PCI SATA card for Blue & White?

[trag]

Acard also made PATA and SATA PCI cards which worked in OS9 and OSX.    AEC-6280M, AEC-6880M, AEC-6290M, AEC-6890M.

However, some of their "SATA" cards appear to be the same as their PATA cards, but with a PATA-SATA bridge chip onboard.

 

[mraroid]

However, before looking at IDE, I"d go back on ebay and search "sil3112" once more because I did and found two different cards. Both should be flashable to work in Macs. They ship from Israel, so it's worth looking a little further afield, but it's not strictly speaking entirely impossible to find that card if you want it.

OK.  I missed the cards from Israel.  Because they have the sil3112 chip, is it theoretically possible to flash them so that one could boot to OS 0 as well as OSX?

mraroid

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Absolutely, but that's not compute speed, that's disk read/write speed and random seeks are critical for that.

That was precisely my point, there are tradeoffs in everything about computing. Disk intensive applications can make a solid state upgrade make a computer seem to fly as in some operations with big files in Photoshop, but when it comes to applying filters you're still CPU bound.  You won't see a lot of overall improvement in anything but snappier load times for mundane tasks.

It's all in the applications. You pick the software you need to run, that narrows your platform choices and then you choose the appropriate model to run those core applications most efficiently. Most folks have always started with a platform and model choice second strategy which works well enough for running generic crap like Office, but that strategy can fall flat on its face when you're talking about serious applications for doing specific types of work..

 

[Cory5412]

<same thing I've said in several threads over the last few months>

We probably, as a community, need to stop presuming that everyone who joins the site is doing the same thing we are.

We can gather from the context of mraroid's other threads that the primary need he has for this machine is as a bridge machine - ironically, to do something his vintage Mac already can, just, a little faster. I believe that much is directly stated in this thread, but the original context is here:





I would be extremely surprised if, legitimately, there were more people using vintage Macs for "pro" work than there are for playing around in clarisworks or using them as, essentially, vintage mac gaming boxes.

You're right, we should be checking, but once we find out what's actually needed, "just whatever" will probably prove itself to be fine in most cases. I pulled out an iMac G3/400 the other day and put some of my normal office, graphics, web authoring and server admin tools on it and it's just as fine at everything I need to do as my 1GHz PowerBook is.

And, in terms of considering the application, IOPS-over-speed is probably only relevant to "lots of single small-ish files" types of workflows. Namely, photo sorting. If you open an image in photoshop and go to town on it, that's not going to be super disk heavy task anyway, unless you don't have enough RAM. 

Another consideration here, is, like, different pro tasks are going to benefit from different storage configurations. If I was kitting out a blue-and-white for Final Cut Pro 3 again, I'd probably put a big spinning SATA disk in it, for capture and editing, and use a disk defragmenting program on it, and then augment it with a smaller boot disk, leave the original boot disk in (if it's working fine) or use (optionally) use an SSD for boot. This is because DV capture and playback in Final Cut and other contemporary programs is largely not at all random, not is any modern-ish hard disk going to struggle to provide the needed data rates, and so I'd take the convenience of 500gb+ of space over the cost of an SSD, which, again, won't help that particular workflow.

For day-to-day stuff, on vintage Macs, SSDs make it nicer, for sure, I won't ever dispute that - but, I dispute the idea that they're "needed" on machines that can run regular disks you can still buy, or where the supply of, say, reasonably sized IDE disks that should work fine, isn't nearly as dried up as it is for some of the older SCSI Macs.

 

[Cory5412]

Just to separate this specific point out: with Photoshop, the specific things you're doing and particular parts of an overall image management workflow rely on random disk i/o - slinging pixels in a single specific file will likely demand more of your system's memory than of its disk. 768+ megs of RAM for most high end Macs from 1995 and  newer is something we can pretty easily get our hands on today, and if you *are* doing that kind of thing, specifically, I'd say that's your first upgrade.

Photo management is harder on disks than photo editing. 

 

[Cory5412]

One more thought: Photoshop, Final Cut, and a lot of these "late OS 9 era programs" really do benefit from.... just being run on OS X instead.

OS X is a much better OS and by and large, even if you give up, IDK, a couple percentage of render time or (a lot) of available megs of RAM for crunching an image in photoshop (but it's ok because OS X can run and use 2GB of RAM in the G4s that support it) you gain multiprocessing, better i/o code, better graphics code, real graphics acceleration support, better graphics accelerators, better networking code, and so on.

