Re: Whats it for?

["Mark Cummings" <NOTfigjams@primus.com.au>]

I just finished building my IIegs Platinum today. Just looks like a Platinum
to the un-initiated.
I managed to do the back a little differently than yours, mine has
individual cutouts, leaving a small amount of metel between connectors. Not
very much though. I think you method probably looks neater, but I wanted
something left to hold the back panel up. It's pretty weak with all that
metal removed. Once assembled it stands up better.

The regular PC standoffs worked fine, I used about 8 plastic ones at 10mm
high, 2 have the heads cut off, just helping support the board when pushing
in cards/connectors. The cutoff ones are 1) Behind slot 2, and 2) near the
IIe keyboard connector. I also used two 10mm metal ones with screws on the
big square pads at the back of the ROM-1 board. All in all it's quite solid,
and slightly harder to remove than either the IIe or GS was, but I am happy
with it.

By far the worst part of the exercise was cutting the holes in the back
panel. I don't have a nibbler, but I bet that would make it 10 times easier.
I had to drill it to death, then break out a bit at a time with pliers and
then file like mad. That metal is quite soft so there was a bit of panel
beating to get it back in some kind of shape. My speaker/headphone output
connector had to have a half circle filed into the back panel to allow
access and also allow the ROM-1 motherboard to push up to the back so that
the DB connectors were positioned better.

Th speaker was easy, I just removed th wire from th GS speaker, and soldred
that to the speaker in the IIe. Originally I tried to swap the speakers with
wire attached, but the GS speaker is thicker and didn't quite fit in the IIe
case without stressing the wire clamp.

The power supply was easy to extend by repositioning the cable clamp.

One unexpected discovery was the stock IIGS mouse cord is not designed to
reach from the back all the way around to the front. It just reaches the
side, leaving little spare. A Mac ADB mouse may be more suitable.

I am stuck with only 256K RAM RAM expansion at the moment, unless I leave
the lid off to fit my 4MB GS Juice Plus. This is probably the only thing I
need to make the thing useful. Oh... and a hard drive !

I am also trying to fit a 60mm fan in, but that's not a big priority as
there aren't enough expansion cards yet, and I may only need the fan for the
HDD. Meanwhile this fan will go in my IIe platinum which has all sockets
full.

A IIe - Mac LC 475 would be a bad idea IMO. You have a different PSU which
is lots smaller and probably on the wrong side. The IIe keyboard will be no
use on the Mac, so you'd have to use ADB and just look at the IIe one. The
1.4MB floppy, would not mount easily in the IIe
OTOH the SCSI HDD would be cool.

Mark


David Williams <Dave@darkstar64.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
3B3262EF.5E6008A@darkstar64.freeserve.co.uk">news:3B3262EF.5E6008A@darkstar64.freeserve.co.uk...
> Hi
>
> > I assume that RAM card is an Apple 1MB board with 512K fitted Y/N ?
>
> Yup, it sure is
>
> > I wouldn't have used the disk II, just a 3.5 drive and a 5.25 drive in
the
> > smartport. But I guess you are keeping some stuff.
>
> Yeah, I'd rather have put a 3.5" drive with it but at the moment I have
about
> 20 IIgs boxes that are in need of floppy drives. I'm finding it quite hard
to
> locate these parts in the UK :(
>
> > Yours is like the original one that Apple did (except the base). I
noticed
> > the really big slot at the back, was that necessary or just neater.
>
> Necessary and much easier :)
>
> > Is the speaker socket covered, or is there a hole there ?
>
> No, it JUST fits into thr main opening
>
> > My IIe and IIe Platinum cases are pretty much the same for quality,
except
> > the colour and the power supply. I see the power supply reaches the
board OK
> > on that IIe.
>
> yeah, I don't think this should be a problem on any II's
>
> > Did you have any problems with any mounting posts in the old base, and
if so
> > how did you handle it ? cut them off, or mount the new board higher... ?
>
> I removed the original ones and replaced them with some motherboard
spacers
> from an old PC. I just glued them on to the base board in the right
position
> :)
>
> Dave
>
> PS. I was original toying with the idea of putting a Mac LC475 into the
IIe
> case :)
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