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Building an internal grayscale card for the SE/30

Daniël

Well-known member
I would say "count me in," but I'm not sure if there is a way to add a PDS slot to the Macintosh Classic, which would be cool

Not one that is in any way compatible with the SE/30's, given the Classic is a 68000 based system, and the SE/30 being 68030 based. The PDS is, well, in many ways a path directly to the processor, as the name suggests, which inherently makes it non-compatible. And even then, differences in PDS implementation and other hardware plays a factor, too.
 

nightingale

Well-known member
Wow, that card is a thing of beauty. Does the card use all of the shelf parts, or does it use custom chips that need to be pillaged from an existing video card? Is this something that can be made from scratch?
 

Nixontheknight

Well-known member
Not one that is in any way compatible with the SE/30's, given the Classic is a 68000 based system, and the SE/30 being 68030 based. The PDS is, well, in many ways a path directly to the processor, as the name suggests, which inherently makes it non-compatible. And even then, differences in PDS implementation and other hardware plays a factor, too.
But, would the Classic II be compatible?
 

Juror22

Well-known member
This is not meant to be a criticism, but after seeing the picture of the card with its wiring harness, I now understand part of the problem in making one. Keeping track of all those purple wires - wow! (no, not that one, the other one, no, no, the other purple one...etc.) I know you had a system when putting it together, though and the finished product is striking.

I keep looking for the notice that some of these are available for sale, so that I don't miss it!
 

Paulie

Well-known member
That's so cool! I'm definitely interested but the question is always "how much?"
I won't say how much I paid in case Bolle wants to adjust the pricing in future. But I will say that whilst not cheap, it's worth it for the fact that it's a limited production, hand-made card. Plus, Bolle deserves to be compensated for all the time reverse-engineering and developing it in the first place. In my mind, it's worth it.
 

Paulie

Well-known member
@Paulie, are you able to switch between 8-bit and 1-but graphics mode?
No, only way of going back to 1-bit would be to rip out the card, harness, and neckboard and put the original stuff back in. Bolle told me why but I'm not clever enough to understand.
 

nightingale

Well-known member
This is not meant to be a criticism, but after seeing the picture of the card with its wiring harness, I now understand part of the problem in making one. Keeping track of all those purple wires - wow! (no, not that one, the other one, no, no, the other purple one...etc.) I know you had a system when putting it together, though and the finished product is striking.

Agreed, but the purple is just so striking! It's a shame this card will never be visible once installed...
 

appleg33k85

Active member
Can't wait for the opportunity to be able to get one of these if they become available, would definitely make for the ultimate compact Mac.
 

micheledipaola

Well-known member
Amazing work as usual!
I think the other @Bolle cards (accelerator and ethernet) in my SE/30 are really waiting for their other purple companion to join them... So I am joining all who are asking ideas about time and money :D
 
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