Jessenator's conquests

Cory5412 said:

I had thought they were different platforms

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You are correct. The PowerTower, PowerCurve, PowerCenter/Pro all had Catalyst-based designs (and may all be the exact same board). The PowerWave, PowerTower Pro were both Tsunami-based designs, though not the same board (the PTP has standard PCI slots, vs the 90* riser setup on the PW). The outlier is the PowerBase, which is Alchemy-based and is the only model with a soldered CPU (save the ColdFusion-based Power-series). All the rest had daughter cards, AFAIK.

As far as the case designs, I've seen 2 different "low-profile" cases (which are quick thicc), the first  on the Power-series, and then the PowerWave and PowerCenter, and then the even lower-profile case for the PowerBase/Curve.  According to some sources you could purchase a Power-Series and then the PowerWave with a mini tower case config as well, later to be used on the PowerTower (non-Pro), and a not-quite-full-tower for the PowerTower Pro only(?) And with 2x 3.5 and 4x 5.25 drive bays (in addition to a dedicated floppy drive) and 6 PCI slots... that was quite the setup.

I want to say the boards are swappable, but from what I've seen (of my own machines and what pics I can find online), the I/Os differ from model to model, and they didn't use shields, but were punched out of the steel. Don't know if they separated their tooling so they could make 90% of the case, and then save the I/O punch to have variants?

But I might be off on some points there...

Cory5412 said:

This is a very handsome looking box.

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Thanks! I'm glad I snatched it, and for the price, too. I couldn't say no.

jessenator said:

The outlier is the PowerBase, which is Alchemy-based and is the only model with a soldered CPU

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I have a PowerBase, and it has a daughter card?? Was this a different PowerBase variant that I don't know about???

jessenator said:

(save the ColdFusion-based Power-series)

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What's this????

c

Hmmmmmmm.

I'd forgotten a detail earlier. The PowerBase was a 603e clone, available both in the same tower as the PowerTower and the low profile desktop case, so it's board is probably different, but it's form factor is the same. (Dang it you said that, sorry I'm not entirely on the ball this morning.)

And, the PowerTower Pro didn't have onboard graphics, in swap for the 6 slots. the PowerCenter had 1M Onboard graphics and the PowerTower had 2M onboard graphics, though if it's what Apple was doing you could upgrade a PowerCenter to 2M, and given that these things are all ~25 years old their configurations may have changed. (If it's the Apple onboard video from the 7000/8000 series, max vram is 4M.)

Also, I appear to have missed entirely that this system is using a riser. That would make more sense for systems that can be configured as a low profile desktop or a minitower.

Catalyst is the 7200's architecture, it appears, I suspect maybe one generation of these clones is using that arch, but the PTP's definitely using a higher end architecture that matches the 9500. (Thinking about this: if the PT/PWave/PCenter all have 4 RAM slots I think that's a fair indicator, the 7500+ and 8500 had like 8 RAM slots.

(This kind of makes me want a PowerComputing clone, but it's a Catalyst with a 120MHz 601 onboard.) 

CC_333 said:

What's this????

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I think that's the 8100 architecture. The Power 80/100/120 are NuBus/601-based PowerComputing clones. I have a /120 and just need to get it fixed up and going.

Interesting. Guess I shouldn't just trust one source... my bad. Yeah, looks like it's a daughter-card-based as well.

Yes, as Cory mentioned, the Power xx/xxx series were essentially a 7100/8100 based and with NuBus. 

The PowerWave does have 8 RAM slots, not to be that guy  but again, that might be because it was Tsunami based—an 95/8500 with some nice perks (FastSCSI) and some strange drawbacks (only one PCI bus). It did however have the ultimate in i/o backward compatibility in the form of the Stargate card /s (from all accounts it kinda sucked).

Also, A nice plus about the PowerTower was that you could put up to 4 MB VRAM with the 1 MB modules (3 slots, 1MB soldered)

PT Pro does have dedicated PCI graphics card. I really like its flexibility. It does have its 604s on a daughter card: I have a Sonnet G3 card in there right now.

