PPC DOS compatibility card in a Quadra 700

[killvore]

Hi everybody! There's a PowerMac 6100/66 with a DOS compatibility card for sale near me, and I am considering getting it so I can put the card in one of my Quadra 700s. I did some research and it seems like it should work! But has anyone tried this particular combination, and is there anything I should be mindful of? I am super excited about maybe playing some of my old favorites WITHOUT having a whole separate PC set up!

 

[killvore]

Update: I bought the machine! Since I had some questions I am gradually figuring out the answers to, I will post about it here - hope this is ok, and maybe it will be useful to anybody considering a similar configuration.

1. The card comes from the PowerPC 6100/66 DOS compatible. Since it appears to be a Quadra PDS Card, it is mounted on an adapter/riser so that it can connect to the PowerPC PDS slot.

2. I unscrewed 4 screws, but turns out only two of them are for attaching the DOS card to the adapter No damage done, I just screwed them back after I pulled the DOS card free from the adapter.

3. The card sits neatly in the Quadra 700's PDS-slot, with a few caveats:
- It's too short to reach the back of the chassis, so will have to look into this when I have a solution for video.
- My DOS card has its own RAM stick, and I wasn't able to get the lid back on the computer since it seems the card support collides with it. I ended up snipping off half of the top of the card support.

4. I found the necessary drivers at macintoshgarden.org (what a fantastic resource!), which saved me from having to dig through the SCSI drive from the PowerMac. The drivers installed painlessly - I was able to just mount the disk image in System 7.1 and install directly off it.
- One of the MacintoshGarden downloads included a disk image with DOS already installed on it, so I have mapped this one.
- The control panel is able to detect the presence of the card, and respons appropriately to instructions about turning the PC on and off, and switching to PC mode.
- Since I don't currently have a way to output video, I am not able to verify that it is actually working correctly, but this seems promising!

Still to do:
- I have ordered this adapter which will hopefully solve the video output: https://www.ebay.com/itm/225696044975 I forgot to measure to see if there is actually room inside the chassis to have this connected to the DOS card but a quick eyeball gives me some hope! Worst case I will have to mod the case, or give up and move it into my Quadra 650. Exciting to see how/if it plays with my Portrait Display!
- I need to figure out if and how I can connect up the Soundblaster to the audio for the Quadra. In the 650 I can probably just hook it into the CD audio, but I don't think the Quadra 700 has anything similar.
- Install some DOS games. Not sure what the workflow for this will even be like. The Q700 floppy drive is a bit flakey, but I have a BlueSCSI and working Ethernet on it as alternatives, and it will just be a "one and done" affair of getting about a dozen games across.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

There is an extender to get the connector available at the case end. Someone replicate it and made a GitHub for schematics and BOM.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Here:

GitHub - alxlab-zone66x/Apple_DOS_Compatibility_Card_PDS_Extender: A Macintosh PDS DOS Compatibility card extender that allows you to use the DOS card in computer like the Quadra 700 and Quadra 950.

A Macintosh PDS DOS Compatibility card extender that allows you to use the DOS card in computer like the Quadra 700 and Quadra 950. - alxlab-zone66x/Apple_DOS_Compatibility_Card_PDS_Extender

github.com

 

[killvore]

These are super cool! I will take a closer look once I have the incoming display PCB - ideally I'd want to have all the stuff inside the chassis so it doesn't snap off if I need to move the machine around

 

[killvore]

Update! The adapter has arrived and I've hooked it up, but I am not getting video out:

1. The PC appears to be running correctly, as indicated by the Control Panel
2. I am able to switch to PC with the hot key, but the screen just fades to black instead of to what I would assume is a DOS prompt.

There are some unusual things being reported in the Control Panel, though:
- The Display is listed as Apple 14" (it is connected to a M1212), but the dropdown is grayed out
- Likewise, the RAM is listed as SIMM (the card has an extra RAM chip in it), but this is also grayed out.

Any ideas where to start troubleshooting? Are there specific drivers required for certain displays, for example? Or could it just be that the video output on the PC is broken?

 

[zefrenchtoon]

There are some unusual things being reported in the Control Panel, though:
- The Display is listed as Apple 14" (it is connected to a M1212), but the dropdown is grayed out
- Likewise, the RAM is listed as SIMM (the card has an extra RAM chip in it), but this is also grayed out.

Any ideas where to start troubleshooting? Are there specific drivers required for certain displays, for example? Or could it just be that the video output on the PC is broken?

The grayed dropdown for Display is because the 14" is not able to display another resolution than 640x480.
The dropdown for RAM is because you have a SIMM in the slot so it indicates that the SIMM is detected and don't let you the choice of the quantity of RAM to use on the main (Mac side) RAM. If you unplug the RAM SIMM from the DOS Card, then you should be able to choose the amount of RAM to use on the Mac side.

About the video, it should display at least the BIOS init. If this is not the case, maybe your 486 CPU is in an unstable state.
I've got an unstable state on mine by trying to boot a custom CP/M 86 on it.
The only way to get out of this unstable state was to boot from a MS-DOS floppy disk then all was working again.

