Radius 81/110 VideoVision Workstation to be upgraded!

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've got a couple of goodies coming from Sonnet, my favorite accelerator supplier (since the untimely demise of Radius :'( ) for my favorite (BOTH from Radius [] ]'> ) Mac Clone and Peripheral!

Crescendo/NuBus G3 400 MHz

Crescendo AV/HPV Card Adapter Kit

I've been waiting a LONG TIME to order these babies. The 81/110 is fit as a fiddle (physically) but has some extension problems. An upgrade to the most recent OS that the VideoVision Studio will play nicely with should fix any of those problems. The next step will be sourcing some SCSI adapters for some kind of big, fast, modern drives! [] ]'>

Radius 81/110 photos at DigiBarn

 

[Bunsen]

Eeexcellent. A G3 upgraded 81xx is about the nicest Nubus rig you can get

 

[beachycove]

Didn't those Radius machines ship with (naturally) a Radius Thunder IV GX video card?

I really like the look of of the Radius 81/110, but have never had opportunity to get my hands on one.

 

[protocol7]

Looks like it's built like a tank.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I don't remember exactly which of my collection of NuBus cards was in it when when I got it, but I've got several really good Radius cards for it. :approve:

. . . and yes, it IS built like a tank! The frontal armor behind the faceplate is a really nicely done approx. 20 ga. galvanized sheet metal work. The box is heavier. I'd acquired a second faceplate, hoping to install a second optical drive, but it's not really possible. That faceplate was/is the basis for my, fairly well along the way, ubuntuGIMPboxHack™. [}] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I dug out the 81/110 User's Manual, which doesn't mention ANY video card shipping with it. When i got mine it had, of all things, a SuperMac Thunder/24 VidCard in it! : . . . found the auction printouts too . . .

There's some nonsense on LowEndMac about it having come stock with a SCSI II card installed, but there isn't any mention of either a SCSI or VidCard in the User's Manual listings of "what's in the box," or specs which included either one, while there was a page devoted to the resolutions supported by the onboard video. I'm sure they got it mixed up with some of the VideoVision accessory specs, one of which was something like a JackHammer card and HDD array, which I didn't win when I bid on one back in the (early 68kMLA) day. But I think I snagged some of the shots and specs from that auction.

I'll be looking for a SCSI II card for this thing, I've already found a SATA to SCSI II adapter to use. That alone wil be another $80, but it will be useful for playing with lots of my NuBus Architecture (and earlier!) Macs running at standard 8MB/sec SCSI I speeds!

I must really be nuts, using a 19 year old Video/Sound digitizing system in a 16 year old computer . . .

. . . but what the heck, it's WAY cool! [] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Here's more piccie/info from an auction I lost out on . . .

and another . . .

and yet another . . .

 

[Bunsen]

Hmm, I wonder if macmetex still has that Radius Studio Array of his? } NB, just the drive box, no other accessories IIRC.

 

[CJ_Miller]

Boo-tee-full....

Always wanted to check out a Radius 81 in person. The separate VideoVision package is fairly easy to find. It must be nice to put the whole system together.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks for that tip, Bunsen. Rob sent both remaining StudioArray Boxen my way a while back. :approve:

One was empty and the other had a single HDD, but both have PSUs and the Fast/Wide SCSI II cable connections. Still no JackHammer, but we're getting there! Now I've got a few SCSI Ultra 160 drives and a pair of Fast SCSI 2 Cards, one for the 81/100 (until I source that JackHammer or equivalent) and one for the pet IIfx.

I'd forgotten all about this thread, it's not on my cheat-sheet.

I was just looking for a place to share this pic. I re-googled it after seeing it a few months back and not bookmarking it . . .

. . . like a dope. :

The President of Radius Inc. and the Gray Radius Proto-Clone:



It's a little TOO wavy for my taste, but the color/outrigger combo is positively hackworthy. }

 

[Unknown_K]

Jackhammers on the 81/110 have issues with the bus, won't work for video capture (at least with the Media 100). I have a Media 100 Nubus in my 81/110 and just use the built in SCSI.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

That sounds strange, the VideoVision StudioArray shipped with the JackHammer!

edit:

HOLYCR@P!!!!!! Check out the fourth friggin' hit for Radius StudioArray

. . . I don't believe this, that's just freaky, all those threads listed are mine. 8-o

 

[Unknown_K]

The Media 100 cardset is bus mastering or something like that, Videovision isn't. Most Radius Videovision setups were used on 800/840AV or 950's anyway then switched to PCI machines.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'll just have to do with Fast SCSI II and Ultra 160s with one of the Cards I already have then.

Big news on the upgrade front though, I finally found the adapter cable for using the PDS Video Card with the NuBus G3. I've been trying to keep this one a straight upgrade thread, but I just had to throw at least one or two hacks into the 81/110.

You've just gotta love this nice big roomy metal case. I snagged a VRAM Upgrade type PDS VidCard off eBay quite a while back. It came with what must be a NuPower Aluminum adapter for Slot Two in the 8100. In the 81/110, I just proved that I can mount the PDS card horizontally, ABOVE the three Nubus Slots! This leaves all three slots available: one for the fast SCSI II Card, one for the VideoVisionStudio Card and the third slot for the Radius Thunder IV GX 1600! I'll be running all four big CRTs off one "Mac" for the first time as a serious exercise.

