Post for Fans of REALLY Old Macs!

A digitized color pic of the IIfx's design team awaits your discovery. Set the Macs clock to 3/19/90 and set the monitor to 256 colors. Then restart, as it restarts hold down apple icon key,option and the letters F and X

The machine was on the market for 2 years,1 month. It was Dubbed 'Wicked Fast" by Apple in March 1990.

The black terminator a 200ohm resistor includes a capacitor that absorbs power spikes. Made for the IIfx.

Mac SK said:

A digitized color pic of the IIfx's design team awaits your discovery. Set the Macs clock to 3/19/90 and set the monitor to 256 colors. Then restart, as it restarts hold down apple icon key,option and the letters F and X

The machine was on the market for 2 years,1 month. It was Dubbed 'Wicked Fast" by Apple in March 1990.

The black terminator a 200ohm resistor includes a capacitor that absorbs power spikes. Made for the IIfx.

Click to expand...

Thanks "BIG GUY" for all of the info! I will check out the design team pic...and the info about the IIfx terminator (I didn't know that detail)!

- Nick

I think later I will boot it up and try that Pic. I did it many years ago and was floored! Time to relive my past!

Thanks MacSK for the memories!

pigoo3 said:

Thanks "BIG GUY" for all of the info! I will check out the design team pic...and the info about the IIfx terminator (I didn't know that detail)!

- Nick

Click to expand...

The SCSI chain requires the black terminator.

You appear to have 2 full banks of the specialized 64-pin SIMMs. That's as rare as finding a IIfx itself out in the wild - legendary buy at $25.

Yes that is very rare to see all the banks full of RAM. Mine sure is not!

And MacSK is correct. I remember having issues without that black terminator.

Mac SK said:

The SCSI chain requires the black terminator.

Click to expand...

I knew that part! What I was unclear about is what made the special "black" SCSI terminator different from "regular" SCSI terminators. I think that you cleared it up in your earlier post.

Thanks again,

- Nick

Blazkowicz said:

You appear to have 2 full banks of the specialized 64-pin SIMMs. That's as rare as finding a IIfx itself out in the wild - legendary buy at $25.

Click to expand...

Yes...it would have been a "legendary" buy at $25 dollars...but I ended up getting everything for free!

- Nick

dtravis7 said:

Yes that is very rare to see all the banks full of RAM. Mine sure is not!

Click to expand...

I believe my IIfx (with two full banks) has 32meg of ram...with 128 meg being the possible max.

I actually found a couple places that still seem to be selling ram for the Mac IIfx...if your interested:

Apple Mac IIfx Memory
Request was blocked
Apple macintosh iifx Memory Upgrade - macintosh iifx RAM

A ram installation guide from "Low End Mac":

RAM Upgrade: Mac IIfx

And a short story of someone else's luck finding a Macintosh IIfx:

Holy Grail: The Mac IIfx

- Nick

dtravis7 said:

Nick, I have a IIFX. It's so large I keep it under my bed!

Click to expand...

Forgot to comment on this. Yes...the IIfx is on the larger side...but it's still smaller & much lighter than a Powermac G5 or a Mac Pro.

And you wouldn't hide one of those "puppies" under your bed...would you??

- Nick

Since I do not use it and have a smalish house, I had to find a place to keep it till I want to mess with it. That was the only place it fit!

No, a G5 Tower would be used and under my main computer table in place of one of the Windows Boxes there now!

Congratulations on your find!
I read the title, and thought I'd take a look. Alas, I am not a fan of Macs that old!

Personally, I'll go back as far as the late nineties to the original iMac and PowerBook G3s, I even bought my friend an iMac G3 an myself a G4 Cube on the cheap. But I cannot justify my limited space, power and money for something that doesn't perform the tasks I need to throw a computer.

I'm an impoverished student, it's not my fault!

Hope you've got the space for it!

Pigoo, sorry, I forgot all about the pic I promised. I think it came from a house where people smoked at one time. Interesting you can see a pure white area around the edge of the front like that part was covered! That is my Cat Junior who just had to get in the picture!


Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

dtravis7 said:

Pigoo, sorry, I forgot all about the pic I promised. I think it came from a house where people smoked at one time. Interesting you can see a pure white area around the edge of the front like that part was covered! That is my Cat Junior who just had to get in the picture!

Click to expand...

Hey thanks a lot for the photo! Yes..too bad about all of the yellowing...I really hate it when that happens to old Mac's!!!

I was going to ask you if your IIfx had 1 or 2 floppy drives...looks like one.

