Mac Portable Web Server

Welcome to my little floppy based Mac Portable Web Server !

Hello !

This computer is called "Mac Portable", but should have been called "Mac Transportable"...

Welcome to this little web site, which is run by a twenty years old Macintosh Portable.

Who ?

My name is Gilles Aurejac, I am a thirty years-old apple certified technician, and for more than 6 years the manager of a little Apple Authorized Service Provider in france, (polysoft services). I'm not sure to be a good manager, but I always have loved to repair every kind of stuff (except those with two legs) : new stuff like iPhones, Macs, etc. but also old stuff, like those sort of cars or powered bicycles. I'm at the left of the following photography, with two of my technicians, Hervé and Stéphane :

equipe

Why ?

I made this site as a hobby, just for the fun of serving a website from a 20 years old computer.
This is not my first attempt, as I previously made and ran on the same address the Mac Plus floppy based Web server, which I decided to build in 2001 after having read on LowendMac web site that the Macintosh SE Web Server of Bob Kolquist has definitively shut down in november 2001. Here is what Bob Kolquist said about his server :

My server was first up from May 8, 2003 minus 5 years - to demonstrate Y2K compatibility. Thus it was up from May 8, 1998. I took it down in Nov 2001. It had over 50,000 visitors at the home page, 3.5 years. This included several hits from me checking it and many hits from some of the worm/trojan horses/virus. It was a listed site at Yahoo. You can still find info at google.com by doing a search for "Bob Kolquist".

Like Bob Kolquist SE Server, my old Mac Plus, which came to light on Wednesday 7 november 2001, worked really fine for more than 5 years, and is not online since late 2007 only because I stupidly forgot to renew my dyndns account in 2007 and it took me 2 years to get it back.

I just got back my dyndns account so I decided to give the Mac Plus some rest and to run again a "new-old" server with a Macintosh Portable computer, and with the following goals :

to show that old computers can "do the job" for a much, much longer time that what marketing of big companies tries to tell us. I am convinced that the average lifespan of objects we use is far too short !
especially show with the Macintosh Portable that we didn't made any progress in computer power consumption as the maximum power consumption of this computer is 11W (during boot process) and average power consumption at the power outlet is 6W (no typo here !)
and last but not least, the Macintosh Portable Web Server will host the roughly ten pages off my ramguide site on a single floppy disk, which is an HTML 3.2 website without bulky things like Flash Player, but not without interest, I hope ...

The goal is to keep the computer in working order 24h a day, with its factory system software and original parts and accessories. Everything used in this computer, including floppy medias, system software, ethernet interface and HTTP server software, has been built or sold between 1990 and 1995.

What ?

Below are the characteristics of the Mac Portable :

Model :	Apple Macintosh Portable (M5120)
Date of manufacturing :	april 1990
Processor :	Motorola HC68000 running at 16 Mhz
Memory :	4 Mbytes of Static Ram
Video Display :	built-in 9,8" Active-matrix LCD display, graphical interface, 640 by 400, 32 KBytes of video RAM
Storage :	one 1.4 Mbytes 3.5" internal floppy drive no hard disk (existed also with an internal 40 Mbytes SCSI hard drive)
Network :	external SCSI Asante EN/SC ethernet interface
Accessories :	integrated trackball and keyboard (left or right-handed)
Software :	system 7.0.1 with MacTCP on one floppy,MacHTTP 2.2 and the HTML files and folders on a RAMDISK of 1470 Kbytes (built in original system software)

Network configuration :


                                                                                RRRRRRRRRRRRRR
                                                                             RRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRR
   _________________                                                        RRRR    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  |    _________    |                                                      RRR     RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  |   |         |   |                                                     RR       RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  |   |         |   |                                                    RR       RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  |   |_________|   |       _____                                        R      RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  |-----------------|      |     |           ________                    R      RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RR R
  | HHHHHHHHHHHH    |______|     |__________/________\___________________RR     RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR     R
  | HHHHHHHHHHHH __ |      |_____|          |________|                   RRR    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR      R
  |_________________|                                                    RRRR         RRRRRRRRR      RR
                                                                         RRRR         RRRRRRRR R     R
 Mac Portable running      Asante         Freebox DSL router              RRR         RRRRRRRRRR    R
        MacHTTP         EN/SC device                                       RR          RRRRRR RR   R
                                                                            RRR         RRRR     RR
                                                                              RRR             RRR
                                                                                 RRRRRRRRRRRRR

                                                                                  The Internet

How does it works ?

the Mac Portable boots on a 1.4 MByte floppy which contains the system software, and run the MacHTTP software from its Ramdisk. It is connected to Internet through an Asante EN/SC ethernet device, and runs without any hard drive.

Here you can see how is plugged the Mac Portable :

macportable

Now, let we consult the next web page of this site, charged with 100 Kbytes of images, to see if this little server can serve them...

Mac Portable Web Server running MacHTTP 2.2, updated : Saturday 9 january 2010 - Leave a comment