Archive for March 10th, 2009

Mad Max is dead!

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Yup, that is the name of one of my older Power Macintosh 7300 computers, and it is currently deader than a door nail. It won't power up for nothing, and I'm guessing the power supply is shot. You may wonder what I'm doing with a much older Mac. The simple answer is that I'm trying to transfer some games from a modern system to an older system. New systems don't have floppy drives, and old systems don't have USB. Thus, it you need something to help transfer the files from one to another, hence the PM 7300. (And no, they don't work well on the modern network I have - the very old Macs) Luckily, Mr. Flipple, my other PM 7300 worked just fine. I got the files I wanted onto 800K floppies (yeah, 800K, not 720K). Problem now is, my Mac SE is crashing a lot. It always had some problems booting up once in a while when I used to play a few game on it. Why? I have no idea. Now, it crashes at random spots, so testing the few games I tried putting on it didn't go very far. I will now have to see if one of my other really old Macs will work in its place. But for now, I need some sleep, so this can wait. Wish this had worked though. That old SE never gave me this much trouble before. So, today, I lost two old Macs (well one fully and the other partially). Not one of my better days. This is the one thing I don't like about working with old technology, as much as I like doing it. I don't like when things fail, just by sitting on a shelf for a year or two. I've lost count of the things that have died over the years (many monitors, a few computers, and an Atari Lynx too - just from sitting in storage). P.S. - Turns out that this morning was not as bad as I thought. Instead of going to bed yet, I pulled out two more older Macs (originals). I have found out that the SE and other Mac are not faulty. Should have know better. It was the one game that kept crashing the systems, so out with that game. Sucks too, as it was a good Star Wars arcade game clone, but it crashes all the time. As for Dark Castle, which is the other game I'm trying to get to run, I get the impression it has to boot off of a floppy. The Mac+ seems to have a 400K drive, which won't work (DC uses a 800K disk). The SE just won't boot from the floppy. There probably is a way, I'm just not used to the very old Macs booting this way. I will have to do some research. And for now, look for some games that will run on this system. (I tried Space Invaders too, but it wants 256 colors, which the SE won't do). Just glad my two older Macs are 'Okay'! :) On the down side though, that 7300 Mac is truly dead, or at least its power supply. P.P.S. Yeah, I'm still awake and working on stuff. Bad news again this time. I've two SE Macs. Well, for some reason beyond understanding, the hard drive in my first SE decided to die on me. It will not stay powered up. I'm not sure if it is a power issue, or if the drive is just on its way out. So that Mac SE is down for the count now. The second Mac SE, the one that doesn't always boot, it corrupted its own hard drive during a boot. Yeah, first time for anything. It doesn't always boot due to a slightly faulty accelerator card. I guess I'll have to see if I can remove that bloody card. In the mean time, the hard drive is working, but I will probably have to reformat it and reinstall software. I'm not sure if I want to do that, as I don't have a lot of time before the show now. At this point, the Mac SE or Plus may not make it for the show, unless I can figure out how to make Dark Castle boot from a floppy. It should, but it won't. So, two Macs are down for the count now (three with the bad 7300). :( And I really need to get some sleep...
Macintosh 7300 (with Floppy drive) Macintosh 7300 (with Floppy drive)