Dream peripherals (the return) — #13

Post #13 by Bunsen

Source Forum	68kMLA
Category	68k
Post Date	Tue, 5 Jun 2007 - 02:29
Original URL	https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/dream-peripherals-the-return.8591/

Post

Ahem: Now for a feasibility rant:

PDS/Nubus IDE/ATA/RAID

I wonder: take an existing Nubus SCSI card and replace [some stuff] to make it an ATA card ... that still looks like a SCSI card to the Mac. In my dreams it's a case of replacing one IC :

CardBus modification for PB1400s

Ain't gonna happen, unless Trash80 gets a lifetime supply of Jolt and a pet army of engineers.

PB1400s ... more than 64MB

CF+PCMCIA+HFS+VM

68k/PPC/x86 on the same board ... run a system like parallels ... under system 8.1 ... Pentium II 300-500 ... G4 ... run 68k Apps natively, and windows, and OS X ... doesn't need an OS for classic ... run them integrated.

You'd get close with a 7100/8100, a G3 upgrade, a Radius Rocket and a Nubus DOS card or VPC. Or a PCI machine with a G4, an OrangeMicro card and Basilisk.

68k can run at 100Mhz!!.

Liquid nitrogen?

Nubus-PCI adapters

Click to expand...

...if you want to pay for the Second Wave expansion chasis.

...or you can source the near-mythical PowerComputing PCI+Nubus riser

- Software that took advantage of: all the special hardware in the IIfx, the DSPs in the 660av/840av, DSPs aimed at Photoshop (but if I remember right didn't accelerate all that many functions)

They were useable in some audio programs apparently. Apart from that, all it takes is for someone to write or port stuff to them...

- Multi-processor 68K? Even possible?- More uses for Radius Rockets w/ Rocket Share

I think you've answered your own question there

- Dual 68K 840av with 6 Nubus slots

Yes please

- Faster x86 cards for 68K or PPC Macs.

With updated drivers for OS X and WinXP/Vista - but Boot Camp and Parallels pretty much kill the business case for these

- two-drive SCSI enclosure for my 840av ... that looked the same as the tower but about 1/3 - 1/2 as tall.

Get a scrapped 840/8100 case and cut it down

Dream OS? Unix backed 8.1! ...

Click to expand...

Theoretically, you could probably come pretty close if you could disassemble NeXTSTEP and recompile it for Mac

Or run NetBSD and the Just-In-Time build of Basilisk II

Uses UAE 68k emulation or (under AmigaOS and NetBSD/m68k) real 68k processor

The NeXT motherboards look like they stole a lot of ideas from Apple using a lot of the same components and expansion ports.

And they ran '030s and '040s so it shouldn't be an impossible recompile.