PowerPC 500-series and PM 7600/200

[Franklinstein]

I bought an unknown-model 500-series PowerBook on eBay for about $10. I say it's an unknown model because the model number has been replaced with a PowerPC badge due to an upgrade. Unfortunately, UPS doesn't ship to my APO, so I had it routed to my mum and she should send it along shortly with some other eBay bits so that I may play with them all.

I've been curious lately since reading about early 68k/PPC cross machines (like the 52/6200-series), and have been wondering if anybody had any specs on how the 64-bit-bus 603 interfaces to the '040's 32-bit bus. Is it as atrocious as the 6200 series, or is it executed as well as the rest of the PowerBook 500 series? Just curious, mostly to see whether or not it was worth anything to upgrade one of those things or not.

The 1000-yen 7600/200 is in good shape. It works for the most part, but I think it may have bad RAM or something, as it likes to lock up. I took all but one DIMM out and it seems stable for the moment. I'll have to test the rest as soon as it's done low-level formatting the 4GB 2nd-gen Barracuda that I had to buy to replace the dead 2GB Fireball. I'm not terribly concerned about what's bad, as I have loads of replacement RAM and other stuff back home; I just care about the case (this is an Asia/AU-specific model, after all), and the processor to a lesser extent.

 

[g3monster]

It will probably be a daystar PowerPC 601 66mhz accelerator.

 

[equill]

Far more probable is an Apple or NewerTech 100MHz or 117MHz 603e daughter card. If an upgrade is to be made, I suppose that a 3.5x multiplier (on a 33MHz bus) is the better to go for, and that means a 540/540c.

I have three of the latter for two PB500 series. They are all branded NUpowr (for the NuBus oriented upgrades from NewerTech). The first works well; the second had a mutilated RAM-card-to-daughter-card connector; and the third is being a reluctant bride, so far, but I shall persist.

The working PB 540c/117MHz has certainly a new zing in its gait, using OS 8.1. (The nominal limit for PPC-upgraded 68K Macs.) Adequate RAM, meaning addition of a 32MB expansion card, is almost a mandatory co-upgrade.

de

 

[alk]

Running the newest possible software on your machine might not be your thing, but this is still an interesting read. http://members.aol.com/dankephoto/ppc_upgrade/86patch.htm I wonder what performance is like on a 33 MHz bus with only 40 MB of RAM.

Dan K (dankephoto at AppleFritter and elsewhere) is adept at Macs and has a wealth of other information on his page.

Peace,

Drew

 

[tmtomh]

I'll bet 8.6 runs just fine on a PPC Powerbook 500 series.

While OS9 really likes 64MB or more of RAM, I find 8.6 runs perfectly well with 32MB (and therefore with 40MB).

It's true the 33MHz bus speed is a slight bottleneck, but it's still in the same general ballpark as the 40MHz bus speed of many desktop Macs of the era. And 8.6 also runs perfectly well (within the limits of the machines) even on the Road Apple Performa 6200/6300 series, which I believe have a 37MHz system bus.

The big hit would come when running lots of apps at once with VM enabled - then the PB's slow HD would come into play.

So I'd say disable any unnecessary extensions and don't run more than 3 apps at the same time (or more than 2 if one is a Web browser).

M