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cheesestraws' conquests (cheesequests?)

Papichulo

Well-known member
Such unutterable rubbish.  Fortunately, that's my work machine so it's work's problem to get me another one, at least once I can go into the office again...

On forum topic, this month's inadvisable is a PowerBook 3400c/240 which came with a lot of RAM and one of the most extension-overloaded installs of MacOS 8.6 I've ever seen.

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I got this for two reasons: firstly, to swap bits out from my old PowerBook that I am mildly sentimental about but which doesn't work so I can work out what's wrong with it, and second to install Rhapsody on and have a go with it, because I've always wanted to.  Probably just to visit, though.
Make sure you take out the pram battery inside. I had one that just stopped working becuase i waited to long to take out the battery. Had to part it out and recycle the logic board 

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Make sure you take out the pram battery inside. I had one that just stopped working becuase i waited to long to take out the battery. Had to part it out and recycle the logic board 
Did it last night.  I've made that mistake before.  Irritating, isn't it.

 

Papichulo

Well-known member
Yah  it is. And even after removing it a month before it stopped working. It destroys something on the board overtime 

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
I got hold, finally, of a Cayman GatorBox CS, with its manuals and software (in a rather fetching binder).

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You will often find this listed in lists of "LocalTalk bridges", along with things like the little AsantéTalk bridges, but this is a much more powerful device than that.  First, it's a full AppleTalk router with an ethernet port and a LocalTalk port.  This means that unlike, say, the AsantéTalk, this will actually work on networks with other AppleTalk routers.  It will also act as a MacIP gateway, and do the same job of de-encapsulation for IPX and DECnet.

So far, so router-y.  But this also has a couple of applications (if you paid for them!) specifically to bridge Macs to UNIX networks.  It will, for starters, proxy between UNIX lpr printing and AppleTalk printing, making lpr PostScript printers turn up as LaserWriters.  It will also, more interestingly, proxy NFS servers to AppleShare!

The one I have has both printing and share bridging preinstalled, but even if you got one that hadn't, netopia made the software available for free a little while ago.

One further interesting thing is that the configuration is as Mac-like as they could make it.  You do not use a command line tool to configure it: instead, there is a configuration tool that works via the network which provides a rather Finder-like view of the GatorBoxes available to be configured:

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When you double-click on one, you get a hierarchical icon-based view of the configuration:

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And individual leaves in the configuration are configured through suspiciously compact mac screen sized dialog boxes:

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lisa2

Well-known member
Another neat thing the gatorbox can do is tunnel an appletalk network between to gatorboxes using tcp/ip. 

Note:  The configuration does work best with classic macs, You must configure it using local talk, and the configurator does not support open transport.

also be aware that the early models have no rom or flash and must booted via a sftp server.

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Another neat thing the gatorbox can do is tunnel an appletalk network between to gatorboxes using tcp/ip. 
That's a good trick.  I haven't got to that bit of the manual yet...

also be aware that the early models have no rom or flash and must booted via a sftp server. 
tftp, but yes.  I kind of want one of the TFTP-boot ones, just to see whether I can get it running anything else.  It's harder to brick things that netboot :)

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
And here's the gatorbox in context at the bottom of my rack.  It's not a permanent addition there (yet), but I've got it plugged in ready to try out transatlantic AppleTalk networking with @lisa2 , which is going to be cool!

It's over in the rack away from my LocalTalk stuff (sigh) because I'm hoping to get some packet captures or at least metadata using port mirroring on that switch, and the little switch on my desk doesn't have that feature.

(I always think network equipment looks really cool with all its lights going, but perhaps that's just me)

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ScutBoy

Well-known member
Nice - I've got a Shiva FastPath to do much the same thing, though I don't know if it's that full-featured.

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Nice - I've got a Shiva FastPath to do much the same thing, though I don't know if it's that full-featured.
If I remember correctly, they're more "traditional" network devices, in that they're mostly concerned with doing packet-level stuff and doing it well.  I'd love to get a FastPath, maybe one day I'll find one :) .  It'd be interesting to see whether there's a performance differential brought on by the GatorBox's "do everything" approach.