Remembered where this was, as previously linked to by you:

http://macinfo.de/hardware/boards-g2.html

And, sure enough - PowerWave and PowerTower Pro are listed there under Tsunami.

And, yeah, Tsunami with bits deleted does make sense as a platform choice. This makes me want to see a PowerWave, because Tsunami implicitly does not have onboard video, though I suppose nothing's stopping a vendor from integrating their own onboard video.

Catalyst is an interesting, although from a "the clones are supposed to be budget oriented" perfectly sensical choice for the other PowerComputing machines.

Cory5412 said:

This makes me want to see a PowerWave, because Tsunami implicitly does not have onboard video

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Yeah, my PW has a Mach64 PCI card (with both DA and DB 15 ports).

Well, bad news and good news and some meh news:


The 166 card is faulty in some way. I pulled everything and cleaned everything again, even swapping PSUs, but it's the processor daughter card. But, I had so many spares lying around I could get it booting.

Also, since my DA-15 connection isn't exactly "standard issue" I popped the jumper to VGA on and can use the DB-15 connection.

The CD-ROM has to be either really dirty, or on its way out {supposition}, as I got to the boot screen and it lags and lags and lags, but haven't notice it crash yet. I used air, but it's probably old grime. Might buy a drive cleaner...

Okay... I did some trade work for a buddy and he said he'd send me all the 30-pin SIMMs he had. I forgot that his late father owned a Computer/IT shop for years. This came in the mail today:



I was not expecting this much...

I wish I had a RAM tester, but what I'll do is start ID'ing the memory and then hopefully be able figure out some sort of testing method. Maybe I'll build the se/30 test rig that LaPorta came up with.

Also picked up a Rage128 w/ the MPEG decoder daughter card, so hopefully that works.

Well, now I'll have a machine to test all those SIMMs   

Decided to pick up a Quadra 700. The price was lower than I'd seen on ebay in a while, and figured I'd need another 68k machine that I felt was worth having. It arrived and it did indeed "post" like the listing said. However, there were some surprises lurking within.







The FDD was completely toast—I mean, this was ceiling of the floppy side of the drive carrier... I just pitched the drive into the garbage can, not even a second look.



I was starting to get a bit worried, as my last attempt at trace repair was a horrible disaster. The damage was apparently strangely spread, hitting only the drive, the front-most RAM SIMM, and then some ICs in the middle of the board, kind of right near the corner of the PSU. I figured I couldn't do any harm with a dish soap water soak, and spend a good while cleaning the case. Eventually even the drive carrier was mostly normal, save the RF-shielding paint that had been eaten away.

After just a little while of soaking I was greeted with some excellent news  




The nasties seemed to be just on the surface and no trace breaks are apparent. I went ahead and scrubbed and soaked more and finished with an IPA rinse.



Another huge plus with this acquisition was it is fully loaded, drives and NuBus aside. 1.5 MB worth of VRAM SIMMs (for the max 2 MB), as well as 4x 16 MB SIMMs, for the max 68 MB of system RAM. Also, the one SIMM that was sprayed by the Maxell bomb has also cleaned up well. Now that's all that's really left to do is re-cap the PSU and definitely clean it, as well as solder in a new battery holder and I'll have a not-literally-smokin' Quadra!

You're very fortunate!  Macs suffering Maxell bombs generally don't survive to tell about it!

I was very lucky too, as my first compact (an SE/30 I got at a yard sale in mid 2005) had what was the very beginning stages of the bomb exploding.  Fortunately, it only left a few light marks, and I think the battery holder got corroded (I don't remember if I replaced it or not).  I have another SE/30 board (from the 2014 haul), and it wasn't so lucky.

This is reminding me that I should probably check out all my Macs to make sure they're still intact.

c

I agree.

I have a full cardboard with boards that didn't survived to a Maxell explosion.

They are useful anyway for donating pieces and bits.

From all those boards, only one SE was able to survive with very little work, but the battery is also located in a place probably less critical that most other boards.

Nice save on that Quadra!  Like CC_333, the machines I've seen that had Maxell explosions were completely toast.  Given how pervasive the damage usually is, I'm curious whether it's actually audible (likely just a popping sound) when these things go.

