Recent content by macdoogie

Just to clarify the above points. The size and number of levels of caching are fundamentally a property of the processor architecture. The MC68030 simply did not have an interface, nor the logic to implement an L3 cache, nor did the 68040, which more or less simply integrated of the 68030 extras...

If it were a Monitor III it would have the anti-glare "fabric" on the front. If it were a IIe monitor, you'd still see a greenish tint even when powered off. The connector and Yoke look more modern than the Lisa by a few years. I'd say if they are from Apple products at all, it would be one of...

Are you saying that you see what should be the checker board pattern on the video signal? That should suggest that the processor did quite a bit of running and managed to fill the frame buffer with the checkerboard gray background pattern...

I'd have to look into the components a bit more, but my theory is that the older computers with 4.5V battery backups had a 5V CMOS chip acting as the "power manager"(ie soft power, Real Time Clock, ADB in some of our macs). 4.5V represents the low end of a 5V +/- 10% rail. Most of the pre-mac...

Haha! I used these in college and at my first internship! That HP/UX is likely to have my favorite UNIX desktop manager: The CDE! Also, SCSI is always daisy chained, never "Y-cabled". All you have to do is find a long enough 50-pin ribbon cable and add another IDC-50F in the middle "pointing"...

I realize there are already SCSI to SD, CF etc out there, and all of these seem to have various issues with setup. I had once planned to make a version of my own, but not utilizing Compact Flash or SD Cards. I figured I'd just make a true Solid State SCSI drive with flash chips right on the...

Is your IBM drive an Apple OEM? I know Apple used IBM drives in the early-mid 1990s. Common sizes were 80MB, 160MB, and 320MB. Non of the "Apple Logo Sticker" drives should need an external terminator...

Who would have thought that Orange would look so good on a monochrome Mac? Actually, many years ago I discovered that the Green CRT in the small Apple IIc monitor is the exact same size and fit as the original Mac. I retrofitted one of my Platinum Mac Plus machines with the green CRT which was...

Looks like the main difference between TTL video and the Mac's built in is mainly the polarity of the HSYNC and VIDEO signals. Perhaps that mystery signal is just tapping off of the raw video "shift register" circuit to avoid the need to add an additional inverter chip? Hmmm, I may have a copy...

It's true that Apple designs have used both Tantalum and Electrolytic. Although, in more recent years, they switched from Tantalums to "PosCaps" i'm guessing largely due to Tantalum being a conflict, or "blood" mineral. Still, on older boards, you'll see a mix. One obvious reason is cost...

It's definitely not related to the capacitor voltage rating. Higher is always safer. Not necessarily always better, as the other characteristics change with the voltage rating like value derating(That 22uf is only 22uF at a certain range of temperature and voltages), and Equivalent Series...

Are you sure that's an SVGA monitor? From the finder screen displayed above it looks like it's running 640x480 and not 800x600. When I modded a color classic to run at 800x600, it seemed clear that the dot pitch(stripe pitch actually on a Trinitron) wasn't quite fine enough to handle the 8x6...

These newer industrial replacement displays actually use modern TFT technology like IPS, A-Si, and have LED backlights, so you can get ones that look pretty good. The Trinitron would win on contrast ratio, but at 640x480, the TFT would be sharper than a VGA modded Color Classic. Even at 512x384...

I noticed that the 8.4" screen chosen was one with an LVDS interface. The same company that makes that screen(Looks like Tianma may have purchased NEC's industrial TFT division?) has the same panels with a TTL interface, which is the more traditional RGB+HVC parallel interface. Those...

Any chance you could make a similar resin surface for the Color Classic's tube? I'm thinking of making a more dedicated controller board for the TFT if there is interest.