IIci Cache Card in a PowerCache Adapter?

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I just plugged one of my several LCIII PowerCache Adapters into an LCIII for the very first time, but there's no PowerCache in the collection . . .
. . . so right off the bat I thought of something to stick in there, but I no longer have that either . . .

. . . what are the chances of a IIci ROM booting this little '030 LowendMac with a functional high end Cache Card?

. . . assuming the LCIII ROM is a superset of the base IIci firmware, might the Cache Code still be present in the LCIII ROM?

[Dennis Nedry]

I'm pretty sure that the LCIII ROM didn't boot my IIci, so this makes me question how much IIci stuff is retained into it. dougg3 may have tried this too, I don't recall for sure.

Is the cache card known to require ROM intervention? This is something like a PDS connection to the IIci cache I think, and I don't know if that's something that works "automatically" with the processor like a math co-processor. There are way too many variables and unknowns here to speculate about without just trying it.

The cache may even be discovered and utilized by the OS itself.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yeah, the IIci Cache slot is a strange one, but it's cool that we have all these even more strange little adapters to convert real '030 slots into it. The LCIII adapter has no logic on it, so I had a hunch that it might "just work" if I had one to try. How tall is the IIci Cache Card as compared to the PowerCache? There may be a physical incompatibility with the backplanee of the case . . .
. . . but the notion is just too delicious not togive it a try.

[dougg3]

I went back through the IIci hack thread to see if I wrote about the LC III ROM, but couldn't find anything (P.S. after reading, I learned that today is the 1-year anniversary of getting sampled startup chimes working on the IIci!)

I just tried an LC III ROM in a IIci -- you don't get a startup chime but it looks like some of the POST runs. For example, the keyboard lights blink. Eventually after a short delay, you hear the chimes of death and nothing happens after that. I'd love to figure out some way to trace instructions to figure out the code path it takes and where it dies...I suppose MESS could do it.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Happy Anniversary, DQ!

I've got to get this LCIII up and running with my utility suite on it to check if there's any indication of cache NOT being installed.

What does a IIci report under the likes of TechTool regarding the Cache being installed or not?

Can you try the IIci with the LCIII ROM and a NuBus video card? With Vampire Video in use on the IIci, I'm not surprised the LCIII ROM won't work. The differences in the video subsystems is probably the sticking point.

I'll watch eBay for a cheap Cache Card.

[dougg3]

Unfortunately I don't have a cache card or NuBus video card to test either of those ideas....sorry!

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Good news . . . got the LCIII to boot, had to pull the HDD from the IIsi to get it up and running.

Bad news . . . stuck the PowerCache adapter in to see what would happen . . .

------n-o-t-h-i-n-g------

Doesn't give a startup chime at all with the empty adapter in there, but it could just be an unterminated PDS problem causing it to hang during the hardware check. Having the signals on a bus swaying in the breeze is never a good thing . . .

. . . no death chimes is a start, gotta see a man about a hor . . . Cache Card.

[uniserver]

Hey keep on this… get it working… i'd like my 33mhz oc'd lc-III /w FPU enjoy some CACHE Goodness

[luckybob]

Hey keep on this… get it working… i'd like my 33mhz oc'd lc-III /w FPU enjoy some CACHE Goodness

+1 I Always complained how slow my fathers LCIII was after I got to use quadra's at school. I'd love to have some fun with this as well.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks to the CARE package mcdermd was kind enough to send me, it arrived today no less, I've finally got a IIci Cache Card to test . . .
. . . now if I could just fine that dratted LCIII around here somewhere.

I'm on lunch now, get off at 10 tonight . . .

Thanks, mcd!

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

DANG!!!! I found the LCIII while lunch was nuking, but the news is not good so far:

No boot chimes, so it wasn't just the PDS signals waving in the breeze without the Cache Card installed in the PowerCache Adapter in the LCIII..

Next step is to send Mcd's box back with an adapter in it for him to test his DayStar branded IIci Cache Card in his own LCIII. I have no great expectation of that working either, but it's worth a shot.

I think we're in for some serious reverse engineering of the DayStar PowerCache Adapters to have any shot at this one working. It's something that needs to be done anyway, so the effort won't be wasted. I'd like to come up with a "clean room" clone of the single IC conversion necessary for a PowerCache->SE/30 PDS card, so I can add a second PDS slot (and possibly the NuBus ChipSet) to expand upon the pricy Artmix adapter card.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

OK! After post-processing this for a couple of hours at work:

Does the PowerCache Acelerator/Driver combo use an InIt to disable the Host CPU and then take control after the host system handles startup to that point?

Alternately:

Does the PowerCache adapter itself put the Host CPU into the equivalent of a wait state in hardware upon powerup and the PowerCache CPU handles the entire boot process?

Case two might entail fairly simple hardware hacking of the PowerCache Adapter to get the LCIII to boot and the Cache Card online.

But BOG only knows what the first case might require.