Quicksilver upgrade questions

[BadGoldEagle]

Hi all,

I've got a Quicksilver in the mail. Should arrive in about two weeks. It has a 1.7GHz Sonnet Encore ST, a bunch of cards (Firewire 800, USB2.0, Radeon 9000) and no airport card. Since that mac was in Basel Switzerland, ArmorAlley agreed to act as an intermediary. I'll also be getting a SATA card from him. Might as well kill two birds with one stone, right?

Money shot:





That's not the only upgrade I plan on adding to this PM though.

I'd like to upgrade the GPU to a 7800GS. I know that requires a ROM flash and a couple other things but at least I'll be able to play 2003 games on High with a more than adequate framerate. Apparently it is also somewhat OS9 compatible. You can't control it properly but it *works*. Does anybody here use this card in their G4? I intend to install Leopard on this machine, but there are a couple of games that require OS9 (namely Tomb Raider I and II). I'll either install OS9 on a second partition or Sheepshaver in order to play those games. Sheepshaver for PPCs seems to work quite well, but doesn't emulate or use (AFAIK) GPU 3D acceleration. TRI and TRII don't really need a GPU in the first place but what do you guys recommend? I could get a PCI card and use it exclusively for OS9 but I'd be left with only 3 PCI slots...

I'd rather not install OS9, because 1) It'll take quite a bit of space on my disk, 2) The 7800GS might prove to be too incompatible with it and 3) See below...

I'll connect this mac to a television via HDMI (I already have a DVI to hdmi adapter), so I'll sit on the couch about 10ft away from the mac. For this reason I'm planning on getting wireless Apple peripherals (and a PS3 controller, but more on that later). I could get an Airport card which does bluetooth, but is limited to 802.11b. I know there are PCI alternatives, but which ones are the best? I'd like to maintain OS9 compatibility, just in case I change my mind afterwards...

Next, I'd like to get a SCSI card for a Zip/Jaz drive I might add later to the collection. Any Mac compatible card should do the job nicely without any issues, although I've heard that some controllers aren't compatible with some accelerators...*

Finally, I'll probably replace the two usb and firewire cards with a Sonnet Tango 2.0 because onboard firewire doesn't work and I'll quickly run out of PCI slots.

​

So yeah, my ideal setup would have the following cards: Sonnet Encore, Sonnet Tempo, Sonnet Tango, ATTO SCSI, Wifi/Bluetooth card and of course the 7800GS.

Anything particular I should look into before getting all those additional cards?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Hunt down a ZIP bezel, the 3.5" bay is there specifically for the IDE Zip drive upgrade, Zip 250 works a treat. Dunno if the stock upgrade was 100 or 250 when I got my daily driver (for everything but Firefox) nine years ago, but I upgrade any drive I have, PB or desktop to 250 spec.

Desktop drives and Laptop (Dell etc.) donor modules are very inexpensive, the only thing I can think of to run off an UltraSCSI card would be SCA server drives which you won't need if you install swap the Tango for a SATA card/SSD. Any legacy SCSI scanner can run off an older Mac.

How fast do you really need wireless to be?  If Gigabit is acceptable, a VONETS or equivalent adapter would be fine and possibly save a slot.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I think the stock drive was a Zip 100 (according to the PM G4 service manual at least). Yeah that might be a good idea but those zip bezels seem to be as rare as hen's teeth. If I manage to locate one, I could add a Zip 250... Or perhaps even better, a Jaz? But would the Zip bezel fit a Jaz drive?  :huh:

Sure, I'd get fast internet with a Vonets but I don't think it has bluetooth capabilities, has it?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Nope, JAZ cartridge is MUCH larger and far less flexible. Watch for a good price on the original (or later, swoopy case design) SCSI drive and you can hook it up to any SCSI Mac for SneakerNet. I don't know that QS bezels are all that rare?

Vonets is WiFi only, why are you worried about having bkuetooth? I use USB nubbin wireless peripherals.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

OK, too bad then about the Jaz... 

My plan with the SCSI card was to use this as my backup station for all my 68k Macs. But now that I think of it, the last Compact mac with a HD that I need to complete my "museum" is an SE Superdrive. So I'm not that worried about SCSI after all. I'll get a USB Zip/Jaz drive when time comes.

I had a look online and the only bezel I can find is 35 bucks... It costs as much as the Zip/Jaz drive itself! That's one (relatively) expensive piece of plastic.

I still don't know what to do about that Mac OS 9 situation. And I've heard bluetooth can be really tricky to set up under OS9 if you don't have the correct adapter. As said earlier, I'd much rather stick with Leopard for everything but I still don't know if the OS9-only games will run well (if at all) on Sheepshaver.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You don't need the plastic to install the drive bit, but it looks a lot prettier with it, better than stock as far as I'm concerned. The naked blank is boring and the black slot accents the black ring detail underneath. []

 

[Unknown_K]

I have that 7800gs AGP in a G5 single 1.6ghz (first model G5 tower). No idea how well it works for games since I don't game on macs.

Wireless is just a $5 apple original airport card same as used on many G3 laptops.

