Thread
SE/30... best Mac ever?
Let's all get back to talking about how great our SE/30s are, and how much we've upgraded them.
Anybody try a Turbo601 in an SE/30 yet? I think you'd need a IIfx ROM upgrade to even have a ghost of a chance...
Also... first post. ;-)
Anybody try a Turbo601 in an SE/30 yet? I think you'd need a IIfx ROM upgrade to even have a ghost of a chance...
Also... first post. ;-)
Tyler, yes I agree! Best compact ever! Also, I have spoken with Manabu about the Turbo601 and SE/30 compatibility. He said it will not work at all. Period. He didn't say anything about a non-stock ROM, though.
The fact that Manbu "I sell all the amazing stuff in the world but don't have any real-world answers for anything" Sakai said it won't work is about as valuable to me as the fact that DayStar never promised that it would work. }
I almost guarantee you'd need a 32-bit clean ROM for it to work. I wouldn't be suprised if it failed to work with the upgrade, but I'd be very suprised if it *did* work *without*.
Mindful of Mrs Beeton's dictum (when she was aked how to prepare jugged hare): 'First catch your hare', I have to ask whether anyone owns a 601-based accelerator for the 030 PDS slot? Or a 601-based accelerator for the IIci cache slot? Or an adapter from 030 PDS slot to Quadra PDS slot? Or whatever ...
Or are we all torturing ourselves with fanciful visions of a chimera?
de
Or are we all torturing ourselves with fanciful visions of a chimera?
de
The Turbo601 works in a IIsi. So maybe, with a IIsi ROM chip, it's possible it'll work in a SE/30. It'd be interesting to try anyway. I think you'd probably have better luck with the IIsi ROM than the IIfx ROM. Would probably be best to try it with the IIsi Daystar adapter first and work from there. If it works with that, then try it with the SE/30 one/Twinspark.
I would think heat would be a major problem, you'd probably need to add extra fans to get it out of the case! But how cool (or hot!) would a 100MHz SE/601 be [
] ]'>
http://www.brinnoven.co.uk/turbo601/
I would think heat would be a major problem, you'd probably need to add extra fans to get it out of the case! But how cool (or hot!) would a 100MHz SE/601 be [
] ]'>http://www.brinnoven.co.uk/turbo601/
I'm not actually sure I'd even *want* a Turbo601 SE/30, but I'd really love to be the first guy on the internet to discover that it works. ;-)
What could you use a Turbo601 SE/30 for? I can think of two things:
first, a platform to get MacOS 8.5+ running on the SE/30. This wouldn't really be useful.
Second, to run some particular piece of software faster. I'm pretty sure that a 50MHz 68040 is faster than a 100MHz 601 at running System 7 or MacOS 8. On the other hand, if you're using Mathematica a lot on the SE/30, I'm sure the 100MHz 601 would double your speed, and probably even more than that due to it's smoking fast FPU.
Personally, if I wanted Mathematica to be faster I'd run it on a faster computer; I've got a Pentium4 OpenBSD machine available, for example. I'm fine with the speed Mathematica runs on my 68040, and I don't have the time to tinker MacOS 9.2.2 onto the SE/30.
So, I wouldn't have any use for it, but I restate that I'd love to be the guy that first proves it's doable.
What could you use a Turbo601 SE/30 for? I can think of two things:
first, a platform to get MacOS 8.5+ running on the SE/30. This wouldn't really be useful.
Second, to run some particular piece of software faster. I'm pretty sure that a 50MHz 68040 is faster than a 100MHz 601 at running System 7 or MacOS 8. On the other hand, if you're using Mathematica a lot on the SE/30, I'm sure the 100MHz 601 would double your speed, and probably even more than that due to it's smoking fast FPU.
Personally, if I wanted Mathematica to be faster I'd run it on a faster computer; I've got a Pentium4 OpenBSD machine available, for example. I'm fine with the speed Mathematica runs on my 68040, and I don't have the time to tinker MacOS 9.2.2 onto the SE/30.
So, I wouldn't have any use for it, but I restate that I'd love to be the guy that first proves it's doable.
