The unit had some damage and was very dirty. We decided this would be the first of our "hot-rod" Mac computers to be restored for the Show and Tell Page.
Note that "The Sleeper" has been sold! (5-19-01)
May 2nd, 2001, Unit was salvaged from pallet of Mac computers about to get recycled.
May 3rd, 2001, Unit was completly disassembled and all components cleaned. Any damaged or stripped case hardware was replaced. The sweep/power supply (analog board) had extensive cold solder joints, all were resoldered using silver solder. All socketed chips were reseated (they tend to work loose due to thermal expansion, and these were pretty loose). The case had some pretty bad damage, so we parted out another 512k to get the plastic chassis. The pictre tube had a lot of burnin, so that was also swapped out for one that had no visible flaws.
May 7th, 2001, We pull out our box of 512k goodies and start modifications. Modified components were photgraphed before reassembly. The logic board (see above) has had a "Mac's-a-Million" RAM upgrade card install. This RAM upgrade card was only one third populated which had us at 1 MB RAM. I scrounged up some old Wintel 386 motherboards and pulled the needed 41456 -150ns DIPs to "max" it out at 2MB RAM. It also has a small addition to the ROMs to allow it to use a Hard Drive. This ROM Upgrade is installed in a daughter board which plugs into the old ROM's space on the board (Socket pins were soldered in). The ROM upgrade board has a small header which turns it in to a SCSI Cable. The SCSI cable from the Logic Boards ROM connects to an Adaptec SCSI to RLL Hard Drive Controller/Adapter (see above) . The Adaptec Card is attached to an aluminum bracket that has the 5.25" HH ST-238 RLL 31 MB Hard Drive. (see below) All of this extra RAM, the ROM upgrade, and the 5.25" hard drive pull a lot of extra power. This would really work the existing analog board/power supply to death, so we add a smaller, more modern power supply by making a few modifications to the stock analog board (see below) . This extra power supply will mount next to the floppy drive. May 10th, 2001, Started Reassembly of Unit We start with the chassis (See above) and add a bit of heavy copper wire to help secure the heavy 5.25" hard drive. Next we install the modified power supply/analog board (see above) into the chassis. I had to pre-route all the cables, there is not a lot of room to get your hands in when this is finished. Next, the hard drive sub-assembly goes in, mounting to the stock internal frame (see above) and finally the logic board and EMI shield go in. (see below )
All of these mods generate LOTS of heat, so the final modification is to add a cooling fan in the top of the enclosure (one more thing attached to that 2nd power supply. After that, we just put the cover on and throw in a fresh battery. System 6.0.8 is installed and its done!
Wow is this heavy & loud. A stock 512k weighs in at 16.5 lbs, the "sleeper" weighs at 20.2 lbs. Looking at the very top of this page we see our finished new little "sleeper". Additional notes: The big HD made so much vibration, I had to re-do this with lock-tite on all the screws.
"Why is it a sleeper?"
Restore Process
Sleeper is a street racer slang term. It refers to a car that looks stock on the outside, but when you open the hood or look under at the running gear you see lots of race modifications.
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