Benchmark results with Daystar Turbo 601 PPC upgrade for 68030 Macs (IIvx and Performa 600 tested)

[MrFahrenheit]

 

[Phipli]

Do you have any other 68030s with a PDS slot?

Surprised the 100MHz Turbo is almost half the speed of a 60mhz 6100 on the CPU benchmark. Wondering how much the 16MHz bus is holding it back vs. a 25MHz bus on a IIci or similar.

The Q650 those things are great.

Thread title says 630 instead of 600 btw.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Do you have any other 68030s with a PDS slot?

Surprised the 100MHz Turbo is almost half the speed of a 60mhz 6100 on the CPU benchmark. Wondering how much the 16MHz bus is holding it back vs. a 25MHz bus on a IIci or similar.

The Q650 those things are great.

Thread title says 630 instead of 600 btw.

I do have IIci and IIsi, but I can’t confirm my adapter for IIsi will work yet.

I did this with a spare 2 hours today, I don’t know when I’ll have the energy to do it again for the IIci and IIsi (if possible).

“Performa 630” ugh. . iPhone autocorrect

 

[Phipli]

I did this with a spare 2 hours today, I don’t know when I’ll have the energy to do it again for the IIci and IIsi (if possible).

Completely understood - don't worry. My idle curiosity is much easier to voice than implement. I swear every time I fetch a machine out I lose two days minimum from "work arising".

I have some figures for a 66MHz Daystar 601 in a 650 somewhere, but they're not on my phone. I'll see if I can find them.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Completely understood - don't worry. My idle curiosity is much easier to voice than implement. I swear every time I fetch a machine out I lose two days minimum from "work arising".

I have some figures for a 66MHz Daystar 601 in a 650 somewhere, but they're not on my phone. I'll see if I can find them.

I also have benchmark results from a Q650 running a Daystar 601 / 66mhz somewhere... I recall it being higher than this result of 100Mhz on the 68030 platform, but memory may not be 100%...

 

[Phipli]

Phew - it took that long to find the photos!

I had been messing with the system bus so the speeds aren't stock - 64MHz and 80MHz (I didn't have a 16.666666666667MHz clock).

Only found the CPU specific benchmarks, but video is always quick on a Centris 650.

I know the benchmark only really tests the CPU, Cache and a bit of RAM, but... C650s run so well! Its almost managing to match the 8100/80!

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Phew - it took that long to find the photos!

I had been messing with the system bus so the speeds aren't stock - 64MHz and 80MHz (I didn't have a 16.666666666667MHz clock).

Only found the CPU specific benchmarks, but video is always quick on a Centris 650.

I know the benchmark only really tests the CPU, Cache and a bit of RAM, but... C650s run so well! Its almost managing to match the 8100/80!

Yeah, those look similar to what I saw testing a 601 in the 650 a while ago.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I have done the testing with a IIci, results below.

Note, I used the exact same RAM and Jaz disk cartridge and system software for all tests that I performed. The only variance is the “reference system” which was tested decades ago by Symantec and integrated into the results.

 

[Phipli]

I have done the testing with a IIci, results below.

Note, I used the exact same RAM and Jaz disk cartridge and system software for all tests that I performed. The only variance is the “reference system” which was tested decades ago by Symantec and integrated into the results.


View attachment 44385View attachment 44386View attachment 44387View attachment 44388View attachment 44389View attachment 44390View attachment 44391View attachment 44392View attachment 44393View attachment 44394

Excellent, thank you. Thats slower than I expected. Fascinating. Amazing how well the 33MHz 650 does in comparison.

Those FPU scores are great though. You'd really notice the difference in 3D or maths stuff.

I think there were two cache sizes, 256k and 1MB? Although people say the third party big caches didn't make much difference vs. the 32k in the IIci, so 256k vs 1M might not be actually much of a performance difference.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Excellent, thank you. Thats slower than I expected. Fascinating. Amazing how well the 33MHz 650 does in comparison.

Those FPU scores are great though. You'd really notice the difference in 3D or maths stuff.

I think there were two cache sizes, 256k and 1MB? Although people say the third party big caches didn't make much difference vs. the 32k in the IIci, so 256k vs 1M might not be actually much of a performance difference.

I think the target audience of IIvx/P600 owners was really small. If you owned a IIvx/P600 solely for using the 3 Nubus slots, then it might have made sense to upgrade to the PPC for $1200 USD in 1995.

