My SE/30: w/ Turbo 040, ROM-inator, Ethernet and 8.1

[pb3623]

Since I am not too shy about asking for help with my myriad Quadra issues, one of the things that has been going great is my SE/30 (edit - until last week!)

Here's my setup:

SE/30 recapped running System 7.5.3, Mac OS 8.1 and A/UX 3.1.1 (the latter requires me to disable the 040 card)

SCSI2SD (8 GB)

128 MB RAM ("new" 30-pin all purchased from MemoryX.com)

BMOW ROM-inator II SIMM w/ Turbo040 driver courtesy of @olePigeon 

Bolle's "short" PDS adapter

Asanté MacCon SE/30

Daystar Digital Turbo040 @33 MHz

On my wish list:

Some soldering skills to put a right-angle adapter on my "tall" Bolle adapter so I can add my Pivot IIsi (or Pivot SE/30 but don't think that will fit) for external video

A working ROM image to include what I have plus the ROM disk driver (so, 68000 assembly skills)

I'm really hard-pressed to come up with anything else until one of the geniuses here builds that NuBus breakout box.

I took the pics a couple of weeks ago... I could leave it on for hours on end (1-bit B&W but I prefer After Dark, Star Trek:TNG) but literally, in the last few days I'm getting a slow death chime and the Simasimac. I'm hoping it's just a loose RAM SIMM or the very-finicky ROM SIMM needs to be shimmed up again. I'm not too worried unless it's something crazy like the power supply or logic board fuse.

If nothing else - I can look at the pictures and sigh!

Thanks for letting me share! This particular SE/30 is in great physical shape with very little discoloring and is really my favorite.

 

[ktkm]

Please, tell me more about the added ROM support with the Turbo 040 drive! Is it 32 bit clean?

 

[pb3623]

Please, tell me more about the added ROM support with the Turbo 040 drive! Is it 32 bit clean?

Yes, it's 32-bit clean. Here is the ROM image (thanks again to OlePigeon): olePigeonPatchedROM-normalchecksum_disabled.bin - so it's the 040 driver, memory test disabled and some other features that you won't see with the accelerator installed (again courtesy of OlePigeon - his custom boot chime and icon are pretty awesome). So give it a try with your programmer. Just make sure the SIMM capacity is correct and write to the entire thing.

Now I'd really like to get one of my Turbo601s working. I have both the 66 MHz and 100 MHz models, the latter is in my IIci. 

It's also a bit of a bummer that, even though it's a full 68040, running basically on par (speed and computationally) with a Q950, I have to disable it to boot into A/UX. So there's two projects I'd love to have the skills to get lost in... 

 

[ktkm]

Yes, it's 32-bit clean. Here is the ROM image (thanks again to OlePigeon): olePigeonPatchedROM-normalchecksum_disabled.bin - so it's the 040 driver, memory test disabled and some other features that you won't see with the accelerator installed (again courtesy of OlePigeon - his custom boot chime and icon are pretty awesome). So give it a try with your programmer. Just make sure the SIMM capacity is correct and write to the entire thing.

That sounds great, and thank you for the DL! So nice of OlePigeon! Is the onboard ROM, on the Turbo 040, bypassed or removed? Unfortunate I don’t have the programmer. :-(

Now I'd really like to get one of my Turbo601s working. I have both the 66 MHz and 100 MHz models, the latter is in my IIci. 

Nice! Are you planning to test it with the same ROM? (Please, let me know if you get it working. I need an excuse to get hold of a Turbo 601).

It's also a bit of a bummer that, even though it's a full 68040, running basically on par (speed and computationally) with a Q950, I have to disable it to boot into A/UX. So there's two projects I'd love to have the skills to get lost in... 

Do you think its possible to choose 030 cache mode during boot-up?

Sorry for all the questions, but this got me really excited!

Btw. The Artmix PSU made my system very stable and the graphics are crisper than ever.

 

[pb3623]

Sorry. I thought I read in another thread that you had a programmer - or maybe you just have the ROM-inator II SIMM itself. I'm not sure the ROM image bypasses anything on the 040 card; rather, maybe it rearranges to whatever the accelerator expects to see before patching but I don't have even a rudimentary grasp of the boot ROM process to know. 

Do you think its possible to choose 030 cache mode during boot-up?

Haven't tried that. It must be related to a CPU check during A/UX Startup (the 7.0.1 MacPartition boots up fine). What I once read on comp.unix.aux indicated that DayStar had A/UX compatibility on their to-do list but never got around to it. Not that it can't be done, in my opinion... DayStar didn't seem to envision their accelerators being used in SE/30 at all and look at us today.

