A friend has a problem with his IIci.
The IIci was introduced in September 1989 which makes this baby almost 12 years old. The model was discontinued in February of 1993 which means it was actively being sold for almost four years. Incredible.
Anyway. When I started out as a mac techie it was the IIci, the Quadra 650, the Centris 650 and the PowerMac 7100 which were the workhorses of the day. Even then some of them were old – in 1996 – when I started – the Quadra was already three years old. Even the 7100, a veritable workstation, was released in 1994 which meant that our best machines were two years out of date.
Anyway, so I’m working on this IIci. The disk seems to be pooched so I’ve attached an external SCSI to get a system onto so I can get it booted in some sort of stable config. I’ve pulled out all the stops – and quickly discovered that as I stopped working with older Macs every day I let that side of things slide a little. I’ve still got loads of kit (bootup disks etc) but it was hard finding stuff. I’ve never had a IIci boot disk but I knew that a Quadra 650 Disk Tools disk would boot it. Could I find one? Of course not. I lucked out however – a 7100 disk wouldn’t do but it turns out that a powerbook Duo disk will – go figure.
I’ve created a bootable zip disk – thankfully the iomega stuff doesn’t need drivers – with Norton and Techtool and all sorts of goodies. Had to track down Norton 3.5.1 from my software collection. My hands are all dusty now!
It’s slow progress but it’s fun doing this. Brings it all back to me. I remember the little quirks and ways thinks worked with the older hardware. I think I may have preferred the old days…I love my Pismo and the new G4 hardware thrills me but things seemed better then. I remember thrilling to the stories of the PowerMac 8100 which ran ..at..over..a…hundred…megahertz…
Anyhow, it looks like this machine is booting from my hastily built system folder on a zip disk. Heh heh.
My eyes are tired – I know because I get a twitch in the eyelid of my right eye. I really should get that checked out at the doctors as it is a little irritating but I think it’s just due to fatigue. Obviously I should be able to survive with six hours sleep…
Well…it failed the first test. Nothing can see the disk – looks like something is seriously wrong with the hardware of the disk. Otherwise the machine is fine – the hard disk – which is between 8 and 11 years old – seems pooched.
I’ve torn apart a 7100 and fired the disk into it – that should tell me whether it was something related to the IIci hardware or whether it was related to the disk itself. I’m certainly beginning to suspect the latter.
Anyway, I’ll finish this later. I’ve moved onto trying to scan the disk using SCSIproble and SilverLining. The latter has spotted it but I’m trying to get a driver written to it – who ever said life was easy.