Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30
biosrhythm.com
biosrhythm.com
From memory at the university, we had Fastpath boxes (maybe before they were bought by Shiva). At one point about a decade ago I got nostalgic for classic macs and hooked 512 up in my garage with a Fastpath. Took me a while to get enough working localtalk adaptors and whatnot to set it up, and another while to track down the right networking software to get it working.
Turned it on, configured, whoah I have an IP address in MacTCP. Got it file sharing off the house Linux server. Fired up macwww and pointed it at google and about 15 minutes later, after heroically trying to render the page I got a few characters and nothing recognisable. An SE/30 is miles faster than a 512 so you might be able to do something useful with it, but macwww didn't render graphics and chokes on anything that isn't plain html.
I think it would be even worse now, you would need a HTTPS/HTTP proxy to get anything at all.
Nostalgic computing is awfully fun but all the fun is in the setup, finding parts, working on solutions etc. The end product is generally underwhelming but the journey is the real reward.
gopher://magical.fish has lots of sites.
Made life easier.
With Mode32 you could install 128MB of RAM. This was an insane amount of memory back in the day. With full RAM and the SCSI port, they made pretty good file servers once you stuck an ethernet card in the PDS slot.
I had one that I used for programming back in the 90s. I used BBEdit (v4 I think), which was (and still is) a great text editor. Later, I installed NetBSD on it and used it as a local mail server. It was by far my favorite computer.
I don't understand why someone isn't making a more modern computer in this form factor. Okay, you're not going to want to watch a movie on a 10-12 inch screen, but for a dedicated "I'm going to do computer things now" computer, it's very inviting.
Don't get me wrong, I loved those old Macs too, having learned Logo and Hypercard on them. But most of that machine was the CRT monitor plus huge components. You can pack a lot more into a lot less these days. I do miss the "cute" factor though. They were loveable in a way that modern machines just aren't.
True, but even so, there is no reason to not have a little tower with a friendly face sitting on a desk, even if it's mostly empty space. Or use the empty space for something, like a door to a cubby where you can store a game pad.
If you need mobility a laptop is great. But sitting hunched over at a desk using a laptop is not nearly as good as sitting upright with the screen at a more ergonomic height.
Maybe it's all just nostalgia, but I think we got a lot of things right back in the day, and the toaster Mac was definitely one of those things.
In a non CRT world it doesn't really make sense. You could say that the NUC/micro computers with a VESA mounts and all-in one and iMacs are its successors.
I used to wish someone would sell a laptop in portrait format but nowadays you can really build that out of a tablet + external keyboard or a laptop/tablet convertible.
Several years ago I built a few "lunchbox" style portable-ish PCs by bolting a monitor on the side of a SFF desktop, adding feet and a handle, and integrating a power strip so I only needed one power cord. I'd like to try that again with updated components. Think Compaq Portable III[0] but with a micro ATX or mini ITX.
I could browse a textual version of HN, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and even post and comment things!
Sending HTTP packets to an open API has been a kids game for decades, unfortunately companies just don't want you to hack together your own solution
The trickier bit would be to find one of those old SCSI-attached ethernet devices (Asanté, DaynaPort, EtherMac, ...) since they're coveted items in the retro scene. Although it looks like at least PiSCSI can emulate a DaynaPort https://github.com/PiSCSI/piscsi/wiki/Dayna-Port-SCSI-Link
I only found out decades later that I could, eventually, have crammed 32MB into the 8 slots of my SE/30 I bought "maxed out" at 8M.
I seem to recall I had thought the MacOS GUI subsystem limited it to 16MB, anyway, by packing data into the high byte of addresses... Maybe a later release fixed that?
Lemme dig up some links.
edit
https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/sonmyl/se30_m...
https://charlieharrington.com/my-new-old-apple-macintosh-se3...
I really love this kind of hack, instead of ending up in the landfill someone has a ton of fun, learns a lot and breathes new life into a bunch of old hardware. Obviously it's not going to be able to hold its own against modern hardware but who cares, as long as itches get scratched it's all in the game.
If you look at crate upon crate of mobile phones trashed as e-waste and you realize that each and every one of them is probably the equivalent of a 1980's super computer and still working from an electronics point of view then the 'planned obsolescence' path that we are on is ultimately doomed to fail. Sooner or later really building for re-use will have to become the norm.
The problem is made worse by the fact that those phones cannot easily be converted to run something else.
Not to take anything away from this cool thing but both of these cards were designed/made for the SE/30 as was the passthrough capability. It's a little closer to what Melba Toast is packin' right here
https://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/
(Actually, I suspect you've probably seen this -- a while back. But, like me, it may be a pleasant little memory, along with the one of that fellow with one in his shed for cooling beers.)