I'm still trying to find the link (was on a Japanese language site in around 1997), but someone tell me if my explanation makes any sense:
SE/30 Board with CPU pulled
+
68030 -> 68040 Socket Upgrade Board (the 68040 was itself in a socket as well, and offset from the location of the cpu pins that went into the SE/30 board)
+
68040->601 Socket Upgrade Board
All i remember is that it was shown working, I have no clue if the ROM simm was swapped (babelfish sucked hard then and had no japanese translation). I do remember I got to if from the now defunct CCSCC pages somehow, and I think the case had been painted black. There was no greyscale upgrade nor cd-rom in it iirc (for identification purposes)
just trying to help... :?:
SE/30 Board with CPU pulled
+
68030 -> 68040 Socket Upgrade Board (the 68040 was itself in a socket as well, and offset from the location of the cpu pins that went into the SE/30 board)
+
68040->601 Socket Upgrade Board
All i remember is that it was shown working, I have no clue if the ROM simm was swapped (babelfish sucked hard then and had no japanese translation). I do remember I got to if from the now defunct CCSCC pages somehow, and I think the case had been painted black. There was no greyscale upgrade nor cd-rom in it iirc (for identification purposes)
just trying to help... :?:
It makes sense, but I'm a bit skeptical because I don't know of any 68040 upgrade for the 68030-socket Macs. Furthermore, I don't know how such a thing would work, since the 601 upgrades do a lot of voodoo with the system ROM and I wouldn't think that it would have the access to do that when going through another set of glue logic.
But, who am I to argue with success? If they said it worked, it probably did. It is an intriguing route to take, at any rate.
But, who am I to argue with success? If they said it worked, it probably did.
It is an intriguing route to take, at any rate.
yeah.. it was ancient.. and I've been searching for the page on and off for the last year... but it did show it working.. not a clue what the wierd board in the middle with the 68040 upgrade was though, but the concept seemed basically to be that the se30 was rally jsut a backplane at that point for the 68040w/ppc, that it did nothing on its own.
I've got a 601 out of a IIsi...
Unquestionably the most accomplished of the Classic AIOs. Never mind what can be done with a CC, because that pokey little screen is a fatal handicap.
However, the more I try/cast about, the more I am impressed with the IIci, having, as it does, so much more potential to complement a faster CPU with useful adjuncts (eg, real 10/100Base-T NICs) in its NuBus slots, and in not needing especially fancy RAM to be useful, nor hens-teeth-class video cards. I can use a Mac Portrait card in 16 greys in one of mine to drive a Portrait Display, which is a mighty fine improvement over anything the SE/30 can be persuaded to do, but a decent Radius card can give 256 greys. And then there's the native 32-bit operation. Though I've been into Classic AIOs so often as to be able to do it in my sleep, I have to favour the case of the IIcx/IIci/Q700. Only battery replacement necessitates large-scale demolition, and at every 5-7 years, that is not a serious handicap. And, best of all, a PowerCache 50MHz card was just a drop-in.
Despite Tyler's care to rig the voting by not providing for a dissenting vote, I register my view by abstaining, so there.
de
You know, if "All-in-one" wasn't such an important part of my decision to use the SE/30, I would totally use a IIci with tons of upgrades (Video, SCSI, 10/100, 68040) and a Portrait display. What a great workstation.
Glad to hear there's a dissenting opinion, it helps to keep us honest. ;-)
Glad to hear there's a dissenting opinion, it helps to keep us honest. ;-)
The IIci is a great computer - but the PSU on mine went up in smoke... :-(
Just how much can you mod an SE/30 and still consider it an SE/30? For example (assuming it were even possible) putting a IIci motherboard in there?
No-one like the cable what I found? :?:
No-one like the cable what I found? :?:
Au contraire, notre ami. We are just waiting on the first of your reports about its usefulness.
de
Is/was the PSU by Astec (commoner) or by Delta?
de
It was an Astec.
I'm not going to vote, because there is no "No"
I think that the 840av was the best 68k mac out there. I know it's slower than the 950, but if you look at the AV card, the thing just kicks butt!
