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Mainboard Removal with, Radius Accelerator

Marsu

Active member
I have recently come across a Macintosh SE Model 5010, that has a Radius accelerator. My main issue is when removing the mainboard, there is a connector on the accelerator that sticks out in a cutout in the frame.1672001627690.jpegDoes anyone have any recommendations that don't involve bending the frame, or using a screwdriver to pry the accelerator from the PDS slot.
 

Marsu

Active member
Looking deep into forums on this page I found others that mentioned that the Manual to the radius cards apparently mentions to bend the rails to get the board in and out, This also seems to be the only method that seems to work for those on the few posts I did find specifically about this issue
 

Crutch

Well-known member
Yeah you need to bend the rails slightly with a screwdriver. It’s fine. They will snap right back.
 

Marsu

Active member
Yeah you need to bend the rails slightly with a screwdriver. It’s fine. They will snap right back.
okay so I got the card into my known good system, my only problems are now the system is giving me a system error. More than likely due to my system version. Hopefully this can be solved by finding some old drivers or software patches that make this an easy fix.

Im new to the vintage Macs so any pointers on what I need to do would be greatly appreciated

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cheesestraws

Well-known member
okay so I got the card into my known good system, my only problems are now the system is giving me a system error. More than likely due to my system version. Hopefully this can be solved by finding some old drivers or software patches that make this an easy fix.

Im new to the vintage Macs so any pointers on what I need to do would be greatly appreciated

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Well, that's one I haven't seen before! The MBDF is the bit of code in the System file that's responsible for making the menu bar work, and it's saying it can't find it. I'm not sure how installing an accelerator would result in that: that sounds like software corruption to me, but I've been surprised by accelerator weirdness before.
 

Crutch

Well-known member
I’ve seen this associated with an INIT (in particular, ones I’ve written!) behaving badly. I am not sure why. It is very random. Is it possible the MBDF is the first resource loaded after INIT time, so if you leave the resource manager or system heap in a bad state when your INIT exits, this is what you get?
 

Marsu

Active member
Well, that's one I haven't seen before! The MBDF is the bit of code in the System file that's responsible for making the menu bar work, and it's saying it can't find it. I'm not sure how installing an accelerator would result in that: that sounds like software corruption to me, but I've been surprised by accelerator weirdness before.
The system was running and booting into the OS just fine until I installed the card, granted I did not test it today before the install, last time I booted it up was about 2 weeks ago.

So far from what I have gotten out of the fourms is that it may be incompatibility with the rom firmware version with system 7.0
 

Marsu

Active member
I’ve seen this associated with an INIT (in particular, ones I’ve written!) behaving badly. I am not sure why. It is very random. Is it possible the MBDF is the first resource loaded after INIT time, so if you leave the resource manager or system heap in a bad state when your INIT exits, this is what you get?
would this be solved by a reinstall of an OS or is it a deeper problem with the card itself. I currently do not have a bluescsi or any other HDD emulator, would there be another way of getting software onto the mac
 

Phipli

Well-known member
would this be solved by a reinstall of an OS or is it a deeper problem with the card itself. I currently do not have a bluescsi or any other HDD emulator, would there be another way of getting software onto the mac
Does the floppy drive work?
 

Marsu

Active member
Does the floppy drive work?
The main system with the accelerator is a FDHD with a 1.4mb floppy drive, and has system 7.5.5 installed.

The other system is a regular SE with 2x 800k drives but the harddisk has no OS installed
Edit: to fully answer the question, I do not know if the drives work, I have a plastic test disk and the 800k drives were ejecting it after a few seconds
 

Phipli

Well-known member
The main system with the accelerator is a FDHD with a 1.4mb floppy drive, and has system 7.5.5 installed.

The other system is a regular SE with 2x 800k drives but the harddisk has no OS installed
Edit: to fully answer the question, I do not know if the drives work, I have a plastic test disk and the 800k drives were ejecting it after a few seconds
The plastic disk is for protecting the drive during shipping, they're not for testing drives. If it is what I think you mean.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
I’ve seen this associated with an INIT (in particular, ones I’ve written!) behaving badly. I am not sure why. It is very random. Is it possible the MBDF is the first resource loaded after INIT time, so if you leave the resource manager or system heap in a bad state when your INIT exits, this is what you get?

Oh, that sounds plausible. Sorry, OP, didn't mean to derail your thread...
 

Marsu

Active member
Oh, that sounds plausible. Sorry, OP, didn't mean to derail your thread...
you're good, I pretty much got my original questions answered, I now have to get a SCSI HDD emulator. I Got to first try with a fresh install of system 6 and see if its just the firmware compatibility and then find the old Radius software/firmware and drivers and attempt to update the card to support system 7.

If I get this working, then it will go into my second Macintosh SE and my main system will hold the Sonnet Allegro I have coming in. Speaking of drivers, are there any good sources anymore
 
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