Vintage Mac Living

Five Ways to Use Your Old Compact Mac

- 2005.11.09

Popularity:

A lot of people tell me that a compact Mac (Plus, SE, SE/30, Classic, Classic II) isn't good for anything anymore.

I am here to tell you that is simply not the case.

As a matter of fact, I am writing this article on my trusty SE/30, which has 8 MB of RAM and a 40 MB hard drive.

I do all of most of my serious work on these vintage machines. The screens are tack sharp, the interface is simple, and I don't think anything is nearly as responsive as an SE/30 running System 6.0.8 and ClarisWorks 1.0.

Anyway here are 5 ideas on what you can do with your compact Mac:

1. Use your compact Mac to keep a personal log using Note Pad or SimpleText.

2. Use your compact Mac to keep your schedule. This works best if you have an old copy of Now Up-to-Date or something similar.

3. Use your compact Mac to play games! There are also over 800 abandonware games on the Macintosh Garden (link below), and quite a few of them will work on compact Macs.

4. Use your compact Mac to get online. Yes, it is possible to get online with these dinosaurs!

For a basic email system, you'll need the following:

Mac Plus or later with 1 MB RAM and an 800K drive
System 6.0.8
MacTCP (Control Panel)
Config PPP (Control Panel)
PPP (Extension)
Eudora Lite 1.3.1

For a basic Web browsing system, you'll need the following:

Mac Plus or later with 4 MB RAM and a 20 MB hard drive (I recommend at least a 40 MB drive)
System 7.1
MacTCP (Control Panel)
Config PPP (Control Panel
PPP (Extension)
MacLynx, a text-based Web browser for 68000-based machines, or WannaBe (a text-based web browser for 68020-based machines and up, which requires that you install Drag Manager and Thread Manager are running System 7.1)
GIFwatcher DA (image viewer)
GIFConverter (converts GIFs to PICTs and PICTs to GIFs)
Fetch 4.0.3 or earlier (FTP client)

You can download most all of this from Jag's House or using the links at the end of this article.

How to set up MacTCP:

Open the MacTCP control panel.

Select PPP and then click the more button near the bottom of the screen.

Under the Obtain Address field select Server.

The following is how the IP Address Field should look:

Class: A Address: 0.0.0.0

Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0

Net | Subnet | Node

Bits: 8 0 24

Net: 0

Subnet: 0

Node: 0

You will also need your ISP's DNS numbers in order to get online.

How to set up Config PPP:

Open the Config PPP Control Panel

Select Modem Port next to Port Name if the modem is connected to the modem port.
Click on the Config button at the bottom left corner of the ConfigPPP window.

Select the modem's speed next to Port Speed and type the phone number in the Phone Num dialog box.
Use AT&F1 under Modem Init.

If you want Config PPP to save you username and password, click on the Authentication button and a window will come up asking you to enter your username and password, then click the OK button.
Then click on the Done button, that should take you back to the ConfigPPP window.

To Connect, click Open, when you do that the computer will start to connect. If you do not want ConfigPPP to save your username and password, you will have to type in both each time you connect.

Once you do that you should have no problems getting online with your compact Mac!

5. It's fun to watch a compact Mac run the Randomizer module (Randomizer runs a different screen saver at an interval you select) in After Dark 2.0.

Well, there you go - five ideas for what to do with your compact Mac.

You'll never know just how much you can really do with your compact Mac unless you try. So what are you waiting for? Dust it off and see what that old puppy can really do!

Resources

Macintosh Garden
Archived versions of Eudora
Download MacLynx 2.7.1
WannaBe
GIFwatcher DA (can't find a download link)
GIFConverter, Macshare.com
Fetch

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, use our Google+ page, or read our RSS news feed

Recent Vintage Mac Living articles

What a waste! Some schools would rather store old computers than put them to use, 2007.09.12. Denver Public Schools is one example of a school district so ready to buy new computers that it has tens of thousands of old, usable computers sitting in storage.
My incredible $110 Lombard and Power Mac G4 deal, 2007.07.11. Sometimes pawn shops can be a great source for older Macs, such as turning up a Lombard PowerBook and a very upgraded Power Mac G4 Digital Audio for just $110!
Too stressed to even think about computers, 2007.05.16. "I've been so preoccupied that I haven't been able to think about computers, much less write about them."
More in the Vintage Mac Living index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Quadra 950, introduced 1992.05.18. Apple's huge tower has 5 NuBus slots and runs a 33 MHz 68040 processor.
May 20 in LEM history: 99: New type of G3 daughter card - 02: iBook G3/700 - PowerBook 1400 very likable - 03: QuickBooks Pro 5 the accounting leader? - 05: Mac mini as disposable as a PC? - 08: Slot-load iMacs: SE/30 for a new generation - SheepShaver - Compleat Guide to the Pismo PowerBook - Virtual PC works with Leopard
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Vintage Mac Living articles copyright ©2005-07 by Ted Hodges. Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2013 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it, and we don't share the information we have with others. For more details, see our Terms of Use.