However, if you owned a IIvx and did not use any of the expansion slots, it would have made more sense to sell your IIvx even for $300, and buy a PowerMac 7200/75, which would have blown the doors off a IIvx with PPC 100Mhz upgrade card.

 

[Phipli]

I think the target audience of IIvx/P600 owners was really small. If you owned a IIvx/P600 solely for using the 3 Nubus slots, then it might have made sense to upgrade to the PPC for $1200 USD in 1995.

However, if you owned a IIvx and did not use any of the expansion slots, it would have made more sense to sell your IIvx even for $300, and buy a PowerMac 7200/75, which would have blown the doors off a IIvx with PPC 100Mhz upgrade card.

My dad was a IIvx owner, it was a bit of a disappointment at the time. He upgraded to an 8100/80 way sooner than he has ever upgraded since. The 8100 suited him much better for the mainly Illustrator drawing he was doing.

I suspect he wouldn't have upgraded the IIvx because he was frustrated with it, so a clean slate would have been more appealing. If we'd have bought our first mac 6 months later we would have probably ended up with a 650, for less money. We'd have probably not upgraded for years and missed most of the pre-G3 PPC era!

 

[MrFahrenheit]

My dad was a IIvx owner, it was a bit of a disappointment at the time. He upgraded to an 8100/80 way sooner than he has ever upgraded since. The 8100 suited him much better for the mainly Illustrator drawing he was doing.

I suspect he wouldn't have upgraded the IIvx because he was frustrated with it, so a clean slate would have been more appealing. If we'd have bought our first mac 6 months later we would have probably ended up with a 650, for less money. We'd have probably not upgraded for years and missed most of the pre-G3 PPC era!

The 7200/75 was my first PPC Mac. Before that, I had bought a Quadra 605 on discount for around $600 USD in late 1994. The Quadra 605 was multiples faster than the IIsi I came from, ownly a year earlier, and the 7200/75 was in most ways an improvement.

I used that same 7200/75 for 2 more years until I upgraded to a 7600/132 (mostly because I was able to secure a deal getting a 7600 for only $1300 USD brand new with trading in my 7200/75). I used that 7600 basically for 5 years, along the way upgrading RAM, putting in a 6GB SCSI hard drive, and an Apple 233Mhz 604e processor, and later an XLR8 Carrier Ziff with G3/300. I missed the entire G3 series of computers, along with the first G4, only upgrading once the Digital Audio dual 533 came out.

 

[Phipli]

The 7200/75 was my first PPC Mac. Before that, I had bought a Quadra 605 on discount for around $600 USD in late 1994. The Quadra 605 was multiples faster than the IIsi I came from, ownly a year earlier, and the 7200/75 was in most ways an improvement.

I used that same 7200/75 for 2 more years until I upgraded to a 7600/132 (mostly because I was able to secure a deal getting a 7600 for only $1300 USD brand new with trading in my 7200/75). I used that 7600 basically for 5 years, along the way upgrading RAM, putting in a 6GB SCSI hard drive, and an Apple 233Mhz 604e processor, and later an XLR8 Carrier Ziff with G3/300. I missed the entire G3 series of computers, along with the first G4, only upgrading once the Digital Audio dual 533 came out.

Ignoring secondary machines, my dad went IIvx, 8100 then second hand 8600. The 8600 was "good enough" and I swear he used one as his work machine for a decade.

Beige G3s went cheap second hand quickly because they didn't bleed fruit juice in all the colours of a stoned unicorn fed on glitter, so we had a few of them about and overclocked as secondary machines.

Never had a 7600, but like that era of machine. Good workhorses. Graphics were fast, expandable, video capture on many variants etc.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Beige G3s went cheap second hand quickly because they didn't bleed fruit juice in all the colours of a stoned unicorn fed on glitter,

I am going to use this line. Love it!

 

[CC_333]

I'm pretty sure this is not quite relevant to the orignal topic, but it sort of goes with the somewhat off-topic tangent about when and how one upgraded back then, and from what old Mac to what newer Mac, so here goes:

My first Macs were a tray loading iMac G3 bought new in early 1999, and both a slot loader and a clamshell iBook sometime in late summer or early fall of 1999 (there's a 10-20% chance we still have some form of sales receipt for all these somewhere). I then skipped the entirety of subsequent G3/G4/G5 based machines, and went the way to an Intel-based Mini in late 2006 and Core2 Duo MacBook (the spiritual successor to my iBook, which had fallen apart sometime in 2005) around March 2007.

