures looks cool, thats another evidence to this. Let me apologize, im an anti apple guy.

author: nixxon
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 10:07:15 am
content: Nice teardown of a semi-vintage MacI remember my dad brought home the original Macintosh in december 1984. It had only one floppy drive for a 400KB disk and no hard drive. The disk drive had a really nice motorized eject system. The Mac came with animations showing you how to operate the computer and some of the programs, MacWrite and MacPaint. It also came with a cassette tape that you could play on your WalkMan. If you pressed play simultaneously with the animations, the audio and video was perfectly syncronized.We even had a spreadsheet program that looked a lot like the later Excel. I remember plotting in all the votes given in the 1985 Eurovision Song Contest (May 4th 1985) and making graphs. As a bonus Norway even won the song contest for the first time.This original Mac was later upgraded to a Fat Mac. The cost of the upgrade was a small fortune, and we got a nice, aluminium machined sticker with "512k" printed on it.In '86 we upgraded the dot matrix printer to the LaserWriter which was like a neat looking combat tank. It was a super heavy, super solid and made really crisp 300 DPI printouts. It outlasted many Macs to come and was in daily use for at least 15 years.After the first Mac and the Fat Mac upgrade we got the SE/30 with a super fast 68030 processor. We had to upgrade this Mac with a 3rd-party expansion card and I remember that the upgrade kit came with a really long L-shaped hex key (not torx) for the two upper case screws.Then we had the Mac II cx. My girlfriend at the time got a Powerbook 150 and her father a Performa 630. My first own Mac was a hulking Quadra 900 (second hand) that was later replaced by a Quadra 840av (second hand) in the mid 90's. It had a super fast 40 MHz 68040 processor and a 66.7 MHz AT&T 3210 DSP processor. The DSP made it possible to use the silly GeoPort pod to act as a modem to connect to the internet @ up to 28.8 kbpsThis computer was nonetheless the fastest Non-PowerPC Mac ever built. I spent a chunk of money upgrading the 840av video memory from 1 MB to 2 MB (giving me "thousands of colors" in high resolution video mode) and the internal RAM from 16 MB to a whopping 48 MB. Favorite game was Cyclone II.Hmm, maybe I should get the 840av from the basement and fire up Cyclone again...

author: baljemmett
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 12:47:45 pm
content: Quote from: Baliszoft on January 23, 2013, 09:44:36 amMight help to look at that in historical context - Apple v. Franklin being perhaps the most important part thereof.

author: jnd
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2013, 11:22:15 pm
content: I wonder what's the voltage of the backup battery. I have the same in 1990 Metra multimeter and it's used there to store the calibration values in small 256x4 bit CMOS RAM. Manual says it lasts for 5 years. Those West Germany batteries must have been really well built since after nearly 25 years it still holds over 3.8 volts, in both units!

author: Ferroto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2013, 03:48:59 am
content: When I was a kid my dad had a Macintosh SE in his radio shack. He had a packet radio setup that let him connect to a bulletin board where he and others could share files. Piracy in the pre-internet days O0

author: Shred
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2013, 07:08:11 am
content: My first 'real' job was working for an Apple dealer when these were a current model.The keyboard (and I think the mouse too) in the teardown is off a later model computer of the Classic / IIsi vintage. The regular keyboard for the Mac SE was functionally the same but bigger, heavier and chunkier with proper replaceable key switches.I suspect that the plate stuck to the bottom of the Mac was for mounting the computer on a swing-out monitor arm. The arms were very popular in the late 80s and used all sorts of weird and wonderful mounting arrangements. I've also seen large stick on plates, without the four metal 'feet' used as a security device in University computer labs.I was always nervous about pulling the plug on the logic board on these machines. The plug is right under the CRT neck board and if it was tight (usually the case), your hand could jerk upwards and hit the neck board. I've witnessed the destruction of a Mac CRT by that means. It's always wise to slip the neck board off first and give yourself a couple of extra centimetres.Apple were notorious for embedding Easter Eggs in their ROMs. The photos of the developer team in the Mac SE ROMs were a well known one. There's some discussion on the background to the "Stolen from Apple" easter egg here:http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Stolen_From_Apple.txtOne of my favourite easter eggs was in the later model Mac LC. If you hit the programmer switch (actually the <Command> + <Power> buttons on the keyboard) at exactly the right time while the Mac was completing its power on self test, the Mac would "crash": it would emit a full volume screech of tyres, followed by a crash sound!The SE was a fairly reliable / bullet proof machine - a big change from the earlier Plus which had reputation for developing all sorts of power supply and video faults.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2013, 03:39:02 pm
content: Quote from: jnd on January 23, 2013, 11:22:15 pmNope. Has nothing to do with the build , but with the chemistry.These cells are lithium thionyl chloride cells. The largest manufacturer of these is Tadiran.Go take a look what those batteries are used for... And you will understand. Also pricewise they are expensive !They have a D type cell that pacs 19amphour of energy at 3.6 volt ... A normal alkaline d cell scratches 5amphour at 1.5 volt... Get their DD cell and you get 35 amphour....Now, these cells have limitations. You cannot draw more than a few milliamps out of them. They are made for backup purposes. Or for pulse operation where they charge a fat capacitor over a few minutes and then the system wakes up for a few milliseconds draining the cap and then restarting the cycle. Examples are those wireless electricity meters. They run off a single tadiran cell for 25 years ...

