your latest purchase

[Raion-Fox]

Got one of the hard to find 1GHz G4 upgrades for the beige PCI Power Macs. Though the bus holds these systems back, the L3 cache doubles to 2MB, so that should help quite a bit.

My 7300 has the 800MHz/1MB version of this card and this ought to be a very welcome upgrade, since it is primarily a classic Mac OS gaming system.

And its still slower than an SGI Octane at 400MHz!




Sorry, I had to. I'm glad someone likes these old Macs though, honestly, anything to keep them from landfills.

I'm one to talk though as I hemmed and hawed over an A500 with an 030 card installed. I decided I did a good thing divesting from Amiga though.the community is toxic.

[Shiunbird]

Couldn't help it - it was too clean and too cheap.

Oh well, you've got your new main keyboard and the PC came as a gift!

[johnnym]

Got one of the hard to find 1GHz G4 upgrades for the beige PCI Power Macs. Though the bus holds these systems back, the L3 cache doubles to 2MB, so that should help quite a bit.

My 7300 has the 800MHz/1MB version of this card and this ought to be a very welcome upgrade, since it is primarily a classic Mac OS gaming system.

Nice! Say from which manufacturer is this module? How fast is the bus running with this module then?

I also was lucky myself a little while back :

Instead of finding a compatible PCI graphics G4 case for my Yikes! board with 400 MHz PowerPC 7400, I was able to find a complete PCI graphics G4 system with upgraded processor module. The upgrade module is from Sonnet and runs well with Mac OS 9.x after installing this specific Sonnet Processor software, although the bus speed needs to be reduced to 66 MHz from 100 MHz:

sonnect-encore-zif-1ghz.jpg (32.92 KiB) Viewed 716 times

I haven't yet tested it with any other OSes, though. So am unsure if this upgrade module will run at full speed on e.g. PowerPC Linux.

I'm also still unsure if I should not better upgrade my B&W G3 (which has the slowest PPC750 available for these installed) with this module and put the PPC7400 @400 MHz processor from the Yikes! board into the PCI graphics G4 case instead of keeping the current configuration.

[ClassicHasClass]

It's also a Sonnet. The urban legend is that Motorola sent them some 1GHz parts when they were out of the 800MHz ones, so Sonnet made a small run of the faster card. The various estimates of how many were made are all less than 200, and some dude on ePay had three of them in the original box!

Compared to the 800MHz that's already in there, the cards are visually identical, which corroborates the story. The only way you'd know is the sticker on the back. The bus, sadly, is still 50MHz.

I also have a dual 1.8GHz G4 in my MDD, but you're right, it's long since gotten to the point where it's just cheaper to find an entirely new Power Mac system at the speed you want than to find the upgrades (and you get all the benefits of a newer system). But I like my 7300, since I rocked one for years.

As far as Linux, to my understanding what you're doing should "just work" in a New World system. It was the Old World Macs that sometimes didn't get detected or required kernel patches to enable the cache(s).

[josehill]

I also have a dual 1.8GHz G4 in my MDD, but you're right, it's long since gotten to the point where it's just cheaper to find an entirely new Power Mac system at the speed you want than to find the upgrades (and you get all the benefits of a newer system). But I like my 7300, since I rocked one for years.

I had a Sonnet-upgraded 7300 with an Ultra SCSI card as my main desktop at home for a few years around the OS9/OSX transition. A reliable, versatile machine. If Apple were to produce a similarly modular, easy to expand Mac today, I doubt Apple would be able to keep up with demand. Unfortunately, they're probably spending millions instead trying to create a kewl new form factor with proprietary connectors and glued and soldered parts for their promised "pro" machine.

[johnnym]

It's also a Sonnet. The urban legend is that Motorola sent them some 1GHz parts when they were out of the 800MHz ones, so Sonnet made a small run of the faster card. The various estimates of how many were made are all less than 200, and some dude on ePay had three of them in the original box!

Must have been one of these rare opportunities that never come again if one doesn't take them. Had one a few years ago with an AlphaServer ES80 for small money but no way to fetch it. In hindsight I should have made it possible.

The bus, sadly, is still 50MHz.

Well, at least it doesn't have to be downclocked by 33% as for my Yikes!.

I also have a dual 1.8GHz G4 in my MDD, but you're right, it's long since gotten to the point where it's just cheaper to find an entirely new Power Mac system at the speed you want than to find the upgrades (and you get all the benefits of a newer system). But I like my 7300, since I rocked one for years.

I fully understand and I personally also love to upgrade my existing machines. But it's often cheaper to buy a whole system that has a specific part included then to hope to get this part alone.

Say were you able to find any 128 MiB 5V DIMMs for your 7300? I've read that they were supposed to work with such modules.

I had a Sonnet-upgraded 7300 with an Ultra SCSI card as my main desktop at home for a few years around the OS9/OSX transition. A reliable, versatile machine. If Apple were to produce a similarly modular, easy to expand Mac today, I doubt Apple would be able to keep up with demand. Unfortunately, they're probably spending millions instead trying to create a kewl new form factor with proprietary connectors and glued and soldered parts for their promised "pro" machine.