So, I didn't know the bulk of the pre-iMac PPC era until actually quite recently; my first pre-G3 Mac was a PowerBase 200 bought from who I assume was the original owner in 2005, and then someone gave me a 7500 in 200...8? and someone else gave me a Sawtooth G4 in 2009 or early 2010. Then I found a Quicksilver in 2010 or 2010, and then this forum in 2012, which, combined with several other gifts over the years, has amassed a fairly representative collection spanning the first NuBus based Power Macs (6100 and 7100) to the Quad G5, and just about everything in between (notable exceptions include the 8100, 8500/9500 and 8600/9600, and the various Quadra 5xxx/6xxx models).

back before 2008 or so, every computer-related thing I had fit comforably in two places: in a dresser in my closet and in a pair of file cabinets in a 10x16 foot storage shed with lots of room to spare. Fast forward to now, I have so many (and many duplicates) it all barely fits in a 12x20 foot storage unit, with considerable overflow into a one-car garage, my desk, and THREE closets! This is a problem I suspect many others around here have, particularly those who began collecting before 2010 or so, when finding surplus machines for cheap was still relatively common.

Eventually, I need to downsize, because the lack of space (and the mounting costs of what space I do have), is becoming a problem....

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming....

c

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I'm pretty sure this is not quite relevant to the orignal topic, but it sort of goes with the somewhat off-topic tangent about when and how one upgraded back then, and from what old Mac to what newer Mac, so here goes:

My first Macs were a tray loading iMac G3 bought new in early 1999, and both a slot loader and a clamshell iBook sometime in late summer or early fall of 1999 (there's a 10-20% chance we still have some form of sales receipt for all these somewhere). I then skipped the entirety of subsequent G3/G4/G5 based machines, and went the way to an Intel-based Mini in late 2006 and Core2 Duo MacBook (the spiritual successor to my iBook, which had fallen apart sometime in 2005) around March 2007.

So, I didn't know the bulk of the pre-iMac PPC era until actually quite recently; my first pre-G3 Mac was a PowerBase 200 bought from who I assume was the original owner in 2005, and then someone gave me a 7500 in 200...8? and someone else gave me a Sawtooth G4 in 2009 or early 2010. Then I found a Quicksilver in 2010 or 2010, and then this forum in 2012, which, combined with several other gifts over the years, has amassed a fairly representative collection spanning the first NuBus based Power Macs (6100 and 7100) to the Quad G5, and just about everything in between (notable exceptions include the 8100, 8500/9500 and 8600/9600, and the various Quadra 5xxx/6xxx models).

back before 2008 or so, every computer-related thing I had fit comforably in two places: in a dresser in my closet and in a pair of file cabinets in a 10x16 foot storage shed with lots of room to spare. Fast forward to now, I have so many (and many duplicates) it all barely fits in a 12x20 foot storage unit, with considerable overflow into a one-car garage, my desk, and THREE closets! This is a problem I suspect many others around here have, particularly those who began collecting before 2010 or so, when finding surplus machines for cheap was still relatively common.

Eventually, I need to downsize, because the lack of space (and the mounting costs of what space I do have), is becoming a problem....

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming....

c

First used the Mac with the iMac? You missed all the fun! SCSI voodoo, System 6 system folders and dealing with Font/DA Mover, using a Mac with only a single floppy drive and no hard drive. I started my journey on a Mac Plus in 1990, with no hard drive!

On this topic of accelerators and such, I started at a very small business in 1997, and they didn’t even have a single computer in the building. I started as a shipper/receiver, and the entire wall was full of charts of rates you had to look up for each package being sent. You had to find the cheapest way to send something, and it often took 5+ minutes to figure that out.

I then got pushed into taking phone orders from customers, and having to find their card files in a literally 3x5 card file system of 10k customers. So inefficient!!

Within 3 months of starting there, from home I wrote HyperCard example programs for the shipping and customer card files and showed the owner. I showed him how a set of 5 computers would improve efficiency. He gave me a very limited budget to try, and the only thing I could make work inside that budget was a set of used Mac IIsi computers and LocalTalk networking. He was still unsure of this whole “computer” thing.

Within 6 months I had the entire company operating in HyperCard stacks, and while it was fast at the start, it began to slow down. LocalTalk and a 20mhz 68030 just wasn’t cutting it. So I convinced him to trust me and allow me to spend some money, and I was allowed to order Sonnet Presto 68040 40mhz upgrades, along with MacCon Ethernet cards for all of the IIsi machines, along with the newly-released iMac G3 to act as the server.

