ad Mac Screens

Sad Mac screens mean that when you start up your comptuer instead of getting the little Mac with a smile on the startup screen you get a sad Mac. This information always seems confusing. If you get a sad Mac rest assured that you do have a hardware problem, not a software problem.

                                                               000000

Underneath the sad Mac will be some numbers and/or letters. On a computer above a Mac Plus there will be two rows.

The Sad Mac is a cute way of the Macintosh developers letting you know that something is wrong with your computer.  Each time you start your computer it goes through a built in set of diagnostics tests. Anytime something is found amiss the sad Mac shows with the code underneath of the problem. The first thing you should do when this happens is restart your computer a couple of times after a few minutes to clear anything out of the buffer. If the sad Mac still occurs then restart from your emergency floppy. If the floppy boots you probably have some system problem interfering with the diagnostics and you should reinstall your system from floppies. (see appendix, operating system).  If the floppies don't get you the smiling Mac then you have a hardware problem.  There are numerous codes and you can probably get a list of them from an online service. I could have placed them here but they contain explanations that are only applicable to technicians.  Here are a few of the more common ones I have collected.

Mac Plus only
010601    ROM problem: logic board
01FE01    ROM problem: logic board

014120     Analog board video voltage is out of adjustment. I would tell you how to do that but the danger of setting it too high could cause serious damage to your Mac.

030008     SIMMS in block 1 and 3 are bad or have worked loose (1 is the row facing the back of the board.

030800      SIMMS in block 2 and 4 are bad or have worked loose.

Mac SE only (Dual rows of numbers now)
   
All of the codes below indicate SIMM problems. You should obtain a new SIMM and try it in each of the SIMM sockets one at a time. see Appendix, RAM chips. The (#) mean that there are numbers or letters in those spaces. What they are doesn't matter.

                                             [][][][]1[][][][]       [][][][]2[][][][]
                                             [][][][]3[][][][]       [][][][]4[][][][]
                                                    Front of computer

00000002    00000002      00000002     00000003
00##00##    0000##00      ##00##00     000000##

00000003    00000003      00000004     00000004
##00##00    0000##00      000000##     00##00##

00000004     00000004     00000005     00000005
0000##00     ##00##00     000000##     00##00##

00000005     00000005     0000000E     0000000E
0000##00     ##00##00     000000##     00##00##

0000000E     0000000E     00000002   
0000##00      ##00##00     000000## 

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If you get a screen where there are black vertical bars over the sad mac and half the error code is alternately blacked out then you need to check your SIMMS also. One is loose or defective.