Power Macintosh and Apple iie card

[matt163201]

Hello,

I was looking for some FIRST HAND knowledge on the compatibility of this card. As we all know this is the statement on the card

Apple IIe Card is  compatible with any Macintosh that has the LC style PDS and does not require 32-bit addressing.

This includes:

• Macintosh Color Classic
• Performa 400 series
• Macintosh LC / Performa 500 series computers (except the Macintosh LC 580 and Performa 580)
• Macintosh LC series computers (except Macintosh 630 family, Power Macintosh 5200 LC and 5300 LC, Macintosh Performa 5200, 5300, 6200, 6300 series)

Note:
The following computers are in the Macintosh 630 family: Performa 630, Performa 635, Performa 636, Performa 637, Performa 638, LC 630, and Quadra 630.The Macintosh LC 580, Macintosh 630 family, Power Macintosh 5200 LC and 5300 LC, Performa 5200/5300 and 6200/6300 series only operate in 32-bit addressing mode. Since the Apple IIe Card is not compatible with 32-bit addressing, the Apple IIe Card is not compatible with these computers. The Power Macintosh 5400 and 6400 series and the Macintosh Performa 6400 series and 6360/160 computers do not have LC processor direct slots. These computers have PCI expansion slots. Thus, they do not support the Apple IIe Card. The 68040 versions of the Macintosh LC 500 and Performa 500 series do not recognize the Apple IIe Card when there is a communication card occupying the communication slot.

However, completely contradictory to the statement above someone posted this

 
  Mike10/14/11
 

On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:41:34 -0700 (PDT), KP <kjp...@gmail.com>
wrote:
 
I got it working in my Performa 630CD, which I think is a later model
than the 600 so in theory anyway, it should be possible.  For mine, I
had to remove physical RAM and downgrade the version of Mac OS to
7.5.5 (it came with 8.0 on it) to make it work.

As others have stated above, the Mac has to meet three requirements to
be able to host the card:

1) PDS slot
2) the ability to do 24-bit addressing
3) Mac OS 7.5.5 or below

The 24-bit addressing limits you to a maximum of 8MB of physical RAM
in the machine, and to Mac OS 7.5.5, as Apple removed the option to
enable 24-bit addressing from later versions of the operating system.

My opinion - and I could be totally off-base here - is that Apple
never officially supported some of the later Macs for use with the IIe
Card because it would require customers to downgrade their machines,
which no company would want to advise people to do.

- Mike Maginnis

Blog:                 http://6502lane.net
Scans:                 http://apple2scans.net
Podcast:         http://open-apple.net

So this shows that the first quote is interrupted wrong. The 630 is just not officially supported but will work in the right environment. 

What the Apple iie card needs to work is
24-bit addressing and

LC PDS slot

(Note: there is no information stating that this card will only operate on a 68K chip, infact the "supported models exclude the 68040 but many instances show that users who replaced their 68LC040 with a full 68040, the card will work)

So in order to fit the LC PDS slot we know thats a narrow list of models, most of which are listed above in the first quote. The other is 24 bit addressing, which could be achieved in 7.5.5 thru software memory management.

So has anyone attempted to run their Power Macintosh 52/53/62/6300 in 7.5.5 (which will limit your memory usage to 8MBs it seems) and tried to run an Apple iie card with success? (Note: these Power Macintosh's will run this OS, as they are supported by 7.5.3 to 9.1)

If anyone had one of these cards and a Power Macintosh 52/53/62/6300 and willing to do this experiment, it would be greatly appreciated.

Let me know your thoughts on this matter.
Thanks

 

[Anonymous Freak]

The PowerPC Macs don't support 24-bit addressing.  Period.

I don't know for certain about the IIe card, but if it truly requires 24-bit addressing, then it won't work on a PowerPC.  Even the very first gen of PowerPCs (Power Mac 6100/60, 7100/66, and 8100/80) running System 7.1.2 don't support 24-bit addressing.  Running 7.5.5 isn't the answer.

I'm not sure what's up with the 630 claim - the poster claims it "came with" 8.0, but that's not right - the only systems that originally shipped with MacOS 8.0 were the early G3s.  Even the last pre-G3 systems came with 7.6.1.  From what I can find, the 630 originally shipped with 7.1.3!  I think the poster is just stating that THEIR 630 came with 8.0 when they bought it, and that they downgraded to 7.5.5.  I'm not sure why Apple officially disallows the 630, or why the poster got it working - but their claimed reason "OS support" is wildly off base.

