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IIsiColorPivotII_PDS_Card_HackProject™

IIsiColorPivotII_PDS_Card_HackProject™ Hardware 215 posts Jul 14, 2011 — Jan 31, 2014
Well I got a card, So i will toy with that when I get a chance. Ill see if its workable, Grounding sens 0 and 2 should tell it to run in RGB12 mode. which is compatible with the signalling of the internal monitor on the SE/30.

RCPII/IIsi is too long to fit in the setback section at all, It needs to be raised one level and still have its tail bobbed by my estimation.

RCPII_IIsi_SE_30fit.00.2p.jpg

Just a guesstimate, I am without SE/30 and relatively happy to be so.

I'm splaying these three cards across the underside of the Macintoch IIsi's Motherboard. As you can see, I've already done the "Wrong Angle Connector Hack" to the SuperMac PDS VidCard Adapter. the Pivot card plugs straight into it from above.I need to do the same to the RCPII/IIsi Card so that the NIC will plug straight down into it as well, or across in the IIsi instance.

Borking sub-$10 VidCards and Adapters is fine by me, NICs costing ten times that, mebbe' not! It's even better that Rob's cards are sooo much more inexpensive than that $10 figure!

I guess the first question would be: has anyone tried that SuperMac adapter in the SE/30 for fitting and alterations? :?:

This predicament is simple. However itll cost a little bit. Need connectors, a couple of PCBs spin, and some ribbon cable.

Nope, just find where all the traces from the connector pins go, and which of the little discrete components pass thrugh to get there and hotwire your video cable farther inboard on the card using same value axial caps-n-resistors for much of you wiring lashup.

Easy peasy-nice-n-easy! Any other way and you're just begging for noise.

uh.. what? lol.... I am not talking about the video connector. I am talking about the eurodin type C/R connector.

the PCBs physical dimensions prevent it from going into an SE/30. So it has to be extended, But not only extended, offset as that card is a bit long.

That's exactly why you lop the connector end of the card right off, to make it shorter back there so it so it will fit!

I think I had my cards laying on the Plus @$$Backwards . . . :-/

$%@%(**&+#?>@< page break discontinuity!
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uh.. what? lol.... I am not talking about the video connector. I am talking about the eurodin type C/R connector.
Yep, but what I'm saying is that there's already a perfectly good riser card available for the height and one forward PDS offset unit.

the PCBs physical dimensions prevent it from going into an SE/30. So it has to be extended, But not only extended, offset as that card is a bit long.
Since you need to build a cable at any rate, that's a great place to shorten the board so that you don't need to increase the offset provided by the SuperMac PDS adapter. I'm not at all optimistic about the Pivot Card fitting without doing the connector/component @$$ectomy as proposed. If you move the card far enough forward at a height where the connector "tail" clears the back of the case, won't you wind up running into interference with the chassis and CRT with the parts that can't be excised?

Lop off the @$$ end of the Pivot Card and all is well. ;)

Thats just it. You cant lop that off without risking damage to the inner layers shorting the vcc and gnd planes together. Once you do that its game over.

Look closer at the card. It is a 4-layer pcb with inner planes and traces. This is why you cant shine a flashlight through it and see anything. The inner copper layers block that light.

That is why when they design 4-layer or more pcbs they ad a guard on the board outline which will recede back any inner layers and traces from the border, so when the board is sawed off at the fab house this damage cannot occur.

If it works consider yourself lucky because I guarante that it wont work every time. Unless your really careful and know what your doing

I file the cards off VERY carefully to get "clean edges" after making the cut to avoid that problem, do it to form a "V" and you can see the clean edges on a multilayer board. It worked great to get rid of the FDD projection on my 1400 board hack and a few others, no failures yet.

Besides, we're talking about as is, untested, throwaway cost boards here until macmetex's buckets are empty.

well it would be nice if his buckets are not empty….

is he a 68kmla member?

Ah i see why you want to file it to a V, that would guarantee the layers are not shorting.

so when you say lop of end… pretty much what i did correct?

Yep, just saw it off and then dress it up with a file. I'm glad you got it to fit with a less radical approach. I was talking about taking the whole connector extension section off the board along with half a dozen pins and about seven active components if necessary. [}:)] ]'>

Now, repost your results in the compact mac thread, into this one. As it seems we are running 2 threads of the same info concurrently. LOL and that is probably my fault.

BTW, it didnt take long to sell off those video cards. lol.

Is he out of them already? 8-o

Yup. gone. Everyone follows these forums i suppose, We are the "google" of vintage computing.

Now I dont know if he has more that he hasnt listed, But that one listing is gone.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22600&start=25

Here in my ultimate SE/30 thread. I was able to use the knowledge and efforts of others

To successfully mod the pivot card into a SE/30.

Hopefully there will be more cards for sale. The price of the graphics card

Is what made this project possable for me,

I would have never lopped off a hunk of Pcb from a 99 dollar or 150+ card.

Good news is the mod seems to work with out any adverse effects.

