Smallest (physical size) Machine to Run 7.6.1?

[trag]

I'm about to retire my S900 based frankenstein and move to a G4 MDD as my main machine. But there are still a few games I like to play which really work best in 7.6.1. I'm willing to keep an extra machine around to play them, but I'd like for it to be physically small. If there was a Mini which would run 7.6.1 that would be perfect, alas.

So, any thoughts on what is (or can be) smallest? I'm happy to do case cramming: i.e. take the guts out of a larger machine and cram them into a smaller case.

I was looking at the Power Wave from Power Computing because it has the PCI slots turned horizontal on a daughter card, which makes the logic board smaller. However, the PCI riser card for the thing is *tall*. Those crazy PCC engineers put the PCI master slot next to the CPU slot and then they had to make the PCI riser card really tall to avoid interfering with the CPU card. Anyone know with the PowerCenter/Tower/Center Pro are the same way?

I was hoping I could cram it into this case:

http://www.interloper.com/products/product-details.php?productid=51000029&cat=51#

But the funny riser on the Power Wave doesn't work with the NLX standard. Grrr.

I don't suppose anyone has ever made 7.6.1 run on a Beige G3? That would be ideal. Small ATX form factor. Uses ZIF CPUs. Etc.

Right now I'm investigating how compact a Umax C500/C600 can be. The PCC PowerBase probably also bears looking into, but in most cases, to get the detailed logic board physical information I need, I end up needing to actually buy a used machine (or at least logic board). That way lies madness.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Smallest would be a Quadra 605.

Smallest PPC would be a Power Mac 7220 / Performa 4400.

Or, if you count smallest total footprint, including display, a TAM.

 

[waynestewart]

If you consider a beige G3 to be small enough then a 7600(7500,7300) which uses the same case would do the trick. G3 cards are cheap. Even better, score a ZIF carrier and you can use any G3 ZIF, even a 1ghz.

 

[Bunsen]

I'm happy to do case cramming: i.e. take the guts out of a larger machine and cram them into a smaller case.

So then, you're looking at motherboards and any associated risers, I guess. I gather that you also need/want PCI.

I nominate the 5500/6500 series logic boards then, with either a 1x or 2x PCI riser to suit, L2 G3 upgrade optional. Small footprint, small overall cubic, even with the associated wiring harness. I can just about see one of them fitting into a 2- or 3-up external 5.25" drive case, with drives and PS.

If you don't really need PCI, then: 630/640, 475/605, 610/660AV. Powermac 6100 adds PPC and optional G3.

Course, you could also go for a Powerbook if PCI is optional

 

[Torbar]

The Color Classic can run 7.6.1

 

[Strimkind]

Any Pre-G3 Powerbook would do the trick.

 

[trag]

If you consider a beige G3 to be small enough then a 7600(7500,7300) which uses the same case would do the trick.

I'm pretty sure that the 7500 logic board is considerably larger than the Beige G3 logic board, even though they did fit in the same desktop case. The biggest issue with the G3 is that if one wants sound, one is locked into that huge tall I/O card right in the middle of the board. But I might be able to fabricate a low profile replacement for that. But the Beige G3 is moot as long as it doesn't run 7.6.1.

To the other respondents, yes, I'm aiming for PPC and PCI so most of the other suggestions, while fitting the (inadequate) information I initially provided, don't really fit the bill.

Ideally, I'd like a board on which I can fit an Acard 6280M, Radeon 7000 and a USB/Firewire/gig-enet card. The latter can be dispensed with if necessary, so two PCI slots is acceptable.

But I'd be willing to fall back to built-in SCSI and video if it will get me much smaller form factor.

So the pizza boxes are out, because they were just too slow and NuBus.

Looking at the logic boards though, there really wasn't anything especially compact back then. I'll need to look into the 6300/6400/6500 I guess. Didn't those machines have the slide in logic boards that pretty much require the original case in order to make the logic board connections? That's the main reason I hadn't considered them. Well, that and L2 CPU upgrades, but a fast 603e is probably good enough for what this machine will do.