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
This one is due to the eBay finds thread: I picked up a Kensington Trackball for the quadrature Macintosh mouse interface, rather than ADB, in its box.  I didn't even know this existed, and so I picked it up pretty quick because I really like these trackballs and I've been looking for a good trackball for the Lisa.  It just arrived yesterday.

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I suspect this is the remains of two kits: the trackball was very, very clean but the cable was very, very dirty (eh?).  Also, there were two passive-aggressive mouse holders in the box, one still in its plastic, and, most importantly, two balls.  This means I can also get my ADB Turbo Mouse up and running again!  Yay!  (Please forgive horrible lighting on photos, it's a miserable day here)

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I don't have an ADB version 3.0 to compare it with, but comparing it to my ADB 4.0, the case is actually quite different: it's bevelled like the Plus keyboard, and is chunkier, again to match the Plus keyboard.  But it doesn't go quite to the same lengths as the Assimilation trackball (upthread) to blend in.

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I also now have one of this family of trackballs for every generation of Mac I have, which appeals  to the completist in me.

 

joshc

Well-known member
That is awesome, and will make your Lisa much more usable than that little joystick thingy you had! Nice one.

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
I finally managed to pick up a DayStar Genesis MP (720+ model). It was sold as 'dead', but on arrival, with a little fiddling, was upgraded to 'alive', with the addition of one of @max1zzz 's SCSI adapter boards and an SCA hard disc. This has been something I've wanted to play with for years, but had basically given up hope of finding.

I'm not going to discuss prices, but I do want to say that this was extremely affordable. Average prices are a lot higher than they used to be, true, but there are still sellers out there who want their machines to go to someone who will enjoy and fix them over trying to straightforwardly maximise profit, and there are still affordable interesting machines out there to be found, with patience (and in this case the help of @joshc who spotted this before I did!).

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The machine itself is missing its top bezel, which is a good candidate for 3D printing. It's also rather yellowed and agèd, but I know how it feels, so it can stay like that :).

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It has four processors; I'm mildly interested that the left two heatsinks appear to be a different colour to the right two. Wonder if they changed batches of heatsink halfway through?

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It also came with the matching keyboard! Which is really rather classy.
 

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ScutBoy

Well-known member
Nice that you got the keyboard - I have one for mine as well. Always wondered if there was a branded Daystar mouse.
 

jessenator

Well-known member
the left two heatsinks appear to be a different colour to the right two
Knowing next-to-nothing about DayStar's Genesis line, was it configured for two CPUs, and later upgraded to four? Could be you're right, and during assembly had a bin to grab from, and they got through a batch of the old ones, whichever heatsink color that may be…

Still, very neat :)
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
I've not conquested much recently, but I did pick this up:

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It's not the full machine, just the case and gubbins, but this is a 4U case to adapt a PowerMac G4 to rackmount use. It'll be getting a suitable board and CPU when I can work up the energy and work out where to put it: it's really heavy and I'm starting to worry about the weight of my half rack...
 

mg.man

Well-known member
Ooo... snap!
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Crap pic - mines tucked near the floor - on an audio rack shelf! 🤣

I did buy it as new-old-stock, so pretty sure I have the install docs somewhere... somewhere... 🙄
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Here's another fun one. This is a Classic II with a vImage 8 colour graphics card in it. Which is unusual enough: but this one seems to have a working HD with the drivers on, which might even qualify as R@RE.

More photos and so forth will be coming if people are interested, but I love the way this is attached under the LB...

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cheesestraws

Well-known member
Yes please! I'm quite intrigued on how they are connecting it. I had a CII project in mind but couldn't find a easy way to grab the signals I needed.....

Well you're in luck. Or possibly out of luck, depending on how you look at it. As far as I can see, this thing hooks up to the FPU slot, the CPU over the top and the SIMM slots.

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The person who designed this must have really wanted colour on a C II, because it's simultaneously like looking at a masterpiece and looking into the abyss. This is well beyond the point where I would have personally walked away from the problem.

It works pretty well, though:

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But one has to wonder why.
 
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