Q&A
Here you find questions and answers wich concern about the color classic. If there is anything you want to know about or something you really miss here, please contact me.
What are all these confusing synonyms for the upgraded Color Classics?
Synonyms:
| Codename | Description |
|---|---|
| CC (with original L/B) | CC,CCII,Performa250,275 |
| Mystic | CC with 575 logic board |
| PowerMystic | Mystic with Apple Processor Upgrade Card (incl. Daystar PowerCard601 66/80,100 or Sonnet Plesto PPC/LC) |
| Takky | CC with Snow&Tell, Codyceps, Alchemy or Gazelle Logicboard |
Own creations of the synonyms:
| Codename | Description |
|---|---|
| CC(13") | CC with HiRes 640x480 Mod |
| Mystic(13") | Mystic with HiRes 640x480 Mod |
| Mystic(VGA) | Mystic with VGA 640x480 Mod |
| Takky040/33 | Takky with 68040 33MHz Logicboard |
| Takky603/180 | Takky with 603 CPU and 180MHz |
| TakkyG3/400(Alchemy) | Takky with Alchemy Logic Board upgraded to a G3 CPU with 400MHz |
| TakkyG3/400(Gazelle) | Takky with Gazelle Logic Board upgraded to a G3 CPU with 400MHz |
| TakkyG3/500 | Takky with Gazelle Logic Board upgraded to a G3 CPU with 500MHz |
How about exchanging the Power LED?
Before
After
In the years the Color Classic was made it was usual to select red, green or yellow LED as power indicators. Other colors are very expensive and rare.
Now other colored LED are easy to get and not expensive.
If you want to change the power LED of your Color Classic you might have to use a resistor.
The original LED is a green 1206 package, 20mA with 2,5V. If your new LED gots other values you have to change the resistor R1. The voltage without the resistor is 6V, so you have to calculate a resistor down from 6V to your needed voltage.
Now other colored LED are easy to get and not expensive.
If you want to change the power LED of your Color Classic you might have to use a resistor.
The original LED is a green 1206 package, 20mA with 2,5V. If your new LED gots other values you have to change the resistor R1. The voltage without the resistor is 6V, so you have to calculate a resistor down from 6V to your needed voltage.
Why isn´t my Color Classic booting up from the Mac OS CD?
There is no CD Drive in the Color Classic so you have to use external SCSI CD Drives. There are a couple of external CD Drivers from Apple and some from other companies.
To boot from a connected CD Drive you have to hold the "c" Key on the keyboard. All externally connected drives will boot from CD if there's no System on the HDD present. If there is a bootable system on the HDD the Mac will only boot from CD if your CD Drive is an original Apple CD Drive. Drives from other vendors are not supported for booting in that case. There are rumors that some drivers can boot, such as Matsushita or Sony Drives, but that's not clear at all.
If your drive is not able to boot holding the "c" Key please try to switch it to SCSI ID 3 - some drives will boot then.
The Drive you see in the picture is a Pioneer CD Drive which cannot boot but drivers for Mac OS are available. It can be used when you boot up Mac OS from your HDD. You find the drivers for Pioneer CD Drive in the Download Area.
To boot from a connected CD Drive you have to hold the "c" Key on the keyboard. All externally connected drives will boot from CD if there's no System on the HDD present. If there is a bootable system on the HDD the Mac will only boot from CD if your CD Drive is an original Apple CD Drive. Drives from other vendors are not supported for booting in that case. There are rumors that some drivers can boot, such as Matsushita or Sony Drives, but that's not clear at all.
If your drive is not able to boot holding the "c" Key please try to switch it to SCSI ID 3 - some drives will boot then.
The Drive you see in the picture is a Pioneer CD Drive which cannot boot but drivers for Mac OS are available. It can be used when you boot up Mac OS from your HDD. You find the drivers for Pioneer CD Drive in the Download Area.
Will other Operations Systems like BeOS work on my Color Classic?
'This is to the crazy ones'
You have to divide on which base you want to install another OS.
