I have been working on my Mac II and it is now up-and-running!
Initial Treatment:
- Thorough cleaning
- Removed the old (non-leaking) Varta batteries
- Installed new battery sockets
- Installed 4Mb
- Put in a SuperMac Spectrum/8 Series III 8-bit video card
Remaining Items:
- Still working on the dual floppies -- need some replacement gears for the rebuild
- Plan to add a built-in BlueSCSI for auto-boot
- I may add an upgraded ROM SIMM at some point so that it is 32-bit clean - it would be nice to have an 8Mb ROM boot disk
- Upgrade to 68882 - I think the Mac II automatically supported this upgrade
During testing and triage, I was jump-starting it with one of the batteries on the white power lead. But, I needed to install the batteries, because the Spectrum/8 III has Round-Robin video configuration on startup for multiple configs. It saves its setup in the slot PRAM. So, without battery backup, it just keeps resetting at startup, of course.
Anyway, it now boots and works very well! I had some initial issues with video, but I needed to change the monitor and cable - it wouldn't sync up or was just too slow. So, I am currently testing it on a 640x480 Apple Monitor (that still seems to work very well) and I can see that it is cycling through all of its configs. It includes 4 onboard oscillators for different video configs and an optional slot for 1 more (usually to support NTSC or PAL).
Spectrum/8 Series III v1.2 supports the following video configurations:
Standard Configs:
19" 1024x768 60Hz -- uses onboard 64Mhz oscillator
19" 1024x768 75Hz -- uses onboard 80Mhz oscillator
16" 832x624 -- uses onboard 55Mhz oscillator
13" 640x480 -- uses onboard 30.24Mhz oscillator
Optional Configs:
15" Portrait 640x870 -- uses optional 57.28 Mhz oscillator
NTSC 640x480 (interlaced) - uses optional 14.32 (14.31818) Mhz oscillator*
PAL 768x576 (interlaced) -- uses optional 17.73 Mhz oscillator*
*NTSC and PAL modes are not perfect "broadcast" standard, but they were good enough for general consumer use, such as showing output on a TV screen or connecting to video recording devices that expected NTSC and PAL signals.
The board also has many other cool features -- virtual desktops, pan and zoom, etc.
There is also some additional space on the board for additional PALs - not sure what those are for. Hmm...
In order to control the board, explicitly set a particular video configuration, and use special features, as noted above, you need to have the SuperVideo cdev installed in the System Folder so that it can run at startup. Otherwise, for general video selection, the slot PRAM had to be clear and users had to use Round Robin. (see below)
Also, I think there is a new ROM -- maybe version 1.3 that includes support for 17" (and maybe 12") monitors, but I don't have it. If anyone has a Spectrum/8 Series III v1.3 ROM image, let me know!
Below is a video of the Round Robin startup configuration for this card that runs whenever the NuBus slot PRAM doesn't have a saved video config. For historical purposes, there were 3 ways to reset the video config and cause Round Robin to run again:
1. Zap the PRAM at startup
2. Remove the card from the slot, turn the machine on and off, then reinstall the card
3. Move the card to a new slot that did not have a card installed at the previous power-on
The 4th way doesn't count!
(4. Have a machine that has a dead PRAM battery and doesn't save anything)
Initial Treatment:
- Thorough cleaning
- Removed the old (non-leaking) Varta batteries
- Installed new battery sockets
- Installed 4Mb
- Put in a SuperMac Spectrum/8 Series III 8-bit video card
Remaining Items:
- Still working on the dual floppies -- need some replacement gears for the rebuild
- Plan to add a built-in BlueSCSI for auto-boot
- I may add an upgraded ROM SIMM at some point so that it is 32-bit clean - it would be nice to have an 8Mb ROM boot disk
- Upgrade to 68882 - I think the Mac II automatically supported this upgrade
During testing and triage, I was jump-starting it with one of the batteries on the white power lead. But, I needed to install the batteries, because the Spectrum/8 III has Round-Robin video configuration on startup for multiple configs. It saves its setup in the slot PRAM. So, without battery backup, it just keeps resetting at startup, of course.
Anyway, it now boots and works very well! I had some initial issues with video, but I needed to change the monitor and cable - it wouldn't sync up or was just too slow. So, I am currently testing it on a 640x480 Apple Monitor (that still seems to work very well) and I can see that it is cycling through all of its configs. It includes 4 onboard oscillators for different video configs and an optional slot for 1 more (usually to support NTSC or PAL).
Spectrum/8 Series III v1.2 supports the following video configurations:
Standard Configs:
19" 1024x768 60Hz -- uses onboard 64Mhz oscillator
19" 1024x768 75Hz -- uses onboard 80Mhz oscillator
16" 832x624 -- uses onboard 55Mhz oscillator
13" 640x480 -- uses onboard 30.24Mhz oscillator
Optional Configs:
15" Portrait 640x870 -- uses optional 57.28 Mhz oscillator
NTSC 640x480 (interlaced) - uses optional 14.32 (14.31818) Mhz oscillator*
PAL 768x576 (interlaced) -- uses optional 17.73 Mhz oscillator*
*NTSC and PAL modes are not perfect "broadcast" standard, but they were good enough for general consumer use, such as showing output on a TV screen or connecting to video recording devices that expected NTSC and PAL signals.
The board also has many other cool features -- virtual desktops, pan and zoom, etc.
There is also some additional space on the board for additional PALs - not sure what those are for. Hmm...
In order to control the board, explicitly set a particular video configuration, and use special features, as noted above, you need to have the SuperVideo cdev installed in the System Folder so that it can run at startup. Otherwise, for general video selection, the slot PRAM had to be clear and users had to use Round Robin. (see below)
Also, I think there is a new ROM -- maybe version 1.3 that includes support for 17" (and maybe 12") monitors, but I don't have it. If anyone has a Spectrum/8 Series III v1.3 ROM image, let me know!
Below is a video of the Round Robin startup configuration for this card that runs whenever the NuBus slot PRAM doesn't have a saved video config. For historical purposes, there were 3 ways to reset the video config and cause Round Robin to run again:
1. Zap the PRAM at startup
2. Remove the card from the slot, turn the machine on and off, then reinstall the card
3. Move the card to a new slot that did not have a card installed at the previous power-on
The 4th way doesn't count!
(4. Have a machine that has a dead PRAM battery and doesn't save anything)
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