Btw. The Artmix PSU made my system very stable and the graphics are crisper than ever.

Tell me more?

 

[ktkm]

Tell me more?

I had som freeze-issues with my PowerCache (P34 33MHz), Ethernet card and Twin Spark adapter, and I have a Turbo 040 33MHz in a IIcx, that I wanted in to try out in my SE/30. So I decided to give the Stratos Technology PSU, from Artmix (Japan), a try. I’m not sure if it actually fixed the issue, since I already had swapped the P34 to a P33 50MHz. However, it did wonders for my display, pixel crispness and geometry is more even than ever!

Artmix:

http://www.artmix.com/hps_2009_EVO.html

 

[JDW]

I have an SE/30, a Daystar Digital Turb040 running at 40MHz, and a Stratos TS Adapter:





I have been mulling the purchase of a ROMinator II MEGA and programmer.  Is the hacked ROM created by olePigeon  available for download, and if so what is the link?

Because I don’t yet own a ROMinator II MEGA and programmer, I would like to ask a second question.  My reason to buy the larger memory sized MEGA in the first place is so I can customize it by putting some of my favorite apps on it. Can I take the hacked ROM from olePigeon and put my favorite apps on it and then burn that using the programmer?  Or is that hacked ROM not modifiable? It’s just a Disk Copy disk image (*.img), right? 

Thank you 

 

[pb3623]

Hi, @JDW -

Check my comment, the 4th one above yours and you'll see the ROM link (which I PM'ed you as well). I alluded to the challenge in building a custom ROM AND a custom bootable disk image. I found it's not as simple as concatenating the ROM + the disk .IMG and ta-da! You have a bootable ROM disk. There is something in the ROM that serves as a disk driver and points to the correct offset where the IMG starts. (check out this link for details). With three small kids at home, I just haven't had the time to develop assembly programming skills but I'm sure it can be done...

After all, if a "base" 32-bit clean ROM can boot off an embedded disk image, then it should just be a matter of figuring out if/how everything gets displaced with the 040 ROM added to the top of the stack.

I own a programmer, a 4 MB ROM-inator II and an 8 MB MEGA. I bought the MEGA for the same reason you're considering it; to add additional apps, mostly for diagnostics and I wanted to at some point consider putting the A/UX MacPartition on it - the 4 MB version doesn't really have the space to add Disk Utility without doing some rearranging but I had a folder on a separate partition called "Copy Me to RAM Disk" that contained Disk Utility, Snooper, etc. that I could copy over and run once I booted from RAM Disk (another option the SIMM gives you) and with 128 MB RAM, I wasn't using that much memory for anything else.

The MEGA is only what, $23 more than the 4 MB SIMM... so you may want to just go for it. I don't think the 4 MB is prohibitively expensive ($36) if you started with that and found yourself outgrowing it (just toss it in a IIci or even a Quadra 700/900 to disable the memory check) 

Btw - I don't mean to sound like an expert - I'm far from it - I only really started building my childhood collection last July but these are things I've learned along the way these last several months. As always, YMMV!

 

[JDW]

I just wrote you another PM, but since your content is a bit different here I will reply to that too.  Specifically with regard to the page you linked for me here:

http://synack.net/~bbraun/macromboot.html

To begin, the video on that web page has to be able the worst video I've seen in ages.  Not even sure what it's trying to show, and even if I did know, it doesn't show it very clearly at all!

The excerpt of interest from that BBRAUN web page is this:

To use your own 1.5MB disk image with the driver, you can create one using your favorite emulator, minivmac and BasiliskII have both been known to work. Make sure the disk image is the way you want it (including the desktop file being correct, the window positions and sizing, etc.). Then append it to your modified ROM. I use cat(1). Once you've got the whole image ready, program it into your ROM SIMM with dougg3's ROM SIMM programmer.

Above that paragraph he has 3 different *.bin files you can download, 2 of which do NOT have a disk image built-in.  So I guess you would choose one of those WITHOUT the disk image and concatenate that with your disk image (containing your favorite apps, etc.), and then concatenate that properly for burning to Steve's ROM-inator II MEGA as per the instructions given in his tutorial here:

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/07/22/rom-disk-creation-with-rom-inator-ii/

Specifically keeping your eyes on the MacOS X Terminal command line given in the "Create the ROM Contents File" section.  The only thing is, that would concatenate an *.fc8 file with a *.rom file, and makes no mention if concatenation of a *.bin file is supported or even possible.