In the Screenshot you see BeOS running on my Takky with a 6500 Logic Board. It works rocket fast and stable. Its a very cool system.
You have to divide on which base you want to install another OS.
- If you are on the 68k CPU(All around the Color Classic standard Logic Board or any Mystic Upgrade) you can install A/UX an Apple Unix derivate or Linux/m68k. There might be some other OS, but these both will work for sure.
- If you have done a Takky Upgrade you got some more possibilities because the whole PowerPC Stuff will work. Possible is BeOS, Debian PowerPC Linux or NetBSD. There should be more but these are the ones who are most popular.
In the Screenshot you see BeOS running on my Takky with a 6500 Logic Board. It works rocket fast and stable. Its a very cool system.
How about exchanging the Case-Fan?
The wish to replace the case fan is quite simple - the old one is very loud and has not much airflow.
The fan is easy to replace. It is a common case fan with a housing specially built for the color classic case. You only have to screw it out of the housing and you can replace it.
The housing of the fan has two connectors which give power from the analog board to the fan. You can easily reconnect them with the new fan wires by soldering it.
The Fan is powered with 12V and has no temperature regulation, so you don't have to spend more money to a temp. regulated fan except your new fan has an own temperature sensor. I recommend a new fan without a temperature regulator.
If you look for a new fan you have to choose a 80X80X25 mm fan. I choose a SunOn HA80251V4-0000-999 fan which has a three times bigger airflow. But there are several other fan types you can choose.
In the download section you find two data sheets of possible fans; the SunOn I described and one from NMB-MAT.
The fan is easy to replace. It is a common case fan with a housing specially built for the color classic case. You only have to screw it out of the housing and you can replace it.
The housing of the fan has two connectors which give power from the analog board to the fan. You can easily reconnect them with the new fan wires by soldering it.
The Fan is powered with 12V and has no temperature regulation, so you don't have to spend more money to a temp. regulated fan except your new fan has an own temperature sensor. I recommend a new fan without a temperature regulator.
If you look for a new fan you have to choose a 80X80X25 mm fan. I choose a SunOn HA80251V4-0000-999 fan which has a three times bigger airflow. But there are several other fan types you can choose.
In the download section you find two data sheets of possible fans; the SunOn I described and one from NMB-MAT.
What is the best way to transfer files to my Color Classic?
After setting up such an old computer like the Apple Color Classic you often need to transfer useful files on the harddisk. You can easily transfer files with removable media such as:
- Floppy Disk
- CD-ROM
- External drives like: Harddrives, ZIP-Drives
The standard Color Classic is based on the LC computers - these computers provide an LC-Slot. When you switched your logic board with a mystic upgrade you also have a LC-Slot on you exchanged logic board. There are a couple of Ethernet-Card available for the LC-Slot. In the Picture you see a Farallon Ethermac LC card, which can be bought today easily on eBay. This card do not need specific drivers, it works with the standard Apple Ethernet drivers which come with Mac OS.
If you got a Takky upgraded Color Classic you might have a PCI Slot on your logic board. This slots are much more common for extensions because its also common in the IBM-PC-World. In the picture you see a Kingston KNE100TX PCI Ethernet Card which provides 100MBit/s connections and comes with Mac drivers. You will find the drivers for this card in the downloads section.
On the classic Mac OS versions the first choice was to set up file sharing connections with the Apple-Talk protocol. This protocol isn't used anymore in modern networks - you have use an alternative protocol. The easiest way is to use FTP connections. A popular FTP client on the classic Mac OS versions (until Mac OS 9) is Transmit. The last version which support 68k CPU is Transmit 1.6. You can use Transmit 1.7 on PowerPC if you got a Takky upgraded Color Classic. You can find both versions in a trial version on google.
To transfer files from you main computer you have to set up an FTP Server. Mac OS X has an integrated FTP Server. For Windows computers you can find some free FTP servers like "Xlight ftp server" but there are much more.
To transfer files from you main computer you have to set up an FTP Server. Mac OS X has an integrated FTP Server. For Windows computers you can find some free FTP servers like "Xlight ftp server" but there are much more.
