Second Wave"s PCI -> NuBus Expansion Box & Others

[CelGen]

Sure isn't a lot happening in the box. Looks like the PCI card decided to hog all the GLUE.

 

[bbraun]

I've got the digidesign 12port nubus-nubus expander. The expansion slots' standard slot space shows up in the expander card's superslot space. 24 bit mode obviously isn't supported because of this. Basically none of the cards in the expansion chassis work without special software that knows where to look, like the digidesign software knows to look for digidesign cards there.

I still have dreams of modifying slot manager to handle this config.

Come to think of it, what other cards use superslot space?

 

[trag]

The last Apple NuBus controller (in the 8100) was named Bart. So it probably followed that Second Wave would name their chips after other Simpson's characters. However, I'm not sure that Apple's "Bart" was a Simpson's reference.

 

[mcdermd]

Yeah, it's more likely to be a Bay Area Rapid Transit reference (what with all those fast Nubus cards and all).

 

[Cosmo]

I might not have use for the unit now, so if anybody's interested, i'm willing to consider an trade for something (anything Apple II, IIgs -releated) ?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm interested in doing that hack we discussed! :approve:

 

[balrog]

There's some information here about this thing that's fairly useful:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060314030428/http://www.2ndwave.com/readme.asp?ProductID=53&mscssid=EQXWUBX3KQCS9LWV1G1K3T0KW9TT13S2

The general page with info on these is at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060314025641/http://www.2ndwave.com/support.asp?ProductID=53&mscssid=EQXWUBX3KQCS9LWV1G1K3T0KW9TT13S2

Drivers are available there too (the PN200 drivers should work with all versions).

 

[CelGen]

Middle of moving and I discovered that HOLY CRAP. In the large lot of cards I got a year ago I also got the Xpanse PCI adapter! 8-o

I don't have the box but if I looked at those photos correctly, there isn't really all that much there to reverse engineer and give me NuBus slots.

 

[wirefall]

Hi there, got a 2 slot version, ROM is 3.1. According to the waybackmachine the last ROM is 3.5. Anybody? Couldn't find any binaries to make an EPROM copy.

Thanks!!

 

[CelGen]

Okay, so excluding the cable I now have all the major bits to the NuBus chassis.

When the board comes in would anyone be interested in photographs/scans?

 

[CelGen]

This better be worth the pocket I paid for this.

It's a bit beat up with a damaged switch and an empty chip socket but now excluding the enclosure, power supply, cable and some TLC I have the major parts.

I'm noticing that this board is NOT similar to the one seen in the advert. I tried scanning in the PCB but the only scanner I got access to can't handle the nubus slots raising the board up so one sid eis too fuzzy to really see anything.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

If that board says ©1991 it will be very interesting to see if you can get it up and running with the PCI Interface Card. I wouldn't worry too much about getting your money back even if it doesn't work out. Someone with a two or four slot NuBus interface Card will likely want to give it a try.

Thanks for the piccie, I missed your question about interest in documentation. Some closeups of the logic would be really good for checking out the missing IC's function.

The chips next to the bus termination are especially interesting, as well as the DIP switch diagram.

A stack of these boxes filled with Grappler Cards hooked up to a rack full of MoDems in a BBS config makes a world of sense to me. DIO is the only other use I can think of offhand for a multiplexed stack of boxes like this in the six slot IIx/IIfx era.

 

[barana]

Interesting question, does anyone know of any 8 bit + software emulators that can do hardware calls across the host's expansion bus?

not 8 bit, but uae has a iirc warp3d driver called quarktex, which speaks to the real 3d card installed in the pc uae is running on. handy to say the least.

a real 68k amiga with a pcibus and radeon/3dfx card can do 3d with warp3d and rtg.library.as well as some zorro 3d cards.

 

[Brooklyn]

The SE/30 interface card popped up on ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Second-Wave-ExpanSE-30-1989-For-Apple-Macintosh-SE-30-Computers-p-n-0326001-05-/190979687524?&_trksid=p2056016.m2518.l4276

 

[CelGen]

Why in the name of god is there a Dallas RTC?

 

[NJRoadfan]

Not a RTC, just battery backed memory.

 

[syn-fi]

has anyone across the 'secondwave' interface card for the expansion chassis? would like to get a closer look at that.

 

[testdriver]

so is this the ticket to getting a pro tools iii chassis on a faster pci mac? anyone ever tried?