Mac the Third

I've spoken about the joys of eBay before. The numerous scams and endless 'RARE!! L@@K!!' type items. Bargains are getting harder to find as retro computers skyrocket.

A little while again I began to watch an Apple Mac G4 of the flower pot type. It was a quite a late one and had the 'widescreen' 20 inch monitor. At £49 it was a bargain, especially as it was located in my home town and was marked "Collection Only". I had forgotten about it and it didn't sell. But it was re-listed and I started to watch it again, this time with a bit more of a thought toward buying it.

This might be a stock image...

I waited for a while, and when there was about a week left I decided that I would definitely get it. I looked in the morning,before work, and it was still available. In the afternoon I went to buy it... and it had gone. I'd missed out by a few hours. Bugger.

Fortunately, these types of machines appear to be like buses. There's another one along in a minute. Or at least a couple of days anyway. Another machine appeared, also collection only but this time a few more miles away in the local city. But as this one was also collection only I was fairly confident I could get it without too many issues. 

Sure enough, one 'Buy it Now' click later and I was the proud owner of an Apple Mac G4. It didn't quite have the accessories that the one I missed had had. There were no speakers and the screen was the original 15" 4:3 aspect ratio. It was described as 'for parts' and the seller had specifically said it wouldn't come on any more and he'd given up on it. But no matter. This type of stuff is for repair and fun and isn't for everyday use. Honest.

Anyway, a quick socially distanced trip out (this actually happened around the time that the first human malware lockdown ended and the English tier system started) and an anti-bacterial wipedown later, and the machine was sat on my desk. 

A mouse was included, and a keyboard came a few days later, courtesy of a birthday present from my awesome brother. 

With all bits acquired, it was time to plug in and try a switch on. First up, it doesn't have the original power cable. Now, I'm not too sure about this but, apparently, the original Apple power cable is not quite a standard 'cloverleaf lead' affair (or IEC 60320 C5 to the uninitiated). But the one that came with my machine was a standard cable. Hmmm. So, after plugging it in I hit the power button and.....nothing. Perhaps it IS a different cable? 

Sadly not. The cable I had was standard but many people reported on various forums that this would be fine. So why wasn't it starting?

Next possibility was the worst case. A dodgy power supply. These things are fairly cramped inside - not a surprise given their shape - and if the power supply had dodgy caps then there would be no chance it would start. Double hmmmmm.

Then I read that it might be possible to start the Mac by doing the following:

1. Remove power cable
2. Press and hold power button for ten seconds
3. Re-insert power cable
4. Press power button
5. Keep fingers crossed

And it worked! This was great news as it meant that the most likely cause of the issue was a dead PRAM battery. Holding the power button cleared the PRAM settings and allowed the computer to boot. As it turns out, this would also allow the machine to shutdown and boot normally while the mains lead was plugged in to a live socket. But as soon as power was completely removed, it would no longer boot and I had to resort to the sequence above.

So, it works but most likely needs a new battery. Great. What's on it? Well, other than a few personal photos of family, not too much. I took the decision to wipe the hard disk and start from scratch with this. But not before I had installed a new PRAM battery.

Bottoms up!

Bend over....*ahem*

Removing the base reveals the user upgradeable bits on this type of machine. There's a gap for an Apple AirPort card and a memory slot. Sadly, no AirPort card in this one but, no matter. It does have a LAN port. :)

Next, remove the four screws that secure the bottom section to the main part of the base. This is a bit more tricky as there are cables to be careful of. In addition, there are heat-sinks near the back corner that mate together using thermal paste (note thermal paste at the ready in the photo above) which MUST be replaced when it's put back together.

Open wide!

Ohh! Free dust bunnies! And a non-leaky, but clearly dead PRAM battery. The heatsink bit that needs new thermal paste is the silverish shape next to the connector with the yellow cables. 

Removing the battery was simple, if a bit icky because of the dust (good job everyone has masks to hand these days). Next to the battery is the other part of the memory in a nice standard SIMM. With added dust.

"Yes Doctor. I've been feeling 
a bit flat recently."

With new battery added, re-assembly was a reverse of dis-assembly, not forgetting to put the perfect amount of thermal paste in the appropriate location. But would it boot straight away?

Oh, yes. :) And it would now boot even after being completely unplugged. PRAM battery, sorted. 

On to the software. In a previous series of posts, I had a complete nightmare with an Apple Mac Classic II. Given the slightly more modern vintage of this machine I was hoping the experience would be better. And it was. Sort of.

The OS was no problem. I managed to get the existing OS to connect to the internet through the simple action of plugging in a network cable. Then, in a fit of masochism I decided that for the full retro experience, I would download the OS and write the .iso images on the Mac itself. The website I went to had everything I needed and even detected that I was on an old Mac (handily disabling SSL so I could actually connect). Kudos to me indeed. 

I am saluted.

The downloading was not too bad, if a bit slow. Each image came as a 'toast' file. These were extremely easy to open and burn straight to CD (how quaint in these times). I am starting to see why Macs are popular, even when they are this old. I have to admit, it was easy to use, intuitive, and it just worked. Within a couple of hours I had four, perfectly burned Tiger CDs ready to install.

CDs - May contain OSX

Installation was also simple. Boot the machine while pressing either the 'Option' or 'C' key - I can't remember which one worked for me, I think the 'C' key - and it boots from the CD. Follow the instructions. Wait a bit. Swap to the next disk. Repeat. Done.

