Low End Mac’s Vintage Macs Group

Vintage Macs is a forum for users of 68000, 68020, 68030, and 68040-based Macintosh computers (a.k.a. 680×0 Macs and 68K Macs). This includes compact Macs, the Mac II series, LCs, Quadras, and others.

Under our “once removed” rule, discussion of first generation Power Macs is acceptable. However, Power Macs should generally be discussed in their own group.

Be sure to read our guide to netiquette before posting to the group. If you wish to discuss group rules, please join LEMlists, our ‘meta-group’ for discussing our groups and their rules.

Join Vintage Macs
Email:
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The Vintage Macs Group was begun on 1998.06.18 and moved to Google Groups 2006.01.27.

How can I subscribe to Vintage Macs?

There are several ways to read messages from The Vintage Macs List:

  • Individual messages
  • Abridged messages, a daily summary of messages
  • Digest mode, a daily collection of full messages
  • No email
  • Online

You can subscribe via email or online.

To subscribe via email, send an email to vintage-macs+subscribe@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe, send an email to vintage-macs+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. You must register online if you wish to set your subscription to digest mode, abridged messages, or no email.

To subscribe online, go to http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs and click on Join this group. You do not need a Google/Gmail account to participate. If you don’t have a Gmail address or wish to use another address, click on the Sign up now link.

Although you will begin receiving messages from the group right away, Google Groups will not accept an email posting until you confirm your email address. Also, in an attempt to keep spammers out, the first messages from new members will be checked by a group manager before they are posted.

You will receive a confirmation email from Google Groups at your subscribed address. You must click on the link in this message to verify your email address. That will generate a second email from Google Groups, and it’s only after responding to the second message that you’ll be able to post to the group. Watch out – one or both of these may be marked as junk mail by your spam filter.

Use http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs to change your subscription mode or remove yourself from the group.

If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to the group’s RSS feed at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs/feed/rss_v2_0_msgs.xml

To help prevent spammers from using the to the entire group, and to keep others
from subscribing your address without your approval, you will
receive an email from the Google Groups server asking you to confirm your
subscription. Simply reply as instructed and your
subscription will be active.

Please report any subscription problems to the group owner at

.

Online Subscription Management

Go to http://groups.google.com/ and select
“Sign in”. Enter your subscribed email address and password. You may
also want to check “Stay signed in”.

Google Groups will display a list of all groups that this email
address is subscribed to. Click on “Manage my memberships” – this is
where you can change your nickname, your subscribed email address, and
your subscription type (how you receive messages from the group).

What about anti-spam services?

We take whatever steps we can to keep spam off our lists, but
short of moderating every message on every to the entire group, we can’t prevent
some from occasionally reaching the list. Whatever filtering you do
with your email software and your email service is up to you.

That said, we take a dim view of anti-spam services such as
Spam Arrest and Cashette that require the sender of
a message to respond to a message from the anti-spam service (a
“challenge and response” system) before allowing the recipient to
receive the posting. Such a service inconveniences anyone who posts
to the group and is unnecessary.

These are all closed lists, so there should be virtually no
spam. Only those who have requested a subscription and confirmed
their subscription are allowed to post. Please don’t inconvenience
our members by asking them to jump through hoops to keep your
mailbox spam free.

Any subscriber using this kind of anti-spam service for group
messages will receive one warning and be temporarily blocked from
posting to the list. If the situation is not resolved quickly, the
subscriber will be banned. The burden should be on the spammers,
not innocent group members.

Note that this applies specifically to messages sent to the group,
not to individual correspondence with group members.

How can I distinguish messages from Vintage Macs from all the other email I get?

Messages from this group will include “vintage-macs” in their footer.

Who oversees the Vintage Macs List?

Dan Knight of Low End Mac manages Vintage Macs, which was begun on June 18, 1998. Marten van de Kraats, Stuart Bell, Paul Stamsen, Scott Baret, Derek Morton, and Willi Kusche are the group “nannies” (group managers).

Is Vintage Macs only for users of Vintage Macs?

While anyone may join, this group will be most helpful to those using Vintage Macs.

How does Google Groups work?

Anyone who has access to the Internet may join to Vintage Macs at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs. Members can receive an email copy of every message sent to the posting address, vintage-macs@googlegroups.com. If you wish to reply or post a new message everyone to the group, send email – either replying to the message to which you are responding or sending a new one – to vintage-macs@googlegroups.com.

Because Google Groups requires an email address but not a name, I may not have names of all members of the group. As of February 2015, this groups has 1,621 members – and people don’t need to join the group to read postings online.

How can I get a copy of the email addresses for members?

You can’t. To communicate with the group, send messages to the posting address vintage-macs@googlegroups.com. Google deliberately blocks access to the subscriber list to prevent addresses from being harvested by spammers.

What topics may be discussed?

Anything relating to Vintage Macs. Vintage Macs is mostly an unmoderated closed group. Unmoderated means messages are sent to the group without prior knowledge of the group owner or managers; closed means only members may post. The group is closed to help fight spam, and first postings from new members must be reviewed and approved by a group manager before they are sent to the group, a step made necessary by spammers.

Group managers are authorized to remove the following types of messages from the group archive: spam, test messages, and unsubscribe postings. Content of each message is the responsibility of the person posting it.

Because the group is closed, you will only be able to post from a subscribed address.

What topics may not be discussed?

