the issue with Phillips screws is that most aren't actually Phillips screws, but instead are JIS screws that also are cross-shaped but take a flat screwdriver instead of the bullet-tipped Phillips screwdrivers that would strip it in three seconds
Talking about the lack of fans, in the UK we had the opposite issue, the Amstrad PC1512/1640 had the PSU in the monitor and as such convection cooling was enough, IBM losing sales put out the rumour along the lines of "these computers are unreliable, they have no fans so they overheat". In the end to placate customers a fan was added to HDD models, Alan Sugar remarking something along the line of "we'd paint it pink leopard print if the customers wanted it". Alas the replacement for the PC1512/1640 was unreliable and got recalled, none of it was down to anything Amstrad had done with the design but they were supplied dodgy hard disks, something Amstrad sued and won damages over.
@@Us-two that makes it significantly worse if there are 2 kinds of threads! it'd be very easy to mix them up and cross-thread the wrong screw in the wrong hole, they're the same size bit, so they're hard to tell apart.
@@Minty1337Normally one can see the difference, self-threading are tapered at the end and have a much coarser thread - these are used when installing in plastic. But I agree, when your eyes are as old as mine (79 years) the screws are a bit difficult to differentiate. Have a lovely day.
The reference is surely Denholm Reynholm from The IT Crowd!! “Hello... computer?! - Hello…” - Did I get the Chris Morris points? (Hmm, thinking about it , it might just be Star Trek...)
This was the computer I bought from all my summer job savings before heading off to university. I did have the same SystemSaver too. Within a few years I upgraded to a Duo210. Wild how quickly the technology advanced in those days. My daily driver laptop is still a 2012 MacBook Pro.
One tip I picked up for cracking open these old macs… take the handle and chassis screws almost all the way out, then push on them to pop the two halves of the case apart.
One solution I’ve used for 20 years for the screws in the handle: pull the pen tip out of a Bic Stick pen and shove a T 15 bit into the end. It’s the perfect length.
1:18 - This, this RIGHT here is why your channel is so damn good dude! So when are you going to find a motorola MW520 or 800 and install it in your XJ? That's the video I'm waiting for!
I have a working one (I serviced years ago to recap the analog board and remove the exploding RIFA caps). Belonged to a teacher of mine, he asked me what to get back when I was in high school (I had a TI-99/4A at the time and was really big on programming). He wanted to type maths and easily this was the only system that could do it. Many many years later he found it in storage and gave it to me.
I love videos like this! So satisfying to see a great piece of tech like this escape the landfill and get a repair no matter how large or small. Personally I’m not a massive fan of Linux so I feel a sense of satisfaction when you use Apple’s own System or Mac OS software lol. But that’s just my personal preference, I know you love it and I can certainly appreciate it as well. Just keep making your awesome videos!
I love the Plus and Trek, especially The Voyage Home as all three of "us" were "born" the same year. That whole segment of the movie in Plexicorp was great to me, from the instant that Scotty said he'd traveled millions of miles, only to be corrected by McCoy was just fantastic to me from the first time I saw it when I was seven.
first computer i used. they used to rent one for me every month and a guy would deliver it in a roadie case and pick it up a week later. finally bought one, then a cx, supermac s700, quadra 950, beige g3, etc. LOTS of cash involved in the early days
Can you do a detailed video on tigerbrew, please? Also, maybe separate videos on macports and/or fink would be cool. I dont see many detailed videos out there, and I'm sure many don't know about these utilities, let alone know how to use... I guess an Xcode video too, since tigerbrew and macports is dependent on. Not sure about fink, but assume so.... Hey, thanks for considering the subject at least....
Good to know. I have a Mac Plus that's working fine right now, but it might be worth it to reflow those solder joints. I just finished recapping an SE/30 motherboard that I then installed into an SE chassis. Every single electrolytic cap on that board had leaked, and the board smelled like rotten fish every time the hot solder hit it. But now it works great, and I got the fastest B&W Mac that Apple offered.
Oh no, Sean, don't tempt me to be bringing back a classic Mac from VCF East. I'm thinking of bringing stuff down for the freebies table though (learned after last year I will need a hand truck to bring stuff from the parking lot to the show). Unfortunately we have a militaria show on Saturday, (also trying to sell off stuff there as well) so can't make it until Sunday.
I had a mac plus, loved that thing in the early 90's :) The backup battery was a hard one to find though... I spent weeks cloning my 40mb external drive until it was exactly the same as my schools units by using a norton utilities boot disk, then snuck it in in my bag and swapped it for a 80mb unit that the school had on some of them. Got away with it too lol 😆 a great big scsi drive with the same footprint as the plus!
