Real Kato Blog: Vintage Computing

This weekend's dealings with my collection of old computers.

Most of the people who know me know that I have a large collection of old computers. Tinkering with computers is a hobby for me. Of course, guys who can take apart an automobile engine and rebuild it are "cool", whereas guys who can take apart a computer and rebuild it are "geeks". Whatever.

One of my old computers died about a month ago. It was the Blue and White G3 that had been my primary computer for years, the one I tried to make into a home theater Mac, and until recently, the computer that had acted as my file server and VPN gateway. I had already had to revive it once before, when I shorted out the logic board about five years ago.

I had a substantial investment in that computer... it had a CPU upgrade, a gigabyte of memory, an upgraded video card, and most of all, it had my custom metallic black paint job. So I couldn't just let it die.

Not knowing for sure if it was the logic board or the power supply that had the problem, I just picked up another Blue and White for $30 on eBay. It had a cracked case, but the internals were functional and that was all I needed. I checked that it was working, and then I set out to take it apart.

I spent a day transplanting the logic board and power supply into my old computer, a project that involves about fifty screws and a dozen cable attachments. (Naturally I ended up with a few screws left over.)

I plugged the computer in, hit the power button, and... beep beep beep beep beep. The computer failed to pass its power-on self-test sequence. My heart sank.

Had my memory modules gone bad? Was the upgraded CPU bad? Had I damaged the board during the transplant? I removed the G4 CPU upgrade and put a G3 back in, and the computer booted okay. So dang it, it must be the CPU. I started looking on eBay to see how much a new one would be.

As I was skimming through the ads, my eyes caught a couple of words: "... firmware upgrade..."

Oh yeah. It had been so long, I'd forgotten: the Blue and White G3, by default, can't use a G4 CPU, unless you remove a restriction in the firmware... the firmware that controls the power-on self-test. Duh.

Encouraged by this, I downloaded the firmware upgrade... and then realized you have to boot into Mac OS 9 to apply it. Now, I've got plenty of Mac OS 9 disks, but they were all at Amy's house at the time. I rummaged around, thinking I had to have some old CD or Zip disk with Mac OS 9 on it. Nope.

And then I remembered: when I booted the eBay-bought computer to check that it was working, it booted to Mac OS 9. Whew. I could boot the computer off that dusty 15GB hard drive that came with the computer.

I applied the firmware upgrade, put the G4 CPU back in, and I got the soothing sound of the normal Mac startup "bonnnng". So now, the computer, she lives. There's a very satisfying sense of accomplishment that comes with completing a project like this. This is the reason I like tinkering with the old computers. It's just neat to get them to work.

After all this, I remembered a couple of things about this particular computer. First, the case latches are broken, so it won't stay shut unless I engage the security lock mechanism. I could use the latch from the computer I just bought, but to replace this particular broken part means I have to take the whole dang computer apart again.

Second, the Blue and White G3 doesn't "deep-sleep". If you put it to sleep, the CPU and fans keep running. And this is not a quiet computer by any means.

But it's still a good little machine, perfectly adequate for everyday tasks. It'll continue to function as my backup desktop. If it dies again, I probably won't revive it a third time. But hopefully that won't happen for a long time.

Now, what to do with that old Mac SE/30?

Permalink 3 Comment

Posted by Ken in: techwatch

Comments

Comment #1 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2006 Nov 13 - 9:33 pm : #

Wow.

Comment #2 from JohnC (Guest)
2006 Nov 14 - 11:05 pm : #

Ah I had a Blue and White G3. I also upgraded it to a G4. But the upgrade blew the disk controller, and I had to buy a PCI controller. It actually worked. I managed to sell the thing on ebay, and buy and eMac, which I desperately regretted. But when the eMac blew it's 4th video board, Apple sent me a PowerMac 1Ghz G4 as a replacement. SO I guess it all worked out in the end. Still, I loved that Blue and White. Better than my mini to be sure.

Comment #3 from Phil (Guest)
2006 Nov 16 - 3:05 am : #

Somehow, what all this adds up to is the conclusion that you'll definitely be a great dad if you ever decide to become one. Freaky but true.

Comments are closed for this post.

Search This Site