Power Macintosh SE/30 (failure) report

[TylerEss]

Here it is, after years of waiting!

The DayStar Turbo601 does *not* work in the SE/30, and I'm pretty sure we won't ever convince it to.

The good news:

-With the Turbo601 installed, the SE/30 produces the "PowerMac" startup chime. This indicates it's working to at least a limited extent.

-After sitting on for 15 minutes or so, the 601's heatsink is fairly warm.

-My voltages aren't drooping.

The bad news:

-With the Turbo601 installed, the SE/30 sits forever without initializing its video hardware. This is similar to the lengthy startup delay with a IIfx ROM SIMM installed, but waiting 15 minutes or more does not resolve it.

-This same failure occurs with the stock SE/30 ROM and with a IIfx ROM.

Looking at this behavior, I'm pretty sure that the #1 thing holding back PowerMac SE/30 development is lack of drivers in the PowerPC-native ROMs onboard the Turbo601. The IIfx/si/ci ROM SIMM hack clearly only works because Apple was using "universal" ROMs at the time -- ROMs with all the drivers for the whole extant Mac family.

We've always talked about the Turbo601 as if it had "PowerMac 6100 ROMs" onboard, but I'm pretty certain they're specially prepared PowerMac ROMs with drivers added for all the II-series onboard devices. If that's the case, as it seems to be, then to move forward would require the skills to disassemble the Turbo601 ROMs and build new ones that would support the SE/30. I'm not sure that we have that between myself, Jeff, TRASH-80, and the rest of the crew, even given unlimited time to work on the project.

I just couldn't resist coming out of "retirement" to tie up the strings on a dream that started back in 2006 on AF and has had a lot of input from a lot of smart people over the years. Hearing others' results that it didn't work was one thing, but I think these details and speculation really close the book on it for now. :'(

 

[Byrd]

Wha-hey thanks for getting back! Thanks for trying out the holy grail. I too have a Turbo 601 (but no IIci), and an SE/30 ... but have never been game to try.

JB

 

[tt]

Tyler, you're in retirement from compacts?

I have tried this experiment as well, and reported the same results. I guess you can't believe them until you try it yourself. The rumors of it working from Japan still haunt me. I tried it two different ways with a IIfx ROM. One way was using the Daystar PowerCache IIsi adapter. The other way was plugging a IIvx adapter into the CPU socket and soldering a new power connector (temporarily) to the back side of the motherboard since the IIvx adapter got in the way.

I got the same chime which was exciting, but the screen was just black. If this is a driver issue, could using a PDS video card be a potential solution?

 

[TylerEss]

Not in retirement from Compacts so much as being totally out of 68k for a few years. Starting to get a little more free time and evaluate how deep I want to go.

Sorry I missed your report on this config! The only one I'd seen was from an old AF post whose author said the T601 did nothing in the SE/30... it just booted off the mobo processor and reported as an SE/30 even with a IIsi ROM SIMM installed.

It's bad news, but I guess I'm at least happy we reproduced each other's results.

If you wanted a dual-monitor SE/30, maybe you could write an INIT to initialize and use the internal video after boot-time?

I had (maybe still have) a SuperMac Spectrum 8/24PDQsi with the DB-15 moved to the end of a long pigtail for SE/30 use. Years ago when I tried it, it produced video but had odd color splotches that looked like memory corruption. I decided that it probably wasn't compatible -- but I never tried it with a ROM-upgraded SE/30.

 

[tt]

I'm not sure if my findings are still here. It may be lost with the archives. I think it's a good thing for others to try since maybe there is a combination of subtle factors that would contribute to a success. When I get a chance, I want to try it with a IIsi ROM.

 

[TylerEss]

There may be some light at the end of this tunnel yet! There may be a IIfx ROM SIMM incompatibility.

I played around with my IIci and the Turbo601 a little bit this evening. Like most IIcis, it's got a ROM SIMM socket, a soldered ROM, and a jumper to select which ROM to use. Here were some interesting results:

ROM SIMM | Jumper | Cache | Chime | Boot | Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------
empty    | closed | empty |    Normal    | stock configuration
empty    |  open  | empty |   No  |  No  | No ROM in use
IIfx     | closed | empty |    Normal    | soldered ROM
IIfx     |  open  | empty |    Normal    | IIfx ROM        [1]
SE/30    | closed | empty |    Normal    | soldered ROM
SE/30    |  open  | empty |  Doom |  No  | SE/30 ROM too old

empty    | closed |  T601 |  PPC  | Boot | stock configuration
empty    |  open  |  T601 |  PPC  | Boot |                 [2]
IIfx     | closed |  T601 |  PPC  | Boot | soldered ROM
IIfx     |  open  |  T601 |  PPC  | Boot | IIfx ROM        [3]
SE/30    | closed |  T601 |  PPC  | Boot | soldered ROM
SE/30    |  open  |  T601 |  PPC  | Boot | SE/30 ROM
--------------------------------------------------------------


[1] "IIfx ROM SIMM hack" in a IIci 
[2] This indicates the onboard ROM is being used for something
[3] This config worked fine without the T601

The lines with the footnotes on them tell the story. I'm trying to boot an SE/30 with a T601 in it, but the T601 won't boot even in a IIci with the ROM SIMMs I have available.

If anyone has a IIsi ROM SIMM, a T601, and a IIci, I'd be interested to see if the IIci can boot the T601 with the IIsi ROM SIMM and the jumper open.

If anyone knows what happened to Gamba's homemade ROM SIMM, or has duplicated the effort, I'd be interested in hearing from you, too.