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And you know what?

THIS CARD IS FREAKING AWESOME :) and so are the guys on this forum!

then only thing left, Is for the SE/30 Grey scale video board mod.

and for those of you that may not have a maccon ethernet card for the pivot to attach too(for proper spacing in the se/30)… as trash80 has said ,there are cheap riser cards that are for sale too.

$(KGrHqNHJCUE+hPv6NCJBQOCC)z3Kg~~60_57.JPG

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMac-PDS-Angle-Adapter-Vintage-Apple-Mac/151011026594?_trksid=p2047675.m1985&_trkparms=aid%3D444000%26algo%3DSOI.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D17905%26meid%3D3560927830306836012%26pid%3D100012%26prg%3D8262%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D151117999850%26

Don't forget the second Pivot Card for COLOR on the external Monitor!

Edit: techknight, that card may be the perfect spot to wedge your LC NIC, start a freakin' thread about it already, yer' killin' me! :O

wait……… 2 pivot cards in a SE/30 !?!?!?!?!?!?

surreal-photo-manipulation-1.jpg.b8eb7d21509f176b7f4b7fa7e11b913d.jpg


:-)

A LC PDS NIC, might just be the cheery on the sunday!

YUP! :approve: If you've got three interrupts that your SE/30 can access and you can set the jumpers of each card to be addressed on its own on one of those SuperSlot Addresses, you're good to go!

edit: tk, here's the diagram I'm mentioned in uni's SE/30/Pivot thread:

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From: IIsiSuperMacPDSadapterRAMhack™

Well the LC card wont go directly into the SE/30 PDS. the wiring is 110% different, However all the signals appear to be the same. So to make this work, I have to make an adapter PCB with the eurocard connectors on each end, and wiring adaptations.

Nah! Too complicated for a first run. Just solder all your patch wire connections to the Zener holes and solder cones on the SuperMac PDS adapter card and wire wrap them to the LC board's pins for a quick-n-dirty proof of concept, shouldn't even hurt the NIC!

Just start a freakin' thread already! :lol:

And you think thats not complicated? I HATE wire-wrapping. I absolutely despise it. Id rather run a PCB, only because ive ran PCBs who knows how many different projects, company and hobby related.

im just going to make a couple PDS to ribbon breakout boards. This way, I can plug FFC ribbons into the boards. Plug it in 1 set for streight-through, and plug them into another set for PDS to LC.

Ill start a thread when I get started on the project. stop hounding me. lol.

:lol: Somebody beat you to the punch already, and it wasn't me this time around! ;D

I'll try to get a diagram done before I leave tomorrow and get it posted in uni's pushy thread. If you noodle out the connections, I'm prepared to sacrificially behead (desolder the connector) one of my LC NICs and do a thru-hole<->thru-hole NastyHack.! [}:)] ]'>

:lol: Somebody beat you to the punch already, and it wasn't me this time around! ;D
I'll try to get a diagram done before I leave tomorrow and get it posted in uni's pushy thread. If you noodle out the connections, I'm prepared to sacrificially behead (desolder the connector) one of my LC NICs and do a thru-hole<->thru-hole NastyHack.! [}:)] ]'>
Yea, well ya know, it happens. You snooze you lose. LOL }:)

Yep, if you toss an idea out there in this joint the jackals are on it before the meat from the lion's kill gets cold. It took a while, but look at what has been accomplished in terms of collaborative efforts in just this one thread! [:)] ]'>

But you know what though, I am proud of the people here. They have accomplished things that I only dreamed of, and some of which I started but never finished. That kinda does make me feel tiny as a mouse, but hey at least they got completed by others with the same ambition. Some of the projects I inspired or came up with a couple ideas and never followed through but it still got taken as far as completion. Serial disk driver being one of em, and i remember starting the PS/2 to bus mouse thing, which someone else finished using a different approach.

I remember starting the thing on recapping, and repairing otherwise dead SE/30s from mobo issues, Then look where uniserver took it after i couldnt keep going.

Now I got feelers out there for LC Ethernet, hopefully I finish it, if not, im sure someone else will. After that, Imagine a PDS or SCSI USB host controller? now THAT would be something...

That was exactly my sentiment, all I really did here was snag an SE/30 card with cable, buy a bunch of cheap IIsi cards, buzz the connections and explore the possibilities. Everything else was done by other interested parties. "Jackals" would be a term of endearment coming from me, sounds like a Paramilitary Technical Special Forces Unit designation a la 68kMLA from my end of things.

I'm proud of the gang here, we've come a long way baby! :approve:

interested parties. "Jackals" would be a term of endearment coming from me
8-)

Good Sh*t Guys..!!

I've got a couple of pds riser cards on the way, and one of Doug's rom burners.

Next stop, internal grayscale.. It's gonna have to wait until after the hols for now.

well until techknight does the se/30 greyscale. I got my IIsi back together.

because my AUI port is already in use, i did the second best thing…

doesn't look too bad :lol:

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mp.ls