OEM ZIP is 100MB and they are useful for moving files around if you are not networked.

 

[PB145B]

My Qucksilver has has a zip 250 drive. I'm pretty sure it's original, but I don't know for sure.

 

[bibilit]

I don't think it has bluetooth capabilities, has it?

Any USB Bluetooth dongle will work IIRC ( have one that works in a drawer anyway)

My own QS has a 250 Zip drive as standard, including bezel.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Curios, I'm wondering if the factory Zips and first run of upgrade Zip kits were 100 and later runs of boxed upgrade kits were 250?

 

[BadGoldEagle]

The naked blank is boring and the black slot accents the black ring detail underneath.

I actually prefer it with the naked blank bezel. It looks just like its big brother...

Any USB Bluetooth dongle will work IIRC ( have one that works in a drawer anyway)

Hey Luis. I didn't notice you had a Quicksilver until today. Had I known I would have needed another G4 machine I would have bought the one you saw advertised for free. Oh well. This one at least comes with upgrades.

About that adapter though. I'm not a big fan of things that stick on the back of computers, so do you think this adapter'll work with the G4? Or should I avoid Bluetooth 4.0 adapters altogether?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I actually prefer it with the naked blank bezel. It looks just like its big brother...

In that case a USB 250 will do the trick. I'm no fan of the cheese grater with cheese knife handles. There's no accounting for tastes, my own lean heavily toward the Graphite era. Love the vestigal snow white lines under the smooth surface. Too much austerity and flash followed Graphite's warmth.

 

[EvieSigma]

Never liked the Graphite G4 myself, especially since it wasn't a particularly impressive machine until the CPUs went above 500MHz...that and I would have preferred Bondi Blue and clear.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Bondi I found depressing, Blueberry/White looks nice on my TSiBook, but finally lost my taste for the Tower. Now Indigo/Clear, we'd be talking something of beauty.

 

[bibilit]

do you think this adapter'll work with the G4? Or should I avoid Bluetooth 4.0 adapters altogether?

Don't know really, all will work without issue probably.

i have been told that Bluetooth adapters were plug and play in most systems, i you need one, i can give my own.

 

[Cory5412]

It's always interesting to see what upgrades people make to their systems. I got a QS'02 recently and it's got a gig of RAM, an 800MHz CPU and I believe superdrive, and it's still got its original 40 gig disk, and I have yet to do anything to it, as in that configuration, it already feels unrealistically fast. Like for day to day OS 9 stuff, it trips over itself at things you don't notice on most beige systems because everthing else is so mch slower. From my super brief stint in the 10.3 install that came with it, these systems feel more sprightly and smooth in OS X, even before you start putting things in.

To speak to the data transfer issue:

What systems are you transferring data with on the quicksilver? If it has a SCSI card, Jaz is usually not much more than Zip for sometimes surprisingly large collections (on US ebay, I recently saw a bundle of two Jaz drives with cabling and power supply and 17 matching 1-gig cartridges for around $50-75 or so, for example) and is (still not perfect, of course, but) much more robust than zip, and the convenience on the end of the older machine is around the same as zip or any other format.

If you don't already have a lot of Zip stuff specifically, almost anything is good enough. If you just want to back up data, the superdrive in that system will probably work fine with DVD-RAM and/or DVD-RW, or you can upgrade to one of those. 

MO is much more durable overall. LS-120 is easy to get in USB, but not super common in SCSI form, and i don't know if drivers for system 7 or 68k ever came out.

I'm eventually going to swap my Zip drive and bezel to someone for their blank bezel (already arranged, it's going to be a part of my next travel vacation) if only because my QS has either a combo or a superdrive, USB ports, gigabit ethernet, and 

 

[CC_333]

And?

I found mine (933 MHz single-core, I believe) to be decently fast under OS 9 with an SSD, and okay, but sluggish, under Leopard (Tiger is somewhat better, but less modern; at this point in history though, since they've both been EOL for +/-10 years, any differences between it and Leopard are pretty much moot).

c

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I finally finished restoring the Quicksilver. There was a lot of dust in that thing. It was probably the dirtiest Mac I ever fiddled with. Now it looks and feels like new. I have a Tempo but no drive to use it with yet. Last time I went back to France I picked up a CF to IDE adapter I had laying around since it wouldn't work with my one and only PC. I ordered a Floppy to Molex adapter, it should arrive some time next week. 

The Mac came with a Radeon 9000. I gave the original Splinter cell game a go and I am getting single digits on High (that was to be expected). I have located a very nice, cheap and most importantly working 7800gs. I was initially planning on flashing it myself but since my aforementioned PC is in Paris right now and that I find myself several hundred kilometres away from that computer, that plan kinda fell through the roof. I was wondering if someone here could do it for me. I’d pay of course. I’m currently located in Weissach, Germany. The closer the better for both me and the card. It’s currently in Belgium, and I haven’t contacted the seller yet.

I’d hate to buy an old pc just to throw it away after a day or so of use... The apartment I'm renting ATM is quite small and the Quicksilver is currently used as a night stand. 

 

[Bolle]

Send it my way, I can flash it for you.