The list is short:

  • Never post a link for Apple Service Manuals. Apple has a policy of shutting down sites that post such links, and Apple has people on some of our lists, so posting such links contributes to the sites posting this information being shut down. Nobody wins when that happens.
  • These are Mac lists – don’t advocate PCs. Sure, they have their place in the world, but pushing PCs here is asking for trouble. Such posts usually fall under the categories of flaming or trolling. We don’t want that here, so stick to Macs and Vintage Macs clones.

What tone is expected in the discussion and who will facilitate this?

This has become a kind and helpful community. Since Mac users range from beginners to gurus, please be tolerant of “dumb” questions, and please don’t bait or snipe at each other.

The group is expected to handle things responsibly, and members are expected to behave in such a way that the group requires minimal administrative intervention. When action is required, the group owner and managers will act in accordance with our Rules for Group Management. This page also defines terms (ban, block, flame, troll, etc.) and lists the responsibilities of members.

Please report any major breach of netiquette to the
.

Is there an accessible archive of messages sent to Vintage Macs?

Yes, it’s available at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs.

What other Internet resources are available for users of Vintage Macs computers?

Low End Mac is excellent, in my admittedly biased opinion as webmaster.

I subscribed, but get no messages. What’s up?

Google Groups can be set so that “no email” is the default
option, and all of our lists were inadvertently set that way. We
have since set them so subscribers will receive individual emails
as the default. My apologies.

It’s possible (but not easy) to subscribe with an incorrect
email address. The list server checks all bounced messages to
determine why they bounced. If the address is invalid, it is
removed from the subscriber list. If the problem is temporary, like
a full mailbox, the server temporarily suspends your subscription.
If this results in still more bounces, the server will eventually
remove the address.

If you are subscribing from a free email account, note that some
of these services are very busy and messages may bounce. This can
even happen with commercial services, and Apple’s .mac seems to
experience this frequently. If this persists, it could lead to your
name being removed the list. We recommend you to use an ISP account
for the list instead of a free email service.

We take a hard line against unsolicited commercial email. To
prevent spam, the list is closed and certain domains are blocked by
the mail server and the list server.

I sent a reply to the list, but I never received a copy.

Google Groups sometimes makes the assumption that you know what you’ve
posted, so you don’t need to receive a copy; there’s no way we
can change that if it happens. However, your posting will show up online
and you will see it if you receive the list in digest form.

I subscribed, but I can’t post.

Google Groups requires you to confirm and verify your
subscription before you can post. And, like most email lists, their
software may not me@recognize mail.domain.com and me@domain.com as
being the same. Make sure the From: and Reply-to: address in your
email client match the address you used to join the list.

I have had reports of people who are subscribed and unable to
post. If this happens to you, please forward your message to

so we can investigate. We’re
still learning how Google Groups works, and Google Groups remains
in beta.

I sent a message, but it never appeared. Why?

There are several possible reasons a posting can bounce.

  • You may not have confirmed your subscription yet. Until you do
    so, you are not officially on the list and thus unable to
    post.
  • Your return address may not match the address you subscribed
    from (for instance, the server sees “yourname@mail.maclaunch.com”
    and “yourname@maclaunch.com” as different addresses). The list
    server uses your return (reply to) address to confirm that you are
    subscribed to the list and allowed to post.
  • You may have sent email which contains an attachment, styled
    text, or something other than plain text.
  • You may have inadvertently sent your message to the wrong
    address. Never use the “listname-requests” address.
  • Your mail server may have appended something to your email
    which changes your return address so that it no longer matches the
    subscribed address. I’ve only seen that with Yahoo mail so
    far.

Do you have any policies about selling products or services on
the list?

I’ve learned that some of the experts on any list gain their
expertise professionally. For instance, I was the information
systems manager for an 85 Mac network. For those who make a living
selling equipment or services, we have the following
guidelines.

  1. List members may mention the availability of commercial
    services or products on the list, but no prices. (Individuals may
    list personal equipment with prices.)
  2. All correspondence regarding services or products should be
    conducted privately, not on the list.
  3. Neither the publisher nor the list mom makes any claim
    regarding services or products offered by members of the list.

To simplify things, we set up the Low End
Mac Swap List
as a place for list members to buy, sell, and
trade Mac-related goods.

For the most part, items for sale should be listed on the Swap
List, which has over 2,200 subscriptions. We make exceptions for the
international lists (Australia, Canada, UK), the non-Mac lists
(Apple II, Lisa, Newton), and items that would only be of interest
to members of a specific list. Keep in mind that the swap list is
generally the best place to list items for sale, since it has more
subscribers than any of the other lists.

That said, the swap list is a very busy list, and we don’t think
anyone should have to subscribe just so they can sell a personal
item or system, so we do allow posting of items for sale on all
lists – but only when they are specifically related to that list.
That means no posting Quadras for sale on the iMac list, for
instance.

To avoid this list turning into a swapfest, we restrict
subscribers to one such postings per calendar year

We discourage posting links to your eBay and other
online auctions, and such postings are explicitly forbidden
on the swap list. We also discourage links to other items available
through online auctions unless they are unusual and of special
interest to that list, such as the Piña tomes covering
vintage Macs.

Do you block any specific domains?

We are firmly committed to the free exchange of information on
our lists. Some mail servers censor incoming email – orvis.com in
particular. We don’t take preemptive action against subscribers
using such mail servers, but we do reserve the right to
unceremoniously unsubscribe them without advance notice when their
content filters “quarantine” list messages.

If you receive a “quarantine” message, please forward it to
the
so we can deal with it.
Thanks!

Dan Knight,