"Market" for old macs?

[Scott Stevens]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:40:44 -0600
Jeff Walther <trag at io.com> wrote:

> >Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:19:05 -0500
> >From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net>
> 
> >On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:59:42 -0500
> >"James Fogg" <James at jdfogg.com> wrote:
> >
> >>  > James Fogg wrote:
> >>  > > My interests stop at the "classic" Macs, of which the
> >SE30 is the >  > > height of engineering achievement (in my
> >opinion). >  >
> >>  > Why?  I know a bit of the classic Mac engineering history
> >>  > thanks to Andy's retro website/book, but I know nothing of
> >the SE30. >
> >>  OK, neither do I (it's too late to argue). It is the last of
> >the classic >  Macs and has the greatest number of features and
> >capabilities. >
> >
> >Actually it isn't the last of the Classic Macs in a certain
> >sense.  Apple
> >  produced several other inferior compact Mac machines that
> >  aren't nearly as expandable as the SE/30.  The Macintosh
> >  Classic is an example of this, if I'm not mistaken.  The
> >  Classic can't sport anywhere near as much RAM as the SE/30.
> 
> The SE/30 is essentially the IIcx with the NuBus slots sawn off
> and a  little (very little) video RAM and video circuitry added.
> 
> It was a nice machine.  16 MHz 68030 with fully 32 bit wide data
> and  address paths.  Maximum RAM is 128 MB with eight 16MB 30
> pin SIMMs.  Color capability is in the ROM, but requires one of
> the somewhat rare  video cards (SE/30 PDS slot) and goes to an
> external monitor.
> 
In it's day I can see the reason to expand an SE/30 with a video
card.  But mine are well equipped with ethernet cards in the PDS
slot.  If you want 'fancy video' and that sort of thing, shouldn't
you be using a NuBus box anyway? 

I do have a bunch of SCSI-to-ethernet pods that would work on an
SE/30 with video in the PDS slot, but I'm not sure about the
performance of ethernet-through SCSI' adaptors.  I use one
occasionally with my Powerbook 165c where there's no alternative.

> The follow up models which had similar form factors were far 
> inferior.  The Mac Classic really ought to be compared to the
> Mac  Plus or Mac SE (somewhat superior to the former and
> inferior to the  latter).   The only thing the Classic had going
> for it is that Mac OS  6.03 is in the ROM, so you can boot with
> no available disk.  It  *should* have had the Mac Portable
> memory map, so that it could  address 8 MB of RAM instead of
> only 4MB (24 bit address space) and a  speed bump from 8 to 16
> MHz, but Apple didn't do that.

None of Apple's compact Mac products after the SE/30 shine like it
does.  One might say it was a 'sign of the times' at Apple.  The
SE/30 is one of the 'peaks' of the company in some regards.

> 
> The Classic II was meant to be a follow up to the SE/30 but
> while it  has a 16MHz 68030 its maximum RAM is 10 MB and its
> data path is only  16 bits wide.  Bleah.  The Color Classic has
> the same problem, though  it does have a color screen.
> 
> The Color Classic II was better with 33MHz 68030 and 32 bit data
> 
> path.  The Max RAM was still limited to only 36MB.  However,
> that's a  72 pin SIMM socket with 4MB on the motherboard and
> Apple never  acknowledged that any of their 72 pin RAM machines
> would address  better than 32 MB per slot.  Nevertheless many of
> their machines will  work with 64MB or even 128 MB 72 pin SIMMs,
> so the CCII may have a  much higher max RAM than reported by
> Apple.
> 
> If that's the case, then the CCII was a worthy successor to the
> SE/30.
> 
> Jeff Walther