OrangePC Card on IIfx

[Concorde1993]

Found the peripheral kit for the 386 card here

Seller is asking $89.99 (which I'm guessing is in US dollars). Seems tempting, although there appears to be no way of contacting the seller (besides joining their mailing list) and I'm unsure if this peripheral kit is compatible with my 486 card. The ad makes reference to a floppy disk drive controller chip, but I do not see the cable for the Apple 5.25" drive.

Is this too good to be true? What say you, 68K brethren?

 

[jeremywork]

Found the peripheral kit for the 386 card here

Seller is asking $89.99 (which I'm guessing is in US dollars). Seems tempting, although there appears to be no way of contacting the seller (besides joining their mailing list) and I'm unsure if this peripheral kit is compatible with my 486 card. The ad makes reference to a floppy disk drive controller chip, but I do not see the cable for the Apple 5.25" drive.

Is this too good to be true? What say you, 68K brethren?

This kit would suit the original Orange386, which had two ISA slots (one 16-bit, one 8) and an additional socket for the disk controller (accessed via the octopus breakout cable.)

I still have not found confirmation on what your model of card is called. It's 386-based (though some of the late 386-based chips used '486' branding) and it's a later, faster model which may have been sold as "OrangePC 200" alongside the higher spec 486 boards, or it may have assumed the Orange386 name from the prior card. I think the ports on the back are DB25 parallel and a serial DIN connector.

 

[mg.man]

the original Orange386

What a monster of a card!

 

[Concorde1993]

I still have not found confirmation on what your model of card is called.

I don't know either. You'd think with all the real estate that's on the card Orange Micro would have etched in the model number somewhere.

This kit would suit the original Orange386

So I'm guessing this is a hard pass?

 

[Unknown_K]

I have 2 of those cards, I think they are 386 S/X chips. Anyway, there are 2 sockets one for the floppy controller and one for something else and I think mine each have one chip installed.

Using the ISA expansion slots pretty much means giving up the Nubus slots next to it so I never rigged anything up in mine. The cards work well enough with the Macs built in video. Mine came with no cables as most get lost or trashed.

 

[Concorde1993]

Haven't done much with the OrangePC card in awhile. I'm currently on the lookout for a Sound Blaster card that's more in line with the 486 processor on the card (the AWE64 card I have works, but I agree with Byrd's previous assessment that the drivers are just too complex for DOS 6.1/Win 3.1).

I would like to obtain a complete boxed Sound Blaster set. Some (rather expensive) options on eBay at the moment:
(1) Sound Blaster 2.0 Deluxe (Sealed)
(2) Sound Blaster 2.0 (CT1350B) Late Revision
(3) Sound Blaster 16 Value ISA (SB-2770)

Thoughts?

 

[Byrd]

Also have a look at some of the Adlib and PicoGUS replicas being made, they are small and also good options for the era.

I ended up getting an 486 OrangePC card, no ISA slot so just got one of those $20 Covox parallel port clone devices, for low fi sound it’s pretty good. Using it in a IIci and finding full screen 320 X 200 video very slow unless I run it quarter size. Am unsure if that’s the IIci video limitations and may try it in another Mac soon.

 

[Concorde1993]

I ended up getting an 486 OrangePC card

Did it come with the unobtainium breakout cable?

 

[Byrd]

No this is the 290 which doesn’t need a cable, uses onboard video and only has COM and LPT ports along with PCMCIA slot.

 

[Concorde1993]

Bought a sealed (NOS in the box) Sound Blaster SB-2770 card. Worked out to just under $300 CAD with shipping and eBay's "tax." Came with all the original documentation and software on 3.5" floppies. It's designed to run on DOS 5.0 and above and Windows 3.1 (I have DOS 6.1 and Win 3.1).

The card appears to work, and I was able to fix a previous issue where Win 3.1 would freeze on startup after typing "WIN" in the File-Run command in DOS. However, in comparison to my AWE64 card, the sound output is very low, and I need to run my external computer speakers at max volume in order to get some sound. There is mention in the owner's manual of a volume control directly on the SB-2770 card, but I don't see it.

