Jessenator's conquests

[CC_333]

Thanks! Even after all that cleaning, it still has the smoke stank :/  I sprayed some fabric febreeze on the case exterior pretty liberally and it's better. At least I can't smell it when I'm nearby. I really wonder if an ozone generator would cause corrosion, because I know those things are magic, especially with car interiors.

You're welcome!

I guess the ozone generator could be OK to use if you use it briefly, like for a day or two? It shouldn't corrode stuff *that* quickly, even with the tight spaces involved?

I wonder if PCC saw the PowerWave as encroaching on PowerTower territory a bit too much and scaled it back. 

Could be?

Yeah, fewer RAM slots, non-fast SCSI, cheaper intro price, etc. And LEM shows the PowerCenter with the same gestalt ID as the 7200 (108) while the PowerWave had the 9500's ID, as pointed out by trag. They must've been the Catalyst board, only with daughtercard CPUs, while the PowerWave was the Tsunami variant board, like trag pointed out. Yeah, I found this German mac site and the PowerTower Pro also used the Tsunami board. I'm thinking it was just an oddball market group that didn't sell like they hoped, so they scrapped the PowerWave.

Possibly?

Speaking of those spec charts, was the PowerWave originally a tower? or was is BTO as either a desktop or tower?

It's hard to say, but it looks like it could've been configured as either? Not sure how that would've worked, though...

Man, I wish PCC's website was completely archived on the WaybackMachine  they had some funny (edgy?) marketing, that's for sure.

Yeah, from what little of it I've seen, I can agree that it was definitely edgy! It seems so ironic that, while they were preserving and advancing the Macintosh as an architecture, they were actually driving Apple, the originator and chief maintainer of the architecture, out of business because they were making better-configured PowerMacs without the Apple Tax that makes them so expensive, and thus severely cannibalizing Apple's sales in pretty much all areas aside from perhaps education and the ultra low end. PCC was a really ingenious company, and it's too bad they and Apple couldn't coexist better. On this basis, I can understand why Steve Jobs pulled the plug on the clone makers, because, even if they did survive somehow, Apple likely wouldn't be the $1 Trillion dollar company they are now had he not made that decision.

c

 

[CC_333]

Oh, and the PowerCenter looks strikingly similar to the PowerBase. I think they must've shared the same case.

c

 

[jessenator]

Oh, and the PowerCenter looks strikingly similar to the PowerBase. I think they must've shared the same case.

Oh totally they did. I noticed on mine that the model plate actually can pop out! It's not glued in. Even the original (601) Power series desktops utilized the same case as well. I think they had 2 desktop designs and 2 tower designs. The PowerBase/Center was a lower profile, with the floppy drive adjacent to the other drive bays, and that tower in the EveryMac article looks shorter than the PTP height. Fun stuff.

I can understand why Steve Jobs pulled the plug on the clone makers, because, even if they did survive somehow, Apple likely wouldn't be the $1 Trillion dollar company they are now had he not made that decision.

I couldn't sleep last night so I was reading up on them. PCC was completely done with developing the G3 models by the time the plug was pulled (!) and the "core assets" Jobs wanted from them was their sales strategy and BTO approach. He definitely didn't give 2 ****s about anything of theirs beyond that, especially design. There's a bit of a black hole though beyond what periodicals of the day wrote about the quasi-purchase and closure of PCC; definitely some inside stories left to be told…

But still, $1,997 base price for a G3 machine that rivaled the 9500 in performance*? I wonder how much cheaper PCC, or anyone else, could've actually sold machines for had the deal been left in place. But I agree, Jobs knew the market share via licensees was a sailed ship, and he had to niche the Mac out of the PC space, and despite my own observations, he did lead the company well. 

*parroted from a 65scribe video

 

[jessenator]

Got a Classic!

 

Picked it up on the local classifieds pretty reasonably. I bought it mainly as a screen reserve for my SE/30, but wondered if I could get it running just for kicks in the interim, maybe give the parts I don't need away.

