Macintosh IIci - Repairs and upgrades! 

I just finished fixing up a IIcx that was a complete basket case. It was dirty as hell, it wouldn't boot, it didn't have any RAM, and something spilled down the front, rusting the speaker out. I had to completely recap the mainboard, swap in a speaker from another dead Mac, dismantle, clean, and replace the eject mechanism gear in the disk drive, which had completely crumbled. Then, after I got it working again, two Rifa caps blew in the PSU, stinking up my house! I replaced those with new class-X caps, but in doing so, I ended up killing it. So I found a replacement PSU out of a Performa 600, got it all put together, sourced another SCSI hard drive, and finally booted it last night--over a year after I bought the thing. So far so good, though. It's certainly no powerhouse by today's standards, but given that it came out in 1989, when the average PC was lucky to have a VGA card, the graphics capabilities of this old computer were mind-boggling.

As an American I laughed at your comment at 21:47 about crime.

I miss my old IIci.. It held so many memories.. And all the games... Sim city 2000, Sim tower, Sim ant, Prince of persia, shufflepuck cafe etc... Also a graphics card with ram slots on it. :) If only it hadn't suffered the dreaded battery leak of death.

I’ve never seen Shuffle Puck running so fast, it was hilariously violent 😂

LOL, Poor Adrian, Neill and Clint ! :D

It was quite a while ago, but I was able to link a real apple via ethernet to an emulated apple in basilik 2. That was how I was able to preserve all my old files from aging and dying PLI disks and HDDs.

Nicely done. If you plan to use the floppy drive, you will want to service the floppy drive.

Only used Macs for a year (circa 1999). They had networked classics for (dodgy) software (Quark) sharing and a Quadra with big monitor for Photoshop.

I used IIci's as a student at university. The computer lab was decked out with Macs running A/UX. They could run either unix X-Windows or Mac desktop on top of A/UX.

The coolest thing about the IIci/cx box is the sheer number of stock Mac logic boards it can host (with only a little Dremmeling of port holes). That size and shape of logic board, with its power supply port positioned perfectly, went on to be the brains in (obviously) the Quadra 700, and the IIvi/vx - and therefore the Centris/Quadra 650 and even the PowerMac 7100, AND the C/Q 800/840 and PM 8100. You can upgrade the heck out of a IIci by dropping any number of more capable logic boards in there, OR upgrade the case to any of the CD-bearing cases. So many swapping possibilities! Nice work maxing the IIci out. That's a perfect "everything a Mac can do in 1991" machine now.

I definitely associate the IIci with running Word 5.1 and NCSA Mosaic in the Mac lab in college.

Nice!! I've never used one. Looks like I have to find one. Thanks for sharing

Pretty cool build. I like it

One of the most beautiful 68k classic Mac.. clearly a Quadra 700like, I love the IIcx too. Thanks for the video

had a mac IIci back in the day - excellent machine. modular design. 68030 processor with good (for the day) graphics card - 16million colours 640 x 480. had stereo sound, and all the interfaces. thx for the nostalgia!

Nice to see a $4000 Mac run games almost as well as a $395 1 MB Amiga! ;)

5:55 _Mark Fixes Stuff has entered the chat_

I used to work at a Research Institute with a fair population of Macs amongst the inevitable PCs. For a long while a IICi was my daily driver and I loved it! Used a lot of other different models (IISi, LCs and Quadras) but this had "soul".

I still have a IIci with a DayStar Turbo 040, a Radius Macintosh Display Card 24ac and an Asante MacCon+ IIET Rev C

You might need a newer version of shufflepuck cafe. That looks like a much earlier version, and the more current version must run properly on that mac, since it ran flawlessly on our IIsi.

Oh yeah dood.

Adrian... Clint... Neil... wow the Oregon Trail really is a dangerous place for Retro RU-vidrs! 😬

There is a mac version of oregon trail with background music but you need the cd version it has voices and music for each place

Yes we do and systems do still need em so it’s good we still have em .. also for test equipment

Interesting monitor, Apple would sometimes just rebadge OEM monitors but I've not seen that one before (though I'm not in Australia!)

I've not had access to the Cache card..but it'd be interesting to see benchmarks of it, the 030. I've dithered between the PPC601 and 040 upgrade in mine over the years. Never sure which to plonk in it and just leave it alone.

Excellent work! Any system OS for the Mac after System 7.1 (7.1.5PPC IIRC) has a mix of 68K and PowerPC code mixed in. This a 68K Mac like the Mac IIci will be bloated with useless code. You need to find a program (IIRC) called PowerPC Fact Checker, and run it to remove the useless PowerPC Code from within, making the OS leaner and faster. The problem though, is that it would be only useable to 68K Macs only. PowerPC Mac can still run it but slower since it has to emulate the 68K CPU. Recommendation? Have the original OS back up and copied for future usage and copies for PowerPC and 68K Machines, while having the this trimmed down version for the IIci. The same can be done with various software apps. For example: Photoshop 4.2LTE is wicked on both speed and RAM Footprint the IIci after you trim it.

I'm not so sure back in the day I'd have been impressed compared with the Amiga version, certainly given the price difference between this Mac and the kind of Amiga most people were using at the time.

Monkey Island also crashes at the same spot on my IIsi. It's possible that there's some instruction that is not handled well on the 68030. It works fine on a 68040 as well as PowerPC.

I think Monkey Island will only run at 640x480 from memory

LG? They called themselves LG back then? I though they were just callled Goldstar in the early 90s.

Uhm, are those new resolutions because of the new driver or because you restarted the computer, the very first thing it said in the options window of the earlier drive is square in which it says you must first restart the computer before you get other resolution options.

I regret selling my IIci 😢

Hmm, I'd go for a IIfx rather than the IIci :P

I like the early 68k B&W stuff, but therefore having MacOS6 and single finder to blindout the desktop works best. have a look here for gaming on my LC...btw Monkey1 is too slow on that LC and on your machine it sounds linke it does sweeping (cache error?). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YicfqCx5m-k.html

Yet another person elbows deep in electronics without an anti-static wristband - no doubt an excuse will follow... No anti-static protection would've got you fired from just about everywhere I've ever worked fella.