Q800 and mystery Nubus cards

A Q800 makes a great A/UX box, and is typically a very quiet machine for some reason. Or, it would make a fine parts donor for a smashed 840av!

The Nubus mystery, however, may yet be the real prize.

Can't wait to find out what the cards are.

I do prefer the Quadra 700, IIci design. I hate to open up quadra 800 tower design

Nice snag, buddy! I've been idly watching for one of those to make my MacCoffeeTable™ a PPC free landing zone for munchies and the occasional photo shoot.

Great find! That just might have some very interesting NuBus Goodness inside!

Have you got a 24" x 48" x 1/2" piece of Plexi laying around. }

ummmm... /looks around the workshop/ ... nope )

: )

. . . hrmmmm . . . on a more serious note: LOL! )

3/4" Plywood and some Platinum Gray Formica would do nicely too . . . and if you built the edge up thick enough you could mount one of those articulated KBD trays, a KVM switchbox and custom made AC/Signal distribution system with a custom umbilical connection extension "socket" with the umbilical cord stored under the sofa and broken out to serial, network, telephone, surge protected AC, etc connections broken out to a "project box" sitting behind said sofa . . .

. . . suspend configurable shelves on threaded rod for an interesting mix of Mini-Micro Quadras hooked up to the KVM . . .

. . . cables hidden by a MacKnickKnackShelf™ unit/swinging doors with sliding Plexi doors on the outward facing side . . .

. . . center mount something like my 1080p VGA/HDMI equipped LCD Panel face-up on a tilt up section of a platinum painted frame/thin back painted plexi covered wooden MacCoffeeTable™ top . . .

. . . with Classic Platinum Mac IIfx (dado) grooves routered out of the thick edges . . .

. . . or have the KBD/mouse underneath the tilt-up in a tray in an under-slung storage compartment . . .

. . . with the plexi covered LCD mounted on an offset parallelogram pivot to control the angle and expose your "mission control" panel in the front with an HDMI equipped DVD Player for watching movies from said sofa and the KBD/Mouse tray in the back portion of the opening . . .

< wanders off . . . wondering . . . figuring . . . muttering . . . driven to the next distraction . . . >

All 3 slots are full, wonder what is inside.

Cool score B - knowing you've been looking for one of these beauties for ages! How are you getting the unit shipped to you?

Reminds me of my Q840AV, which came to me at a similar price but shipped in merely a cardboard box ... glued, recapped and going well.

JB

How are you getting the unit shipped to you?

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Not sure yet - the seller has offered to pack and post, or I might be able to con an accomplice *cough* into picking it up for me. The main thing is I want to ensure that it gets down here in one piece, so I can use the case to rebuild my 840AV.

but shipped in merely a cardboard box

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Ugh, I received a Roland MKS-7 "packed" like that from Brisbane. Good thing those puppies are built like tanks.

Oh, so that was you who won that...I bidded as well, though given the $40 postage to Longreach I decided to back out in the end. Anyway, good to see that it was a 68kMLAer who won it...great score

Grats on the score. I know some people hate but I love that case style and design. For whatever reason, it just appeals to me on a very basic level.

Hm well, postage took it up to $50. Those had better be some funky Nubus cards

One's likely Ethernet, one's probably a decent Video Card and the "wild card" could very well make it worth the price!

. . . or not. :-/

Best of luck.

Congrats! I'd really like to have a Q800 (or two—can't have too many reserves these days) for A/UX. My Q650 is the second-best option, though, IMO.

Cool pickup, Bunsen - looking forward to hearing the details when it arrives!

@highlandcattle - I too prefer the Q700 form factor (had a Q700 with Q800 mobo in it that was my favorite Classic & A/UX box ever). But at the same time, I found disassembling and upgrading a Q800 is not nearly as awful as its reputation. Certainly not super-easy, but not really a nightmare either.

I think that people tend to make the Q800 case out to be much worse than it actually is. I once had an 8100, and I can honestly say that I'd much rather work on it than say, most PCs, or an Intel based iMac...

I think that people tend to make the Q800 case out to be much worse than it actually is. I once had an 8100, and I can honestly say that I'd much rather work on it than say, most PCs, or an Intel based iMac...

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It is, shall we say, not a case for the tinkering set. It is, however, a very quiet case design for some reason: my Q840av, Q800, PM8500 and PM9500 are all of them machines from which scarcely any fan noise escapes. Once set up they are happy to run along without incident for years.

But you don't want to use one for testing RAM. Definitely not.

Based on how picky my Q800 is on RAM, you do not want to use them for RAM testing indeed. Not only is it hard but it seems that it likes to stop working every time I open the cover. So I dont like to modify anything about mine. But the case looks good and its quiet. (Just a pain to put the motherboard back in the case)

One cool thing about some of the Q800 cases is that the designers signatures are below the power supply on the plastic thing between the PSU bay and Nubus cards.

Well, closer inspection of the Q840AV reveals damage to the rear and side plastics as well

So, one of these boards at least is going to go into some form of alternative case; perhaps a Q700 or PM7100, a custom, or one of my much delayed theoretical casemods. Other thoughts; moving it into an ATX case, G3 iMac, or G3/G4 smurftower; re-using the existing case's bare metal frame, with flat plexi sides, or making up fake, G3/G4 tower style curvy case sides for it; cutting down the 840 plastics to the undamaged portions to make an external FeetsDrive

BTW, a suspiciously chunky cardboard box has arrived }

Ok, de-boxed, and de-mystified - mostly.

Firstly, now that is how you pack a computer. 1/2" polystyrene foam sheeting, shrinkwrapped around the Quadra, then boxed, then bubblewrapped, then boxed again.

NB - some of the Nubus cards had come loose, so I suggest to anyone reading this that if you're packing an old machine you remove cards from their slots, wrap individually, and stuff them back inside the case somewhere if possible.

Cards:

• Video card: Radius Precision Color 24XP v1.42
  
• ISDN modem: Planet ISDN 2B S0/Mac II; ports - RJ45, RJ11 and miniDIN 9 pin
  
• Serial card: Creative Solutions Hurdler HQS 3.09B; ports - 4 x miniDIN 8 pin

So I'm guessing this was an old dial-up BBS or ISP server. It's a pity the hard drive wasn't present - there could have been some interesting goodies on there.

Other inhabitants include a caddy-loading CD-ROM drive, floppy, PS, what looks like 4x RAM & 2x VRAM sticks, and feral dust bunnies.

That's a great find, you could definitely get some use out of that machine.

I say install A/UX on it.

just my $0.02 :beige:

Well, searching around for information on the Hurdler serial card, turns out it is compatible with A/UX. Given my hunch that this was a server, maybe it was running A/UX in its former life. Not that that helps now, with the HD gone.

I'm also finding conflicting hints as to whether the Hurdler is Appletalk compatible. One site says yes, another says ???, another says no, and so on. It does seem that the ports are based on Apple's RS232/RS422 ports. If they can operate as Appletalk ports, that would be very useful for a LocalTalk Bridge type box to serve a classic LAN.

Found the old CSI support pages on the wayback machine and downloaded everything I could get in the way of drivers and help files.