Notebook as one person suggested is another possibility, but loses all of the PCI expandability. If it has external monitor capability though, that might fit the bill. The TAM is an interesting suggestion, but aren't those expensive?

I'm seriously tempted to redesign the PowerWave PCI Riser card and the CPU card to do what *I* want. But,while I'm pretty sure I could whip out a working PCI Riser, I'm not at all certain I could get the CPU to work. I would have to design my own ZIF Carrier (copy an existing design on my shaped board) and I don't even know if one can still get the ZIF sockets at an affordable price, and if one can, aren't they a BGA component. Getting those soldered down costs some dough.

 

[Bunsen]

I'm pretty sure that the 7500 logic board is considerably larger than the Beige G3 logic board

It is.

the Beige G3 is moot as long as it doesn't run 7.6.1.

It doesn't.

6300/6400/6500 / pretty much require the original case in order to make the logic board connections?

No, just the wiring harness. You can put one in a Colour Classic with a lot of hackery, or a 630/6360 desktop case with less hackery. Those cases are smallish. Anything smaller would require (say) 2.5" IDE or CF boot drive, no floppy, no or slim optical, external or SFF PS, or other space saving tricks.

NB: IIRC, 6300 non existare - 6320 is the start of the series. Ignore that Road Apple; the 6360 is where they start to be not crap, and the 64/6500 boards are better.

They all have max 2 PCI slots. Although ... what bears investigating is the nature of the riser, and where the PCI controller lives. Seeing as the 1 slot and 2 slot risers are interchangeable between the 5xxx and 6xxx series logics, it's just about conceivable that a 3x riser could be fabbed.

USB/Firewire/gig-enet card.

There is such a thing? All on one card? I know of the Tempo Trio, which is USB/Firewire/ATA, but not what you describe.

I'd be willing to fall back to built-in SCSI and video if it will get me much smaller form factor.

Are any of the PowerComputing clones equipped with 3x PCI risers? I don't recall; however one of them might give you a smallish baseboard to work with, and, IIRC, some of them are slot-compatible with the mainstream Apple PCI machines CPUs and upgrades. Whether those two factors are present in the same machine is another question, but IIRC even the others will take the L2 upgrades.

TAM is an interesting suggestion, but aren't those expensive?

In good working condition, yes they are. Also: max two PCI, and that with a rare riser and extended back cover. I have a vague memory that they take the same risers as the x500, but I wouldn't stake cash monies on it without checking.

 

[johnklos]

A 6360 or 6400 motherboard in a Quadra 630-type case (you'd need to add a 3.3 volt regulator) would give you a machine which could have one PCI slot plus a comm slot 100 Mbps ethernet interface.

The same motherboard in another case should give you plenty of space for a PCI card riser which would give you the ability to have a Radeon and an Acard, then use the comm slot for the 100 Mbps.

How do you plan to get USB and FireWire working in 7.6.1?

 

[Bunsen]

System7today should know if that's possible, if anyone does.

/eta/ Apparently, it is, partly:

DV Video - WorkingFireWire Mass Storage - Not Yet Working

I forgot about the comm slot; yes, that's one more useable slot on those boards. Those 100MB/s CSII NICs are not so easy to find though, IIRC.

Another space saver to consider, if you can spare a PCI slot for it, is one of those Sonnet ATA cards that mounts a 2.5" drive directly on the card.

 

[Baboon!]

A 6360 or 6400 motherboard in a Quadra 630-type case (you'd need to add a 3.3 volt regulator) would give you a machine which could have one PCI slot plus a comm slot 100 Mbps ethernet interface.
The same motherboard in another case should give you plenty of space for a PCI card riser which would give you the ability to have a Radeon and an Acard, then use the comm slot for the 100 Mbps.

How do you plan to get USB and FireWire working in 7.6.1?

Just buy a 6360 then.

USB is difficult enough in 8.1, I'd imagine it's impossible in 7.6.1. FireWire though - it's actually a pretty old standard, dating from 1995. Apple sold a FireWire PCI card for a short period of time, and it might have early drivers that work in 7.6.1.