That was shockingly easy. And way simpler than the Mac Classic II..

So now I have an iMac G4 from 2003. Is it still useful? Weeellllll..... sort of.

The version of Safari included with OSX 10.4 works with a few modern websites e.g. the Google landing page. This blog works reasonably OK but blogger.com, which is used to compile it, does not.

I shall Google it..

Oh dear. :(

The stalwart BBC news website almost worked. But when trying to click on a news story, the text just wasn't there. A bit useless for a news site..

BBC News - Close, but.. no.

The big issues are changes in the way that pages are rendered. More power under the CPU hood means more fancy websites with bigger graphics, sound, advanced layouts using CSS etc etc. Making matters worse, encryption moves on to defeat advances in hacking/cracking. But the browsers on these machines do not. Meanwhile, the move of most websites to https:// instead of http:// effectively renders most of them useless. 

So what to do?

I actually used Safari on it to search for modern browsers for iMac G4s. Would you believe it, a relatively modern variation of FireFox is available. It's called 'TenFourFox'. Ironically, I couldn't download it via the available browser as it could not create a secure connection - the main issue with browsers on machines this old (apart from speed) as mentioned above. Fortunately, the developers behind TenFourFox provide a downloadable app that automatically detects the type of Mac you have and recommends the version to use. 

So I downloaded that, and then it downloaded the browser. No worries.

TenFourFox Downloader in action

BBC News - That's better!

Now I have a 'decent' browser the iMac may be a bit more useful. It is slow, there's no denying it, but there's also something cool about using an 18 year old computer to access the web of 2021. YouTube is definitely off the cards though.

Incidentally, I also installed MS Office on this too. If nothing else, I could use this G4 to write a blockbuster novel. Maybe not.

Something New.. (and short)

A very quick post today. Most of the stuff I talk about on here is retro i.e. about 20 years old or older. This short post is about something a bit more modern and (urgh) it's related to a laptop PC.

Several years ago, we bought Crashed Jr a laptop to get him through college and university. It has had a a bit of a hard life to say the least. Eventually, it had reached the point where it would not boot into Windows and would display a sad blue screen of death.

Added to that, the laptop would not generate any sound through its internal speakers. And the headphone socket was broken too. The only way to get any sound out of it was to connect USB speakers or headphones/headset to a USB port. Slightly annoying to say the least.

So, it finally landed on my bench. First things first, I tried booting it and it failed. Then I tried booting from a USB stick and that failed too. What to do? Then I remembered I had a SATA 2.5inch external drive enclosure that I had used to recover data from another old laptop. It was a two minute job to remove the hard disk from the poorly laptop, pop it in the enclosure and then plug it into my own, working laptop via USB. This allowed me to access all the files Crashed Jr needed to retain and get them onto my hard disk before transferring them to a memory stick. This was not a fast process and there were lots of files..

(Next time don't put it on a confidential email..)

Once I had all the files copied onto a USB stick, it was time to re-install windows on the poorly unit. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, it took bloody ages too and it was really annoying. It required completely removing all partition information via the simple method of installing Linux Mint and then starting a boot from a Win10 DVD - which was irritatingly awkward to get running. Several hours later it was done and I could take a look at the sound issue - but not before I spent three hours trying to work out why the bluetooth module was reported as 'Unknown Device'. So much for Plug & Play.

Are you sure you don't want to keep Linux?
Please?

My first thoughts were that the sound issue could be just a windows problem and that the re-install would solve it. Sadly this was not the case and the sound resolutely refused to work on the fresh Windows install. Then I started to think about the headphone socket. It was broken, without a doubt, and I was starting to wonder if the damaged socket could be confusing windows by making it think that headphones were permanently plugged in.

Time to get the screwdriver out.

This laptop was fairly easy to get apart - I'd already got it apart once to remove the hard disk - and in no time I was looking a the small daughter-board that contains the headphone socket. Or should I say 'contained'. It was smashed to pieces and basically fell apart when I touched it. I could have tried to get a new socket to install but it looked particularly 'low profile' and, despite my best efforts, I could not find an exact match. 

I'm in pieces, bits and pieces.

I'd say that's broken..

Thinking about headphone sockets work, they can act like a switch in that without a headphone jack inserted, a switch remains closed. Once headphones are plugged in then the switch is broken and this can be used by a computer/PC to determine where to route the sound.

So, in theory, if I could work out the correct pins, shorting two contacts would trick the laptop into thinking that no headphones were inserted and the speaker would work again. 

I booted the laptop up and opened YouTube in a browser and set it playing some random music. Then I tilted the laptop forward and with the bottom panel still removed, started prodding across the headphone contacts with a handy piece of wire. On my second prod I discovered two things:

1) I was correct

2) The volume was set to maximum

After a quick change of underwear I checked that what I'd done was repeatable (it was) and then removed the daughter-board so I could solder a small wire between the contacts to make the 'repair' permanent. 

Waitaminute.
That's not a headphone socket.

And, voila! Sound now emanates from Crashed Jrs old and battered laptop. There is no headphone socket so any headsets need to be Bluetooth or connected via USB, but at least there is sound. And it correctly switches to any other source that is plugged in via USB etc.

Not retro related in the slightest but still a neat, simple repair that got something old up and running again. :)