Old Mac Monitor

Tighe

Well-known member
Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
20,797
Reaction score
825
Location
Richmondville, New York
I have an old Mac Perfroma 550 I picked up out of a trash bin with a prefect 14" monitor, has any one tried to use one of these sonys in a cabinet? Will it run at 15khz? It has a Apple ][ card in it so I thought it might.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/stats/mac_performa_550.html


Here is a pic:

img00291.jpg
 
Nope. That's a fixed frequency computer monitor. Might be dual frequency... but in any case, it's not going to support the 15.75khz sync rate that an arcade monitor will. It's intended for the Macintosh 832x768 resolution, at something like a 75hz frame rate (don't remember the sync rate off the top of my head).

The way the Apple IIe card in those machines works is to produce the Apple II video in a window on the desktop - so the video goes through the Macintosh framebuffer first. The monitor doesn't change modes to use it.

The error that the Mac is giving you means that it can't find the system software. This is either because the hard drive has died, or somehow become corrupt. There's nothing special about the hard drives used in Macs, so if you want to replace it, you can use a drive from an old PC. You can download Macintosh System 7.5 from Apple (among other places), and install it.

-Ian
 
Nope. That's a fixed frequency computer monitor. Might be dual frequency... but in any case, it's not going to support the 15.75khz sync rate that an arcade monitor will. It's intended for the Macintosh 832x768 resolution, at something like a 75hz frame rate (don't remember the sync rate off the top of my head).

The way the Apple IIe card in those machines works is to produce the Apple II video in a window on the desktop - so the video goes through the Macintosh framebuffer first. The monitor doesn't change modes to use it.

The error that the Mac is giving you means that it can't find the system software. This is either because the hard drive has died, or somehow become corrupt. There's nothing special about the hard drives used in Macs, so if you want to replace it, you can use a drive from an old PC. You can download Macintosh System 7.5 from Apple (among other places), and install it.

-Ian

Thanks Ian, I was hoping it might support 15 Khz. Thanks for the info about the hard drive, I actually had it out, it works fine. The thing I am most fustrated with that Mac is that I want to play Apple ][ games on it, but I don't have any way of getting disk images on it. Everything I have is on 5.25 floppies. Any advice there?
 
Thanks Ian, I was hoping it might support 15 Khz. Thanks for the info about the hard drive, I actually had it out, it works fine. The thing I am most fustrated with that Mac is that I want to play Apple ][ games on it, but I don't have any way of getting disk images on it. Everything I have is on 5.25 floppies. Any advice there?

This is what you use to transfer disk images to an Apple II.

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/index.html

Oh, I see you want to put games on that Mac with the Apple II card... Doesn't that thing have a 19 pin connector for an Apple floppy drive? Just grab one from e-bay.

Edit: I'm not endorsing this price or seller, but I think this is the type you need for the actual floppies...

http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-II-5-25-FLOPPY-DISK-DRIVE_W0QQitemZ160349982109
 
Last edited:
i still have my old apple 2 sitting in a closet but why burn it up when you can play all the games in your web browser
http://www.virtualapple.org/

or there is also an emulator for all the appl games that works really well and is easy to use
and since the apple 2 was a computer its not like p[laying mame you are using no diffrent controls than you normaly would use
 
This is what you use to transfer disk images to an Apple II.

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/index.html

Oh, I see you want to put games on that Mac with the Apple II card... Doesn't that thing have a 19 pin connector for an Apple floppy drive? Just grab one from e-bay.

Edit: I'm not endorsing this price or seller, but I think this is the type you need for the actual floppies...

http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-II-5-25-FLOPPY-DISK-DRIVE_W0QQitemZ160349982109


What about writing the images to a 3.25 floppy? The mac has that built in. The problem is that I use linux and it is a pain to write mac format anything. Mostly I do CDs.
 
What about writing the images to a 3.25 floppy? The mac has that built in. The problem is that I use linux and it is a pain to write mac format anything. Mostly I do CDs.

Apple II disks are not in Mac format. I think you would need one of the Apple II disk drives for 3.5" disks to plus into that same 19 pin connector. You might be able to use the superdrive in the Mac, but you need to check the specs on that emulation card. If you really want to do Apple II gaming, I highly recommend getting a dedicated Apple II. They are pretty cheap and easy to use that transfer software to get images over to the computer and onto real media. You do need double density disks if you want to write to the old media, but those can still be found as NOS. I picked up a bunch of 5.25 and 3.5 disks for this purpose.

If your not aware of this site, it is a good reference for current news on emulators, hardware mods, etc. for Apple IIs.

http://a2central.com/
 
Apple II disks are not in Mac format. I think you would need one of the Apple II disk drives for 3.5" disks to plus into that same 19 pin connector. You might be able to use the superdrive in the Mac, but you need to check the specs on that emulation card. If you really want to do Apple II gaming, I highly recommend getting a dedicated Apple II. They are pretty cheap and easy to use that transfer software to get images over to the computer and onto real media. You do need double density disks if you want to write to the old media, but those can still be found as NOS. I picked up a bunch of 5.25 and 3.5 disks for this purpose.

If your not aware of this site, it is a good reference for current news on emulators, hardware mods, etc. for Apple IIs.

http://a2central.com/

Wow thanks for the link, I will continue my search there.
 
The Apple II emulator card works like a complete Apple II on a card. It has a funny high density connector on the back for which you need a breakout cable. The breakout cable goes to a 19 pin connector for the Apple II 5 1/4" floppy drives and a 9 pin connector for Apple II joysticks.

The card works with a special program in the Mac system software to allow it to display stuff on the screen, share the floppy drive, use the mouse, etc.

The Macintosh can read and write PC floppies, and Linux can read and write Mac floppies, so data transfer should be cake. The only caveat is that a PC is incapable of writing or reading 800k Mac floppies. You must use 1.44mb high density disks. What version of the System Software is running on the Mac?

-Ian
 
The only Apple monitor that'll work @ CGA resolution for games is the AppleColor RGB from the venerable Apple //gs.

Applecolor High-Resolution RGB (and all variants) were fixed frequency, mac only.
 
Oh, I see you want to put games on that Mac with the Apple II card... Doesn't that thing have a 19 pin connector for an Apple floppy drive? Just grab one from e-bay.

Edit: I'm not endorsing this price or seller, but I think this is the type you need for the actual floppies...

http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-II-5-25-FLOPPY-DISK-DRIVE_W0QQitemZ160349982109

The mac disk port doesn't support 5.25" drives... except with the //e emulator card in a Mac LC (or whichever model it was)

//gs in GSOS can access Mac and PC 1.44m disks if you have the correct drive and drivers... I've still got a couple AE FDHDs around for that purpose.
 
The mac disk port doesn't support 5.25" drives... except with the //e emulator card in a Mac LC (or whichever model it was)

//gs in GSOS can access Mac and PC 1.44m disks if you have the correct drive and drivers... I've still got a couple AE FDHDs around for that purpose.

He has the Apple II emulator card in the Mac that was pictured. That is why I was recommending just getting a real drive for it. Of course more strongly recommend getting a dedicated Apple II. :) The the CF card drives and transfer technology for the images, it is pretty easy to play most of your favorite titles.
 
Back
Top Bottom