Prodigy SE by Levco

[jsarchibald]

Hi all,

I came across a compact Mac SE last weekend, and noticed one of them had a sticker on the front saying 'Prodigy SE by Levco'. I did some research on Google and came across the details on what it was. It was another motherboard that piggybacked onto the existing motherboard, and had a Motorola 68020 CPU, 2MB of onboard fast RAM, and a 68881 FPU. I opened it up, cleaned out all of the webs and dust, and turned it on. It runs so much quicker than the standard SE I ran alongside it, I can see why people would have upgraded to this system. Looking at some of the programs, I have deduced that the computer was originally owned by the University of Adelaide, which would explain the upgrades.

What I want to know is more information on this system. I have found articles on the performance of this setup, an interview with the owner of Levco (which was subsequently bought shortly afterwards), basically everything Google has on the Prodigy SE. To put it into context, my post on MacTalk earlier this week is now elevated to No 1 spot on Google when a search is done, highlighting how little info there is on it.

I want to know what Google doesn't have - do these pop up every once in a while? Does anyone have a manual or some original software for it? How would this system have been sold to a buyer in Australia? Basically, if you worked with them, or had something to do with upgrading them or selling them, I'd like to hear from you.

Thanks all!

 

[QuicksilverMac2001]

To answer the first of your questions, since I have no experience (unfortunately) on the others, turbocharged Mac SE's (maybe not from that exact brand, but there are several different models including just sticking an SE/30 motherboard in a plain-jane SE do occasionally pop-up. That particular one I was not aware of, but from time to time, just quite rarely, someone does indeed put a turbocharged SE up for sale.

(I used to have a SE, but a networking experiment with a beige G3 desktop I had at the time corrupted the OS, and since I didn't have another working hard disk, I wound up having to part with it. Shame too, as it was working fine before I didn't listen to the signs that it wasn't working right (the networking experiments.)

The plain-Jane SE I had though was the most reliable and well-functioning compact Mac I ever had. And I liked it, although a 128k has stolen my heart now. Not working as well is it, but a charmer nonetheless is it...

Hope this helps and have a great day!

 

[jsarchibald]

I am amazed at how fast this SE is compared to the standard SE. I especially love that instead of a Happy Mac on startup, you get a Mac with fangs! It sure made me laugh when I saw it for the first time.

There is an interrupt switch that allows you to switch between motherboards, so if a program doesn't work on a 68020 processor, you can halt that motherboard and use the standard 68000. Great little machine!

 

[Dog Cow]

Let's ask the Usenet archives: http://macgui.com/usenet/search2.php?q=levco

 

[Charlieman]

From my notes:

In early 1987, SuperMac were acquired by Scientific Micro Systems (SMS), then a producer of general purpose semiconductors, Q-bus expansion cards for DEC computers and IBM PC expansion cards. Six months later, SMS acquired Levco, a manufacturer of accelerators and memory expansion products for compact Macs. Both acquisitions were unhappy, and SMS quickly sold the two companies. SuperMac took all of the graphics card and accelerator technology and Levco was reborn as a specialist developer of transputers. [Ends]

I don't recall any of the Levco products being remarkably different from other 68020 accelerator and RAM manufacturers. I have separate notes for Beck-Tech and Brainstorm, for example, but nothing stands out about Levco aside from their reinvention post-SMS.

 

[turbogaming]

I picked up a prodigy SE and noticed it produces distorted sounds in most cases. I read there is software or extensions available to tune the board. Does anyone happen to have a copy?

 

[turbogaming]

By the way I have a re-badged SuperMac accelerator. Too bad it has 2mb of ram where my Mac SE has 4mb which is unusable with the accelerator.

I can't seem to post an image though, it says Request Entity too large.

 

[turbogaming]

Attached is the SuperMac branded Prodigy SE weighing in at 16mhz, 2mb of ram and the optional FPU!

 

[Macdrone]

Do yo have the Connectix virtual 3.0.2 software? It allowed me to use my accelerator with extra ram and logic board ram. It covers almost all accelerators for compact macs from what I remember.

 

[LCGuy]

Maybe ask in the Trading Post? Virtual is commercial software, which we don't distribute copies of here.

 

[turbogaming]

I just discovered my upgrade Mac SE with HD disk drives is unable to properly read high density disks while the Prodigy SE has control of the computer.

This means no booting from HD floppy too..

I suppose it's a bit late to look for a rom update.

 

[Macdrone]

I was not offering just info about what the software does.

 

[turbogaming]

Tried Compact Virtual. It only supports the accelerators: Daystar, Extreme Sys, Mobius, Newlife, Novy, Outbound, Techworks, Total System, Transwarp.

Installing for "other" resulted in a control panel which states: "Virtual did not load because this machine lacks the proper hardware to support virtual memory (EC030 or 040 processor).