Love the reference with the mouse. "oh, a keyboard. how quaint." - Montgomery Scott Then he proceeds to punch up the structure of transparent aluminum at ludicrous speed.
I still have my original FatMac which was upgraded to maybe 2MB and a built in scssi controller was bodged in with a 20MB HD. It wasn't booted for 20 years, about a year ago it did the bong thing and the monitor shows a single line of sorts, will apply this solder hack to see if it restores the video.2 fingers crossed
Perhaps the professor could use your computer. Please. Computer... Computer! McCoy hands him the computer mouse Ah! Hello computer? Just use the keyboard. The keyboard. ...How quaint. Transparent aluminum? That's the ticket, laddie.
Heh heh, at the beginning of this video, I was thinking about that scene with Scotty, and pondered how he was able to touch typer and just how fast were they able to make transparent aluminum. And then, you picked up the mouse and talked into it. I guess you said something in the very beginning that suggested that to me.
Be nice to add 'Stepping Out II' from the Macintosh Garden. Mine had a Radius Accelerator, and a FPU. OH, and the sequel to The Dungeons of Doom, The Dungeon Revealed, and of course, Lode Runner. AsterRoids was good too, as was SpaceWard Ho!
I appreciate that you warned people about the high voltage, but old CRTs can hold a charge for an extraordinarily long time… I recommend following the procedure to discharge it, no matter what, just to be safe
The minimum temp for solder to start to melt is like 360F. If the computer ever got that hot a cracked joint would be the least of your problems. Those joints cracking is more likely due to a combination of mechanical stress from the giant connector, low quality solder and low quality workmanship. I would personally suggest clearing the joints entirely and redoing them using fresh leaded solder. Also, Star Trek IV. 😅
Cracked solder joints aren't caused by the solder itself melting, but by fatigue caused by repeated thermal cycling over time. All of the elements in the system (components, component leads, PCB, the solder itself) have different coefficients of thermal expansion, so large thermal fluctuations will cause a lot of strain.
I doubt I'll ever own a Mac, but I would love to see a mini-itx PC case that was like this with an included modern display. How cool would that be? There's already a modern version of the keyboard. You just just install a modern OS that lets you do all the things you want, maybe running BSD or Linux with a Mac plus theme if you want that authenticity.
Awesome video, Sean! Would you have any advice for how to add a fan to the Plus? Preferrably non-destructively? I'm thinking I might have to design and 3d print one of those attachments...
Lucky! I was hoping for an easy fix like that, but the Mac Classic I recently restored needed a lot more work. Battery and capacitor leakage sure did a number on this one, but many hours later it works like new. Well, aside from the RTC chip being completely destroyed by the battery - any ideas how to replace that? I saw an ATTiny based replacement for the SE/30 but idk if that would work on the classic
Nice video and fix, however heat from those parts would be nowhere near hot enough to crack solder joints, that's a common myth. The plastic would start melting first. The usual cause of cracked joints is physical shock on old joints that have oxidized over the years.
I agree it's not getting hot enough to melt the solder but thermal expansion and contraction can lead to stress cracks. In some cases the solder _can_ get hot enough to melt but that only happens when large currents flow through an already damaged connection.
DUNGEON OF DOOM!!!! i LOVED that game! i spent so much time playing it on my Classic when i was in college. that and Mission: Thunderbolt. ah, i miss that little machine.
not putting a single fan in a hot computer simply so that it would sound quiet is the most apple thing ever. even a couple slow, silent fans wouldve sufficed
There was a moment at the beginning when I thought you were going to say, "This Mac Plus is suffering from a fault... It's not running Haiku!"
Lmfao
Haiku’s that BeOS fork, right? Does that even run on Mac Pluses?
Star Trek IV, Scotty: "Ah, a keyboard. How quaint."
“How quaint.”-scotty
Hello, computer.
@@pseudotasukiAww I was hoping to be first to the "Scotty reference" party but I've arrived far too late...
I'm actually glad they used Torx, because it doesn't strip if you look at it wrong
the issue with Phillips screws is that most aren't actually Phillips screws, but instead are JIS screws that also are cross-shaped but take a flat screwdriver instead of the bullet-tipped Phillips screwdrivers that would strip it in three seconds
Talking about the lack of fans, in the UK we had the opposite issue, the Amstrad PC1512/1640 had the PSU in the monitor and as such convection cooling was enough, IBM losing sales put out the rumour along the lines of "these computers are unreliable, they have no fans so they overheat". In the end to placate customers a fan was added to HDD models, Alan Sugar remarking something along the line of "we'd paint it pink leopard print if the customers wanted it".
