Color Classic Web Server News

Color Classic server back online

2012-05-13T23:05:00.001-07:00

The Color Classic web server is back online with a replacement logic board and floppy drive. I finally had time tonight to install the floppy drive and run Disk First Aid to repair the HDD and verify everything with Norton Disk Doctor (see above).

The original logic board was re-capped but continues to show the same symptom of no video, so for the time being I am running the CC with a logic board that came from a Color Classic that was originally used in Comal ISD. The students who used that Color Classic have long since graduated and gone on to careers and have kids of their own in school. Hopefully they are using MacBooks or iPads!

Color Classic falls victim to leaky caps

2012-01-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

After nearly 20 years of service the Macintosh Color Classic that powers the Color Classic web server succumbed to the fate most common to vintage electronics: leaking capacitors. If you examine the picture of the logic board above you can see the evidence yourself - the dark areas around the three round capacitors in the upper right corner are the most telling.

The Color Classic web server has been extremely reliable until recently so when the picture disappeared last week I thought it might be related to the CRT. Swapping out the logic board with a replacement brought it back to life, and examining the original logic board revealed the telltale dull, dark areas around the capacitors that signify the aluminum capacitors have leaked their electrolyte onto the circuit board causing connections to fail and the computer to no longer work properly.

For an in-depth guide on how to fix this symptom yourself, check out this page from the 68kMLA Wiki that includes directions and replacement part numbers for those who can confidently perform soldering operations.

But fear not, the Color Classic web server will be back! The original board is currently being repaired by a professional and in the interim is temporarily online with a backup logic board. That board unfortunately has issues of its own, so uptime may suffer somewhat until the repaired board is reinstalled.

Meanwhile, I recently acquired another Color Classic with a Daystar PowerCache 33 accelerator and will be profiling it here soon. Stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T21:59:00.000-08:00

As 2011 comes to a close and 2012 is minutes away I wish everyone a wonderful New Year with much joy and happiness.

Did you know Apple had a design for a phone and a tablet in 1983? Neither did I. Check out the pictures on Jay Mug.

colorclassic.com domain moves to a new host

2011-04-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

I recently transferred colorclassic.com from GoDaddy to DomainDiscover, an awesome registrar where all of my other domains are registered.

The transfer was smooth and quick but I forgot to set up news.colorclassic.com as a separate CNAME entry pointing to this blog so it's been offline for a few days. Hopefully things are back to normal and I can start sharing some interesting info about the Color Classic server's uptime and maintenance, as well as tips on creating your own retro Mac server!

Rolling blackouts in Texas force CC server offline

2011-02-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

The winter weather affecting the nation has caused rolling blackouts in Texas as power companies are struggling to provide enough electricity to keep the state warm. Since the Color Classic server is not colocated in a server facility with backup generators it has spent several hours offline. Until the blackouts are over I am redirecting the domain to this address.

Most posts over at classicmacs.org

2010-06-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

I've spent most of my time documenting my work with the Color Classics in my home at my related web site, classicmacs.org

That site includes other vintage Macs I've accumulated or am seeking for my collection of Classic Macs. Stop by if you have a chance and check it out!

January uptime: missed it by THAT much

2010-02-02T06:10:00.000-08:00

The January uptime numbers for the Color Classic web server are in (courtesy of websitepulse.com) and with just a single failure to respond over 31 days we came as close as possible to 100% without getting there.

Spring has historically been a tough time for the CC web server since thunderstorms in Central Texas often cause temporary outages for the power, cable, or both, so that 100% uptime goal is a little harder to reach. Although it's connected to a UPS along with the cable modem and router the battery is only good for about half an hour.

2009 uptime for the Color Classic web server

2010-01-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

2009 started off a bit rocky for uptime, as a combination of a flaky router and spring thunderstorms in central Texas combined to take the server offline when it lost its internet connection or electrical power. Replacing the router and adding a UPS improved uptime significantly as you can see from the bar graph below.

The final tally for 2009 as recorded by websitepulse.com (who kindly monitors this site for free!) is an uptime of just under 98%. While that's a remarkable statistic for a computer that's 16 years old operating on residential broadband internet connection, there's still room for for improvement. Here's hoping 2010 will bring uptime over the 99% average!

Color Classic Web Server - HTTP
Month	Total Checks	Fails	Avg resp.time	Uptime %
1 Jan - 31 Dec 2009	9054	196	3,563.72	97.84 %

Report generated on: 13 Jan 2010 Website Monitoring Data provided by WebSitePulse

Color Classic gets a new home

2010-01-13T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Color Classic was offline briefly for a cleaning and a short move into another room at our residence. Instead of being located in our master bedroom (where the cable modem had been installed) it's now down the hallway in the office. I don't know how well I will be able to sleep without the gentle hum of the SCSI hard drive constantly in the background.

