save the Mac II (original)

From: Seth Lewin <sml49_at_comcast.net>
Date: Tue Apr 20 21:57:59 2004

>> Would somebody please take my Mac II?
>>
>> I saved it from being scrapped at the office because of it's
>> history, in that it was Apple's big redesign, the first
>> machine of the new line
>> -- one that completed with IBM's PS/2 line and argubly was a
>> greater success. I'm not a big Apple expert but it just
>> seemed if you were going to have a few Macs that this model
>> would be in the top 5.
>
> It would be for me, but I've already got one. Is there much interest for
> original Macs here? I'm beginning to wonder after nobody replied to me
> question about a dead Mac IIfx last week :-/
>

There are a few of us on this list with interest in original Macs; my
interest is limited only by available storage space. (Want a few Iisi's,
perhaps? A few 20MB Rodime hard drives with external actuators?) What
happened with your Iifx?

 If you're really going to scrap the II I could perhaps be persuaded to give
it a home; haven't had my hands on one since I ran one as a file server in
1991-2; somewhere I still have AppleShare and the AppleTalk Internet Router
software I used back then. That was a really hot network (not) - 6 SE's, an
SE30, an original LC, a Iisi, a II as a server, another II as a workstation,
a Shiva Telebridge and an Avatar MacMainFrame SDLC gateway to a remote CICS
host and a LaserWriter IINT. All on PhoneNet, too. Another SE was used to
dial into the Telebridge at 2400BPS thru a Practical Peripherals modem. 90MB
SCSI Bernoulli on the SE30 for backup. We even had a PC in on this party
using a PC AppleTalk card. Ran FileMaker II for a workgroup plus Word 5,
Excel, PageMaker 3, Canvas 2.1 and the Avatar software for mainframe session
access. The Avatar printer emulator ran on a dedicated SE driving an OKI
dot-matrix printer through a serial-to-parallel adapter as I recall. Worked
fine, too. The leased-line modem for the remote mainframe access was easily
as big as a Mac II; as I recall the II sat on top of it. Quite the setup.
Drove our MIS guy nuts that this arrangement of odds and ends set up by an
amateur - all units were out of production by then except maybe the Iisi -
was stable but his Novell setup crashed every few days.

I figure your Mac II and my ImageWriter LQ would make a handsome 'couple'
while completely covering a good sized desk's top. Nothing like old Apple
hardware - I'm still printing on the LaserWriter II I bought new in 1989.
Works fine. Slowly, but fine.

Seth Lewin
Received on Tue Apr 20 2004 - 21:57:59 BST

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