Pet IIfx Photo Op setups for the full house series don't really count.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'll post the clean/full version of this in Hacks and Development when it's finished, but Here's the proof of concept/gritty details of the beginnings shot:



You can see the gentle beginnings of the S Curve that the adapter cable will take on its journey to the PDS VidCard bolted up parallel to the sides and more deeply into the roomy cubic above the three full length cards I threw in there for the shot. On the right is the Adapter Cable that came with another PDS VidCard along with a fabulous aluminum NuBus Slot adapter, as opposed to the very elegant PCB version that shipped with the cable from Sonnet..

The aluminum version of the slot adapter mounts the card about an inch deeper into the backplane of the case for some reason, hence, the ribbon cable extension. The extension does an S-Curve of its own, placing the Video Connector back at the top of the a second backplane cover about 1/4" higher for some reason or other. I'll take pics of it while it's still intact for the detailed Hacks thread.

BTW, the standard adapter cable is attached to an internally mounted ENHANCE Liberty Adapter. I'll need to fabricate a longer version for the way I'm doing it. The fit testing for clearance above the low profile Sonnet 6100/7100/8100 G3 Card while mounted in the PDS Vidcard's slot cover fourth PDS opening was successful. [] ]'>

I guess I can't manage do a straight upgrade without throwing a hack into the mix . . . maybe two.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Another freaky hit in the never ending search, it popped up between the first hit and the four link 68kMLA/Google/OuroborosTailMunch:

http://forums.digitalmedianet.com/cgi-bin/displaywwugpost.fcgi?forum=radius&post=000129041159.htm

This guy was posting the same questions about the exactly same config that I am now, right down to the Atto Silicon Express SCSI II Card, at about the same time I snagged the 81/110 on eBay for local pickup back in the Big Apple!

< . . . ambles off to work on the Radius Clone, humming the theme from The Twilight Zone . . .>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Curioser and curioser . . . there's not a lot of good or even non-contradictory information about this beast at the usual places.

Internal HDD interface:

LEM ______________Fast SCSI

EveryMac _________Fast SCSI

macintoshos.com _No spec.

EveryMac i\lists all Apple Cold Fusion PowerMac variants (assuming the /110 PowerMace were indeed the same architecture) as Vanilla SCSI, so I'd like to know if Radius added a Fast SCSI II Chipset to the MoBo or shipped a SCSI II Card with the Monster? I'm thinking the former, any ideas? What should I do to test SCSI throughput against a 7100, better yet, does anybody have one of the Apple PowerMac/110 variants to benchmark? I'd never known that these existed, but I already had my MetalMonster, so I never looked for the self-destructing case variety.

OS Compatibility:

LEM ______________7.5.1 to 9.1, excluding 7.5.2

EveryMac _________7.1-7.5.1, 7.5.3-9.0 (note the skip over 7.5.2)

macintoshos.com _ 7.5.2, 7.5.3 - found the link to this place on EveryMac - is anything on this site trustworthy?

I think trag mentioned this elsewhere, is there a 2MB/4MB upgradeable version of the HPV Card? Anybody wanna work out a trade with me? }

How much does running MoBo video mung up the RAM on this Vampire Video throwback? Curious bit that.

Any and all info welcome, especially personal experience with the curious Beast.

 

[TylerEss]

IIRC from when I had an 81/110 as a daily driver, the SCSI busses on the 81/110 are the same as on the 8100; twin normal 5MB/s SCSI busses. I had a pair of drives striped across the busses to get almost 10MB/s while it was running Linux as a web server.

The "System 100" was an 81/110 bundled with a Thunder IV GX 1600 video card, FWB JackHammer SCSI card, and a Fast/Wide 2.1GB drive, to the best of my recollection.

There is a 2MB soldered version of the HPV card that takes 4 x 512KB VRAM SIMMs for a total of 4MB. It shipped in non-AV 8100s. I sold one on eBay a few years back.

That 4MB HPV card is the hot ticket in these machines unless you want a bigger resolution than they support. It's just a dumb framebuffer, but it's on a 64-bit bus at 33 or 40MHz. So, the CPU has far more bandwidth to the VRAM than any NuBus card. QuickDraw acceleration mostly just helps to make up for the slowness of NuBus, in my experience.

 

[trag]

There was also a Power Computing version of the HPV card which had the same 2/4 MB configuration as the Apple 8100 card, but also has a VGA connector in addition to the Mac DB15 connector, and a little switch on the board for switching between the two connectors.

The nicest thing about the PCC HPV card, in my opinion, is that if you see an HPV card with two video connectors on the back you immediately know that it is the PCC version and therefore you know that it is a 2/4 MB card without having to puzzle out the amount of VRAM on board.

I totally agree with Tyler about bandwidth and the HPV card.

The internal only SCSI bus in the 8100 is meant to be Fast SCSI, 10 MB/s. Whether the performance supports that, I cannot say. However, the chip used is the 53CF96 and Apple's Developer Notes for the 8100 claims that it's 10 MB/s.