Is it possible to install a later OS than Mac OS 9.1 on my Takky?
For 603 or 604 CPU based PowerPC Macs the latest working OS is Mac OS 9.1. You can install a later OS only on G3 based Systems.
Some people say that this limitation was only for pushing sales of the newly released G3 based Systems at that time. Some other people say that Mac OS 9.2 has only optimizations for Classic Mode of Mac OS X and it's not worth to waste time for an update.
Nevertheless some people want to install MacOS 9.2(which includes Mac OS 9.2.1 and Mac OS 9.2.2) on their 603 or 604 based Macs. With the small tool 'OS9Helper' its possible to hack the MacOS 9.2 update files, so you can install them on your 603 or 604 based Macs.
The most Color Classic Takkys are based on a 603 CPU - so its possible for them too, to use OS9Helper.
The compatibility matrix of the OS9Helper says that the only board which is also a Takky compatible is the 6500 board. I tried it on a 6400 board and for me it works well - in my opinion its compatible with the most PCI based Macs.
If you want to try it - please do a backup of your files first.
The latest Version of the OS9Helper you'll find in the Download Section.
Some people say that this limitation was only for pushing sales of the newly released G3 based Systems at that time. Some other people say that Mac OS 9.2 has only optimizations for Classic Mode of Mac OS X and it's not worth to waste time for an update.
Nevertheless some people want to install MacOS 9.2(which includes Mac OS 9.2.1 and Mac OS 9.2.2) on their 603 or 604 based Macs. With the small tool 'OS9Helper' its possible to hack the MacOS 9.2 update files, so you can install them on your 603 or 604 based Macs.
The most Color Classic Takkys are based on a 603 CPU - so its possible for them too, to use OS9Helper.
The compatibility matrix of the OS9Helper says that the only board which is also a Takky compatible is the 6500 board. I tried it on a 6400 board and for me it works well - in my opinion its compatible with the most PCI based Macs.
If you want to try it - please do a backup of your files first.
The latest Version of the OS9Helper you'll find in the Download Section.
Are there alternatives to traditional hard drives? Can I put a SSD in my Color Classic?
Traditional hard drives are the ones we find in all classic Macs - also in the Color Classic. But in new computers we find no drives with mechanical moving disks. Solid State Drives(SSD) are state of the art. But can we get the goals to our old friends like the Color Classic?
At first: a modern SSD got a SATA interface, there are adapters to SCSI or IDE(which are the common interfaces at that time) but these adapters are very expensive. Nevertheless if you buy such an adapter you would never reach the expected speed of the modern drivers because the old IDE/SCSI controllers are the bottleneck.
The better way is to use adapters from IDE or SCSI to a CF or SD memory card. For all SCSI Macs you could easily use a 'SCSI to CF' or 'SCSI to SD' Adapter. The most adapters will work in a Color Classic and are very cheap. Specially the SD adapters are cheap and SD cards are very cheap too.
If you got a Takky upgraded Color Classic you could use IDE adapters too. They are available as 'IDE to SD' and 'IDE to CF'. What you choose is up to you. ;-)
The goals of using memory cards as a hard drive are:
At first: a modern SSD got a SATA interface, there are adapters to SCSI or IDE(which are the common interfaces at that time) but these adapters are very expensive. Nevertheless if you buy such an adapter you would never reach the expected speed of the modern drivers because the old IDE/SCSI controllers are the bottleneck.
The better way is to use adapters from IDE or SCSI to a CF or SD memory card. For all SCSI Macs you could easily use a 'SCSI to CF' or 'SCSI to SD' Adapter. The most adapters will work in a Color Classic and are very cheap. Specially the SD adapters are cheap and SD cards are very cheap too.
If you got a Takky upgraded Color Classic you could use IDE adapters too. They are available as 'IDE to SD' and 'IDE to CF'. What you choose is up to you. ;-)
The goals of using memory cards as a hard drive are:
- They are very fast(much faster than common moving hard drives)
- They produce not much heat
- They are quiet
- They consume not much energy