Compounding all this is the fact you received a *.bin file from olePigeon who had originally obtained it from "DougG3" Brown, the individual who created the original ROM-inator tool on which Steve licensed, changed and build his own ROM-inator II.  In other words, not only do you not really know what is inside that *.bin file you received from olePigeon, it is also unclear if you can concatenate that *.bin file with your own Disk Image file, even if the *.bin file is found to lack its own Disk Image.

I think we need either Steve Chamberlin (from BMOW) or the *.bin file creator DougG3 Brown to directly comment on this so as for us to know what to do.

But to repeat the main point of my recent PM to you...

My intent is to have a programmable ROM that performs as nicely as my IIsi ROM currently does in my SE/30; namely, enabling 32-bit addressing and allowing me to boot into 7.6.1 and OS 8.1 (with patched System file) and also providing other benefits like allowing me to add some of my favorite apps into that ROM SIMM (which is why I plan to purchase the larger sized MEGA).  But if I can add yet another benefit to all that goodness by enabling compatibility with my Daystar Turbo 040 accelerator too, then that would be perfect icing on this cake!  Disabling RAM checking on cold boot would be welcomed too, as that can take ages when you have 128MB RAM on an SE/30.

 

[bigmessowires]

I think you need to ask olePigeon for details about that patched ROM file. Does it even contain the ROM disk driver? If not, then it won't matter what you append to it.

After all, if a "base" 32-bit clean ROM can boot off an embedded disk image,

The base (unmodified) ROM code can not boot from an embedded ROM disk image. That's accomplished with a ROM disk driver, which was originally written by Rob Braun, and was cleverly patched into the startup routines of the stock IIsi ROM code that's the basis for the ROM-inator II. Since olePigeon's version is apparently based on an entirely different ROM, it would need to have the ROM disk driver patched into it again. This is a fairly complex task, involving disassembling and reverse-engineering the startup routines, and finding a place where an extra driver can be added without affecting anything else.

FYI *.bin just means something is a binary file, but doesn't really tell you what kind of data it is. From the context here, it sounds like it's the code for the ROM routines (aka base ROM image), as opposed to the contents of a ROM disk.

The ROM disk driver included included with the default ROM-inator II was modified from Rob Braun's version, to add support for compressed disk images (*.fc8) and other changes. So Rob's instructions may not apply. But who knows what version of the ROM disk driver might be included in olePigeon's ROM, if any. If it is the ROM disk driver I made, then the correct method for appending a ROM disk image is described in the tutorial on the bigmessowires.com web site that was linked above.

Maybe just try appending a standard Mac disk image (like a .dsk file, uncompressed) to the olePigeon ROM, program it to the SIMM, and see if it works? If not, then the olePigeon version probably doesn't support a ROM disk.

 

[dougg3]

I made olePigeon's Turbo 040 ROM image. There's nothing really special about it -- it's a stock IIci ROM with a couple of minor changes. I disabled the ROM checksum test and gave him a custom startup chime (I think) and happy mac logo. I did all of this before bbraun's ROM disk driver existed, so it doesn't support the ROM disk driver. A stock IIci or IIsi ROM would probably also have worked with the Turbo 040, as far as I know. A lot of this was documented in my original "Another IIci ROM hack" thread which mysteriously disappeared after the forum upgrade. :-(

I don't have the time these days to play with Turbo 040 compatibility, and I would be a bad person for developing it anyway because I don't have one. But I will share what I know in case someone else wants to try to figure it out. The Turbo 040 patches the Mac's ROM, so you have to be careful not to change anything in locations that the Turbo 040 patches. I don't know if any of the Turbo 040's patches overlap with the ROM disk driver, because I did it before the ROM disk driver existed. Someone can pretty easily see the locations that the Turbo 040 patches by dumping the Mac's ROM with and without the Turbo 040 installed and comparing the two.

Also, the Turbo 040 maps its own ROM to some of the space directly after the Mac's 512 KB ROM, which is going to overlap with the start of the ROM disk that gets appended to the end of the ROM if you're trying to use bbraun's ROM disk driver. So if someone were to fix it to work with the Turbo 040, they'd need to change the ROM disk driver to look for the ROM disk after the Turbo 040's ROM as well (I'm recalling the Turbo 040's ROM is 128 KB in size, but I can't remember for sure). So you would have to make the ROM disk a little bit smaller because of that. We'd also have to hope that the Turbo 040 does not repeat its ROM in the ROM space afterward (where the ROM disk usually goes), because that would waste a large chunk of space in the area of memory where the ROM disk usually resides.

