Formac Accelerator Driver (finally?)

[Mirokai]

Hello guys. I recently found a 33 MHz formac accelerator card in an old Macintosh LC.

Fortunately the hard drive (Quantum) was still working and I got everything off it before it failed .

Among other things I found a Control Panel file called "ProCPU_V1.06". I searched the 68kmla to get a hint on what to look for and noticed that nobody was able to find this "driver". It lets you enable the accelerator card and FPU + cache. It may work for other formac cards (SE, SE/30?) too.

Just unpack it into the Control Panel folder on System 7 or up. I tried it on System 6 but it didn't work all the way.

Please help me test it for other accelerator cards.

View attachment ProCPU_V1.06.sit

 

[cheesestraws]

Nice find!  Could I suggest you upload this to Macintosh Garden too?

 

[lobust]

Nice job! Six months or so ago I passed on a Quadra 700 that came with an accelerator that needed that driver, I spent a great deal of time effort to try and obtain a copy of it, to no avail. Pretty confident that your post is the only copy of it on the internet!

 

[Bolle]

I think I have that driver already somewhere in my archive and I think it is available on the internet archive as well.

Also that driver probably won’t do it for their Quadra accelerator, it’s only meant for the LC accelerators.

 

[Mirokai]

I think I have that driver already somewhere in my archive and I think it is available on the internet archive as well.

Also that driver probably won’t do it for their Quadra accelerator, it’s only meant for the LC accelerators.

I have to disagree. I have been searching the internet for hours when I got the LC and didn't find this driver. There are formac drivers (even cds) in the internet but not for cpu cards.

You can access the ftp server from formac.com with wayback machine and find this https://web.archive.org/web/19991109095635/http://ftp.formac.com/public/updates/ProCPU/ProCPU-1.0.9.bin

but the driver .bin file is broken. Look at the version number ... it is only 3 minor versions newer.

 

[IlikeTech]

That card looks super easy to clone.  Hmmm.

 

[Bolle]

I've got Version 1.06 and 1.07 in my archive:

View attachment Formac PRO 33-50 LC.sit.hqx

That card looks super easy to clone.  Hmmm.

You could go for this instead if you want to build yourself an LC accelerator:

 

[ArmorAlley]

That card looks super easy to clone.  Hmmm.

If you were ever to attempt it, would you take a leaf from Bolle's book and put in ethernet functionality as well please?

For me, the most important use of the LC-PDS slot is for an ethernet card.

 

[Renegade]

Hi, I just uploaded v 1.0.6, 1.0.7 & 1.0.8 to the Garden.

Formac ProCPU LC 68030 accelerator board driver - Macintosh Garden

This is the control panel for Formac's ProCPU accelerator board, designed for Mac LC/LC II and Color Classic. Might work with other accelerators (untested). Version 1.0.8 was copied from my Mac Color Classic that came with this accelerator installed, labelled "Formac PL143" and features 68030 +...

macintoshgarden.org