Before the move I took the opportunity to open it up, slide out the logic board, and carefully blow off two years worth of dust that had settled on the surface. I also vacuumed the interior, side vents, floppy drive opening, and fan slots on the back which all had quite an accumulation of dust, lint, and cat fur. Hopefully it will run a little cooler now.

Would you pay $5K for a Color Classic?

2009-11-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

In June, 2006 Maple Ridge Auctions sold a rare Macintosh Color Classic prototype with a translucent case on eBay. The winning bidder paid $4,999. Check out the beautiful pictures in this flickr set (photos are used by permission of Maple Ridge Auctions).

Back on track with uptime

2009-02-16T09:34:00.001-08:00

Swapping out the router seems to have done the trick to get the Color Classic reliably back online. The downtime hasn't been the fault of the CC; the prior Netgear router would randomly "forget" it's port forwarding settings and instead of sending http requests to the web server on the Color Classic it would handle them with it's own internal web server that's used to configure the router settings.

Since I replaced it with the Linksys the server has been online nonstop for a week without issues, so hopefully we'll see another 100% month in the near future!

Router swapped to resolve network issue

2009-02-07T19:40:00.001-08:00

The Netgear WGR614 that my local cable company gave me to enable wireless access with my internet service has an annoying habit of forgetting my directions to route incoming traffic on port 80 to the Color Classic Web Server. Instead, it sends incoming http connections to the admin page of the router, which is secured with a password, but isn't the destination that people are looking for.

As a result, uptime statistics for the CCWS for the month of January were almost below 90%. This evening I swapped out the Netgear with the Linksys WRT54G router I have used for a couple of years without this issue and hopefully uptime will become reliable again.

New York Times misidentifies Color Classic

2009-01-28T09:53:00.001-08:00

The New York Times recently published a special multimedia article authored by Sam Grobart entitled While You Were Out: Apple’s Years With and Without Steve Jobs.

A timeline from 1976 through 2007 is accompanied with a slideshow illustrating Apple's products, links to NYT stories from the past about their introduction, and spoken narration by Mr. Grobart.

Aficionados of the Macintosh Color Classic will bristle, however, at the 1993 slide which identifies a Macintosh LC520 as a Color Classic. The caption also describes an LC III as a "Macintosh IIIc" (click photo above for full sized image and caption).

No 100% uptime in January ...

2009-01-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Started off the New Year out of town and the Color Classic web server decided to stop responding. Our neighbor who was kindly taking care of our cats, fish, and turtles in our absence restarted it for me, but it looks like my hopes for 100% uptime this month are already dashed.

Which version of Mac OS will my Macintosh run?

2008-12-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

If you aren't sure which versions of the Mac OS are compatible with your Macintosh, here are some excellent resources to find out:

AppleCare's Knowledge Base includes several relevant articles on the topic:

My favorite tool for finding a quick answer to this question is Ian Page's awesome MacTracker, a comprehensive collection of vital information about every model of Macintosh that is available as a free Mac OS X or Windows application, or via a web site that's optimized for viewing on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Now, as for which version of the Mac OS is optimal for your model of Macintosh, well, that's beyond the scope of this article. The folks over at lowendmac.com have a number of helpful articles on this topic, though.

System Picker

2008-12-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

Dan Knight wrote an article for lowendmac.com back in 2001 entitled System 6 or System 7? In the article he describes several ways to switch between using System versions on the same Macintosh, and recommends a utility called System Picker:

System picker is a freeware utility that lets you pick which one of two or more System Folders on your hard drive will be active at the next startup. Kevin Aitken's little utility does this by "blessing" the system you select. (Blessing is Apple's name for selecting one System Folder as the active one.)

Unfortunately, the link to download System Picker from Apple's Developer site no longer works. I was able to locate a copy after a good bit of hunting, and that experience led me to decide that I would begin to collect and archive legacy Mac tools to save myself and others the time and frustration in the future. Until that archive is established you can find System Picker here.

I do not yet have personal experience with System Picker but plan to test it soon. Be sure to read Dan's excellent article for tips on how to install two different operating system versions on the same drive. Not sure which versions of the OS your Mac supports? See this article to find out!

Unscheduled downtime

2008-12-05T06:51:00.000-08:00

Looks like when I installed the Ooma last night my DHCP supplied IP address was changed and dyndns.org didn't catch the update, so colorclassic.dyndns.org is not able to connect to the Color Classic web server until I get home to fix that.

And I was hoping that this would be a 100% uptime month! Maybe January ...

Changes for early December 2008

2008-12-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

I haven't found a way to get the hard drive to spin down on the Color Classic even when all of the applications are running off a RAM disk, so I've given up on that option. When this hard drive calls it quits I may decide to seek silence by installing a solid state drive like the clever fellow over at junkstation did for his Performa 450! I have an 8G compact flash sitting in a drawer from an old Canon digital camera that would increase drive space on the Color Classic by a factor of 100 and reduce heat and noise inside the case dramatically.