Alas the replacement for the PC1512/1640 was unreliable and got recalled, none of it was down to anything Amstrad had done with the design but they were supplied dodgy hard disks, something Amstrad sued and won damages over.
What a great tutorial! And how nice of you to pass this on to the community. You're simply great, Sean! 🎉🎉
Thanks Chris!
Missed opportunity to call the floppy "Seananigans".
NOOOOO!
That is also what i always think of when Sean says "shenanigans" - "Seannanigans" is a perfect slogan 😀
"Fortunately, all the screws are exactly the same size!" - shows screws with 2 different types of threads
Same torx size, beeno.
@@Us-two that makes it significantly worse if there are 2 kinds of threads! it'd be very easy to mix them up and cross-thread the wrong screw in the wrong hole, they're the same size bit, so they're hard to tell apart.
@@Minty1337Normally one can see the difference, self-threading are tapered at the end and have a much coarser thread - these are used when installing in plastic. But I agree, when your eyes are as old as mine (79 years) the screws are a bit difficult to differentiate. Have a lovely day.
@@Us-twoToo bad he used a hex wrench on the sheet metal three, and a torx on the two handle ones, which should get lost...
Jobs' policy on fans was very much silent but deadly
Good joke!
Indeed.
The reference is surely Denholm Reynholm from The IT Crowd!! “Hello... computer?! - Hello…” - Did I get the Chris Morris points? (Hmm, thinking about it , it might just be Star Trek...)
This was the computer I bought from all my summer job savings before heading off to university. I did have the same SystemSaver too. Within a few years I upgraded to a Duo210. Wild how quickly the technology advanced in those days. My daily driver laptop is still a 2012 MacBook Pro.
One tip I picked up for cracking open these old macs… take the handle and chassis screws almost all the way out, then push on them to pop the two halves of the case apart.
One solution I’ve used for 20 years for the screws in the handle: pull the pen tip out of a Bic Stick pen and shove a T 15 bit into the end. It’s the perfect length.
Lol Star Trek IV reference. As a fellow nerd I respect. Trekkie gonna trek. 🖖
Wonder if he knows the formula for transparent aluminum too 😅
Lol Scottie in Star Trek IV reference. I'll take my 10 points. Don't know what they're for, but I want 'em!
1:17
Me when I'm about to drop the formula for transparent aluminum on an unsuspecting someone.
Eyyy, Star Trek IV reference, with Scotty and the computer 😂🎉
"A keyboard; how quaint."
This was a fantastic video. Preserving computer history is such an important task (imo). I love vintage macs.
1:18 - This, this RIGHT here is why your channel is so damn good dude!
So when are you going to find a motorola MW520 or 800 and install it in your XJ? That's the video I'm waiting for!
Hahaha
I have a working one (I serviced years ago to recap the analog board and remove the exploding RIFA caps). Belonged to a teacher of mine, he asked me what to get back when I was in high school (I had a TI-99/4A at the time and was really big on programming). He wanted to type maths and easily this was the only system that could do it. Many many years later he found it in storage and gave it to me.
Startrek IV reference,,, how quaint. :)
I love videos like this! So satisfying to see a great piece of tech like this escape the landfill and get a repair no matter how large or small.
Personally I’m not a massive fan of Linux so I feel a sense of satisfaction when you use Apple’s own System or Mac OS software lol. But that’s just my personal preference, I know you love it and I can certainly appreciate it as well. Just keep making your awesome videos!
I love the Plus and Trek, especially The Voyage Home as all three of "us" were "born" the same year. That whole segment of the movie in Plexicorp was great to me, from the instant that Scotty said he'd traveled millions of miles, only to be corrected by McCoy was just fantastic to me from the first time I saw it when I was seven.
Scotty is the obvious reference you were making from Star Trek IV - A Search For Whales. 🤣 I just came here for my internet points.
3:21 - still a mix of coarse and machine threads for funzies.
Nice to see these wonderful machines being saved.
It's funny how a lot of people think it's the capacitors, but really it's just solder joints.
first computer i used. they used to rent one for me every month and a guy would deliver it in a roadie case and pick it up a week later. finally bought one, then a cx, supermac s700, quadra 950, beige g3, etc. LOTS of cash involved in the early days
"Um, Just use the Keyboard"
"Um, How quaint!"