Those 68040 cards were the first time I had ever used an accelerator. They worked good, but it wasn’t as fast as a real full 68040 Mac. We used this setup until around 1999 or 2000 where I was allowed to upgrade all the Macs in the building to iMac G3 a lot load 500mhz models.

The computers and specially-written software allowed the business to grow from around $1mill/year in revenue to over $300mill/year today. Because the business grew so fast, the software has changed very little. We still use the exact same HyperCard customer database and invoicing system and shipping software that I wrote at home in 1997 in my spare time.

Using this DayStar Turbo 601 PowerPC card, I wonder if it would have been a better choice than the 68040 upgrade cards I bought the company in 1998. Also, I probably should have “splurged” and went for the IIci instead of the IIsi back then, but I was just a young kid and I literally was trying to go the cheapest route I could.

I imagine there are enough businesses that had invested in company infrastructure of Mac IIsi, IIci or the IIvx / Performa 600 machines and needed to upgrade their machines to faster ones, but maybe had bosses like mine and didn’t have a budget. So this Daystar card would have filled that need.

I don’t know how writing off computers in different countries was back then, but when I had a business you could only write off the depreciation of it each year, at maximum 25% per year of the remaining amount (so like 7-10 years of write-offs before it’s zero). A business that bought IIci machines in 1990 would have only written them down to zero by 1997 or later, and an upgrade for those customers is an ideal expense, because it likely could be written off 100% in year 1.

I cannot see any home user having bought a IIvx in 1993 having over $1200 USD to stick this upgrade card info their Mac. By 1995/96, it would have been far more efficient for them to trade their IIvx in for a 7100/80 used (if they needed NUBUS), or a 7200/75 new and sell their IIvx.

I think it’s a bit strange that this Daystar card specifically says that it’s ONLY for the IIvi/IIvx/P600 and yet I’ve tested it (updates above) in the IIci just find (thanks to Bolle for the confidence to try!). Daystar sold a specific SKU for the IIci only. I don’t understand that part.

If anyone wants some testing done with this card reach out to me. I plan to have it for a while before I let it go to someone else to play with. I’m not a fan/collector of accelerators.

 

[beachycove]

I think there ought to be a Bill Atkinson Award™ for longest and most profitable use of Hypercard, the inaugural winner being yourself.

You are still using the same stack in the company that you designed in the 90s! That, to me, given the ephemeral character of computers and software, is just wonderful.

You ought to check out Dock, a Hypercard stack that I discovered and uploaded to one of the usual places some years back, for an interesting application of Hypercard technology.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I think there ought to be a Bill Atkinson Award™ for longest and most profitable use of Hypercard, the inaugural winner being yourself.

You are still using the same stack in the company that you designed in the 90s! That, to me, given the ephemeral character of computers and software, is just wonderful.

You ought to check out Dock, a Hypercard stack that I discovered and uploaded to one of the usual places some years back, for an interesting application of Hypercard technology.

I’ll have to check that stack out.

Our success is credited to Steve Jobs and Bill Atkinson got the Mac and HyperCard, as well as Frederic Rinaldi for his awesome set of XCMDs, Linus Torvolds for Linux (we presently haft over 10 Linux servers keeping HyperCard going), and MetaCard/Runtime Revolution/LiveCode. Our HyperCard stacks do some modern voodoo like interface with the post office and government and US CBP directly thanks to LiveCode on Linux.

At $1mill/day, any replacement software has yo work 100% perfectly with zero downtime. Some of the work we do involves daily government reports that have to be exported and uploaded daily, or we are fined $5k/ transaction/day not filed. So it’s not just lost revenue from any downtime but also high daily fines.

Which is why those HyperCard stacks now work over network from reliable Linux servers. We run the entire office on G5 machines with drives setup on RAID 1. I have a room full of spare G5 machines that are ready to go when needed.

We are presently under a complete system and software code review to allow us yo better transition out of HyperCard. It’s just that HyperCard was and still is so damn easy to put something so useful together.

In 2000 our business put a major competition out of business. We bought them and allowed the VP there to continue running it. In 2014 he tragically died and I had to go there to figure out how to get them back up and running.

They were using paper for absolutely everything, and an MSDOS accounting program made in 1987…. In 2014!!

I wrote a complete replacement for their paper and that DOS system over the course of a year in LiveCode that utilizes the Linux Apache engine and HTML CGI.

The plan is to migrate all of the HyperCard to the same LiveCode codebase.