But at that point, and this is largely why I don't often engage in the actual act of using vintage Macs with Mac OS X on them, your best machine is one you can go buy on apple.com today, because, I guarantee you that $999 2015 MacBook Air is a better pixel pusher than even a quad g5.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I thought he was inviting a general discussion about how disk I/O changes might play out, he certainly was opening that up when he brought up IDE and the G3.

I make no assumptions about what anyone is doing with their collections. I'd hate to think they were used only for gaming, but I'm sure many of them are. The only folks I know of offhand doing "real life" stuff under OS9 would be the Digital Audio Workstation gang over at OS9lives. Even there I guess it's likely more amateur level music production than serious professional work done under severe budget constraints. Somebody like @Danamania may play with pixels on her toys with versions of Photoshop that bring back memories and for love of the zone, though I also doubt many others would be.

 

[nglevin]

I'll put out there that on Mac OS 9, given how much RAM you are probably not using if you've got anything close to a gigabyte, you can solve most every disk I/O problem cheaply and efficiently with RAM DISK.

I can only think of a few situations where disk I/O is a problem on anything post-Nubus, post Mac II and Quadra era Apple hardware (linking stage of compiling apps, streaming video, database operations that aren't backed up by strategic use of indexes). None of which are activities that Mac OS 9 is likely to do today.

EDIT: Recalling the original reason for the bridge Mac, being to use a web browser. You could do as I've done on a Quadra and put the web browser's cache directory in a location on a RAM disk. I've never really felt like this was useful on a G3, where I have Mac OS 9 running off a CompactFlash card connected directly through ATA to the logic board.

 

[Cory5412]

I thought he was inviting a general discussion about how disk I/O changes might play out,

Perhaps. However, IDE and the G3 are being brought up because OP has been working on a cluster of threads fixing up this machine for use as a bridge Mac.

I can only think of a few situations where disk I/O is a problem on anything post-Nubus, post Mac II and Quadra era Apple hardware

I largely agree - day-to-day on most things Quadra and newer with their stock disks is "fine". SSDs or CF and SD can improve a few different things.

I would argue largely that disks, while "good enough" for a lot of this time, have absolutely been the bottleneck in many scenarios and day-to-day, swapping a bit (or even a lot) of transfer speed for zero seeks 

you can solve most every disk I/O problem cheaply and efficiently with RAM DISK.

I'll be perfectly honest: I don't usually think about this, mostly because I almost never actually intentionally bother to max out my systems, but it would be a good brute-force workaround to a situation where you're running an older version of $PROGRAM that expects to be able to use a disk directly as a cache spot.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Perhaps. However, IDE and the G3 are being brought up because OP has been working on a cluster of threads fixing up this machine for use as a bridge Mac.

In that cluster he also mentioned that one of his goals is to play around in OS9, hence discussing overall system performance outside the realm of setting up a dedicated bridge machine. I believe that requirement was in response to our discussing his question about the last/most recent machine that supported OS9. Since playing around in OS9 on the latest G4 machines that will run it is my thing, my advice in that even for his B&W might be appreciated for such. []

 

[mraroid]

I make no assumptions about what anyone is doing with their collections.

And I appreciate that about you.
 
It is true that the main reason I bought this old broken down B&W was to buy a faster machine than my Mystic, so I could down load files for my Mystic.
 
But I have also stated many times, and it seems to have been ignored, that I am playing with this B&W to learn.  OS 9.2.2 is new to me.  And for the most part, any OSX is new to me. I am interested in hardware as well as software.  In my group of friends, I am the *computer guy*.  When a computer breaks, I am the one to fix it.  Most of my friends are PC users but two are Mac folk.  I have only done simple Mac repair for them because I know so little about apple computers in the modern age.  By modern, I mean Apple hardware and software made after around 1993.  I can fix simple problems for them like clone software onto solid state drives, but that is about it.  I do know PC boxes well.  When they break I usually fix them and then do two more things - I make them run cooler and I make them run faster. 
 
For me, working on the B&W is like going to Macintosh school.  I am interested in how far I can take the hardware and software.  I do not play any computer games. I will probably do things that many think are not needed (and rightfully so) like putting a fan on the heat sink.  And yes, I want to learn the speed difference between running hard drives on the internal IDE bus, vs a PCI card with IDE support.  I want to see what speed differences I see if i install a PCI SATA card.  Am I doing this to run games faster???  No!  I do not own any games.  I am *learning*  That is my hobby.
 