The web pages have been updated to include a new banner (see previous blog posting) as well as a little sound easter egg you can hunt for yourself.

The Belkin wireless gateway arrived but I've not had a chance to test it yet. Right now I need to get my new Ooma Hub online to quit paying for phone service!

Banner for legacy Mac servers

2008-12-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

Apple entered the internet server market on April 10, 1995 when they introduced their Apple Internet Server Solution at Internet World in San Jose, CA. The press announcement described it as "an affordable and easy way to establish a presence on the Information Superhighway."

Included in the software bundled with the servers was a graphic logo for placement on web pages to tell the world they were hosted on a web server powered by an Apple Macintosh:

I've spotted this logo on a couple of web sites served up by legacy Macs and thought it rather clever, but decided to change it up a bit to send a more accurate message. You are welcome to add it to your web site if you like:

Color Classic internet connection over wireless?

2008-11-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

Ever since I helped configure a wireless ethernet adapter at a friend's house I've pondered whether the Color Classic could be connected to the internet without a direct ethernet cable.

The folks at buy.com are offering a Belkin F5D7330 802.11g wireless ethernet adapter for $19.99 this week, so I decided to spring for the purchase and give it a try. The product description includes the following statements which give me a glimmer of hope:

Works with all Ethernet-equipped computers or network devices
Requires no drivers, setup, or configuration
Comes with a Belkin Lifetime Warranty and free, 24-hour technical support
Automatically connects to the wireless network by the touch of a button

One gotcha may be that it is USB powered (does not have an external adapter) but I plan to get around that with a spare iPod charging adapter with a USB socket that plugs into an AC outlet.

I'll report back on my progress after it arrives. If I get stumped I can always try their free technical support!

Running MacHTTP off a RAM disk?

2008-11-20T06:40:00.000-08:00

I am considering trying to run MacHTTP from a RAM disk to reduce wear and tear on the hard disk of the Color Classic. The drive spins constantly while the machine is on (which is 24/7/365) and while the first drive lasted 15 years it only makes sense to conserve the life of the replacement and reduce the electricity the Color Classic uses if possible.

My Color Classic has 10MB of RAM (the maximum it can recognize). System software is using a whopping 4MB of that, and if MacHTTP runs for awhile it wants 4 MB, too. The only other application that I have running concurrently is ftpd for updating the server via ftp over my local network (my router blocks incoming ftp connections for security purposes).

The memory control panel will only let me set a RAM disk for a little over 3MB. Maybe setting the disk cache to higher number will help? I guess I need to review the memory usage concepts from System 7.6.x.

Visitor tracking software upgrade

2008-11-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

Visitor statistics for the Color Classic Web Server are kept using a free service from Extreme Tracking. They recently upgraded their tracking software to a new version which required starting the statistics all over again (the new software does cannot import the previous data).

You are welcome to view the new statistics as well as the old data which collected visitor information from 21 July 2004 through 14 November 2008. During that timespan the Color Classic Web Server averaged 98 visitors a month. The busiest month by far was December of 2007 with 965 visitors after the Color Classic was featured in an article at pingdom.com.

Hard drive transplant complete

2008-11-14T15:42:00.001-08:00

The original Quantum 80 MB hard disk drive in the Color Classic web server finally called it quits after 15 years of service and as a result the site was offline while a replacement was located and installed. Since a hard drive replacement involves removing the rear case and exposing the high voltage CRT anode I relied on my skilled colleague Lowell who kindly devoted far more time than either of us expected to this task.

Locating a SCSI drive is not a quick and simple task anymore, but a donor Apple-labeled 160 MB Quantum drive was finally installed, formatted, and restored successfully. During the process Lowell put in a replacement battery and used canned air to remove plenty of dust that had settled inside over the years. Freshened and ready for action, the server was brought back online this afternoon and dyndns.org pointers set back to normal for the domain.

We encountered some interesting challenges in formatting the new drive and restoring the software which I will write about shortly. Needless to say when you don't use troubleshooting skills for legacy machines you forget them completely. Thank goodness for the internet where you can search and find answers from others who have taken the time to document the unique aspects of working on a Color Classic in the 21st century!

Back online

2008-10-24T07:48:00.001-07:00

The Color Classic web server is back online after a quick round of Disk First Aid. Booting off a System 7.1 Disk Tools floppy and hearing the disk drive grind was a familiar sound I only hear a couple of times a year when I do maintenance like this. What a trip back in time!

Made it through the hurricane

2008-10-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

The Color Classic web server remained online throughout Hurricane Ike and it's aftermath, mostly because the hurricane never really affected Austin, turning east after making landfall.

But some recent fall thunderstorms caused power outages in the neighborhood which took the server offline briefly, and it is currently undergoing a hard drive directory rebuild which was required after so many sudden unexpected shutdowns. We should be back online very shortly.