Have you ever heard of or considered the "Retrobright" process? I've known about it for a while now..and have been seriously thinking about giving it a try.

Retr0Bright - home

I have another pretty good link if you're interested in trying it.

- Nick

My Quadra 700 is yellowed but it all matches! I lived at one time with some roomates who smoked and I mean 3-4 packs a day. Even in my room things yellowed! The IIFX looks strange like someone had something covering that area all around the front and the top is white also. Not sure what was done.

It has One floppy drive. Next door is a Quantum SCSI drive and behind that is another SCSI hard drive. The plate where the Floppies and hard drives mount has been all messed up by someone due to them not having the adapter plates for the drives. Holes all over.

I might give that URL a try.

dtravis7 said:

My Quadra 700 is yellowed but it all matches! I lived at one time with some roomates who smoked and I mean 3-4 packs a day. Even in my room things yellowed! The IIFX looks strange like someone had something covering that area all around the front and the top is white also. Not sure what was done.

It has One floppy drive. Next door is a Quantum SCSI drive and behind that is another SCSI hard drive. The plate where the Floppies and hard drives mount has been all messed up by someone due to them not having the adapter plates for the drives. Holes all over.

I might give that URL a try.

Click to expand...

I was thinking that yellowing on old Macintosh's whether due to smoking, age, or exposure to UV rays..all sort of looks the same...so your IIfx may be suffering from all three.

Some of the before/after photos when doing the "retrobright" treatment are pretty amazing...but it does seem to be a bit of an involved & time consuming process!

I guess I assumed wrongly when I saw the two open floppy slots on your IIfx that you had two floppy drives. You would think that the folks that originally purchased these EXPENSIVE monsters would be REAL Power Users...and every unit sold would have two floppy drives. After all...how much could an extra floppy drive cost relative to the computer cost.

My IIfx only has one floppy drive as well...but my wife suggested the other night...that the floppy drives used in other Mac's of the same vintage may fit as well. I guess she gets some positive reputation points for that idea!!!

I will have to see if I can "scrounge" a floppy drive from another computer...if for no other reason than to confirm that it fits & works.

So are you saying you have a 2nd SCSI hard drive installed internally where the 2nd floppy drive would go? If so, I didn't realize you could have two internal hard drives in a IIfx...and if you can, I may think of installing a second one in mine.

- Nick

I had some interesting issues at first due to the strange terminators but got 2 drives working. You can have more than that with SCSI but that is all that would fit. I have a couple of old Apple Floppies in my closet that would fit there if I ever decide to put in 2 drives. If you look closely at the full sized pic, there is an Apple Cover over the 2nd floppy hole/slot.

BTW, it has one large video card inside and a Network card that looks like it came from Apple.

This is in Jest of course but it seems my cats (Especially Junior in the pic) only like to sit on my Apple Computers. They don't sit on PC's when I work on them! Cats of good taste!

dtravis7 said:

I had some interesting issues at first due to the strange terminators but got 2 drives working. You can have more than that with SCSI but that is all that would fit. I have a couple of old Apple Floppies in my closet that would fit there if I ever decide to put in 2 drives. If you look closely at the full sized pic, there is an Apple Cover over the 2nd floppy hole/slot.

BTW, it has one large video card inside and a Network card that looks like it came from Apple.

This is in Jest of course but it seems my cats (Especially Junior in the pic) only like to sit on my Apple Computers. They don't sit on PC's when I work on them! Cats of good taste!

Click to expand...

Ya know...I think I got the photo of your IIfx mixed up with another one I must have been looking at on the internet. Your photo clearly shows the cover over the 2nd floppy drive!

Yeah...I know "SCSI chains" can have up to something like 7 devices in them...so it sounds like since you got two HD's to work internally in your IIfx...if someone has the proper data cables & power cables (like newer SCSI Macs had)...then it would just be a matter of where to mount the drives. Also assuming the power supply could handle it.

We have a cat at home...but she's not allowed in my computer room! They like to climb over & on stuff too much. But then to be fair...the dog (my avatar) is not allowed in the computer room either!

- Nick

The only time especially Junior is driven away from my computers is when I am working on the inside where any hair or static could damage the electronics. Junior does not really shed much so the first one is not an issue. He is very careful and knows what makes me mad!

Yeah you probably could cram more SCSI drives in there if they were terminated properly. I just did not want to start hanging them all over. I have a few external SCSI cases and added the drives that way to it back when I used it for more than a part of my collection.