 

[JDW]

A lot of this was documented in my original "Another IIci ROM hack" thread which mysteriously disappeared after the forum upgrade. :-(

That's another reason I've not posted here in a few years.  I was seething after drive failures and upgrades deleted years of valuable dialog in the past.  It's shocking and unforgivable that none of that was properly backed up.  Even today I was searching the forum and was getting zero results for my rather general keyword searches.  Grrrr.

Anyway...

I believe you mean that you disabled the "RAM" checksum, right?

I had forgotten that IIci ROMs were compatible with the SE/30.  Like many others here, I had always thought it was either the IIfx or IIsi we had to choose from to get a 32-bit clean ROM with full software compatibility:







dougg3, would you be able to "make time" to develop a proper Turbo040 compatible ROM for the SE/30 if someone were to ship you a Turbo040 and TS Adapter for use on your SE/30?   (For only a few months, for scientific research purposes, of course.)  You might then sell your handiwork for $5 or $10 a pop to recoup your time spent on the project.  I might even be able to include a IIsi ROM for you to compare with the IIci ROM, for the sake of compatibility.  Obviously, if you absolutely positively cannot make time no matter what fancy parts are shipped to you, then just say so and I will drop the idea.

What I seek (and no doubt many other SE/30 owners too) is the aforementioned Turbo040-compatible (but would still work fine even without a Turbo040 installed) *.rom file, without any disk image added.  I could then create my own disk image of useful apps, compress that to *.fc8, and the concatenate the Turbo040-compatible *.rom with my *.fc8 compressed disk image to create a *.rom file I could burn to BMOW's ROM-inator MEGA (8MB):

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/07/22/rom-disk-creation-with-rom-inator-ii/

 

[Verault]

Sorry I am late to join this thread, but I am intrigued by your amazing SE. I still dont understand how you got OS 8.1 on there?! how do you have 128MB of RAM? I just picked up a total systems cpu upgrade board with a 25mhz cpu:

I didnt know it was possible to pack that much RAM in an SE, I assume I could put a 30mhz cpu in my board but ill deal with 25mhz for now.

 

[Bolle]

The SE/30 is different from the SE.

In the SE you indeed top out at a 030 accelerator with a maximum of 16MB RAM on the accelerator itself.

 

[Verault]

ok good to know, I wasnt aware of the difference.

 

[pb3623]

Personally, if I had a choice of ONE effort to dedicate my time to, (getting the ROM disk working on the SIMM I have that's already working with the Turbo 040, versus working on Turbo 601 compatibility) I would take the latter but that's because I have two Turbo 601s... obviously, if I didn't, I'd be in the first camp. I'm out of town on travel this week with a little peace & quiet in the evenings so I'll gather everything I have and start a new thread, perhaps even including past posts (and they're out there) where folks talked about things like SE/30 + Turbo 601 but the thread went stale.

With enough work dedicated to this project, I think it's be pretty cool to build a UI that, based on checked boxes, you could go through a workflow to build a burnable ROM file based on machine type (i.e., SE/30, Quadra 950), desired options, and bootable ROM disk contents. Basically what has been up to this point, but scripting what goes where (offsets) based on selected params and maybe even test it in Basilisk before writing to SIMM. 

 

[olePigeon]

I didn't make the ROM, dougg3 did it for me.  I really couldn't tell you how it works, other than it does.

Edit:  Just realized dougg3 replied to the thread.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

With enough work dedicated to this project, I think it's be pretty cool to build a UI that, based on checked boxes, you could go through a workflow to build a burnable ROM file based on machine type (i.e., SE/30, Quadra 950), desired options, and bootable ROM disk contents. Basically what has been up to this point, but scripting what goes where (offsets) based on selected params and maybe even test it in Basilisk before writing to SIMM. 

That sounds like a project that would make a lot of us very happy! Setting up customized baseline ROM disk boot images for my SE/30/PowerCache, IIsi/Rocket and IIfx would be an ideal situation. Having such images floating around to be shared with each other would be amazing.

Hrmmm, how many installer disk images might be fit onto the ROM-inator II MEGA SIMM?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

That's another reason I've not posted here in a few years.  I was seething after drive failures and upgrades deleted years of valuable dialog in the past.  It's shocking and unforgivable that none of that was properly backed up.  Even today I was searching the forum and was getting zero results for my rather general keyword searches.  Grrrr.

I all but gave up on the search feature here many years ago. Google has had its bots here forever, so I use them.

Grrr. +1