Dual Mac IIci System with PB1400c Wireless Bridge

[jwmcfarlin]

At least that's what I want it to end up being. I got a bit of a bug lately and have been buying up IIcis from the eBay crapshoot service. I haven't been totally disappointed but I did get one box without a hard drive, a nice complete PageMaker 4.0 without registration code, and a seller packaged so badly that the monitor yoke for the M1212 on the right was broken (but our old friend gravity keeps it in place). Anyway, after some fiddling around and swapping equipment to make it work. I'm actually quite pleased with the condition of the stuff I got. It was dusty but I didn't have any corrosion or cap leakage.

I'd post a picture but I don't seem to have the rights yet.

System 1 (Left Side). Mac IIci, System 7.1, 8MB RAM, 80MB HD. Macintosh Display Card pushing 256 colors, 1152x870 at 75Hz to a Sony SDM-HS73 TFT LCD Monitor. It scales nicely and is basically a small TPD without the radiation hazard or the weight. Asante MacCon EtherNet board with 25-pin connection and CAT-5 jack.

System 2 (Right Side). Mac IIci, No System, 8MB RAM, No HD at present. On board display only pushing 256 colors, 640x480 to a M1212. Asante MacCon EtherNet board with 10-base T, 25-pin, and CAT-5 jack.

System 3 (Middle). Powerbook 1400c, System 7.6.1, 32MB RAM, 2GB Hard Drive plus 170MB External SCSI Drive. WaveLan Silver Firmware upgraded to Gold. 12xCD-ROM Drive. The batteries are of course shot, and the PRAM doesn't work either. I know I am tempting moderation by bringing mention of my PB1400c into this, but it's part of the family so be cool.

LaserWriter Select 360. Wacom Artz II Tablet on the way.

So, here's what I am thinking. I want to get the PB1400c on my Wireless LAN here at the house, then either AppleTalk or EtherNet the three together, with the system on the right being a print server.

To Do:

1. SCSI HD for System 2.

2. Install System on System 2.

3. Get WaveLan Gold up and running in PB1400.

4. Get cables and establish a network either by AppleTalk or Ethernet.

5. Get a functioning Floppy Drive for System 2.

6. Get the LaserWriter Select working.

7. Improve System 1. 128MB RAM, Accelerator, CF Card 4GB+ Hard Drive, Photoshop Card, improved video card (migrate current card to System 2).

8. Get another Sony SDM-HS73 for System 2 and ditch the M1212.

9. Address the PB1400c CMOS or PRAM battery issue.

10. Bump up PB1400c RAM to 64MB.

11. New battery for PB1400c.

12. Sonnet PB/G3 upgrade for PB1400c.

If anyone has any tips or ideas or input I'd be super happy to hear it. I am new again to the whole Apple experience after having used a Plus and an SE in high school in the late 80s and a IIci at work in 1991-1992, so my basic understanding of the technical hurdles is limited.

Best,

John

 

[jwmcfarlin]

So far all is well with the operational IIci system and things are perking up.

I picked up a set of 4 x 4MB 30-pin SIMMs, so it's now got 20MB. Since the vendor was good, another 16MB is on the way. Looking to get a RAM Disk set up once I get it but I have to figure that out as the option doesn't appear under the memory control panel in 7.1--strange.

I received a couple of working FDHDs and installed one, so that part is fixed. I got the LaserWriter working with a new RhinoTek toner cartridge--prints are clean and streak-free. I received what I believe is a DayStar PowerCache and once I get the 8.6 upgrade installed on my PB 1400c and get the drivers downloaded I hope it all works.

I received a NIB-condition old stock Wacom ArtZ tablet with drivers, which is good. This second one had the nice pass-thru ADB adapter so it will play nice with my single ADB port machines, too. I'll be looking for art software to use with it.

Many more things on the way--better video card, Kensington Trackball, max memory for the LaserWriter, and I have my eye on a drive and another Sony SDM-HS73 LCD for the as-yet non-operational system. I think I'll skip the CF card drive as a cost-effective SCSI to CF Card adapter solution doesn't seem to exist, and the SCSI to IDE, then IDE to CF Card solution looks cost-prohibitive.

Best,

John

 

[Bunsen]

I know I am tempting moderation by bringing mention of my PB1400c into this

Nah, not at all. Why, because it's not a 68k? We like all old Apples here

I'll be looking for art software to use with it.

There's a freeware called NIH View or NIH Image (from the National Institutes for Health) which is worth a look.