I think learning is the hobby of many here.  So when I ask a question like "Anyone know of a PCI IDE controller card?  Rather then get a helpful answer, I get feedback like "Why do you want that?".  "Try the internal bus.".  "You will not  get enough of a speed boost, so do not waste you money" I suspect folks are trying to help.  But I wish people would just understand that I am interested in learning, and this is a hobby of mine. 
 
The upshot -
 
1) I enjoy playing with my Color Classic Mystic and I am happy I will soon have a machine that can down load files faster then the Mystic can.  I am *thrilled* to learn about AppleTalk and how it works.
 
2) I want to learn about the 20 year old hardware and software of the B&W. 
 
mraroid
 
 

 

[Cory5412]

My apologies if I've created any confusion, made it more difficult to get access to the information you need, slowed progress, or anything of that nature. It certainly wasn't my intent.

I suspect folks are trying to help.  But I wish people would just understand that I am interested in learning, and this is a hobby of mine. 

This goes both ways. My frustration with this set of threads and ones like it is that the posters involved usually have the appearance of asking for advice, getting it, and then not wanting to follow the advice. Especially because the original request pertained essentially to needing a bridge mac, and things related to getting that Mac running.

Again, my apologies for the misunderstanding.

This is an issue I've been thinking about a lot lately, because different misunderstandings on these lines have come up, well, probably for the entirety of human civilization, but in particular, as long as people have been asking for technical advice.

Given that most people just want "good enough" or to refresh something that's broken, and  for people looking at SSDs or adding high capacity disks, SATA *is* the most straightforward way to do that, it might be better to include that you're specifically looking to experiment/document things. This is a tough problem because most people who buy SATA SSDs for their vintage Macs would be inclined to put them on a SATA card if they knew it was possible. The main reason not to is if all of the slots in a given machine are already full.

As to why I say I don't really think a faster IDE controller will be good enough: The reason SSDs make computers feel faster is because they reduce disk seek times to zero. Regardless of how they're attached. If you have an SSD on the internal bus and it still feels slow, then  my hypothesis is that nothing but the absolute best (a SATA card) will be sufficient.

That said, the other thing you have to understand is that Classic Mac OS is a huge flaming pile and that for the most part, things were slow, unresponsive, crashy, and just plain weird even when these things were new. These issues are minimized by having better hardware, but they are still there.

And, this gets to another issue: there are different types of reasons to use any of these machines. For someone who jumps right in and buys a modern SSD for their Mac fist, you kind of presume that their goal isn't strictly speaking to recreate the original experience of that particular machine or even an approximation of that experience, which is where most of my vintage Macs are. (Mostly because that's how they tend to come.) If you (or anyone) want(s) to do both things, that's fine, but it's probably worth listing more context in your question.

Again, my apologies for the misunderstanding and (it sounds like) unwanted redirection. It's difficult to understand an updated or changed intent that, well, isn't ever mentioned.

If you'd like, let me know and I can stop replying to these threads.

 

[mraroid]

 Since playing around in OS9 on the latest G4 machines that will run it is my thing, my advice in that even for his B&W might be appreciated for such. []

So true Trash.  I think the B&W will run 9.2.2 just fine.  And at some point, the B&W willl get a Yikes! motherboard update with a 500Mhz CPU (Less then $20 from Hong Kong). And as a added bonus, I can install a flavor of OSX and learn about that. Will the fun ever stop??!!  I am a happy camper.

mraroid

 

[mraroid]

My apologies if I've created any confusion, made it more difficult to get access to the information you need, slowed progress, or anything of that nature. It certainly wasn't my intent.

No worries my friend.  You have taken great pains to explaine in detail things that my small brain was unable to wrap my head around.  I am much obliged.  You and I both like to run benchmark software.  I will post my results as soon as I can.

mraroid

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I think if you start a new topic summarizing your intent for this Bridge/Learning Tool Build with links to all your various investigative threads it would clarify matters and be quite helpful to others on both sides of your inquiry. Have at it! ;-)

Learning is what it's all about here for myself as well, sharing what I know, most especially what I think I know that is need of correction a/o refinement brings much joy in the give and take. Building bridges between all sorts of software, OS and hardware (especially recently) is of general interest and not well explored from an overall perspective to date.