Also a problem is the connector pins for the deflection yoke. Those carry many amps and the solder joints often get crumbly.
Wish I was going to be at VCF-would have snatched it up! Great work, as always!
Can you do a detailed video on tigerbrew, please? Also, maybe separate videos on macports and/or fink would be cool. I dont see many detailed videos out there, and I'm sure many don't know about these utilities, let alone know how to use...
I guess an Xcode video too, since tigerbrew and macports is dependent on. Not sure about fink, but assume so....
Hey, thanks for considering the subject at least....
Absolutely unreal timing Sean, literally just inherited a Mac Plus with this exact problem
Good to know. I have a Mac Plus that's working fine right now, but it might be worth it to reflow those solder joints. I just finished recapping an SE/30 motherboard that I then installed into an SE chassis. Every single electrolytic cap on that board had leaked, and the board smelled like rotten fish every time the hot solder hit it. But now it works great, and I got the fastest B&W Mac that Apple offered.
Thank you for showing the Kensington before I could ask what that bump on top of the computer was. :)
Oh no, Sean, don't tempt me to be bringing back a classic Mac from VCF East. I'm thinking of bringing stuff down for the freebies table though (learned after last year I will need a hand truck to bring stuff from the parking lot to the show).
Unfortunately we have a militaria show on Saturday, (also trying to sell off stuff there as well) so can't make it until Sunday.
I had a mac plus, loved that thing in the early 90's :)
The backup battery was a hard one to find though...
I spent weeks cloning my 40mb external drive until it was exactly the same as my schools units by using a norton utilities boot disk, then snuck it in in my bag and swapped it for a 80mb unit that the school had on some of them. Got away with it too lol 😆 a great big scsi drive with the same footprint as the plus!
Yay!! 10 bonus points to me!
As a kid who grew up with a IIGS, those Apple 3 1/2" floppy mechanisms make the most pleasant noises.
You have to use the keyboard, Scotty. 😂
Scotty. At the plexiglass manager’s office. Star Trek IV. Using a Mac. I believe running a Hypercard program?
Love the Star Trek IV reference!
The best of the movies!
Could be worse, the Sinclair ZX80 didn't have fans or ventilation, Clive went with a printed-on ventilation grill.
Also Star Trek: The One With Whales
I bought a Mac Plus for 40 bucks with the exact same problem. Brought it home, spent 5 minutes resoldering, good as new
Love the reference with the mouse.
"oh, a keyboard. how quaint." - Montgomery Scott
Then he proceeds to punch up the structure of transparent aluminum at ludicrous speed.
Well done, I'm not a Mac fan but I can still appreciate see the history preserved.
Between our Rockford, IL, and Taipei, Taiwan plants, our company made almost all of the CRT's for these computers.
1:17 star trek 4, right? not a big fan but I love the little old lady when Bones grows her a kidney.
I still have my original FatMac which was upgraded to maybe 2MB and a built in scssi controller was bodged in with a 20MB HD. It wasn't booted for 20 years, about a year ago it did the bong thing and the monitor shows a single line of sorts, will apply this solder hack to see if it restores the video.2 fingers crossed
A single very bright line? If so start with the connectors for the CRT yoke.
3:25 Same length screws, but not the same thread it seems!
@1:18 I don't get the reference, and I don't have time to look it up as I need to work out how to save some wales...
The referance is to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when Scotty tries to interface with a similar Apple Computer the same way.
Came to say the same thing. Great movie scene!
Hell yeah! I got a Mac plus recently and have been hoping for a guide. Now I’m hoping I don’t need to recap anything
I like the easy fixes 🙂
Ah, a fellow Trekkie!
My favourite Mac of all!
Perhaps the professor could use your computer.
Please.
Computer... Computer!
McCoy hands him the computer mouse
Ah! Hello computer?
Just use the keyboard.
The keyboard. ...How quaint.
Transparent aluminum?
That's the ticket, laddie.
1:17 is it setup for voice activation ? Also, Team Work!
Heh heh, at the beginning of this video, I was thinking about that scene with Scotty, and pondered how he was able to touch typer and just how fast were they able to make transparent aluminum. And then, you picked up the mouse and talked into it. I guess you said something in the very beginning that suggested that to me.
so the fix makes it all good for long time or just a little while? was expecting you to install some kind of fan in there
Nice t-shirt.
Be nice to add 'Stepping Out II' from the Macintosh Garden. Mine had a Radius Accelerator, and a FPU. OH, and the sequel to The Dungeons of Doom, The Dungeon Revealed, and of course, Lode Runner. AsterRoids was good too, as was SpaceWard Ho!
