I found a crazy modified Macintosh 128K

And... is that a TELEPHONE?

══════════════════════════

══════════════════════════

══════════════════════════

══════════════════════════

#Macintosh #PowerPC #Floppies

[bradnelson]

Also, as much as Steve Jobs wanted to keep it a closed box, it's amazing to see how this old 128 Mac was upgraded.

[serqetry]

Eproms are hard to erase without a close proximity UVC light source. Stickers falling off the windows while inside a machine is never a problem.

[joelavcoco]

The error might mean that there's some bad RAM at a place in memory that doesn't get used by typical software that runs on a 128K Mac. If you fill the memory you might stumble into bad RAM that simply doesn't matter for booting into MacOS and starting a program or 2.

[adriansdigitalbasement]

I also love machines like this! What a hilarious product too, “For Max lovers only!”

Apple used that type of caps in place of X2 caps on some machines. They aren’t as safe as they aren’t X2 rated but they also don’t have the problems RIFAs have.

[ZuluTheZoroark]

I knew I recognized this machine! I bid on it through CTBids and- unsurprisingly- lost. Good to know it went to someone who will certainly care for it! Amazing video as always.

[bradnelson]

The only thing I know about holding the mouse button down is that it's supposed to eject removable media on startup. That's the first time I've seen a hardware issue bypassed by doing so. Very strange behavior from a very strange old Mac. I guess that suits it.

[tarmaque]

My Mom's boss happened to be at the Flint Center when Jobs first demonstrated the Mac 128k. He bought one on the spot, although he had to wait a few weeks for it to arrive. We were all using Apple ][ computers at the time; my mom at work, and I was learning BASIC on them in High School. (The first class they ever taught in my school on programming.) When Mom's boss's Mac arrived it was the first one in the area, and he loved to show it off. Then a year later he upgraded to a 512k Mac and passed his first 128k machine down to my Mom (his admin assistant.) That was 1985, and I got to type up some high school assignments on it after hours, and print it off on Mom's daisy-wheel printer. Then in another year they upgraded the whole office to Mac Plus computers, and my Mom (who did page layout a lot) got a portrait orientation external CRT monitor which could display a full legal size page. I think it cost as much as the computer, but it was invaluable for her job. (She also wrote a lot of grant applications.) About that time Mom brought home her boss's original 128k machine and we used it for basic word processing for another couple years.

[MichaelAStanhope]

You can see that someone had resoldered the analogue board connections at least once before, which isn't suprising.

[fsfs]

A while back I bought a boxed 128k off Craigslist. When I tried to turn it on, I got a similar error code. Using one of Larry Pina's books, I figured out that it was a memory fault and the book helped me determine exactly which chips were defective (based on the error code). I'm not sure it would still correspond to your upgrade card, but maybe if you could find the docs for it there would be some additional information to help determine which parts are problematic. Anyway I was able to get some NOS memory chips and once I replaced the defective ones, my 128k booted just fine.
After decades of use some of these upgrades can develop oxidation on the contacts. Like others, this Monster Mac upgrade displaces the CPU and relocates it to the upgrade board (though some simpler upgrades just fit into the ROM sockets in the same matter) so that the upgrade board itself can occupy the former CPU location on the logic board, usually via sockets but sometimes soldered. If you remove the socketed chips and the upgrade board and spray the respective parts with DeOxit or something similar, it may work just fine when you put it back together. I wonder if it would be possible to expand the ROM on the upgrade card. It looks like it may take extra chips. Booting Mac OS directly from ROM would be even better than a floppy emu setup.
Also I'm not sure if it's actually clocked up, but that 68000 is rated for 10MHz (stock is 8MHz).

[zaxxon]

It does not bleed the charge (or at least not very fast). About 25 years ago I accidentally discharged one while sliding a screwdriver undeer the suction cup. My arm was numb for at least 5 minutes, but I learned to not put my pointer finger on the metal part of the screwdriver.

[noiwonttellyoumyname.]

Friend of mine in high school had one of these, with the exact same upgrade card. He used it all the way through high school, with a 20 MB external hard drive and a second floppy drive. We graduated in 1995.

[beenine]

I love that what others see as ugly scars, you treat as signs that the machine had a rich life.

[PetarsPlace]

This phone is literally called the MacPhone TMS1000 (Telephone Management System) It's also one of the few apps that will run on a stock 128k. I searched for nearly 15 years to find the software for this and a relative of one of the engineers that coded the app sent me the software for this. I have the box/manual/device in my collection for many many years. The software worked over the audio jack to dial the phone numbers, and you clicked on rolodex type entries that you create for calls. It will also track your call times and log length and any notes you took. I see he found the copy of the software that we got uploaded to Macintosh Garden too! Excellent! Just need to install a regular telephone handset and you can use that phone again with a voip ATA device! The system even works on the Amiga 500 with the Amax II software and using the Amiga audio out.

[BrainSlugs]

I love that it has big velcro eyebrows... both on top and on the bottom of it's big CRT eyeball. Gives it a ton of personality!

[GardenBoat]

It would be so cool to meet the original owner. Thanks for posting this and keeping that random homebrewer’s memory snd legacy alive

[leocomerford]

2:28 Supposedly Apple had a _lot_ of unsold 128K Macs in stock after its launch ... underperformed expectations, so the decision to keep selling the 128K model was almost certainly just to clear out that stock. I'm not an expert, but I assume that nearly all of them ended up being modified significantly, if not usually as dramatically as this one: after all, they were only barely usable unmodified. It's ironic that Jobs set out to create a computing applicance that was unusually sealed and self-contained but instead released a machine that more or less had to be hacked in quite drastic ways.

[dungeonseeker]

PROMs don't get wiped from sunlight (at least not easily), it takes UV light at a specific wavelength to do it and even then, it takes like 30 minutes. Also that upgrade is insanity, the size of that board is absurd.

[crapasanya]

You should try to pull out and insert again the RAM chips on the Monstermak board, maybe they just have oxidized contacts.

[ldchappell]

I forgot I had one of these Macintosh machines in my garage until a few days ago. It's a 1MB Macintosh with a kind of rainbow hologram sticker on the back " ONE MEG." It is filthy and I'm going to clean it up today. The last time I turned it on was probably in 1998 or 1999. I bought this thing along with a crappy dot matrix called The Gorilla in 1995 at Goodwill for $30 or $40 for the pair. I managed to get onto the internet with it using an external disc drive and a Prodigy Internet floppy.

[RedstoneLP]

could this be considered a... smart phone?