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Digidesign NuBus expansion box

Franklinstein

Well-known member
I saw one of these for sale with no apparent interest, so I put in a bid. A few days and $10 later, it's mine. Now to find all of the various Digidesign cards (and probably a SCSI card or two) to fill it with. And choose the Mac to run it. Should I choose a II series? Quadra? Power Mac? So many choices. A PM6100 would be an amusing option (I already have at least one NuBus adapter card for them) because this would take it from the model with the fewest expansion slots to most expansion slots. I'll have to read up on whether it all supports NuBus '90 or not. Once that's done, I'll then have to go find the appropriate version of ProTools. And all of the equipment to plug into the various interfaces. And a studio space to set it all up in. And someone(s) to make sounds for it to manipulate. 

 

Bolle

Well-known member
Most of the fun hardware acceleration features of the Nubus cards stopped working in ProTools on PowerPCs I think so you might want to stick to a II series machine or a Quadra.

One big hurdle to jump if you want to use the TDM and DSP cards is that you have to find a ProTools 3 authentication floppy that still has an authorization left on it.

This is not easily going to happen I guess.

There are reports on MacOS9lives that people were able to make images of hard drives that contain the authenticated software for such a Nubus setup but I have yet to see one of those images pop up somewhere.

Unfortunately there is no known way to replicate the authentication floppies so most of the fun hardware is actually not useable for most people.

I am sitting in the same boat with having a stack of Digidesign cards but lacking the software/driver part that needs authentication.

 

Franklinstein

Well-known member
Thanks for the info. That's both interesting and sad to hear. Interesting in that, if the Digidesign stuff supports NuBus '90 and the PPC version doesn't do hardware acceleration, my only proper choice is a Q840AV. If it's not NuBus '90 but still works better under 68k, I'd probably go with a Q950, maybe with the WGS PDS card installed.

It's sad that the software requires unavailable authentication methods. I don't really get why they did that: it's not PhotoShop or Final Cut Pro or Maya or AutoCAD or QuarkXPress or something multi-platform and basically hardware agnostic that can run on any computer configuration. No, this is specific hardware and a software suite, from the same developer, even, that are pretty tightly coupled; one doesn't work so well without the other so what's the deal?

Anyway I always image hard drives if they're still working so maybe I'll get lucky and have something. Doubtful though: most of my functional unwiped drives were from compacts and/or from offices or schools, so there's rarely anything more fun than The Playroom or PageMaker on them. I did get a Sawtooth G4 once that had some ProTools stuff and a good HD in it, but it was all PCI-based and running OS 9 so it wouldn't likely do much good anyway.

 

CC_333

Well-known member
I did get a Sawtooth G4 once that had some ProTools stuff and a good HD in it, but it was all PCI-based and running OS 9 so it wouldn't likely do much good anyway.
I trust you nevertheless archived it, though?  There's probably some fancy ProTools plugins and stuff that could work on a slightly newer setup (nothing modern of course, but thinking maybe PT HD from the G5/very early Intel era).

c

 

Franklinstein

Well-known member
I don't think I actually copied that one, just left it as-is (mid-range ATA drives aren't as hard to come by as narrow SCSI drives so it didn't have to be reused at the time). Plus it was a large volume and I don't really have a solution for anything larger than a couple gigs. The computer was a PM G4 Sawtooth 500 with three 12" Digidesign cards (an interface card and two DSP farms, I think) with one of those interconnect cables running between them. I bought it cheap at a recycle shop and normally they take the hard drives out, which they probably did do here, but they missed a drive that was hidden in the Zip bay. Anyway it appears to have belonged to a Japanese house music producer/DJ (who smokes, apparently, judging by the computer's innards) and it had a good number of music files, image files for disc labels, and what looked like some PR materials for him. Some songs were pretty decent.

Normally if I copy a HD, I trash anything that's of a personal nature and most media files (tax returns, vacation photos, college theses, Harry Potter fanfic, music I don't like, adult material, etc) for privacy and to save disk space, but if it's potentially significant, like this or developer systems or Douglas Adams' Macs that some people came across a while back, I copy it entirely and leave the system intact.

 

danpoarch

Well-known member
Interesting thread. I have two of these expansion units (only one NUBUS host card tho). I've been slowly collecting all the pieces for the past 4 or five years.

There is a way to archive the floppies and use them to authorize PTIII and Sound Designer. I've attached a screenshot of some apps I found (can't believe I didn't write down where!). You create a ShrinkWrap image with NybbleMaster 1.7, then you burn a real floppy from that image and use Power FakeMaster 1.75 as an intermediary between the Digi Installer and the faked floppy. So far I've successfully authorized Sound Designer (I think, it was late one night and I don't have that hard drive in the machine right now). But I'm still experimenting with all of this. I'll drop an update when I finally get time to fully test it out.

AuthFloppies.jpg

 

Bolle

Well-known member
I knew those exist but have not yet seen a report of a successful copy that has been made.

It would be great to hear more about how and what you did.

If this works for the TDM mix plugin as well this would really rock... and put a lot of TDM hardware setups that are floating around to some use again.

 

CMW85

Member
@danpoarch Where can I find Nybblemaster 1.7 and Power FakeMaster 1.75? After googling the former, I got results for a Commodore64 program. How do I use it with Mac software? I have copies of Pro Tools III, MasterList 1.0, Sound Designer 2.4 and DINR that I want to make images of. Your help would be much appreciated!
 
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paws

Well-known member
I know this is an old thread, there was another Pro Tools thread that unfortunately got lost in the crash, but it should be known that one can, in fact, setup a PTIII Nubus system with just software from the Garden. No need to find floppies.
 
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