Sfiera’s Conquests

[sfiera]

Plus (4 MHz): in a 512k case. Have a SCSI2SD for it, though I’d like to be able to use it just on floppies. Also have a second in parts.

TAM (250 MHz): just purchased, and coincidentally arrived on Christmas. Fat back with USB, but missing its keyboard and everything not pictured.

Cube (450 MHz): I’ve had this 3 years this month; everything else is recent. Ran a livestream from it a few months ago.

Q700 (25 MHz): jack of all trades. 040 for 68k and a PowerPC upgrade card. It can do LocalTalk, EtherTalk, and IP.

Also pictured: a Raspberry Pi 4 behind the router that’s faster than all of them combined (1.5Ghz) and two unibody Mac Minis in the lower left, 2010 and 2012. I’m ready to call the 2010 one “vintage” but not the 2012 one.

 

[sfiera]

Oh yeah, and the SCSI2SD is Hello Kitty-powered:

 

[sfiera]

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more trackballs.



Haven’t tested either yet, but the Pippin/ADB controllers (a pair of them) appear to be unused.

 

[cheesestraws]

I have that Assimilation trackball!  I love how like the design is to the Apple keyboards it would sit next to.

 

[sfiera]

Even more impressive to me is the attention they paid to the DB-9 plug, which would normally be hidden behind the computer:



(though I am a little disappointed that the ends of the pins don’t have Assimilation Process logos like the Apple pins do)

I saw it in your thread, liked it, and then saw one for sale just a couple days later and couldn’t resist. Unfortunately, I only have a Plus keyboard, and two numpads is two more than I have a need for, but it’s still kind of neat that it’s both.

 

[cheesestraws]

the ends of the pins don’t have Assimilation Process logos like the Apple pins do

For one mad moment I thought you meant the actual connector pins and was simultaneously in awe and terrified of that level of obsessiveness, and was disappointed when I saw what you meant...

 

[olePigeon]

I have one of these track balls.  You'd never know it wasn't Apple.  They did a great job.

Edit:  Hehe.  Those old "I can't believe it's not butter!" commercials just popped into my head.

 

[jessenator]

You'd never know it wasn't Apple

"Dogs don't know it's not bacon!"

Sifera, now you just need to go on the white whale hunt for a PiP P!N console  I never looked into it, but are there MacOS drivers for the controllers or do they only work correctly on the console?

 

[MOS8_030]

Oh yeah, and the SCSI2SD is Hello Kitty-powered:

View attachment 30906

Isn't that like required by law or something over there?

 

[sfiera]

Sifera, now you just need to go on the white whale hunt for a PiP P!N console  I never looked into it, but are there MacOS drivers for the controllers or do they only work correctly on the console?

Pippins don’t seem to be difficult to find in Japan, though my interest level and tolerance for a non-working machine haven’t matched the price point of anything I’ve seen.

This is in fact an Atmark Controller For Macintosh. Comes with drivers on a floppy disk (still sealed, but I’ll take an image and share when I open it). The connector is not the Pippin Apple Jack connector, but a regular ADB connector. Curiously, the connector omits the power pin, which sort of makes sense, but I haven’t seen that on other ADB devices (like Apple mice).

 

[sfiera]

Drivers here: Atmark Controller Key Assign Software

The drivers didn’t seem to work for me, but the trackball and left trigger work as a mouse without any drivers installed.

 

[sfiera]

Acquired a second TAM unit, and this one really does not look so good:



But as they say, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and what’s on the inside is:

• A Sonnet G3/500 accelerator
  
• A Sonnet Tango USB/FireWire PCI card
  
• An Ethernet Comm II card
  
• Plenty of RAM
  
• A fan?
  

I wasn’t really sure about the fan. I took it off to have a look, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be standard for the G3 card. I can’t imagine it would get very good airflow in that position either, and it was a bit hard to fit the back of the unit on. I wasn’t sure where the power was coming from, but I investigated further and…



…and I’m still not sure where the power is coming from. The previous owner must have gone through a fair bit of effort to get that fan in there. Actually, when running off a G3 card, is there any reason the fan over the original CPU needs to run anymore? The easiest power source would have been the existing fan header, I’d think.

I was missing the keyboard on my TAM, and I also managed to find a replacement. For some reason, the ADB cable from the keyboard was severed about a centimeter from the base, so the keyboard was exhibited as “not usable, for parts”. But! There are still two perfectly good ports on the keyboard, and all ports are created equal in ADB. I opened up the keyboard, cut out what was left of the original cable, and hooked up one of the “downstream” ports. Works fine!



Eventually I’ll probably solder on a replacement, but until I find a satisfactory donor cable, this works fine.

Lastly:

 

[EvilCapitalist]

Nice save on that TAM!  Somewhat strange that someone would cut the ADB cord for the keyboard but leave the umbilical for the machine intact.  The recyclers I've seen that annoyingly cut the cords tend to cut all the cords coming out of a machine.

I've run a 500MHz Crescendo in my TAM for quite a while and I never encountered any heat issues but I also don't think I've ever really stressed the system enough to cause any.

 

[KnobsNSwitches]

Great find on that TAM, what a lot of goodies inside. Are you going to clean up and keep the TAM itself? I'm curious how had the speaker grills are to clean.

 

[jessenator]

Sonnet 500 and a Tempo? score  

 

[sfiera]

Great find on that TAM, what a lot of goodies inside. Are you going to clean up and keep the TAM itself? I'm curious how had the speaker grills are to clean.

I haven’t decided what to do with the TAM unit itself. I can’t set up both TAMs, because I’d need a second bass unit, a second keyboard, and a second apartment. I really only bought it for the cards inside, and the smart thing to do would probably be to flip the unit, but first I’d need to work through how to start selling and shipping here.

 

[Farhad]

I haven’t decided what to do with the TAM unit itself. I can’t set up both TAMs, because I’d need a second bass unit, a second keyboard, and a second apartment. I really only bought it for the cards inside, and the smart thing to do would probably be to flip the unit, but first I’d need to work through how to start selling and shipping here.

I’d possibly be interested in taking it off your hands. I need a CD drive cover for mine, and am also looking for a logic board replacement as mine is starting to have some cooling issues with the CPU and I haven’t been able to fully fix it. Let’s talk when you’re ready to flip it

 

[jeremywork]

An Ethernet Comm II card

A less common 10/100 Ethernet card, at that! 

Those three upgrades took some persistent searching for me to find. I also echo having no heat issues using only the stock fans with my 500/1M. I believe either Sonnet's Metronome utility or Newertech's Gauge Pro will display the temperature sensor readout from the G3 if you're curious.

 

[sfiera]

I’d possibly be interested in taking it off your hands. I need a CD drive cover for mine, and am also looking for a logic board replacement as mine is starting to have some cooling issues with the CPU and I haven’t been able to fully fix it. Let’s talk when you’re ready to flip it

I’ll keep it in mind, though I’m probably not going to make a call in the next month or two. It would probably be expensive, and risky given the plastics, to ship from Japan to Germany, though.

About the CD cover: the hinge and latch mechanisms are fine, though there’s a scratch on the front:

View attachment 32468