Enjoying your writeup - best of luck with the project and keep us posted

 

[jwmcfarlin]

Good deal. I have been on boards where strict moderation was the rule, so being new I didn't want to run afoul of the practices. The core of my little squad of rescue-Macs is my pais of IIcis, so a lot of my comments might be here in this forum.

I'll take a look at that recommended software, thanks much--I am mostly looking for something that I can use with a Wacom pad to produce finished works.

Today was a pretty productive day. I had a small pile of stuff waiting for me when I got home. Diablo, a Radius PrecisionPro 24X, 16MB of RAM for the LaserWriter, another MacPnP adapter for another Sony SDM-HS73 that I have my eye on either as a second monitor for the primary machine or a monitor for the second IIci, and Snoopy Teaches Geography for my daughter. Got the Radius board and associated RadiusWare installed, and am pleased at the results. Not terribly different than the Apple board I had installed except that I can do millions of colors at 1152x870 now instead of just 256, and I have the RadiusWare change resolutions on the fly which is nice for games that run at 640x480. I am a little on the lookout for a card or cards that can do 1280x1024 in at least thousands of colors, since that's the native resolution of my monitor, but no hurry.

Sound was intermittent on the IIci. I took a close look at the logic board yesterday when I noticed no sound during a game of Syndicate, and sure enough, cap leakage. So I did a logic board swapout with the other IIci and I have sound back. So, it looks like a recapping for both of the boards sometime soon. I understand Trag has the tantalum caps.

I noticed that a 2GB 50-pin SCSI hard drive went for over $60 on eBay today. I had no idea they could be so pricey. I may fish the 170MB drive out of the SCSI enclosure of the external HD I have if I can't find something reasonable down the line.

I installed 8.6 and got the Orinoco drivers installed on the 1400c. I was within striking distance of getting it online but decided against screwing around with my wireless network settings late in the day when my mental powers are at their nadir and I wouldn't have enough time to figure it out before I went to bed if I messed everything up. I expect that I'll set my wireless router to 128-bit WEP tomorrow, make sure that my existing Wintel machines can still access the internet, and try again tomorrow. Diablo was fun to see running on the 1400, too. I called up a friend and floated the proposal to do a run at it multiplayer--that brought on a few laughs as we ran down the technical challenges of setting up a cross-platform IPX network with his machine being a Win95 virtual machine and all the general bridges to cross.

Best,

John

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I use my 1400 for multiplayer Quake, though the G3 upgrade helps, of course.

 

[Bunsen]

I am mostly looking for something that I can use with a Wacom pad to produce finished works.

Your best bet might be an old version of Photoshop then. IIRC, 3.something was the last version for 68k machines.

 

[LCGuy]

Actually, PS 4 was the last version for 68k machines, it'll even run on a '030, though extremely slowly. You really want a fast '040 with a decent amount of RAM to get good performance from it.

 

[jwmcfarlin]

I received a Radius Photoengine Card, a NIB Kensington Turbo Mouse, and another 16MB of RAM for the IIci. I have a copy of Photoshop 3.0 on the way, so I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I need to track down the Radius DSP extension and the PhotoEngine Plugin for Photoshop.

I also got a PCMCIA Type II 16-bit adapter for the Powerbook 1400c, so I now have a pretty solid method for getting files from the wider world to the system, albeit a bit kludgy for now.

Best,

John

 

[jwmcfarlin]

Fiddled around a bit tonight with the iici.

Got the Radius DSP extension and put it in the folder. Photoshop is on the way, so I will see soon how that all goes.

I dorked around with various versions of system 7. It appears that the Powercache control panel doesn't like 7.6.1. Didn't like 7.5.5 either. In both cases the machine boots, but just as the desktop finishes loading, it locks up. I am guessing based on some searching around that 7.5 is the latest system that it plays well with. My IIci normally runs 7.1. 7.6.1 is not as fast, being a weighter system, and especially since it can only be run without the accelerator.

mpegdec almost works with a 128Kbps mp3 file at 25MHz in 7.6.1 with 32MB of RAM. I was curious to see whether it would work better at 50MHz under 7.1, but mpegdec's notification that OS7, 4800MB of RAM, Drag and Drop, Sound Manager 3.0, and Open Transport are needed. I thought I might pull the extensions from 7.6.1 but no dice. The only parts that I could see were the 5 elements of Open Transport. Drag Manager and Sound Manager were not visible.

I'll look around to see if there is a way to render an mp3 file to 96kbps or some such as well. Not that I don't have an iPod to play music, just want to see where the capabilities lie.

