Hope...And Despair

For about two years, I've had a Macintosh 128k sitting in my room.

(this is where a picture of my Mac 128k would go, if only my laptop
would upload photos to blogger)

I bought it in 2004 at Savers. When the family went to Savers one day at around noon, I found two things I was interested in: an old compact mac, and a of Medal Of Honor for the Macintosh, both for $10. When I powered up the compact Mac in the store, I got the diskette ? icon. At the time, I thought to myself, "I already have a Mac SE, why do I need this?" So I passed on it, and bought the Medal Of Honor instead, since I only had $10 in cash.

All throughout the day, I thought about that little Mac. So finally, I looked in Mactracker to figure out what it was. Model M0001. The Macintosh 128k. The computer that started the second greatest line of computers ever (with the Commodore 64, of course being the greatest). I had to have it. I had to have it. I also looked it up on eBay, and found out they go for quite a bit ($100+). So I sped to Savers (literally sped, because I wanted to get there before they closed), hoping it would still be there. It was (who else would have bought it?). For $10 I got the 128, a keyboard, a mouse, and a printer.

I belted it into the front seat of my car, fully expecting to bring it home, install the copy of Macintosh OS7 I had, and play away. Nope. First off, the 128k doesn't have a hard drive. The OS is loaded into memory. Second, the highest OS the 128k can take is 3.2. Finally, the floppy drive is a 400k, meaning I cant just download a copy of the correct OS, load it on a floppy, and use that.

So I shelved it, since a copy of the correct OS was nowhere to be found. Then, while in Grand Forks at a thrift store, I thought I had found what I needed:

(Insert pic of Mac 512k accesories)

A Mac 512k manual, brochures, an Imagewriter II manual, a reset button, an audio tour, Mac Paint/Mac Draw/Mac Write, and two system disks with, presumably, OS 3.2! So I waited patiently until the next time I went home. I attempted to boot it up, but then I discovered that the disks were 800k (cue uncontrollable sobbing). Again, I shelved the 128k.

Then, I thought all my problems had been solved, when my brother D-monee informed me he had recieved an old external floppy drive:

(You know what goes here)

So tonight, I plugged it in, turned on the 128k, inserted the disk, and held my breath...

(0F0064)

No. No it cant be. A SAD MAC! GOD DAMMNIT! 0F0064 means wrong system disk. Ok I thought, it's not that serious. At least it's not a motherboard problem. I was about to shelve the 128k again for who knows how long, when I got an idea. The external drive is a 1.44MB drive. If I could find a copy of System 1.0-3.2, I could copy it to a floppy on my G4, and I'd be in business.

So I found both 1.1 and 3.2. I copied them to floppies, booted the 128k, and hoped. But I got another sad Mac, this time 0F0004, which means Zero Divide2 (and I'm not sure what that means).

So what do I do? Well, for now I'll shelve the 128k, and keep my eyes open. I know one day I'll find the correct disks, whether at a thrift store or on eBay, I'll find them.

Even though I think I know what they'll say, I think I'll email Apple Support tomorrow looking for help.