Hum ... after checking my video done when I got this unstable state, I can confirm that I got at least the BIOS init (as you can see in the attached video)

 

[killvore]

Ah thank you, that's super helpful! Very cool to see "Apple Compatibility BIOS" on boot

Hm, maybe the hard disk image I grabbed online isn't set up correctly. The machine the card is in doesn't currently have a working floppy drive, but I will move everything over to my Quadra 650 and try to set things up from scratch there - I just didn't want to because working with floppies is a hassle, and I'm not familiar with DOS so was hoping there was an easy way to just fire it up. I'll also try to hook it into the CD audio on the Quadra 650 to see if I get a "beep" or something when it boots

It might just be that the card is not working, though! The computer I took it out of did not have a DOS image set up for it, but the whole machine had clearly been wiped with a fresh 7.6 install. It's a PowerPC 6100/66 and I don't have a HDI-45 cable/adapter so can't test on that one, unfortunately. As an aside, if there's any online tutorials on how to replace that connector with a regular apple video connector, I'm all ears!

 

[MacKilRoy]

You might have to carefully unseat completely and reseat the 486 chip.

 

[killvore]

Major progress!

I took out the processor and reseated it. Unlike the 68040-processors, it is physically possible to reseat the processor incorrectly which resulted in the Quadra 700 refusing to boot - it just made a series of rapid power-on popping noises. Also, I bent the pins. But! I did get the pins straightened (used an 18mm stanley knife blade) and I did get the processor seated correctly - I've added a picture in case anyone else can't figure out which way it's meant to go.

I was still having the same issue - switching to PC just faded the screen to black - so I figured I would bite the software bullet and make a fresh HD image from scratch - and voila, seems like I have PC that is not able to find a system! This is huge!

Now I guess it's time to try to make some DOS installer disks and put it in a machine with a functioning disk drive

 

[LaPorta]

I’ve got the images of all the Mac and PC disks for this, including the SoundBlaster that is proper for the card and allows it to work. I can compress and send them to you this evening.

 

[killvore]

I’ve got the images of all the Mac and PC disks for this, including the SoundBlaster that is proper for the card and allows it to work. I can compress and send them to you this evening.

omg that would be amazing!! No rush, I waited 5 weeks for the video adapter to arrive from the U.S., I can wait a little longer

 

[micheledipaola]

@LaPorta please could you check if the images are preserved online somewhere already? otherwise... it would be great to upload them

 

[bobcat]

It might just be that the card is not working, though! The computer I took it out of did not have a DOS image set up for it, but the whole machine had clearly been wiped with a fresh 7.6 install. It's a PowerPC 6100/66 and I don't have a HDI-45 cable/adapter so can't test on that one, unfortunately. As an aside, if there's any online tutorials on how to replace that connector with a regular apple video connector, I'm all ears!

You could get an AV card for that PDS slot, but they may be harder to find than the HDI-45 cable. The 7100/8100 PDS video cards can also fit into that slot, but I don't know if they will fit without the right-angle adapter!

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Major progress!

I took out the processor and reseated it. Unlike the 68040-processors, it is physically possible to reseat the processor incorrectly which resulted in the Quadra 700 refusing to boot - it just made a series of rapid power-on popping noises. Also, I bent the pins. But! I did get the pins straightened (used an 18mm stanley knife blade) and I did get the processor seated correctly - I've added a picture in case anyone else can't figure out which way it's meant to go.

I was still having the same issue - switching to PC just faded the screen to black - so I figured I would bite the software bullet and make a fresh HD image from scratch - and voila, seems like I have PC that is not able to find a system! This is huge!

Now I guess it's time to try to make some DOS installer disks and put it in a machine with a functioning disk drive

Don't waste your time, all is available on Macintosh Garden … images of original disks and …

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/apple-dos-compatibility-card-houdini-iii-ms-dos-622-image

Pre-made disks images

 

[zefrenchtoon]

And while looking for mentioned links, I've found another one I did not know and I find it also very interesting for who wants to start from scratch !

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/pc-compatibility-card-pc-utiltiies-mac-os-software

 

[killvore]

Hell yes it worked! I used the #1 image from the link you posted, @zefrenchtoon
Looks like everything is running - can't check sound, since I don't know how to make sound work when it's connected in my Quadra 700. Might have to capitulate and either move it to the Quadra 650, or move the 650 motherboard into the 700 chassis
Now I just need to figure out how to copy games from my mac to the PC image and I'm good to go!

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Hell yes it worked! I used the #1 image from the link you posted, @zefrenchtoon
Looks like everything is running - can't check sound, since I don't know how to make sound work when it's connected in my Quadra 700. Might have to capitulate and either move it to the Quadra 650, or move the 650 motherboard into the 700 chassis
Now I just need to figure out how to copy games from my mac to the PC image and I'm good to go!

While the PC is off, you can double click on the PC image file to mount it on MacOS and copy files on it.

 

[LaPorta]

@LaPorta please could you check if the images are preserved online somewhere already? otherwise... it would be great to upload them

A long while ago I uploaded them to vTools.

 

[killvore]

last update for today: I got a game to run, which is amazing! I'm having some stability issues, so next steps are making sure all the proper drivers are installed (courtesy of @LaPorta ) and then setting up a beefy image with some essential DOS games. Very exciting! Thank you all for your help and encouragement!