 

[rsolberg]

No PowerPC equipped Mac supports 24-bit addressing. Only some 68040/68LC040 Macs support 24-bit addressing. System 7.0 to 7.5.5 allow switching between 24 and 32-bit addressing only on hardware that supports both. 7.6 and later must use 32-bit addressing.

Here's a list of 68040/68LC040 Macs that support 24-bit addressing with System 7 (up to 7.5.5) and also have an LC PDS slot:

LC 475

LC 575

Quadra 605

Performa 575, 576, 577, 578

See http://www.vintagemacworld.com/lc_card_faq.htmlfor more information.

**Edit: Note that 24-bit addressing cannot be selected on the LC 575 or Performa 57x computers if a COMM slot Ethernet card is installed. I've confirmed this on a LC 575.

 

[matt163201]

Thank you both for the responses!

According to LowEndMac, the Q630 does support 24 and 32 bit addressing, I believe the original poster of that claim probably got his second hand with 8.0 originally loaded and downgraded it to 7.5.5

http://lowendmac.com/1994/quadra-630/

My original thought was that if the PPC models with the LC PDS could support this OS version, to check to see if it could boot with 24 bit addressing thru the OS and then see if it would allow the card. I would be interested to see if anyone has tried this I would be interested in the results.

or

Someone else wants to try a 630 and see if those claims have merit, as I do believe that machine will run the iie card (outside of the information everyone just copies/pastes from apple)

 

[Anonymous Freak]

PowerPCs cannot be set to 24-bit addressing, in any OS.  The option is completely missing from the Memory control panel. They use 32-bit addressing *ONLY*. The minimum amount of RAM any PowerPC system shipped with was 8 MB - so there was zero reason to allow 24-bit addressing.

Sadly, I traded away my 630 a couple months ago, or I could have tested that.  (I have no PowerPCs with an LC PDS slot, so I can't test that at all.)

The official Apple-approved solution for running Apple II software on a PowerPC was to use Apple's education-market-only Apple IIgs software-based emulator: GUS

 

[matt163201]

So you can verify, thru first hand experience, that on OS 7.5.5 that the screen below does not give you this option on a 52/53/62/6300 PPC?
Not that I dont believe you but with alot of this information people are accepting just what is out there without actually trying the limits, so Im hopeing that a brave soul will come thru and give these experiments a test.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

While I can't test on a 52/53/62/6300 because I don't have them, I have checked on System 7.1.2/PowerPC on a Power Mac 7100/66, and on multiple other PowerPC systems running various versions of 7.5.  No PowerPC has that section visible. Only Disk Cache, Virtual Memory, and RAM Disk.  Newer versions have "Modern Memory Manager" on/off (which is *NOT* 24/32-bit mode.)  I've even tested it on a PowerPC-upgraded 68040 system.  It has the 32-bit addressing section when the 68040 is active, but when the PowerPC is installed, that section of the control panel is missing.

PowerPC systems cannot run in 24-bit addressing mode.

 

[EvilCapitalist]

I have a 5200 (specifically a Performa 5200CD) and can confirm that there's no option to switch between 24-bit and 32-bit addressing in 7.5.x.

 

[matt163201]

Thank you EvilCapitalist

So I think that may sum it up

You need

7.5.5 or earlier 7.x series OS

LC PDS slot

and a 68k type mobo

Looks like the latest supported may be the 630 family with less than 8MB of ram onboard, anyone want to confirm this?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

You can have more than 8 MB RAM, it's just that 24-bit addressing mode won't make much use of it - you can use the excess as a RAM Drive, though.

 

[GerrySch]

I will add my 2 cents here.  I have an LC475 running a full 68040 processor with OS 7.5.5 and the Apple IIe card is installed.  I can run Apple II software as long as I'm in 24-bit addressing mode.  Since I have 128 MBs of RAM installed, I lose most of it to the OS in 24-bit addressing mode as I just found out today.

When looking for a Mac to support the Apple IIe card, I too got confused as to what would and wouldn't work.  So I stayed on the conservative side and bought an LC475.  It's a great little 68K Mac but with the Apple IIe card installed, figuring out networking turned into a major hassle.  I was able to get an Asante EN/SC SCSI to Ethernet I/F to work even though their documentation says it not supported.

Good Luck,

Gerry