I agree. And I always find it surprising what upgrades were available for the (Power) Macintoshes. I mean who would have expected to be able to run a GHz PPC74xx in a 7300? This is very uncommon (nowadays) in the PeeCee world. Of course there are exceptions, e.g. one of these exceptions is the SNI D992 motherboard with i440FX chipset. This is actually a D970 PPRO motherboard modified to host two Slot-1 CPUs. As both VRMs are socketed, it can run with everything from Klamath to Coppermine (and maybe also Tualatin) with appropriate adapters and VRMs.

As far as Linux, to my understanding what you're doing should "just work" in a New World system. It was the Old World Macs that sometimes didn't get detected or required kernel patches to enable the cache(s).

Thanks for the information, I have to check that out the next time I get the machine out of storage.

[ClassicHasClass]

Yeah, it was a little more than I wanted to spend, but these things obviously don't come up very often and it's in like-new condition. I want to bench the 7300 before and after so I haven't gotten a round tuit for installation yet. Hopefully this weekend.

And I always find it surprising what upgrades were available for the (Power) Macintoshes.

I love the expandability of Power Macs, particularly the beige ones. My games 7300 (which is my old personal 7300) has the 800MHz G4 (and will have the 1GHz), plus a Rage Orion (Rage 128 GL) and an OrangePC 630. So it runs MacOS, Windows 95 and Windows 98. I could jam a PCI Radeon 9200 in it but I chose the Rage Orion because it works with software in that gap where OpenGL was available but not fixed for Radeon (Quake II is a good example: glitchy as hell with Radeon cards and lots of graphics issues in accelerated mode, but Logicware never issued an update). With 1GB of RAM and two 18GB 7200rpm SCSI drives, it does the job.

Prior to this it was my NetBSD server. Back then it had a Sonnet 500MHz G3, which NetBSD did support correctly (there was support in the kernel for such cards).

Prior to that it was my desktop Mac!

Say were you able to find any 128 MiB 5V DIMMs for your 7300? I've read that they were supposed to work with such modules.

Yes and yes! My 7300 has 8 of them to equal the full gigabyte. I bought them from MemoryX. Not rock bottom cheap, but good quality.

If Apple were to produce a similarly modular, easy to expand Mac today, I doubt Apple would be able to keep up with demand. Unfortunately, they're probably spending millions instead trying to create a kewl new form factor with proprietary connectors and glued and soldered parts for their promised "pro" machine.

The philosophy of expansion started with the Macintosh II, was eroded again by the iMac, and destroyed completely by the trash can Mac Pro. And it sucks. Notice which Apple personality was around and not around during these times.

[ClassicHasClass]

Incidentally, just for fun and related to this topic: https://www.macworld.com/article/101419 ... grade.html

Yup, put a G4 in your Power Mac 6100!

[uunix]

SONY DSR 70p - Portable DVCam editing unit.. it's super cute

It has all in the innies and outies I need and super small.

It's the little unit on the left, shown here connected to the Serial in of an o2 running effects.

[SiliconClassics]

Found this boxed Sound Blaster Live at a Goodwill last weekend. Not particularly exciting hardware but it's unusual to find the original retail packaging (which is 90% empty).

[Raion-Fox]

Nice find, not really old enough to be worth much but it certainly doesn't hurt to pick them up while you can still find them.

Gods know I wish I was 6 years younger and had bought that lot of 20 Dreamcasts.

[Shiunbird]

Found this boxed Sound Blaster Live at a Goodwill last weekend. Not particularly exciting hardware but it's unusual to find the original retail packaging (which is 90% empty).

OMG, the memories.
I had a OEM one with a Dell Pentium III, and remember having a blast with the demos. Some of the MIDI songs that come with it are gorgeous. I remember something called blood war, or so, and it was so cool. There were the audio positioning demos as well.

Once I took the PC to a friend who had a good projector and 5.1, and we played Thief (it was optimized for EAX if I remember right), and I ended up just leaving the PC there for 3 weeks and we played as often as we could.

Star Wars Episode 1 was also great fun with 5.1 and EAX.

[Raion-Fox]

Even when I thought I was done with the Amigas, a 2000 and a 2000HD dropped into my lap at my job (pawn shop manager)

[VenomousPinecone]

Even when I thought I was done with the Amigas, a 2000 and a 2000HD dropped into my lap at my job (pawn shop manager)

I imagine the person pawning them knew very little about them? That would be akin to seeing someone pawn an SGI or Sun system. I mean who the hell is going to be on the other side of the counter buying it? It isn't some multi-gigahertz multi-core McPeecee that just anyone can simply test and verify the market and price for.

How did this happen?

[Raion-Fox]

He was the original owner. About eighty years old and he said the only reason he turned them in is because one is broken and his hands are too arthritic to hold a joystick anymore. Didn't know what they were still worth, he got a referral from a local who knows me personally though!

I paid him $150 and told him if he brings the rest of it in (He says he has like 30 games on floppy plus some spare parts) I'd pay him some more - off the clock of course.

I live in a town of about 3,000 people. There's a lot of old people here who bought tandy's and amigas and the like years ago, and who die off and their descendants either bring it into me or sell it off at estate sales.

Anyways, picked up a Lexmark M13 (Model M with the trackpoint nub). The cables aren't in the best shape. I plan to shrink tube the cables as a temp fix until I can find someone who can replace the cable for me.

Also have three octanes I bought at a liquidation sale for peanuts I have to clean and get ready to possibly sell. I may keep one of them if it has a dual CPU in it.