Macintosh SE Hardware

This is my effort to assemble all the pertinent hardware design information on the Macintosh SE into a single coherent information repository. The goal is to be able to have sufficiently detailed information to, in theory, reproduce an identical (or nearly so) physical, functional copy of the Macintosh SE.

However, my primary interest in having this information available is to have detailed information for studying the Macintosh SE hardware, and for maintaining existing Macintosh SE computers.

Conventional Macintosh emulator software prioritizes access to application software without regard to the mechanical and electrical design of the actual machine itself. My hope is that this repository of information will enable the same kind of virtual access to the hardware as we have to the vintage Macintosh software through the use of conventional Macintosh emulators.

What is currently available?

• Replica RTC based off of an AVR microcontroller

• Macintosh 128k PAL logic circuits

• BBU replica work-in-progress

• Vector graphics hand traceover of one page of the Macintosh SE schematics

• Replica shipping box designs work-in-progress

There are lots of other independent projects with good pieces of information out and about on the Macintosh SE. For the time being, these are linked from documentation in the repository. In the event the project has a potentially insecure future or lacks a durable storage location, the pertinent information is copied into this repository.

See also

Check out the GitHub repository repository with redrawn schematics for the Macintosh SE/30:

https://github.com/mishimasensei/macse30mlb

Macintosh SE Reloaded, a project to replicate the Macintosh SE Main Logic Board.

https://github.com/kr239/Macintosh-SE-Reloaded

PLEASE NOTE that the most up-to-date info for this part of the project is primarily on the 68kMLA forum:

https://68kmla.org/forums/topic/60059-reverse-engineering-the-macintosh-se-pcb-custom-chips-for-11-reproduction/

Compact Macintosh (CRT) Repair Guide:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200107140520/http://www.ccadams.org/se/classicmac2.pdf

Plus Two, a Macintosh Plus FPGA replica that is not nearly so detailed and true-to-life accurate:

https://www.bigmessowires.com/plus-too/

Enhanced Plus Two for the MiST board, contains a Verilog implementation of the SCSI and SCC controllers.

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/10/22/plus-too-mac-replica-new-progress/
https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/tree/master/cores/plus_too

Apple II disk controller, contains an Verilog implementation of the IWM.

https://github.com/steve-chamberlin/fpga-disk-controller

License

Since a primary goal of this project is to assemble historic information into a coherent repository, as much as possible, new developments are released into the public domain. After all, as is well understood in the vintage computing community, all patents and copyrights are destined to eventually expire with the passing of enough time, at which point the covered works cede into the public domain.

Therefore, if you don't have an interest in exercising any exclusive rights covered under copyright, you might as well simply declare your works to enter the public domain early, rather than using a permissive license or a copyleft license. For example, the CERN Open Hardware Licence.

In the event that your jurisdiction does not have the concept of the public domain, the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication License (CC0) is used as a fallback permissive license.