Apple LCIII Restoration
This page documents the the restoration of an Apple Macintosh LCIII bought from ebay for $10. This LCIII will be the replacement for my Pop's LCIII, which was forever lost in Brisbane's 2011 floods.
Goals
- Run a HTTP server, and serve static pages on the Internet.
- Relive some great times playing Maelstrom.
- Develop a custom SCSI-2 to SD Card converter (see SCSI2SD), use the converter to boot the LCIII, and win a bet. I shall enjoy eating free Nandos. Cheers AJ.
As-bought Condition
Part | As-bought State | Current State | Comment |
---|---|---|---|
Keyboard | Missing | Still missing | |
Mouse | Missing | Still missing | Replace with Apple_Desktop_Bus_Mouse_II ("Teardrop" mouse). |
Monitor Macintosh Portrait Display |
Heavy yellow discolouring. Unknown working state. | Replaced with a standard VGA monitor. See Macintosh VGA | Uses a somewhat non-standard 13w3 connector. This was not the standard (colour) monitor that was supplied with the LCIII, and I probably won't bother trying to get it going. An adapter cable to make use of a VGA monitor is more than sufficient. |
Power supply Dyna Comp Inc DCF 353. |
Dead. All rails read 0V on the multimeter. |
(Temporarily) replaced with an older ATX power supply that still had the -5v rail. | Old, yet still-working, LC power supplies are fairly easy to find on ebay and elsewhere. However, these old supplies won't last forever. I plan to replace this with a small circuit board that accepts an ATX power supply input, and creates the required -5v rail. This then allows me to use an easy-to-find PicoPSU (or similar), and replace the supply in the future if it fails. |
SCSI Hard drive Apple branded Quantum Pro Drive 500Mb LPS270 (Firmware copyright Apple Computer Inc. 1994) |
Dead. The drive controller appeared to work when connected to a modern PC with PCI SCSI card, but the drive refuses to spin. No amount of hitting, freezing or swearing could convince the drive to spin. |
Working SCSI device required to boot | Drive will be replaced with a custom SCSI -> SD card device. SCSI2SD |
Case Feb 1993 |
Significant discolouration. | Requires restoration to remove the discolouration | A Hydrogen peroxide solution + UV light can be used to restore the case to its former glory. Just take care to mask the Apple logo at the front. See [1] |
Logic board Apple part no. 820-0650-A |
Confirmed working. | Working | On boot, the distinctive power-on sound is heard, followed by a flashing question mark in a disk icon (since no disks are working yet). |
Ethernet expansion card (10Base-T, RJ45) Apple Computer Inc 1993 Ethernet LC Twisted-Pair card |
Unknown | Not required | Could make use of the RS-422 serial port to run a PPP connection if the ethernet card doesn't work. |
Floppy drive | Unknown | Not required | This drive is probably not required anymore. Trying to find working floppies is difficult, and they will only degrade further over time. |
VRAM Upgrade Apple part no. 820-0605-A |
Unknown | Not required | This is a 512KB upgrade, but the LCIII only supports a total of 768KB, including the 512KB on-board VRAM. |
RAM Upgrade Samsung KMM5321000CV-7 9428 4MB 72pin 70ns |
Unknown | Unknown | Could be replaced with a 32MB SIMM. An additional 4MB onboard memory is available on the logic board, but this is probably insufficient to do anything useful. |
Photos
Hacked up VGA cable and ATX power supply attached. No boot disks.
Links
- Microchip AN591 AppNote (ADB interface details)