Best,

John

 

[jwmcfarlin]

I received a box with a like-new copy of Photoshop 3.0 in it--the Adobe Type-On Call CD was still inside the plastic bag. I continue to be amazed by the physical quality of most of the stuff I've received.

Anyway, after installing it, I was able to drop the PhotoEngine Plug-In into the extensions folder of Photoshop. I attempted to follow the instructions on the PhotoEngine Q&A page I found on how to check the LEDs to see it the board is functioning and wow, the machine did NOT like that. Immediately, bad interference patterns appeared on the display. I could tell that the chips were being accessed, because they were warm, but I quickly shut the machine off and tried to track down the problem.

I took out the second display card, no effect. Interference. I took the DSP extension from my system extensions folder and the plug-in out of the photoshop extensions folder and the interference was still present. Now, officially worried, I shut down, pulled the card and nervously restarted. Interference not present.

I have a variety of drivers so I will try to see whether I just had the wrong versions installed. Another theory: Did I unwittingly get a rev that doesn't play well with the IIci?

No time to continue on for now, so I'm shunting this problem to a secondary process while I go have dinner over at a friends's house. Anyone running a PhotoEngine have anything to add? The card has the white Nubus interface and reads 632-0213-01 rev A and was built in 1994.

Best,

John

 

[jwmcfarlin]

I found out that it's a different option than either postulated above: The PhotoEngine doesn't like my Daystar P33 50MHz accelerator. Based on this article at LEM it seems that it's possible that the Daystar accelerator and the Photoengine software doesn't like to play together:

http://lowendmac.com/video/thunder4gx.html

"The Thunder IV GX 1600 is compatible with Apple or Daystar PowerPC accelerator cards, but the PhotoEngine software is not. PhotoEngine software will be disabled and should be removed."

A quick test seems to bear this out. So, my IIci can be faster in a general sense, or it can be accelerated for Photoshop...not like I can't disable certain functions through physical relocation of the Daystar Power Center extension and a reboot, but that's kludgy.

Best,

John

 

[jwmcfarlin]

Spent some time today with my IIci.

Basically, I confirmed that in fact, a Daystar accelerator and a Radius PhotoEngine is a bad idea. Not an Earth-shattering revelation actually given that the information is out there on the internet.

But, then understanding that the two would not play nice with one another, I decided to look into which one helped more, and where. Here are some benchmarks:

Boot: 1:05 with DayStar 50MHz, 1:03 with PhotoEngine

Open PhotoShop 3.0: 0:29 with DayStar, 1:02 with PhotoEngine

Open New 1152x870 File: 0:05 with DayStar, 0:06 with PhotoEngine

Gradient Tool Black to Red Corner to Corner: 0:13 with DayStar, 0:25 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Type Tool "TEST!" at Size 300 in Center of File: 0:33 with DayStar, 1:15 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Gaussian Blur, 10 Pixel Rdaius: 0:58 with DayStar, 0:09 with PhotoEngine

Spherize 100%: 0:59 with DayStar, 2:28 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Dust and Scratches 10 Pixels, 50 Levels: 1:52 with DayStar, 3:53 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Crystallize 20 Pixels: 4:08 with DayStar, 10:10 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Lens Flare: 1:27 with DayStar, 2:04 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Diffuse: 0:09 with DayStar, 0:11 with PhotoEngine (not an accelerated function)

Now, obviously, many of the functions there are not accelerated. A list of which are is not readily available on the internet, but an issue of MaUsE's Double Click from July 2001 states that:

"PhotoEngine accelerates such operations as RGB-to-CMYK conversion, on-screen CMYK display, and Scale and Skew, as well as Blur, Gaussian Blur, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask, Emboss, and Despeckle filters."

I didn't cherry pick the filters, and I didn't know which ones were and which ones weren't, I just selected random functions.

Something disturbing: Even while operating the PhotoEngine without the DayStar Accelerator installed, interference patterns appeared on my display. These patterns looked like shear, or what, I suppose, you might imagine radiation interference to look like if depicted in a movie. Say BattleStar Galactica flying through a nebula or taking a nuke hit or some such. Not all at first, mind you, and not all the time, but frequently enough and then as time progressed, persistently enough that I grew concerned, especially when they showed up after shutting down, removing the PhotoEngine, and pulling the extensions out. The interference went away after repeated reboots, but for a moment there I thought I had a fried video card or logic board.

I'll investigate further, but thus far leaning toward general acceleration rather than special-purpose acceleration. Perhaps down the line if I can get an accelerator that works with the PhotoEngine, I'll install it, but for now it's on the bench.

Best,

John