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home!
I appreciate that you warned people about the high voltage, but old CRTs can hold a charge for an extraordinarily long time… I recommend following the procedure to discharge it, no matter what, just to be safe
It's also good to note that you are more likely to have a charged CRT if it's _not_ working.
The minimum temp for solder to start to melt is like 360F. If the computer ever got that hot a cracked joint would be the least of your problems.
Those joints cracking is more likely due to a combination of mechanical stress from the giant connector, low quality solder and low quality workmanship. I would personally suggest clearing the joints entirely and redoing them using fresh leaded solder.
Also, Star Trek IV. 😅
I always thought the issue with uncontrolled temps was thermal expansion putting strain on the joints
Cracked solder joints aren't caused by the solder itself melting, but by fatigue caused by repeated thermal cycling over time. All of the elements in the system (components, component leads, PCB, the solder itself) have different coefficients of thermal expansion, so large thermal fluctuations will cause a lot of strain.
@@SteelSkin667Glad you wrote this so I didn't have to!
How nice, a Star Trek reference 1:19
5th!
Earliest I've been to a new upload!
And well worth it too. Keep it up, man!
Macintosh plus: Excuse me. I need your help. You need to kill me.
You should add some heatsinks and a couple fans to the machine to keep it going longer.
I doubt I'll ever own a Mac, but I would love to see a mini-itx PC case that was like this with an included modern display. How cool would that be? There's already a modern version of the keyboard. You just just install a modern OS that lets you do all the things you want, maybe running BSD or Linux with a Mac plus theme if you want that authenticity.
Awesome video, Sean! Would you have any advice for how to add a fan to the Plus? Preferrably non-destructively? I'm thinking I might have to design and 3d print one of those attachments...
Interesting machine that appears to have seen some upgrades or parts swaps over time. Did the seller recall its evolution?
The Mac Plus also made vapourwave popular!
There's a special keybind you can do on startup that boots the Mac into a ROM based operating system
Apple and cooling issues due to a lack of fans? Never heard of it...
I wish I could buy that computer.
Lucky! I was hoping for an easy fix like that, but the Mac Classic I recently restored needed a lot more work. Battery and capacitor leakage sure did a number on this one, but many hours later it works like new. Well, aside from the RTC chip being completely destroyed by the battery - any ideas how to replace that? I saw an ATTiny based replacement for the SE/30 but idk if that would work on the classic
I love your videos, mac man
flyback joints also crack sometimes
Oh yeah I wound up reflowing those too just in case
Very Nice Sean someone will defiantly like it
Hey, I have one of those add-on fans too!
@3:19 did you note that they have different thread pitch? lol
I do not remember the Mac Plus having a two sided floppy?, the single sided external floppy drive was $700.00 CAD back in ultra gouge days.
I got 10 points for being a trekkie! First time it ever happened in my life! Woohoo!!!
Nice video and fix, however heat from those parts would be nowhere near hot enough to crack solder joints, that's a common myth. The plastic would start melting first.
The usual cause of cracked joints is physical shock on old joints that have oxidized over the years.
I agree it's not getting hot enough to melt the solder but thermal expansion and contraction can lead to stress cracks.
In some cases the solder _can_ get hot enough to melt but that only happens when large currents flow through an already damaged connection.
I like shuffle puck cafe. I hope running it with 256 greys helps on is 9 but it’s unlikely to run. I have mini vMac for that.
Its very strange to see a Mac Plus without the "expanded keyboard" (Hated by Steve Jobs but demanded by the market) which includes a Numeric Keypad.
Out of curiosity, have you ever fixed/restored a mac that had dead chips/capacitors/resistors etc.?
The "hello computer" came from Star Trek iirc
But does it have the formula for transparent aluminum on it?
Floppy EMU, have to look that one up.
I bought one brand new in 1989 and the Plus never really got all that hot.
"Oh a keyboard...how quaint." ;)
Any idea where you can buy some of the parts like new rom and ram upgrades for this machine?
DUNGEON OF DOOM!!!! i LOVED that game! i spent so much time playing it on my Classic when i was in college. that and Mission: Thunderbolt. ah, i miss that little machine.
not putting a single fan in a hot computer simply so that it would sound quiet is the most apple thing ever. even a couple slow, silent fans wouldve sufficed
Oh my god that screwdriver looks like the old dipsticks for oil in the car engines. Lol.
Legend has it, Jobs' cooling policy still haunt us til this very day....
i use to have one it had lines going up down