 

[trag]

and the 64/6500 boards are better.
They all have max 2 PCI slots. Although ... what bears investigating is the nature of the riser, and where the PCI controller lives. Seeing as the 1 slot and 2 slot risers are interchangeable between the 5xxx and 6xxx series logics, it's just about conceivable that a 3x riser could be fabbed.

Yeah. It depends on what Apple used for the PCI bridge and arbiter. On the x500 machines, the arbiter has lines for six PCI devices, even though most of those machines only have four on the board (3 slots + Grand Central).

USB/Firewire/gig-enet card.

There is such a thing? All on one card? I know of the Tempo Trio, which is USB/Firewire/ATA, but not what you describe.

SIIG JU-2NG011

It was never marketed for the Mac. SIIG sold it for about $85. It is now discontinued but I managed to find two of them when they were down to ~$30. There were also unbranded cards (probably from the same factory) for a brief time for about $15. I'd guess the factory was just running out the stock of components (chips) and changed the silk screen for the PCB so it didn't have SIIG's name on it.

I haven't tested it out, but it *should* work and I think there's an item on XLR8yourmac.com saying it works. It's just a PCI-PCI bridge (makes one slot look like many) with standard chips behind it. The USB2 is NEC, the Firewire is TI and the ethernet is RealTek. All of which are well supported on the Mac. However, there is an Open Firmware bug in Apple machines with using PCI-PCI bridges in early PCI machines. For example, the X500 series won't let you nest/daisy-chain them although the PCI standard requires it. And I seem to remember that the Trio did not work in one of the 63xx or 64xx series machines until they developed an extension for it. The nesting bug can get nasty because some USB2.0 chips look like a PCI-PCI bridge with multiple USB hubs behind it. So one of those USB chips on a combo card creates a nesting situation. Which is why some combo cards have such issues on those older machines.

I'd be willing to fall back to built-in SCSI and video if it will get me much smaller form factor.

Are any of the PowerComputing clones equipped with 3x PCI risers?

Most of them were. Well, many of them anyway. Certainly, the PowerWave and the PowerCenter Pro, IIRC. However, the PowerWave's riser card is very different from Apple's. You can't count on PCI riser cards being wired similarly.

 

[trag]

A 6360 or 6400 motherboard in a Quadra 630-type case (you'd need to add a 3.3 volt regulator) would give you a machine which could have one PCI slot plus a comm slot 100 Mbps ethernet interface.

I was hoping to get it a little more compact than a Q630, but that may be the best I can do. Is there a web page around that shows such a mod? If you don't already know one, I'll google it up.

The same motherboard in another case should give you plenty of space for a PCI card riser which would give you the ability to have a Radeon and an Acard, then use the comm slot for the 100 Mbps.
How do you plan to get USB and FireWire working in 7.6.1?

I'll reboot into 8.5 or 9.1 of course.

The USB and Firewire are mainly desired for file transfers and that's a large part of why they're dispensable. I'm not using external SCSI drives any more and I've become spoiled. External SCSI is *slow*. Unless I drag out the wide cables and install high end SCSI cards, which is another PCI slot. But slow is probably okay for the file sizes I'd need with OS 7.6.1, I guess.

 

[Bunsen]

A 6360 or 6400 motherboard in a Quadra 630-type case (you'd need to add a 3.3 volt regulator)

Is there a web page around that shows such a mod?

The Power Colour Classic pages or the CC FAQ should have it. The 55/6500 board creates its own 3.3V, and doesn't need an external regulator.

I was hoping to get it a little more compact than a Q630

With a wiring harness and a bit of creative re-stuffing it should be possible. Eyeballing that Mini NLX case you linked though, it looks roughly the same size. It also looks like it could accommodate one of these boards.

 

[Bunsen]

So apparently there was a 6300, sold only in Asia.

