MacToTheFuture SE/30 10/100 Ethernet card

[jamesmilne]

Got it receiving packets now.

Indeed the byte swapping on the board is the correct thing to do, as it avoids the need to swap bytes when reading/writing data from/to the FIFOs as 32-bit words.

Video on my website:

https://www.mactothefuture.org/update/2018/07/06/ten-four-big-daddy.html

 

[techknight]

No idea what I am looking at. an Untitled window with a bunch of hex/binary data. 

But hey, glad it works! 

Once its fully working, wonder how hard it would be to attach it to the SCSI bus. the communication is "basically" the same, its the method of enumerating the SCSI driver to send data back and forth like a serial port. 

But sadly it would take 4 bus transfers for a 32 bit word. so it would be WAY slower. But much nicer on powerbooks with no PDS access. 

 

[jamesmilne]

Sorry, I guess that video was a bit cryptic. It is showing a hex dump of the first 128 bytes of each packet it receives over the network. It's receiving various broadcast packets from other machines.

For the LAN9218 to work with SCSI, you'd need an FPGA to connect to the SCSI bus and handle all the SCSI protocol stuff, and implement some special SCSI command that could read/write registers.

You could maybe do it with a microcontroller, like the RaSCSI project. A microcontroller isn't really ideal for directly interfacing with SCSI. It can take quite a few CPU cycles for an MCU to respond to activity on their GPIOs. Could be done though. The original designer of the RaSCSI was using it with an Sharp X68000 and had written a network driver for it, so we could probably get a network driver for RaSCSI working on the Mac too.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Rather than going out to the very slow existing SCSI bus for NIC function, how might your CPLD setup work for adapting an UltraSCSI (or SATA) connection across the PDS?

 

[jamesmilne]

The CPLD is a baby FPGA, but it might be enough to interface a SATA controller chip with the PDS slot if it has the right interface.

The problem will be finding a SATA controller chip with an interface that isn’t PCI or PCIe, which are not simple to interface to via the PDS slot.

Not sure there’s much point in building anything for Ultra SCSI since drives are rare & expensive. It would also be tricky due to the huge number of differential pairs involved.

A PDS or NuBus to PCI bridge implemented on the FPGA might be feasible though. I’ve recently bought a dev kit for the Lattice ICE40. The dec board exposes 160 IO pins, which is enough for both PDS and PCI. It can run at 100MHz, so might be capable of interfacing between the two realms.

This would also allow interfacing with USB, Wifi, etc PCI chips.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I haven't looked lately, but brand new 2.5" SCA server drives were very inexpensive two or three years ago. That's why I suggested UltraSCSI, figuring a SATA or PCI bridge would be much more difficult than emulating a high speed SCSI controller. Disk throughput is the Achilles' heel/megalithic bottleneck remaining in SE/30 and IIsi hot-rodding. []

 

[techknight]

Alot of those drives have dried up recently. Sadly.  They are still out there but the prices per drive have gone up quite a bit. 

Wooo that would be nuts. a PDS/Nubus-to-PCI Bridge. 

That would open up a TON of opportunity. However everything would need drivers. Eh... 

 

[techknight]

bump. This was the "one" thread I wish didnt suddently die. :-(

 

[beachycove]

bump. This was the "one" thread I wish didnt suddently die. :-(

Me too. Not least because I too am in London, Ontario, and am interested in who Mark could be. Not me!

 

[Hustletron]

There's been no progress on the mactothefuture project website either, which is unfortunate as I've been watching this with great interest. If for no other reason, I at least like to follow along with the discussion and soak in some of the knowledge.

 

[kreats]

Something funny about mac projects where nothing ever ends up being released, even when they are completed. Gamba round 2 I guess.

BMOW projects and SCSI2SD excepted

 

[CC_333]

Something funny about mac projects where nothing ever ends up being released, even when they are completed. Gamba round 2 I guess.

BMOW projects and SCSI2SD excepted

And the Custom ROM SIMM. BMoW is in charge of that now (known as the ROMinator II or some such), but it was Dougg3 who developed and released it initially.

c

 

[kreats]

And the Custom ROM SIMM. BMoW is in charge of that now (known as the ROMinator II or some such), but it was Dougg3 who developed and released it initially.

c

Yep I bought some of those from him! 

There are a few completed projects just crying out for release - and it's getting to the point where classic macs will die out as a hobby soon without some momentum.

• The twinspark repro board
  
• The greyscale board for the se/30
  
• IIfx ram sims
  

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

First, it's not a repro of the TwinSpark board, it's a clone of the DiiMO board in basic form, as is the TwinSpark. As Bolle and Joe have said, everything that's needed for followup is open source in the thread. Third, the open source info for a IIsi PowerCache adapter is in there too. It's from that angle that we worked out SE/30 adaptations, not from the TwinSpark.

