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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

So, the identity of the mystery card in the PDS slot of my Macintosh SE has been solved: it is the Micrographic Images Megascreen 3, Copyright 1987, designed by Gary Landis. So, the question that still remains, and some progress along the way. How do I use it? Where are the drivers for it? Also, I have some general notes on a lot of other useful miscellaneous information on vintage computing.

Here is another photo of the Megascreen 3 expansion card, though the board touts the same model number, it must be from a different manufacturing run, as the board finish, wire colors, and a jumper are all slightly different.

20191014/DuckDuckGo micrographic images megascreen 3
20191014/https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/56378-micrographic-megascreen-3-se-pds-video/

Here is some information about Micrographic images, namely one of their MacWorld full page ads.

20191014/DuckDuckGo 68kmla megascreen
20191014/https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/28653-ebay-finds-thread/&page=134&tab=comments#comment-593985

Here is a repository of classic Macintosh drivers, including video drivers. Presumably I could find the drivers for my particular card in there… alas, no!

20191014/DuckDuckGo macintosh pds drivers
20191014/https://vintageapple.org/macdrivers/network.shtml
20191014/https://vintageapple.org/macdrivers/
20191014/https://vintageapple.org/macdrivers/video.shtml

Here is some good advice on treating keyboards keys that don’t quite work. You can clean off corrosion via a treatment of vinegar, distilled water, and baking soda. But don’t forget, sometimes with old Apple II keyboards, you just get ghost keys if you type too fast.

20191014/https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/57361-512k-disappointment/

Macintosh SE has SIMM slots for the ROM? Oh goodie, that means I could put my own flash memory chips in there and program up a custom ROM. Look here for the needed hardware device, the ROM-inator II.

20191014/https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/56932-best-rom-disk-for-rominator-gglabs/
20191014/DuckDuckGo rominator ii
20191014/https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-rom-inator-ii/

However, you won’t find the software, which is only provided for SE/30 and newer. For supported modules, there is also support for building a custom ROM disk for diskless booting. Great to have a hard, always-bootable Macintosh! Well, that’s as long as you don’t erase the flash memory… yeah, in the end, it’s not real hard bootable unless you have it burnt into ROM.

What is TTL video? After closer looks, well if you’re talking monochrome, it’s simply what it sounds, 5V for on, 0V for off. Then you have an analog raster signal scan and without sync signals, you have to calibrate the video size on your receiving equipment. For analog video, the voltage ranges from 0V to 5V. For color, you simply have more components. There are commercial signal converters you can get to convert to a more common format. TTL video is actually very similar to LVDS video/

20191014/DuckDuckGo ttl video signal
20191014/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTl31UNhJz0
20191014/https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=93775

In addition to the retrobright technique for whitening yellowed plastics, there is also a similarly named “evaporust” technique for lifting corrosion off the surfaces of metal.

20191014/https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/57430-se-fdhd-estate-sale/

Wow, a floppy changing jukebox for the Macintosh? Very interesting. A YouTube video is forthcoming.

20191014/https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/58092-5th-generations-jukebox-five-floppy-disk-mechanized-hopper/