Looking at a 6100...is this really a correct video card?

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Snag the Accelerator, like I said, you'll not find a better riser than a G3 card.

From the NuBus Mafia on 'fritter, definitely not the riser for HPV.. I've got one, but no DOS Card for it  .  .  .  :?:

 

[EvieSigma]

The only thing that worries me is stories I've read of people who wore out their power supplies after installing G3 accelerators. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Haven't heard that one. The G3 cards I've bought new use less power than when running the stock CPU. At least that was the case with the Crescendo PB in my 1400c. Has anyone else heard rumors of Accelerators overtaxing the stock PSU in a Mac  .  .  .  erm  .  .  .  except the Radius Rocket. :

Just pulled my 6100 out and it starts right up, as far as it can w/o a System Folder on the HDD that's missing anyway. I was surprised to see a G3 Card in there! Not much luck getting video out of the HPV 1/2MB card in the slot. I got a desktop once in about four or so tries with a couple of adapters. It was a down and dirty trial of the newest toys:

Bought my Power Computing HPV 2/4MB a Christmas present. Four 512K VRAM SIMMs arrived in the mail today. No luck getting any life at all onto the screen out of that one. No worries, I put it back into the Radius 81/110 to test it for real later in the week. Rug Rat flies in tomorrow morning, so I'll be busy celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah the same night!

 

[EvieSigma]

Yeah, I got some serious shopping after Xmas!

I'm hoping to get this thing to a desktop so I can at least see what's on the HD. This thing sure is no frills, there's no cache module (just a ROM module), two single-sided SIMMs (so hardly any RAM), and only a 250MB hard drive. 

 

[Cory5412]

One thing to consider before you spend your money is that you could just let the 6100 hang out until you find the HDI45 to DB15 adapter (or an audiovision) or until a better version of the whole machine comes along that you want to buy. Although it would be nice to be able to, you do not need to max out or even use or repair every machine you get. This is especially true if you don't have any vintage Mac networking infrastructure (localtalk, ethernet cards, whatever) or advanced data storage items yet.

If you have another Mac with SCSI, you could put the disk into that system in order to see what's on it. The SE/30 or 630 with an external enclosure (another thing that may be good to get, especially one of the ones that you can put 5.25-inch external devices into, such as a cdrom or 44/88 syquest or bernoulli drive into) would work.

 

[EvieSigma]

I probably will end up buying the cable, but man is it a pricey little cable. Haven't found one for less than $30 yet. Wish there was a HD45 to VGA adapter like the DB-15 ones...

What would be best is just to get video out of it and decide what to do with it from there, you're right. All I know right now is that it powers on, that's not enough to say that all's well.

 

[trag]

If we had only known... the bins at Goodwill had many of those adapters many years ago. Sigh...

jt, how did you find the PCC HPV card? I can't decide on a good set of search terms for it. Too likely the owner won't know it's an HPV card or won't list PCC or Power Computing.

Remember, there's a little switch on the card which controls which port is active. I don't know if that's causing your problem, but it's the simplest issue to solve that could be a problem.

 

[EvieSigma]

I'm hoping to get a nicer 6100 later with at least the A/V card. Anything beats vampire video and using two adapters to hook a machine to VGA.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

jt, how did you find the PCC HPV card? I can't decide on a good set of search terms for it. Too likely the owner won't know it's an HPV card or won't list PCC or Power Computing.

 I had it backwards earlier, the 2/4 version has connectors for VGA and Mac. I just watched the auctions until I saw one with both and bought it. That was probably three or four years ago. VRAM SIMMs arrived yesterday.

The problem's the 1600 not either of the two cards. I've made room on the twin 21" CRT playstation to play with the 81/110 after the Rug Rat files home TUE.

 

[Bunsen]

As always, kan knows all, sees all.

Just to clear up any confusion:

There are four different risers for the 6100 PDS, and they're all incompatible (G3 exception as noted)

• PDS passthrough: for HPV and AV cards
• G3 CPU upgrade & riser: acts as a PDS passthrough if you get the right one [1]
  
• 040 PDS "DOS Card" riser: for DOS cards [2]
  
• Nubus riser: for Nubus cards

Some showoff managed to frankenstein a G3 upgrade w/ passthrough to a 6100 Nubus adapter and a Nubus card, but that required at least one homebrew ribbon cable - and obviously the whole shebang didn't fit back into the case.

[1]  Some were made without the PDS through socket, and even some of the ones that have them don't work, or don't work well.  IIRC, Sonnet were the only brand that worked, and even then I hear the later ones are your best bet.
[2]  In theory, you might be able to get other 040 PDS cards to work in there (if there are any?).  Probably not the 601 PowerPC Upgrade, which would be fairly useless anyway.

 

[EvieSigma]

Oh, so the AV riser also fits the HPV card? I didn't know that.

I'm hoping to get a less scruffy and more complete 6100 so I'll have to watch out for an AV with its card still installed.

 

[trag]

Oh, so the AV riser also fits the HPV card? I didn't know that.

That's what my Dec 21 post said. Looking back at it, maybe I didn't state it clearly enough.

 

[EvieSigma]

There's also the possibility that I skimmed over it like a fool.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Belkin did make a HDI-45 to VGA adapter complete with rotary switch and DIP switches, but good luck finding one these days.

 

[Unknown_K]

I noticed earlier slower model G3's had larger heatsinks then the later 400/500 models (that don't even seem to get hot).

A couple years back somebody here was giving away a 6100 with G3 installed (pretty maxed out system if I recall) and it took ages for somebody to grab it.

I personally have 2 6100's one has a DOS card (even marked DOS on the computer case) and the other is just a regular model. Only have one of those HD cables, and I think the octopus cable that goes from the  HD monitor and converts it to a normal mac one with cables for the other ports. Both those cables are getting harder to find, same with the DOS card cables. I forget if the normal 6100 has a HPV video card or not, will have to look its been a while since I used it.