I love my 540c!!
iamdigitalman
for $30. It has not gotten here yet, but from what I have heard about
these things, they are still pretty nice as old as they are. From the
pictures, mine is very filthy, so my first priority is to clean it up
a bit.
it does have both batteries, but I don't know if they still hold a
charge. I may be able to squeeze some life out of them by using
Intelligent Battery Reset or BatteryAmneia.
it is coming with ystem 7.5, but I would rather get 7.6.1 or 8.1 on
it. I also have a set of restore floppies with 7.1.1. I'm not sure if
that version is any good. my only experience with lower end system 7
is 7.0.1 and flat 7.1. other than that, I run 7.5.5, 7.6.1, or some OS
8 flavor on my other macs.
great to be a part of this group!!
Victor Nazarian
turning the other two into video picture frames.
These were the Ultimate design from Apple until they came out with the
G3 Wall street and even then were fantastic for what they were. I can
still, even today, work in the modern world with my maxed out 183 unit
but the 32 Meg. of ram is a little low and I can't find a really good,
fully java enabled web browser for OS 8.6. I did find a way to run 9.1
on the 540c but it hogs up the whole 32 Meg. of RAM and makes the unit
dog slow.
Victor
Victor Nazarian
Vic...@aol.com
301-461-4732
iamdigitalman
36mb ram. stock 68LC040, but that will do, I have other 68k macs, so I
am used to making them functional. I run 7.6.1 on my 180 with 8mb ram
and a 33mhz 68030. granted, the FPU makes things a bit faster, and it
all feels like a modern laptop, except the dead battery, and blown
charging circuitry, but that's another story.
I just realized the main point of using 8.1, HFS+ can't be used on
68ks. well, not as a boot volume, at least. But that does make a
diffrence. I guess I will use 7.6.1. the copy I have has a set of
floppy images in a folder, or I can use the same method I did getting
it on my 180: over a serial cable connected to a CD equipped mac. in
that case, it was a Mac Classic with an external SCSI-CD-ROM, but this
time I may use my 1400.
I can't wait for it to get here.
Victor Nazarian
I came across a few vintage 550c CPU cards (yes, five Fifty) which were
only marketed in Europe that have the full 68RC040 33MHz and slighly
larger on-board L1 cache. This means they're pretty nifty and fully
Math Coprocessor enabled. If I can dig one of these up I'll be happy to
mail it to you. The change out of the daughter card isn't all that hard
and I can walk you through it if you like.
Victor
Victor Nazarian
Vic...@aol.com
301-461-4732
iamdigitalman
went for $200. it was listed on the US page. the guy said the keyboard
had been replaced with a US version, and it had a 100mhz PPC upgrade.
I asked if he still had the 68040 card, and if he would be willing to
sell it seperatly. his reply was he sold that off long ago.
so I guess nobody besides you and the spambots come here anymore? I
know some folks that would love this group. i'll see if I can get them
to join, and for this group to take off again.
iamdigitalman
supply did'nt make it. chipped plastic everywhere in the box. i'll
recase it with duct tape. It still works, and powers the 540c fine.
the laptop arrived in immaculate condition, except for the dirt in the
auction. it's got flat 7.5, the full 36mb ram as reported by the
seller. the right battery started charging while I was playing with
it, but I pulled the power cable, and it went off. looks like I need
to recondition.
even more special, it came with the original manual!! looks just like
the PDF of it I have, except it is nicely printed.
i'll load 8.1 on it, see how quick it is. it took about 3 minutes to
boot, not bad. If 8.1 is too slow, i'll use either 7.6.1 or 7.5.5.
iamdigitalman
responsive, not to mention STABLE. except for a few install required
reboots, i've been running it non stop, only putting it to sleep. the
power adapter seems to be behaving as well. my only grumble about it
is both batteries are shot. I ran the intelligent battery update
program, and it did not fix either battery. any ideas? I also love
it's sexy curves, like my wallstreet. guess it was a prelude to the
wallstreets.
it is also really easy to network. I download the files to my G3,
access them over wifi on the wallstreet, then use localtalk (printer
port to printer port via serial cable). it's dog slow, but quicker
than floppies. besides, alot of the files I have loaded are bigger
than floppies.
of the 320mb hard drive, i've got about 51mb free after it's all said
and done, and that includes 8.1, clarisworks 5, the entire marathon
series (which took most of that space), and some other bits and
pieces. using period software, it's amazing to see how much you can
store on them, And to think my 120gb hard drive in my G3 is running
out of room.
Victor Nazarian
revolutionary in that it came with built in ethernet. the very small
oblong port on the back requires a little adaptor to 'give' the RJ-45
port that you are used to seeing. Also, there is another utility that
works to restore batteries better. I have it somewhere. I also have
instructions so that you can put 8.6 on that unit and I might even have
a larger hard dirve somewhere.
8.6 is the best compromise OS for that because it can interface well
with OS X and you can use the early versions of iTunes.
Victor
Victor Nazarian
Vic...@aol.com
301-461-4732
eze...@gmail.com
tinkered with my 520c last year until I had it maxed out with RAM and
networked with my iMac G4. Then we bought a Macbook for my wife and
it's sat on a shelf ever since. I've often thought of getting a
notebook capable of wi-fi that I could use at a coffee shop, probably
an early G3 or somethin, but of course those machines cost quite a bit
more than our 500-series do.
Victor, do you have any other spare 550 daughter cards? I wouldn't
mind messing around with my 520c a bit more, and that daughter card
might help it out. I did get both of my batteries to work after
intensive reconditioning, so don't give up yet Digitalman. If anyone
needs any programs of any kind let me know. I looked all over when I
first got the 'book, and have quite a few cool programs, including
some fun period games. I found 7.6.1 to be more than adequate for my
needs, and quite fast in running apps.
Keep these books alive!
Erich Zechar