 

[nglevin]

I think if you start a new topic summarizing your intent for this Bridge/Learning Tool Build with links to all your various investigative threads it would clarify matters and be quite helpful to others on both sides of your inquiry.

I shall +1 to this because I think this would help clarify some things. There's a point to which this is clearly fleacore , the act of buying up someone else's eBay junk and seeing what helps, what doesn't, to make art. I do really dig that spirit.

The other side of that coin is, please don't take the seemingly-negative feedback personally.

Some of us have been down this road, to varying degrees. For instance, I have bought a G4e (1 GHz?) upgrade for my own B&W that absolutely was not worth the cost with the limited 66 Mhz bus speed, when it was working. Since I've been unable to boot with it, I've left that thing unused in a box on a shelf. Both because it's a pain to get up and running, and because my far less expensive second hand PowerBook G4 absolutely trounces it.

There are other misadventures that I can personally attest to. Some of which involved taking a kitchen knife to a Quadra 700 case when I was very young to jam in more hardware than the compact Mac II case was made for. I'll also admit to consigning a Newer Tech Quadra Overdrive to a box that I've never been able to recover when I found a stock Q650/Q800 logic board with a PDS cache card ended up suiting my needs better. Uh, don't tell the people looking for a QuadDoubler that.

None of this guidance, I'll state outright, is intended to make you feel dumb or that you're doing this in a horrible way that you should feel bad about. We've all gone down our own treacherous roads and some in our limited experiences were more rewarding than others. We're sharing notes to figure out what is working, and how not to go broke on retro hardware.

If I've stuck by this forum it's because it's seemed friendlier than others, and it's had more activity lately. Take that for what it's worth.

 

[mraroid]

Point well taken nglevin...
 
I saw a video on You Tube where a fellow paid a ton of money to buy a 1Ghz processor for his B&W.  I thought it was madness.  But having said that, I do like to see what speed I can squeeze out of my older hardware and software.  I enjoy reducing the temperature in a computer and I enjoy speeding them up.  I found a 500Mhz G4 processor for under $20.00.  That works for me. My Yikes! motherboard cost me under $20.00.  I will see what I can do with it.
 
My non computer friends thought I was nuts spending so much time converting my Color Classic to a Mystic.  But it was quite fun and I leaned a lot.  I am so new to 9.2.2 and OSX.  And G3 and G4 hardware is also new to me.  I am enjoying the ride.
 
I will try to start a new thread.
 
mraroid

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I shall +1 to this because I think this would help clarify some things. There's a point to which this is clearly fleacore , the act of buying up someone else's eBay junk and seeing what helps, what doesn't, to make art. I do really dig that spirit.

Love it! Substitute expansion cards of every sort, overclocking thingamabobs and accelerators in this world for the musical bent of that author and that's it!

These cards now cost more than synthesisers actually built around the cards, which means people rip them out of fully working keyboards! This makes the whole thing batshit crazy, and I thought OK – let’s make finding fleacore built around these cards the next challenge.

To this I can relate!

 

[waynestewart]

Point well taken nglevin...
 
I saw a video on You Tube where a fellow paid a ton of money to buy a 1Ghz processor for his B&W.  I thought it was madness.  But having said that, I do like to see what speed I can squeeze out of my older hardware and software.  I enjoy reducing the temperature in a computer and I enjoy speeding them up.  I found a 500Mhz G4 processor for under $20.00.  That works for me. My Yikes! motherboard cost me under $20.00.  I will see what I can do with it.
 
My non computer friends thought I was nuts spending so much time converting my Color Classic to a Mystic.  But it was quite fun and I leaned a lot.  I am so new to 9.2.2 and OSX.  And G3 and G4 hardware is also new to me.  I am enjoying the ride.
 
I will try to start a new thread.
 
mraroid

At one time I used my MDD with eyeTV to record and watch TV. Then my MDD died and I wasn’t in the best financial condition to replace it. The Elgato manual said I needed a minimum of a G4 and USB 2.0. Didn’t have it but I had a B&W G3 with a 1.1ghz upgrade and a USB 2.0 card. That worked out very well

I did a Mystic and a Takky. I had planned on doing one with the motherboard from a tray loading iMac. It’d fit in the CC case. Have a box with the parts for the conversion but never found the time. As I get older spare time is getting to be a rare item

 

[supernova777]

if you need a sata card just contact michael using the contact form @ www.firmtek.com and tell him what you need

you will get a tracking number response immediately and he ususally responds to emails within 24hrs