The SE/30 That Does It All

[James Wages]

I was recently interviewed by Giles Turnbull of Cult of Mac who had seen my SE/30 and Newton photo on Flickr. I felt especially honored that Giles decided to run this article on these classic Apple machines.

UPDATE: How funny. I became a new member just today and after posting my blog entry, I decided to listen to the latest Episode 92 RetroMac podcast. Toward the end, I was surprised to hear my name mentioned! Of course, it was about the Cult of Mac article. Actually, the SE/30 is not our primary computer, but we do get good use out of it when the G4 Cube is busy. My 5 year old loves to paint in B&W on that tiny screen, and she absolutely loves The Manhole too. I personally get a kick out of being able to run OS 8.1 on it, which is something the SE/30 wasn't designed for (I can do that because I have a IIsi ROM inside).

[James]

I was going to try to write to Giles to thank him for covering the retro Mac scene, but I didn't see a way to contact him directly through the website. Also, I was going to see if he wanted to write an article on our little podcast to help spread the word. Perhaps you could pass my name along to him?

[Kathryn]

I too would love to the the SE/30 running OS 8.1. That is mind blowing, what you were able to do with this little machine.

[James Wages]

James, I'll send Giles an email. I agree, it would be great to have RetroMacCast covered on the Cult of Mac.

Kathryn, thanks for your comment. The SE/30 is by far the most powerful compact Mac made, and that remains true even when comparing it to newer compacts like the Classic and Classic II. The SE/30's PDS slot is what opens the doors to an enormous number of upgrade possibilities (including cards with pass-thru slots like my DiiMO, which let you add multiple cards to the PDS bus internally. The only down side to the SE/30 (as is the case with many older Macs) is that you will need to replace the capacitors on the logic board. I cover this extensively in various posts on 68kMLA. (I go by "JDW" there.)

[Ken]

Congrats and welcome to RMC. I commented on this flickr photo and was surprised to hear about it on #92.

[Kathryn]

OH my, I think replacing capacitors is a little out of my scope of practice just yet. But, hey, I was really good a soldering once upon a time. I have been to the Liberation Army site, that is a great site, but I haven't been in a while. I have an SE, but I don't think it's an SE/30. It's down due to a dead HD right now and I need to get it replaced. I hope that's all that wrong. But, it's been in it's Apple bag so long I don't remember for sure which it is, but pretty sure it's a regular SE. I will, at some point get ahold of a SE/30, it's on my list.

I have a Newton that I had paired to my TAM, but I think I'm going to do what Chance (I think) said he is going to be doing and pair it to my Pismo since it's a little easier to get around.

I'm with your 5 yr/old and the black and white screen. It's a very sharp and clear screen, nice to look at even without the colors.