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2013, 04:19:48 pm
content: I have a pair of Crompton Eternacells next to me, only reason they were removed from service is that the internal resistance got so high that they took too long to charge the 1000uF capacitor attached to them after every current draw, so they had a lot of droop. bought years ago and have been driving a chime set.

author: jnd
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2013, 04:28:20 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 24, 2013, 03:39:02 pmI know, I have one 19 Ah cell myself but it has lower open circuit voltage even when it's new so not all thionyl chloride cells are the same. I thought they're good for some 10 years, the meter manual says it's designed to last 5 years and I don't think that Varta model was some special longer life type. I guess it's just conservative rating.For capacity comparison, alkaline seems to be similar, standard AA cell has nearly 3 Ah while the thionyl chloride one has 2,5 Ah in the same size.

author: LaurenceW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2013, 12:48:12 pm
content: How I LOVE the SOUND of that disk drive! Takes me right back. Hardly any need for a disk activity light, back then!Dave - interested to learn more of whether there are ways to deal with that bromide-yellow stain - is it a question of dropping the case mouldings in a bath of Hydrogen Peroxide for a bit, or what? I have a number of bits of cherished kit that I'd like to have a go at "restoring" in this way.

author: oPossum
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2013, 01:19:16 pm
content: Restore yellowed plastic with retr0britehttp://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2013, 08:44:11 pm
content: Quote from: LaurenceW on January 25, 2013, 12:48:12 pmIt's funny how sometimes old floppy disk and hard disk noises are used as ambient sound effects in sci-fi movies and videogames. Nothing implies high-tech than that old 10MB hard disk you had in the 80s.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 26, 2013, 05:54:55 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on January 25, 2013, 08:44:11 pmI was just going to mention the drive reminded me of the original Unreal game (and I think maybe Half-Life as well) when you're walking around a computer lab you can hear the old stepper motors.Most likely the HD is a Seagate drive. I used to have an SE and was able to connect a 2GB drive to it with no problems. I think I also managed to get it to use a IBM Ultrastar 10K 36GB Ultra-Wide drive on it if I recall correctly.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 26, 2013, 07:42:10 pm
content: I have a pair of Deathstars that are SCSI, and will fit in there. 1g each, and of course one works and the other does not............ Also a full height Seagate 2G drive. They came out of an old Phillips server.

author: mark5009
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2013, 02:34:06 am
content: Nice teardown, Dave.I remember, back in the day when I had SE/30s to play with, that those top Torx screws were a real hassle (as Apple intended them to be -- they were so paranoid about people stealing their ROMs). Sourcing a 10" Torx bit took a while and cost a bit. I think I might still have that bit somewhere..... mark.

author: PaulHigg
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 01, 2013, 05:34:24 am
content: I just bought a Mac SE. Can anyone tell me how to discharge the power supply so I don't get zapped. I have electronics experience but I'd like to know the proper way to do this.Thanks.Paul

author: yvesdm3000
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 03, 2013, 09:32:42 pm
content: Nice teardown of this Macintosh SE. I have a lot of very good memories of this machine as I got one (had to share it with my older brother) in the late eighties. I even teared it down back then myself to install the 4mb ram and harddrive upgrade.From the looks of it, the disk-drive is the same one as we had, and the brand is "Miniscribe". We replaced it with a 40mb (whoohoo) "Conner" drive which was an order of magnitude more silent than that incredibly noisy Miniscribe.The keyboard is more recent, more of a Mac-LC type. The original has also ribbons, bigger (but the same amount of keys) and heavier. The mouse matches.Too bad there is no use at all for vintage PC's, not unlike cars where it would be very neat to drive one from those dates, and be equally functional for todays use (except for the fuel consumtion...)Thanks for this video, I enjoyed it !-Yves

author: Chris_PL
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2013, 07:57:44 pm
content: Quote from: PaulHigg on November 01, 2013, 05:34:24 amI usually do it via shorting the suspicious caps through 10R/5W resistor wound on a screwdriver.Have no idea if this is a proper way, but it works for me. It's much much better than a sudden spark shower while refreshing solder joints etc. and shorting the cap through the tip of an iron

author: wesphillips
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 06, 2015, 10:57:08 pm
content: I know that this is a bit late, but if you check the video at 30:03, on the sim city splash screen, you will see that the software is registered to the "Sociology Dept UOW". I am assuming that the UOW means University of Wollongong.Also, I in the staff directory, try typing a single character, for example "S", or "R"(these are very common characters in names(), and pressing the "Search" button. I believe that it is the button in the upper right corner that shows a man walking towards the right.