Macintosh TV CRT replacement

[wottle]

I recently picked up a non-working Macintosh TV that is not in the best shape. I'm hoping a good cleaning will restore the black plastic to a respectable condition. However, the CRT has a scratch on it, and I'm wondering if the 14" Trinitron is shared with other LC / Performa models. I have an LC575 that I used the logic board from to make a mystic Color Classic. So I have a 14" Trinitron in that case that is not being used. If it's compatible, I'd rather it be in the working Macintosh TV (assuming I can get it working).

Also, what other parts may be shared with other Macs I can canibalize parts from to get it working. I'm hoping maybe replacing some capacitors / reflowing some bas joints may be all it takes, but will also start looking for donor machines to ensure I can get this thing back in a usable state.

Thanks for any guidance y'all can provide!

 

[Garrett]

With the exception of the 580CD, the analog board and CRT should be swappable. The auto inject floppy and caddy CD ROM are nothing special either, just watch out for capacitor leakage on the CD ROM logic board. Every one I've seen has some pretty bad cap leakage. Not horrible to fix, just tedious is all. Nice find on the Mac TV! Post pictures if you have some

 

[wottle]

With the exception of the 580CD, the analog board and CRT should be swappable. The auto inject floppy and caddy CD ROM are nothing special either, just watch out for capacitor leakage on the CD ROM logic board. Every one I've seen has some pretty bad cap leakage. Not horrible to fix, just tedious is all. Nice find on the Mac TV! Post pictures if you have some

Awesome, that's good to hear. I'll certainly check the CD ROM. No CD caddy, so I'll need to grab one off eBay, and the case looked in rough shape, but I'm hoping it's mostly just really dirty.

Will post pictures when it arrives. I may be lucky and the person may simply not know that you need to turn it on via the keyboard...

 

[wottle]

Package arrived this morning and it is all in one piece. It was pretty dirty, but cleaned up pretty well - not too many scratches, but overall the plastic is fair. Pleasantly surprised to find the logic board in good shape - no major cap leakage and the battery (original) had not leaked yet! Minor scratch on CRT isn't as bad as I thought, but may still swap out the CRT from the 575. Keyboard is in great shape, although dirty. A good cleaning and it will be fine.

Hopefully this machine is working and the owner just didn't realize that you had to power it on from the keyboard (missing the black ADB cable, so they likely had no way to do so). I'll post pictures and updates as I test things out on this machine.

Really wish it had the black ADB cable and black mouse. I'll be on the lookout for those. In the meantime, I have plenty of spare ADB cables and Apple Mice. Anyone experiment with black vinyl dye on cables and plastics? Would love to have a semi-decent solution to complete my black Mac setup until I can find some parts.

Also, in case anyone is wondering, the remote from the TAM works with the MacTV. I believe Sony remotes back in the day also worked to control some of the features. I believe the original remote for this was a credit card style remote. If anyone knows where I can get a replacement, definitely let me know.

 

[wottle]

Good news, I did a bit of cleanup, connected up a set of mismatched platinum ADB keyboard / mouse, the machine powered on!

The screen initially had a yellow hue to it, but a friendly bump on the side caused it to become correctly colored (will be reflowing the solder joints on the analog board when I get it apart). Hard drive was dead, there was a floppy in it that ejected properly, so the eject gear seems to be in good shape. Booted up with a BlueSCSI and everything seems to be in good shape.

A disassembly and thorough cleaning is in order for this machine, and I need to get the original OS / software on it to see if the TV portion works (with 7.5.3 and my TAM remote, pressing the "Mac/TV" button causes it to try to launch the Apple Video Player app).

Also need to test the CD drive (waiting for a CD caddy from eBay to arrive).

Also, I forgot that ADB and S-video cables are identical, so I'll likely be buying a black one to use as the keyboard ADB cable. And will be trying vinyl dye on a mouse to see how it looks / holds up on the cable / case.

Ultimately, as one of my holy grail items, I'm really excited for this one - and it makes me with Apple had produced more black machines in this era (black Performa 5400 looked amazing as well).

 

[Garrett]

Nice - looking good. I too am a sucker for the black Mac models. I remember when I was much younger, I saw a picture of the Mac TV and decided to paint the case of my LCIII black. Needless to say it didn't look nearly as nice as a factory black Mac. Although I didn't come across a Mac TV of my own until about a year ago, I have had a couple black MacBooks which I've always loved the look of.

 

[Volvo242GT]

Nice score. If I remember correctly, the S-video cables are pinned differently than the ADB cables, though. Might be safer to mask off the metal parts of the connectors on a 590-0616 ADB cable, then use black plastidip to change the color of that cable to match the MacTV. Otherwise, for a completely black Mac, you may be stuck with the NOS black 5400 keyboard that's listed on the other site, maybe modifiying its cable to work with the M0487 keyboard.

 

[wottle]

Nice score. If I remember correctly, the S-video cables are pinned differently than the ADB cables, though. Might be safer to mask off the metal parts of the connectors on a 590-0616 ADB cable, then use black plastidip to change the color of that cable to match the MacTV. Otherwise, for a completely black Mac, you may be stuck with the NOS black 5400 keyboard that's listed on the other site, maybe modifiying its cable to work with the M0487 keyboard.

I actually went with vinyl/plastic dye in a spray can for the mouse, to see how it would work. The results were surprisingly good. I’d say you’d be hard pressed to tell it’s not original. I put it on a bit too strong and got a bit of a bump from extra paint, but the texture and finish are very close to the keyboard.