Real life has a habit of getting in the way, hopefully this very cool project thread will see some progress soon.

 

[kreats]

Someone has the ability to push out PCBs and they don't do it - we've seen actual boards being distributed to a select few.. all that is required is to repeat the process.

And if it's too hard/time consuming, give a license to someone else! And if they don't want to even do that - release the PCB files and give instructions on how to order them.

I just don't get why people sit on these things. They may as well have never been done if nobody can actually get at them. And then we are back to $200 boards from Japan.

Ask yourself - if it is so straightforward could you make a board using the info from that thread?

PS: I already have a Twinspark, so this isn't self interest

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I just don't get why people sit on these things. They may as well have never been done if nobody can actually get at them. And then we are back to $200 boards from Japan.

Nope, I'm not competent to do it, I kept fumbling through the research and banging away at the project in the hacks forum for years just for the heck of it, like my other crazy projects. Joe lucked into a IIsi adapter that put him on the PAL formula track and enlisted lots of help from a formula reverse engineering guru offsite. Bolle followed up on that track with Joe. He wound up doing the PCB designs and making the investment to do run of boards, bought parts and assembled adapters of two types for those who'd expressed interest in buying them to us in the thread during the process. He did that for beer money, not any real kind of profit motive.

Anyone interested in licensing Bolle's PCB designs for production should get in touch with him in PM. I don't expect much interest in doing that. As I'd said all along, the parts cost of an adapter will NEVER be inexpensive, cheap adapters are a pipe dream. There's probably not a big enough market or profit margin to be had for anyone like bigmessowires, GGlabs or the like to even bother competing with Artmix.

People griping about the results of that project need to form a consortium and get 'er done. While you're at it, license and do a run of Bolle's unfinished IIsi Adapter board. I'd buy one of those, I can't afford to put the money up for a run and I can't solder for schniznit anyway.

I'd start a thread in hacks, asking if anyone has access to wave soldering equipment to do professional assembly as the first step, but few pay attention to my byline. :

I'm tickled pink that we accomplished what gamba & co. gave up on back in the day. []

 

[kreats]

There are practically 0 expensive parts other than the connectors on the adaptors. The PCB itself can be ordered for a couple of dollars each. This would be an extremely cheap and profitable board to sell - but nobody is doing it. 

After a year or so of no movement, I think it's time to make intentions clear.  If the project is abandoned it would be nice to know. I'm happy to buy a few (at least 3), but they have to be made available.

As it is, I don't see why would anyone invest the time designing a board when people will say it was stolen from community research, or with the threat of the original design undercutting them.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Mods, can we please move this developing OT discussion out of jamesmilne's project thread here and into a board feasibility or general product development study topic in hacks? NOT under my byline. :-/

Dunno what board costs are, but $2 for even a simple double sided board in the dimensions of Artmix' DiiMO clone's form factor ain't even close..



Lets break it down in business terms, I've done this stuff IRL in the era of the SE/30.

Figuring zero cost for development:

Price out four layer boards in the dimensions required for your project.

Try to get low volume total parts costs under $30, not likely. EuroDin connectors in that size is not inexpensive these days.

Estimate time to:

- do pricing and place orders

- open packages and set components up for board stuffing

- board stuffing

- time spent & cost of wave soldering offsite or heaven forbid, hand soldered process in house

- burning/testing PALs

- installation of each assembled board for burn in testing

- removal for machine

- cost of packing materials (after costing/ordering time)

- packaging

- order taking labeling time

- shipping cost and getting boxes to carrier (misc. other shipping an handling costs)

Assuming there is no equipment to buy and amortize as a cost of production:

- multiply time estimated by minimum wage (dunno about you or the rest of the gang, but I ain't working for minimum wage)

Profit margin would be whatever you can charge more than the totals above, but enough less than $200 to generate sales to move all of what you'll need to inventory.

Take two aspirin and get back to me in the morning. []

 

[kreats]

I really disagree. There are many many examples of far more complicated boards for the hobbyist market being sold right now, presumably at a good profit.  Check some of EEVblog's videos.. he got 4 layer boards the size of a motherboard made for $20 each - delivered in 5 days.  Getting the board also assembled for cheap isn't out of the question.

Anyway, if the PCBs are released we will see.. if they aren't it's just another nail in the macintosh coffin. I really don't know why you are fighting me on this.

and the discussion is relevant to this thread also, cause a manifestation of the same problem - no updates in 4 months? It's dead, Jim

 

[maceffects]

I'd be interested helping any developers bring their product to market if they have completed development.  If they do not wish to pursue it themselves, I'd be keen on purchasing rights as well.  I think we need to keep the vintage Mac community alive.