Macintosh Portable problems

[Waterland]

I'm not sure if anyone here knows much about Mac portable, but I figured this was the best place to ask.   I got my portable at a garage sale about 2 years ago.  When I got it, I turned it on and a little icon of a computer with a dead face showed up, and I couldn't get it to do anything else.  I let it sit for 2 years, and now when I start it up, I get an icon of a disk with a question mark.  I'm sure this is a simple problem that's easily remedied with the proper disk that I don't have.  If anyone can tell me what I need to do I would appreciate it very much.

[odin]

I'd start with telling us exactly what Mac it is with what kind of config =).

[pan1k]

Perhaps the battery needs to be rebuilt. I had one of these, gave it to my dad. You will probably need system disks if you get the question mark also. I think the OS is free for them, check out system 7.5.3, you need to make floppys for it!

[Ilwrath]

yeah.... "Punched out Mac" is typically a battery fault, hardware setting, PROM/RAM/ROM issue or jumper error.  

"Disk with Question Mark" is a Mac that wants to boot, but can't find an OS.

Find it a boot disk, and you should get something more useful out of it.

Please see the new poll which is relevant to this thread.

[Blake]

odin: Waterland did say what kind of Mac it was. It really is called the Mac Portable (and sometimes negatively referred to as the "Mac Luggable").

Waterland: They're right that you probably just need an OS. Try getting the free download of 7.5.3. You can also get the 7.5.5 update.

Of course, you may have a dead hard drive, in which case you could try booting from a floppy-based System 6.0.8. That system is also good if you just want a leaner OS.

Blake

[McNorris]

Try this first:

-hold down the [control]+[Apple]+[p]+[r] keys all at the same time.
-turn the power on
-Continue to hold the keys down until you hear the "startup" chime for the third time (assumeing you get one reboot w/ the keys held down)
-Release the keys

Any difference? Do you consistantly get the flashing drive screen now? This is officially called "zapping the PRAM."

PM me w/ the SAD mac hex code... I can probobly tell you what it means.

"Sad Macs" are often just software related, but can be hardware related. Could be a simple as a bad cable or as nasty as bad circuit on the MB.

In any case I have an archive of old system disks. I probobly have the set that came with your portable (I still have an SE and an '040 PB around). They are disk images that you would have to have an 800k drive to write.

Like I said, if that doesn't fix you up then PM me. I've also got some great B&W games (Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Dark Castle, etc...).

P.S. I think the Mac Portable came only with 1MB of RAM. I could be wrong, but if I am not System 6.0.8 is a far better choice. In any case its faster. And I believe there is a TCP/IP for it too.

Laters