As far as the best mac I have seen, I say the 9600 Takes the cake. Wicked fast, maxes out at 1GB memory, all those PCI Slots, and best of all, it can also do AV. Yes, I know the G3 could do that, but if you look at the initial release of the G3, the G3 was slower in real world tests than the 9600 initially. even the 366 was slower than the 9600. just because there was no software to take initial hold on the IBM 750. so, for a while, it was kinda useless.
I think that the 840av was the best 68k mac out there. I know it's slower than the 950, but if you look at the AV card, the thing just kicks butt!
As far as the best mac I have seen, I say the 9600 Takes the cake. Wicked fast, maxes out at 1GB memory, all those PCI Slots, and best of all, it can also do AV. Yes, I know the G3 could do that, but if you look at the initial release of the G3, the G3 was slower in real world tests than the 9600 initially. even the 366 was slower than the 9600. just because there was no software to take initial hold on the IBM 750. so, for a while, it was kinda useless.
I suppose your point remains valid... although this is the Compact Macs forum so in that case, yes, the SE/30 is the best compact Mac ever.
Out of every computer ever developed, maybe not. It was certainly a good design, and at least it's still better than the Amiga...
Out of every computer ever developed, maybe not. It was certainly a good design, and at least it's still better than the Amiga...
Way to take a perfectly silly "first post" thread and make it serious and informative. *grin* I mostly just wanted to see the reaction to the Stalin-esque "yes/yes" poll.
This is a really hard question, indeed, because you're basically dragging the whole philosophy of being into the 68k Mac forums. I've been through this discussion on the CC board and the turbo-dodge car board, and I think I know the (easy) answer: "As much as the owner thinks they can mod it."
There's a distribution curve where a few people claim it's totally changed at the slightest disturbance, and a few people will get *really* wild with it (Taco CC), and there's a big peak of "dropoffs" near the middle.
For example, most people think that a Mystic is still a CC, though many of them wouldn't go as far as the Takky surgery. It's basically a bell-curve.
Now, if that wasn't cutting straight to the trivial answer, I don't know what else could be.
Personally, I like to see the original motherboard, case, analog, and tube. I don't really like the color-SE/30 hacks or the "LCD+MiniITX+Basilisk=fast" hacks. They're cool, but they're more SE/30-themed customs than SE/30 upgrades, to the way I look at things. I don't mind the "swap floppy for internal CD" or "axe floppy to make room for IIsi adaptor" or even "fab up fabulous new PDS cards", and still think of those as upgrades.
How about you? Where do you fall along the distribution function?
for me it's two simple points.
1 does it still boot with the original os? (without emulation)
2 does it still have the original look?
if both are yes then it is an upgrade.
1 does it still boot with the original os? (without emulation)
2 does it still have the original look?
if both are yes then it is an upgrade.
I have to agree with TylerEss on this one. You can drop an LC575 board in a Colour Classic case. I may have booted 7.5 before, and it's booting 7.5 now, but it's still not a Colour Classic. It's a Compact LC575, IMHO.
There are lines between upgrades and complete overhauls.
There are lines between upgrades and complete overhauls.
not much choice in the poll question
I think that's the point actually. A Yes/Yes situation.
yeah i guess so
That's too bad...
You can get a full IIci for $12 on eBay right now, or you can buy just the PSU from IT Equipment Express for $76 (refurb). I sometimes wounder if ITEE ever sells anything... I mean $76... sheesh!
As for the SE/30, it depends on how you define "best". For me the best old Mac is the one that's the most fun to tinker with. Unfortunately I don't have anything to put in my SE/30. Parts tend to be rare and cost a little more than I'm willing to pay.
Ummm...I always thought the 840AV was faster. It runs at 40mhz and has a DSP. The 950 only runs at 33mhz and doesn't have a DSP.
where is the no option ?
because all the fancy expansion abilities and options dont amount to much if you cant find them
and where i live just finding a working compact is a smal miracle let alone finding a daystar 040
because all the fancy expansion abilities and options dont amount to much if you cant find them
and where i live just finding a working compact is a smal miracle let alone finding a daystar 040
You don't get one, because this is just a cutsey "first post" thread. It's meant to be a joke that you can choose any answer you want, so long as it means yes.