Thread
Sonnet PCI 366
I recently acquired a poorly original Macintosh Classic. It had a somewhat gunked motherboard, and since my soldering skills are rudimentary I sent it off to Uniserver for him to work his magic. I also sent him the motherboard and power supply from my trusty LC475. I thought it was a good opportunity to get everything recapped at once. He also overclocked the 475 to 33MHz.
The boards came back yesterday.
Uniserver has done a brilliant job, replacing the caps with new ones that won't go bad in a hurry! Here's a closeup of the Classic main board.
The Classic now boots without any wobbles and with a clear startup chime. The original hard drive seems to have died at some point in the last few weeks so I have fitted an 80MB Quantum with an installation of System 6.0.8. It also boots fine from the System Folder in ROM.
My LC475 is also up and running and faster than ever before! This machine really flies with the overclock. I think it will resume its rightful place on my desk; got to find somewhere else for the Classic to live now...
The boards came back yesterday.
Uniserver has done a brilliant job, replacing the caps with new ones that won't go bad in a hurry! Here's a closeup of the Classic main board.
The Classic now boots without any wobbles and with a clear startup chime. The original hard drive seems to have died at some point in the last few weeks so I have fitted an 80MB Quantum with an installation of System 6.0.8. It also boots fine from the System Folder in ROM.
My LC475 is also up and running and faster than ever before! This machine really flies with the overclock. I think it will resume its rightful place on my desk; got to find somewhere else for the Classic to live now...
I know that a lot of computer equipment is shipped to Asia to be either re-used or recycled. I'd almost lay money down that one of the companies receiving stuff has someone (or several) that goes through the fresh stock and looks for something that would bring a nice profit if it were resold on eBay and such. Fro things I know about the recycling market it wouldn't surprise me a bit if these were either once sold as scrap or were part of a large lot of cheap used electronics.
That's not to say there's anything wrong with buying cool parts from (seemingly legit) Chinese sellers. If they can make a profit by selling hard to source items to international buyers, kick patooter!
EDIT: How come s.c.r.a.p. tripped the content filter? Must be because ot the last four letters, and if so, the filter is a bit too sensitive.
That's not to say there's anything wrong with buying cool parts from (seemingly legit) Chinese sellers. If they can make a profit by selling hard to source items to international buyers, kick patooter!
EDIT: How come s.c.r.a.p. tripped the content filter? Must be because ot the last four letters, and if so, the filter is a bit too sensitive.
You are right. The filter was overly sensitive. I have fixed that. There are three profanities (in the American vernacular, anyway) that are filtered, and there are seven slurs or otherwise derogatory words that I have also filtered. Under no circumstances will I allow the use of the latter seven words or derivatives thereof. I also will not discuss them in public. If you wish to know which words are censored, you may PM me.
Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!
Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!
Yeah, that thread has been on every incarnation of the 68kMLA, more than one time, each incarnation.
It's a novel, and noble cause, but it just won't work, unfortunately, at least not with what most of us has handy.
I've heard you could build a board with extra circuirtry on it, or something, but at that point we may as well build an SBC with a fancy Intel microprocessor on it, emulating a really fast 040 with loads of cache.
Hmm....
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[Insert Cool Signature here!]
It's a novel, and noble cause, but it just won't work, unfortunately, at least not with what most of us has handy.
I've heard you could build a board with extra circuirtry on it, or something, but at that point we may as well build an SBC with a fancy Intel microprocessor on it, emulating a really fast 040 with loads of cache.
Hmm....
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[Insert Cool Signature here!]
Well I gather the XScale is a descendant of StrongARM technology, so it's pretty efficient. And those ones are available at up to 600MHz, run ucLinux and have up to 204 pins of I/O (not sure if any of those are doubled up). So it should do the trick nicely 
Running an assembly language emulator directly on the CPU would of course be the fastest, but the hardest to write. Perhaps easier would be running a stripped down ucLinux and an open-source emulator, with fresh code to do the pin I/O trickery.
In the Lost Pages of the MLA, the Gumstix came up in a thread about adding wireless to a Duo. (See their accessories page), but it never occurred to me to use them as a CPU upgrade as well.
Ideally you'd make the emu as modular and portable as possible, so people could emulate whatever old CPU they want
Running an assembly language emulator directly on the CPU would of course be the fastest, but the hardest to write. Perhaps easier would be running a stripped down ucLinux and an open-source emulator, with fresh code to do the pin I/O trickery.
In the Lost Pages of the MLA, the Gumstix came up in a thread about adding wireless to a Duo. (See their accessories page), but it never occurred to me to use them as a CPU upgrade as well.
Ideally you'd make the emu as modular and portable as possible, so people could emulate whatever old CPU they want
Well, this is one: PB 1400/166 CPU
Alas, it is not a G3.
Here is a G3: PB 1400 NewerTech G3/233.
My G3 was supposed to arrive today, but the US Postal Service didn't leave it at the door. Crummy $11 package, and they wouldn't leave it. Go figure that they'll leave $110 packages on the doorstep, but not an $11 package. Now I have to go down to the post office during work hours to pick it up...
Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!
Alas, it is not a G3.
Here is a G3: PB 1400 NewerTech G3/233.
My G3 was supposed to arrive today, but the US Postal Service didn't leave it at the door. Crummy $11 package, and they wouldn't leave it. Go figure that they'll leave $110 packages on the doorstep, but not an $11 package. Now I have to go down to the post office during work hours to pick it up...
Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!
FWIW, the Vimage G3/233 I bought does work. I picked it up at the post office two days ago.
Man, installing software on a Mac lacking ethernet and a CD-ROM is definitely a challenge. But after much trials and tribulations, I got 9.1 installed along with the ORiNCO 7.2 drivers giving me a fairly quick system. Having 64 MB of RAM definitely helps.
There appears to be some video artifacts on the 1400cs display, though. I haven't tracked down whether or not they are caused by the G3 or by something else...
Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!
Man, installing software on a Mac lacking ethernet and a CD-ROM is definitely a challenge. But after much trials and tribulations, I got 9.1 installed along with the ORiNCO 7.2 drivers giving me a fairly quick system. Having 64 MB of RAM definitely helps.
There appears to be some video artifacts on the 1400cs display, though. I haven't tracked down whether or not they are caused by the G3 or by something else...
Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!
Do they disappear when you squeeze the sides of the bezel at different spots? ie thumb and fingers on the back and front bezel besides the LCD, squeeze, artifact disappears? That's an indicator of a loose connection to the LCD, a common problem on 1400s. A friend "fixed" his with a judicious application of gaffa tape, but perhaps some cardboard wedges inside would be more aesthetic.
In the Apple Service Source manuals (I think) was a reference to an Apple service part, a shim, for this repair. The repair could probably be achieved with a shaped piece of anything, cut from PE milk bottle or sheet builders membrane or some such, that could be used to chock and immobilize the offending ribbon cable.
de
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(60x) 13DT + 3PB + PTPro; (G3) 7DT/MT; (G4) 3T + PB. System 8.1 to OS 10.5.8
de
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(60x) 13DT + 3PB + PTPro; (G3) 7DT/MT; (G4) 3T + PB. System 8.1 to OS 10.5.8
I've moved it. Intelligent discussion has resulted