Cool!

You can watch a guy mess with his PRAM battery's cage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLrl3a3K8k
Notice that there's a thin lid that's held in place on either side. A small flat-head screwdriver should help you pop that sucker off.

I think you're right about the PDS slot; because it's meant to support a wide range of hardware, a PDS card won't necessarily use every single pin.

If the external hard disk is properly formatted and its ID (I'm assuming it's a SCSI drive) is one or two, your Mac ought to boot from it.

If you have a CD ROM player with a SCSI interface and all the proper cables/terminators, you can chain your SCSI devices in a series. Give them all unique IDs and they should all work... except for the CD ROM player. That might require a driver. In that case I'd recommend SCSIProbe (I think that's what it's called).

Oh, also, all the stuff in your LC is held in place with plastic tabs. Pulling back the tabs (CAREFULLY) will let you release the components from the case. In the image you posted, you can see two plastic tabs below the hard disk. Push those away from the drive and you should be able to lift it out. Same rule goes with everything else.

The LC's a fun model, isn't it.

Hiya Bolkonskij,
Let me go through your points:

1.) I wonder how to put the Ethernet Card into the PDS slot? There are more connectors on the board than on the card. Is this normal? Anyway, pretty few space there. Any tips on how to insert the card without causing any damage to the board?
soudesune» In my LCIII, there are 2 grey slots right on the side of the motherboard near the processor. The longer one has 32x3 pins. The smaller one has 6x3 pins. You have to tilt the LC-PDS card in so that the BNC coax connector sticks out through the hole while at th same time aligning the pins of the card to the slot. Mine slips in quite easily. Just be careful not to apply too much force on the pins. It's a bugger if one of them should bend.

2.) I want to insert the new PRAM battery. The older battery is sitting in a protection "cage". It is made of plastic. I tried to take it off, but it seems connected to the board!? Simple question: How do I take it off?
soudesune» The plastic holder on both my PM8100 and LCIII pull off fairly easily. You need to be careful though.

3.) Will the LC III automatically boot from the external HD when I set it up? If no, is there a hot key for switching between the HD? I suppose "alt" doesn't work, huh? Anything special with getting the old hard disk out?
You have to plug in both external SCSI devices I sent you because one is terminated and the other not. I can't remember which is and which isn't but I've written it on the one that is. There are keyboard commands which involve about 5 simultaneous keystrokes that I've never been able to master. You need to know the SCSI ID. I'e also written them on the base of the devices. If the system folder on the internal disc is bolloxed, then it should go to the system folder on the external HD. Do you have a boot floppy with the Startup control panel? that will sort you out. If you've no luck, I'll try and post you an image of a disk that works for me. I'm sure that there is a floppy image in the 7.1.x page that sheepmyshaver123 is slaving over.

4.) The LC III only has one serial port at the backside. Can I "cluster" devices? Like connecting the external CD-ROM to the external hard drive which I then connect to the LC III?
soudesune» The LCIII has 2 serial ports. They have a telephone and a printer beside them. They are not daisy-chainable but one can get hubs. You only have one Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) port, but you only need one because it is daisy chainable. The ADB port looks like an S-video port. Plug the keyboard in there and the mouse into the keyboard. I do like ADB. USB before there was USB.

1. Like Rezmason says, your PDS slot is a longer 32-bit slot and the card is the shorter 16-bit variety. It should work, although there are very few cards that don't work. There is a similar issue even today with PCI, shorer cards only use some of the PCI pins (usually simple cards like modems or ethernet cards !!). Look, here's someone else saying the same thing: http://macfaq.org/hardware/cards.shtml.
2. Just be firm and pop it off from the bottom. I broke mine on an old QuickSilver by trying to pull it off. Made no difference of course, the new battery was a firm fit in the bay even without the top cage.
3. From memory, and I have been known to get it wrong once in a while, when I had a IIsi and a IIci, the SCSI devices had to be connected in ascending SCSI ID order, so 0 for the controller, 1 for the internal drive, 2 for the next external drive and 4 or 5 (left a gap so I could easily add in more external hard disks if I needed to) for the external CD300 with a terminator attached. When the Mac booted it would search for a boot drive going down the SCSI chain from device 1 to 2 to 3, etc when there wasn't one available on the drive ID it had stored in PRAM.

Searched through my old MacUser / MacWorld magazines hoping to find a how-to on adding a PDS Ethernet card, so I could scan and post, but nothing there.

There is some key combination plus the ID number to force boot from that SCSI device, but can't remember it.

I cannot get the LC III to boot from the external hard disk. SCSI cable is connected, the hard disk starts up (easy to hear) and the LC III seems to look for a hdd, but can't find it. No matter to what ID I switch the external hard disk too, it won't boot. Tried everything from 0 - 5. Am I missing anything here?

Termination?

Oops, I got the SCSI ID of the adapter wrong, it's 7 not 0 as I originally said. Memories, eh ?

Here's the list of key combos for booting a Mac: http://www.jacsoft.co.nz/Tech_Notes/Mac_Keys.shtml

You need FWT Tools, especially the file called FWB Mounter. Another very useful tool is Silverlining D2. Once the drives are plugged in and powered up, use FWB Mounter to see if the drives are visible. If they are, then mount them.