It's giving me an address error related to memory, and thought it initially might be a SIMM out of place or one an unsupported size, etc. Can someone confirm this is the correct error? I did my best trying to decipher this index of error codes. 

code

The board is in surprisingly good shape and very clean. There were only two apparent puddles of cap goo, which cleaned up quickly. A quick visual inspection didn't turn up any broken traces. I tried booting with, without the SIMMs on the card, tried it with the jumper in varying positions, without a jumper, etc. I still can't get beyond this test, unless the soldered RAM is faulty I guess. Any ideas? I thought about posting a topic, but I'm sure it's covered, and I'm just at a loss as to what error this might be called (and also not knowing how to properly post what the code is--just the last 4 digits on each row, all 16 digits, what have you). Anyway, not a huge loss, but thought I'd see what a Mac Plus with ADB can do for me.

===clickable links to higher res===

Motherboard top:


Motherboard bottom:



RAM riser top:


RAM riser bottom:

 

[jessenator]

https://web.archive.org/web/20080128023139/http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=7748

okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this. Looking at the Power On codes

If I'm reading it correctly, the 0003 error is

The RAM test failed while testing bank B, after passing the chunk tested for code $0002.




And the next line is "which bits failed" 00000002

The first small chunk of RAM to be tested failed. The Z field indicates which RAM Bit(s) failed. This small chunk of RAM is always in Bank B. Using $AABBCCDD as a guide:

AA=8 bit mask for bits 31-24
BB=8 bit mask for bits 23-16
CC=8 bit mask for bits 15-8
DD=8 bit mask for bits 7-0


Does that mean the soldered RAM is indeed the culprit? Which bit of RAM on the board would that be?

Edit: ok, I've come to my senses, I forgot that there's actual MOTHERBOARD soldered memory. I took the riser/expansion and it still gives me the same error, so the motherboard RAM is bad somewhere?

 

[jessenator]

As a side note though, I gambled well...



I neglected to read this initial post carefully and assumed all Classic analog boards were compatible :|  but joy of joys, it was made in 1990, has the type A connector, and will be a spare in the event my SE/30 screen bites the dust at some point.

 

[LaPorta]

By the way, are you still in need of Power Computing software?

 

[jessenator]

By the way, are you still in need of Power Computing software?

Yeah! I'd be willing to try out some other images to see if they work.

 

[LaPorta]

I've got them on vTools. Do you have login credentials? That would probably be the easiest way instead of me trying to somehow else dump 1.2 GB on you. I can locate them and tell you which drive, folder, etc.

 

[jessenator]

I've got them on vTools. Do you have login credentials? That would probably be the easiest way instead of me trying to somehow else dump 1.2 GB on you. I can locate them and tell you which drive, folder, etc.

I'll PM you

 

[jessenator]

Digging for coal:

Found a diamond:

Of course, on my 4400 it only shows 400 MHz:

So I'm not as bummed about the dingus who packed these INSIDE THE MOTHERBOARDS ESD BAG WITHOUT SECURING IT OR PADDING IT... Hence the broken smd pieces.... To be clear, the whole thing was padded, but the vram module and the sonnet were in their own esd bags, and just moving around inside the motherboard's esd bag...

I might try to repair the Starmax board eventually. The longer component (oscillator???) I can see where it goes and I think the smaller smd resistors are for the CPU option (I can see disturbed solder), but I haven't had a chance to look where the caps go, or if they're still good.

But all in all, a nice gamble that paid off

Here's the cpu on the board

 

[Cory5412]

I'll PM you

I run vtools, PM me when you have an opportunity.

Connection instructions: http://vtools.68kmla.org/connection.html

 

[EvilCapitalist]

Found a diamond:

Congrats, and welcome to the 500MHz club!  If/when you get a 50MHz board you'll be glad you've got this.

So I'm not as bummed about the dingus who packed these INSIDE THE MOTHERBOARDS ESD BAG WITHOUT SECURING IT OR PADDING IT... Hence the broken smd pieces.... To be clear, the whole thing was padded, but the vram module and the sonnet were in their own esd bags, and just moving around inside the motherboard's esd bag...

Somehow, it's still amazing to me that there are folks on eBay (and similar places) that only, or primarily, sell computers / hardware / etc. and don't understand how to properly pack things.

 

[jessenator]

when you get a 50MHz board you'll be glad you've got this. 

Is the 6400 50mhz? There's one locally with a multi sync Apple monitor and accoutrements for $150. I might try to talk them down, especially since it's a moderate drive for me.

I guess there's a chance, albeit slim, that I'll find a 5x00 starmax board and it'd fit right in my 4400 case. Thats if Macinfo.de is correct about the Tanzania II board being a chipset upgraded I board.