EvilCapitalist said:

I'm curious whether it's actually audible (likely just a popping sound) when these things go.

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...or it just turns off one day in the middle of something, they call the IT guy and it goes and sits in the corner (in my case, of a greenhouse apparently—real strong peat aroma) waiting for an RMA that never comes till it goes to a recycler :lol:   I've always been curious about what the owner/operator is doing when these things happen. Are they using it or is it happening in down time, that kind of stuff.

But yeah, I'm extremely fortunate with this one it seems. I'm even surprised that the first DRAM SIMM is free of disintegrated pins and traces. I'll definitely be re-tinning the contacts, though.

I cleaned the case with Pine-Sol (diluted of course) to get that earthy smell out of it, though I'm wondering what the best course for the PSU will be (it also has that odor of 'growth'). I was thinking febreeze, but an ozone generator might be better. IDK.

Couple of things to add to the list:

First is a IIci which I finally, successfully recapped:



The case is remarkably un-yellowed, especially compared to my Q700:


And I also picked up a local deal yesterday, mostly for the monitor (another taken-apart shot for some reason), a 7200/90, and an AEK:





The ColorSync 17" vs a quasi-contemporary ViewSonic 17"

Ooh you got that monitor. Congrats. Looks like it works nicely. That IIci is tasty fresh too. 

dzog said:

Ooh you got that monitor. Congrats. Looks like it works nicely. That IIci is tasty fresh too. 

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Thanks! It's in great operational shape. A bit dirty, but that's what Magic Erasers are for  I saw it in my semi-regular searches on the classifieds, and was very surprised there wasn't an immediate interest in it (our local classifieds [KSL] are used far more than Craigslist is, and they have a "favorite" sort of bookmarking tool when logged in)—i.e. it had like zero favorites over the several days it was up. Most of the time, other beige stuff and especially compacts get favorited within hours, sometimes minutes of going up. But it was all working... very weird, but very fortunate for me!

Ha!  I was looking at that ad an hour ago.  I wasn't too interested in the 7200, but hmmm that monitor and keyboard...

Congratulations, looks like a nice score!

sstaylor said:

that monitor and keyboard... 

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At first I thought it was just an AEKII but those little design changes... I'll have to clean it up and give it lots of use. Right now wouldn't be a fair comparison for personal preference, just because it's so dirty—I hate that feeling...

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I really hoped it was a 20" but still, I don't even recall ever seeing a ColorSync in real life when they were "relevant," mostly just ViewSonic screens or more often the MultipleScan 15 or 17 for the photo lab in high school. Our yearbook team had a number of decent quality screens, including the aforementioned Apple offerings and two Radius 2 Page displays, one monochrome one grayscale. I think the photography teacher actually had the 2 Page color monster in his "cage" (photo lab was a metal shop years before so no wooden doored office spaces).

None of my friends had Macs, so I wouldn't have seen them while visiting, and our school labs were AIOs.

Dusting off this thread of mine... And boy is it a doozy of an update.

Newest acquisition is an LC 550 / 560 from a neighbor. The plastic is living up to the AIO legend. All the plastic around the case screws are gone, in addition to the lower fascia. It really is quite the abomination now
It's really the fastest solution to keeping the thing together for taking it out to the garage for access to the compressor. It nearly all let go when I was carrying it out of the neighbor's house, being as careful as I could.

It's got its max 36MB RAM now, and just standard vram, which is like 512k I think. Not sure what adding more will net me. Don't have the edge connector adapter to pop a SCSI optical in...

Might try to find an fpu to pop in just because I can. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, to be honest, but figured for now anyway it's better doing something versus wasting in a landfill.

jessenator said:

It really is quite the abomination now

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Oh god, it really is! That's one of the worst-looking Macs I've ever seen... I sort of love it. The screens on 5xx Performas are quite nice - I hope yours has held up!

Personally I'd lean into the "rat look" and start dreaming up ways to make that thing look even worse. How about some speed holes?

Alternatively you could just do the obvious and salvage the logic board for a custom pizza-box Mac. That chassis is pretty much hosed so it might simply be time to lay it to rest. Congrats on the new nightmare Mac!