Anyway:

Case    (inches) Height Width  Depth
------------------------------------
630->6360         4.3   12.6   16.5
NLX               3.5   11.0   13.5
Color Classic    14.5    9.9   12.6
------------------------------------

Seeing as these motherboards fit into a CC, which has a smaller footprint than the NLX case, it looks pretty doable, with surgery. That should also give you a rough idea of the minimum footprint for any other cases you might want to look at, as the "Takky" motherboards only just fit into the CC. Do you already have the case that you linked or is it just one candidate?

This should help: http://colourclassicfaq.com/mobo/takky.shtml#Q2.2.1

Here's a CC stuffed with a full 6500 chassis and 2x PCI riser. The images (click for larger) should help give you an idea of the fit.

 

[trag]

Seeing as these motherboards fit into a CC, which has a smaller footprint than the NLX case, it looks pretty doable, with surgery. That should also give you a rough idea of the minimum footprint for any other cases you might want to look at, as the "Takky" motherboards only just fit into the CC. Do you already have the case that you linked or is it just one candidate?

Ah, good point. Thanks. No, I don't have that case yet. I was considering it because I thought the PowerWave might fit into it with it's riser card. The NLX spec and Power Computing are pretty close in time, although I think the NLX spec. was a little later. But to some extent it was a codification of stuff folks were already doing, so I hoped Power Computing might have been following it. But not even close.

But the footprint of the CC is small. So that's good, although it might be more trouble to wire things up. The bad thing is that I have absolutely none of those machines on hand to examine.

 

[johnklos]

A 6360 or 6400 motherboard in a Quadra 630-type case (you'd need to add a 3.3 volt regulator) would give you a machine which could have one PCI slot plus a comm slot 100 Mbps ethernet interface.

I was hoping to get it a little more compact than a Q630, but that may be the best I can do. Is there a web page around that shows such a mod? If you don't already know one, I'll google it up.

It's not very complicated. I found what I think is a 6360, 6400, or 5400 motherboard in a smashed machine in the trash a decade ago and made it work in a Quadra 630 case with this mod:

I broke the pin off which is 5 volts on the Quadra harness and 3.3 volts on the 6360 / 6400, then soldered an adjustable regulator in its place. The best way to adjust the voltage is with the machine running, so I did with the top covers removed from the Quadra 630 case. This particular machine has been doing NAT, DNS, and IPv6 routing continuously for the last six years, and I've only brought it out from under the house where it lives to replace the fan and swap the 10 Mbps comm slot card for a 100 Mbps card (since the cable modem is supposed to go up to 15 Mbps) and to swap that 1 Gbps Intel ethernet card you see in the picture for a cheesy four port Realtek-based switch-on-a-card so that I could connect more stuff without an external switch since everything has to fit in a plastic box under the house.

The regulator is an LM317 which can do up to 1.5 amps and is fed off of 5 volts. The variable resistor is a multiturn type so that it can be adjusted in little tiny bits, and the heat sink is something I found in some electronics in the trash. It's overkill, since it barely gets warm.

I hope this helps.

 

[Bunsen]

I note that a 5500 board with a 1x PCI riser just turned up in the Trading Post for a reasonable cost.

 

[trag]

It's not very complicated. I found what I think is a 6360, 6400, or 5400 motherboard in a smashed machine in the trash a decade ago and made it work in a Quadra 630 case with this mod:
I broke the pin off which is 5 volts on the Quadra harness and 3.3 volts on the 6360 / 6400, then soldered an adjustable regulator in its place. The best way to adjust the voltage is with the machine running, so I did with the top covers removed from the Quadra 630 case.

The regulator is an LM317 which can do up to 1.5 amps and is fed off of 5 volts. The variable resistor is a multiturn type so that it can be adjusted in little tiny bits, and the heat sink is something I found in some electronics in the trash. It's overkill, since it barely gets warm.

I hope this helps.

Yes, Thank you. That's interesting.

Do you know the approximate dimensions of the board? I guess it's the same as a Q630 board? I have one of those I can measure.

The PowerWave board is 9" X 13", which means any case I use with it must be at least that big in two dimensions.