I wonder if it's too involved to bump a I board up to a II... I mean mine is in need of repair anyway.

And I definitely agree about packing computer components. Maybe they hire numpties to do the prep for them... but I'm glad they didn't leave those things SOCKETED for shipment at least. I find it really funny that things like the riser card and RAM were stripped but the VRAM and that Sonnet were left in it… too funny!

I was also very fortunate with my se/30. It came in a home Depot box with only crumpled brown paper. Granted the paper was heavyweight and no big jostles when it arrived, but man thats pushing it.

 

[Cory5412]

The 6400 are 40MHz buses. The 6500 family had a 50MHz bus.

6400 with a monitor might be nice, I know this isn't universal, but I've loved having a couple Apple monitors around.

 

[jessenator]

Oh, I looked again out of curiosity, and it IS a 6500! I thought it was a 6400… I did ask him if it was a 300 (for you actually), but it's a 250. I might try to talk I'm down over driving distance.
https://classifieds.ksl.com/listing/56912176

I'd like any Apple monitor that's bigger than 13" :lol:  I mean, I have my Sony LCD which works marvelously with my Rage128 and Mach64 cards. I did try  couple of local ads but I could never reliably communicate with them.

 

[Cory5412]

300 (for you actually)

I appreciate that a lot.

The 6500 is great even at 250MHz, and to be honest, my personal take is that if you had gotten a /275 or  /500 it would be a shame to upgrade it, but a 225 or 250 would be a great home to that Sonnet card.

The 6500s have an upgraded video chip over the 6400 as well, reducing the strict need to run an ATi card in it, especially below the max resolution of 1280x1024. (But even that kind of depends on what stuff you want to do, it supports 256 colors at 1280x1024.)

That 15-inch multiple scan is a pretty nice display, as well, by my recollection, the speakers are Pretty Good and with the 6400/6500 subwoofer, that would make a great MP3 machine.

That printer is pretty ho-hum, but it might be worth picking up as it's probably one of the newer Mac serial deskjets that exists.

The one bummer about period monitors, especially any that are bigger than that one (and to be honest that one's even fairly big, just in terms of how shapey it is and the speakers hanging off the side), is that they absolutely dominate modern desks meant for laptops and flat-panel iMacs. I'm using an IKEA dining table as a desk and a single 20-inch Multiple Scan would be fine if that desk were only for one machine, but it's got to share the space with my main PC and some laptops, and it can be a tight fit sometimes.

 

[Cory5412]

Also, I typed this earlier and never posted it. It was in regards to PowerComputing's price structure and models, but it's from slightly after the model you have was replaced:

https://new.stenoweb.net/SitePages/1997-mac-prices.aspx

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

At this point I'd much rather have a 6360/6400 board on hand than the couple of extra bare 6500 boards I've picked up over the years. Got those for the 25% bus bump and better graphics. From the TAM gang's woes, the 6500 Gazelle architecture board and a compatible Firewire/USB card is difficult to find and targeted by deep pocket TAM types.

So I'd be reticent about looking for a 6500 in light of that. A 6400 with G3/L2, a nice VidCard for one slot coupled with a USB/Firewire Card in the other probably offers better performance overall than 6500.  Peripheral connections over USB1 and a Firewire enclosure for HDD/SD/SSD seems like the best overall target system to me. YMMV.

@Cory5412 I know you like running machines in their "natural state," but in this instance a slow 6400 w/G3L2 at any speed makes more sense than a fast 6500 I think. Mass storage over Firewire should be a big improvement over the oddball IDE implementation of the Q630-6500/TAM series, no?

 

[jessenator]

Thanks for the pricing info!

Based on some brief magazine searches the 'Wave wasn't around long, but from all accounts PCC did pretty well. In fact, one of the long term side projects I'm working on is a sort of documentary on PCC and its brief blip on the computer timeline. In my research it's amazing how well they did. In one article Jobs was quoted as saying a renegotiated license agreement was on the table but rejected... Probably to stunt PCC's success. He later went on to say the status quo of the licensing was more harmful than beneficial... Lots of interesting things from that era. And lots of whining from Jobs :lol:

I wonder who has the powerpc 750 prototype that PCC made. Now there's a unicorn.