Even the mouse cable turned out really nice. The cable has a bit more of a rough texture than the original, but I might try to use the dye on an original coiled adb cable for the keyboard connection. Will have to temporarily stretch it to get all sides of the cable, but I think it would be a nice finish.

For anyone interested in replicating, it was DupliColor flat black Vinyl and Fabric paint / dye. Cost me $12 at the auto parts store: https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p...fb10f3dd041f15177c5e910a229d6143&gclsrc=3p.ds

 

[Garrett]

Looks like a nice color match. I'm curious to see how it holds up over time. How did you prep the surface of the mouse? Any sanding or just a good cleaning?

 

[wottle]

Looks like a nice color match. I'm curious to see how it holds up over time. How did you prep the surface of the mouse? Any sanding or just a good cleaning?

Just a good cleaning.

I'm hoping all the contact points that rub against other plastic should be well hidden (where the mouse button may rub when clicking). The slides underneath were covered with painters tape. Really my only concerns are the cable and any rubbing from my finger or palm when in use. I'll try to put an update out here (or maybe a dedicated post for it) to show how it holds up long-term.

 

[wottle]

So, I also painted one of my coiled ADB keyboard cables and again, the results were much better than I anticipated. I'll try to take a picture of the whole setup. Unfortunately, it would be tougher to accomplish on the keyboard itself due to the letters printed on the keys. Although, I considered the time-consuming task of possibly using my wife's vinyl cutting machine to produce tiny white letters to put over top of each key after painting. Also, I actually got the original black ADB keyboard, so there isn't a need on my end.

Still need to see how the paint holds up over time, but it may be tough to see as I don't use the MacTV all the time. But after using it for the past 5 days or so, the keyboard still looks fantastic - no change to the finish.

 

[retr01]

Hmmm. Maybe I'll make all my Macs black.

 

[wottle]

Hmmm. Maybe I'll make all my Macs black.

It did get me thinking. With my wife's vinyl cutting machine, I feel like I could make a stencil in the right font for the model number. And I have a Mac SE case that doesn't have innards I could do a trial run on... It would look a bit like one of those defense department black Macs. And I already have ADB accessories to go with it. The keyboard is really the only challenge.

 

[retr01]

It would look a bit like one of those defense department black Macs.

DoD? Nope. S.H.I.E.L.D.!

 

[wottle]

On that note, anyone know the font used for the model names on the Mac SE? I think I might give this a go with my spare SE case.

 

[retr01]

On that note, anyone know the font used for the model names on the Mac SE? I think I might give this a go with my spare SE case.

Apple modified one of the fonts for the silkscreens. There is another approach. Take a high-resolution close-up picture of the logo on the front of your Mac SE. Use Photoshop or GIMP to create one, such as a rough example I did below.

If you want, I can create a clear and crisp white silkscreen proof image from a picture you take—PM me.

 

[wottle]

The other question I am contemplating is: do I paint the CD drive doors? One one hand, I think it would make the Mac TV look much better. On the other, it's not stock and the platinum colored CD door was one of those quirky Mac TV things.

 

[retr01]

Hey @wottle, I looked at the pics I found online of the Mac TV. I understand now the door is platinum colored. Wow. I thought it was black. Apple cut corners as usual back then.

Yes, I think it would look better if the door and the facade of the internal CDROM drive were matte black or whatever black matched the Mac TV case's black color. Like the rough example below, you might want to do a white "CD Caddy" logo on the door.

 

[wottle]

Hey @wottle, I looked at the pics I found online of the Mac TV. I understand now the door is platinum colored. Wow. I thought it was black. Apple cut corners as usual back then.

Yes, I think it would look better if the door and the facade of the internal CDROM drive were matte black or whatever black matched the Mac TV case's black color. Like the rough example below, you might want to do a white "CD Caddy" logo on the door.

View attachment 7168

The CD Caddy is actually embossed (or whatever the opposite of embossed in (carved out of the plastic). Debossed? Anyway, I think it would still be visible even if painted. Also, as discussed in my other thread about the CD caddy getting stuck in the drive, there's actually two doors. One that says CD caddy, and the other that says CADDY LOADED. We'll see if the template / vinyl paint method works well on my black Mac SE trial run and go from there.

I'm still torn as the stock platinum color is part of the charm of one of the weirdest Macs ever made.

 

[retr01]

The CD Caddy is actually embossed (or whatever the opposite of embossed in (carved out of the plastic). Debossed? Anyway, I think it would still be visible even if painted. Also, as discussed in my other thread about the CD caddy getting stuck in the drive, there's actually two doors. One that says CD caddy, and the other that says CADDY LOADED. We'll see if the template / vinyl paint method works well on my black Mac SE trial run and go from there.

You could use plastic weld to fill in the "CD CADDY" engraving. Two doors? Oh boy. I thought it was a caddy CDROM like the Apple CD SC.

I'm still torn as the stock platinum color is part of the charm of one of the weirdest Macs ever made.

Yeah, one of the weirdest Macs. I think Apple was planning to make a "compact" all-in-one with a bigger screen since the release of the SE in March 1987, but it was nowhere near the iMac after Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Jony Ive helped SJ with the designs of the iMac, which was less weird, I think.

I am sure that Apple made plenty of weirdos in the design offices that never saw the light of the day.