 

[Concorde1993]

Fixed the sound issue by setting the master volume to max and increasing the gain using Sound Blaster's Creative Mixer software:

This is what the SB-2770 looks like inside the IIfx connected to the OrangePC card:

One thing I've noticed is the amount of hard disk space that has been utilized after installing DOS, Win 3.1, the Sound Blaster software and WordPerfect Presentations. I created a 50MB partition for OrangePC on the IIfx's 230MB hard drive, which I figured would be more than adequate. However, according to File Manager, I only have 11.8MB of storage available. Oddly, the memory figures are different when I open an application and check its properties. Maybe I'm misinterpreting something?

 

[Byrd]

Hang aren't you comparing disk free space with free memory? Anyhow looks like a great setup. Really love these cards, the Covox sound thing I'm using for sound in mine is super low fi but fine for MOD playback and basic game sound.

 

[Concorde1993]

Hang aren't you comparing disk free space with free memory?

What I'm attempting to figure out is why File Manager in Win 3.1 states I only have 11.8MB of memory left in my 50MB OrangePC partition. I only have 4 programs installed - DOS 6.1, Win 3.1, WP Presentations 2.0, and Sound Blaster 16 software for the SB-2770. I doubt those 4 programs are consuming nearly 40MB of memory in my 50MB partition. What is equally odd is the value of memory available increases to 19.4MB when I open an application (i.e., "Solitaire"). Could one of these figures pertain to the 10MB of RAM that is installed on the OrangePC card?

It shouldn't be hard to know the correct amount of space used in my 50MB partition and what is available. I can do that on my W520 running Win 10 by checking Local Disk Properties just like so:

Anyhow looks like a great setup.

Thanks. Sure beats using SoftWindows. I just wish I could find the original breakout cable for this card to connect my Apple PC 5.25" drive.

Here's another beauty shot:

 

[nathall]

You're confusing hard disk space with memory (RAM). Two different things. The 19,438KB free is how much RAM (physical + VM), analogous to what you are shown on a Mac under About This Macintosh.... The File Manager value of 11.8MB would be the correct value for free disk space.

EDIT: But I agree, 38.2MB seems like a lot of disk space for just that stuff. I'm guessing the difference is being taken up by the Windows 3.1 VM swap file.

 

[Byrd]

Thanks. Sure beats using SoftWindows. I just wish I could find the original breakout cable for this card to connect my Apple PC 5.25" drive.

Nice. Can I ask does your (later) 486 card do 320 x 200 DOS games at full screen at a decent speed? My Orange 290 card in a Mac IIci struggles at displaying anything full screen - a slide show - apart from Windows 3.1 at 640 x 480 is acceptable, only resizing games to quarter screen are games relatively smooth.

 

[Concorde1993]

You're confusing hard disk space with memory (RAM).

Not intentional of course. I wasn't sure what the 19,438KB value was referring to (although I figured RAM was involved somehow) but you've clarified that so thanks.

I'm guessing the difference is being taken up by the Windows 3.1 VM swap file.

I'll look into disabling virtual memory and see if it frees up some disk space in my partition. Interesting tidbit - my Win 3.1 software box states I need (at the minimum) an HD with 6MB of storage available to install the whole OS (10MB recommended).

Can I ask does your (later) 486 card do 320 x 200 DOS games at full screen at a decent speed?

Haven't installed any DOS games as the ones I have for DOS/3.1 are either on 5.25" floppies or CD-ROM (no 3.5" floppies unless its something mundane like WP or Lotus 1-2-3). It's unfortunate that the SuperDrive can't directly read Amiga floppies (although I've heard of a program called CrossMac - not sure if it works in System 7). I have tons of games for the Amiga 2000/2500. When time permits, I'll download some DOS games online using my ThinkPad A21M and transfer them to 3.5" floppy. Any recommended sites?

 

[Concorde1993]

Switched off virtual memory in Win 3.1 - not much free space was added (File Manager now states 14.8MB of space is available as opposed to 11.8MB). I have 6.1MB of usable RAM (Win 3.1 uses around 4MB). So something is hogging a lot of disk space - still need to look into that.