MicroMac Power WorkStation - Did anyone ever buy one?

[olePigeon]

@KennyPowers If you ever decide to get rid of it, lemme know.

Incidentally, could we get pictures of the expander card, power supply, etc.? I was always curious how it all came together.

 

[jessenator]

That is legendary. Quite the upgrade... I had come across the same small web images of the thing not believing it went into production, but here we are. Thanks for sharing!

 

[KennyPowers]

@joshc @olePigeon @jessenator I started a thread about it on TinkerDifferent with more pictures and a scan of the manual.

 

[joshc]

@joshc @olePigeon @jessenator I started a thread about it on TinkerDifferent with more pictures and a scan of the manual.

Thanks for sharing this.

 

[olePigeon]

@KennyPowers Thanks, I'll check them out. I only have part of a PowerWorkstation. Just the metal part, but no bezel, power supply, or expander card. I did have 2 expander cards for similar products (DGR and Sonnet) that I think MicroMac was going to license or also sold. I got them in the original box identical to yours as part of a group buy a few of us did years ago for whatever remaining MicroMac items there were left.

 

[KennyPowers]

@KennyPowers Thanks, I'll check them out. I only have part of a PowerWorkstation. Just the metal part, but no bezel, power supply, or expander card. I did have 2 expander cards for similar products (DGR and Sonnet) that I think MicroMac was going to license or also sold. I got them in the original box identical to yours as part of a group buy a few of us did years ago for whatever remaining MicroMac items there were left.

I wonder if any of the PDS adapters purported to be included with the Power Workstation ever made it into the wild then. Mine didn't appear to come with one even though it's mentioned and pictured in the manual.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I was under the impression that the Accelerator was an option, not included in the baseline product. Product pricing seemed to indicate that when I last looked at this stuff. Installation in the WorkStation was outside the scope of the Accelerator's manual?

edit: yep pricing info is upthread:

MicroMac Power WorkStation - Did anyone ever buy one?

So MicroMac is sort of weird. I'm certain the company went out of business 15 years ago, but their website is still up and running. One of the products they apparently sold was the MicroMac Power WorkStation. This has to be one of the coolest LC upgrades to have ever existed. Anyone here...

68kmla.org

 

[KennyPowers]

I was under the impression that the Accelerator was an option, not included in the baseline product. Product pricing seemed to indicate that when I last looked at this stuff. Installation in the WorkStation was outside the scope of the Accelerator's manual?

edit: yep pricing info is upthread:

MicroMac Power WorkStation - Did anyone ever buy one?

So MicroMac is sort of weird. I'm certain the company went out of business 15 years ago, but their website is still up and running. One of the products they apparently sold was the MicroMac Power WorkStation. This has to be one of the coolest LC upgrades to have ever existed. Anyone here...

68kmla.org

Ya, the pricing doesn't suggest that the accelerator is included, but then the MicroMac website says this:

MicroMac LC/LCII Power WorkStation

"Includes 32MHz 68030 ThunderCache accelerator for increased performance up to 220%"

and the manual says this:



So I dunno. Seems like maybe it never really made it to the "fully-fledged product" status

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

It probably did, but they likely unbundled it to better recoup development costs? It's a very cool product for expansion alone, even without the multi-slot adapter which I think was probably unbundled as well. That would explain the $199 base price. Then again:

"The new upgrade chassis includes a specially modified MicroMac ThunderCache accelerator with a dual-slot PDS adapter and internal bays to accommodate . . ."

"Base Unit - $199 - provides chassis, ThunderCache accelerator and dual-slot PDS adapter"

I'm inclined to read that as "Chassis with adapter for dual PDS and ThunderCache accelerator." Aux power supply was not included.

Base price for the empty shell appears to be $99 on that page and $199 with adapter/accelerator goodies included? Dunno wording seems equivocal and well within the bounds of "not responsible for misprints in advertising/web site" as that happens even today. Back then engineers weren't much involved in web site design/content and the web folks weren't much involved with the technical side and needed fingers and toes to do arithmatic.

If something sounds too good to be true, it is. ISTR checking the accelerator pricing which skewed the package pricing way out of line. But I'd have to go back into the mail order adverts again, that isn't happening today.

LOL! "Upthread" was 11 years ago. MacUser Archive was put up in the meantime, wonder if they reviewed it?

Sorry if this is rambling, makes little sense, down with Covid ATM.