Soph's mac finds

[SophieRose]

Hi

I've been into old mac since the late early 90s and in the last year or so I have rekindled my mac love and currently have a few lying around as you do including my favourite mac the 8100 110

My latest find is these which seem to be quite scarce in the UK.

 

[LaPorta]

Which boards are those, Soph? By the way, welcome to the forum!

 

[SophieRose]

Oh yeah that would help wouldn't it LOL they're both Radius Rockets. One's a full 25MHz and the other is 25MHz without the co-pro. I'm thinking of testing them in my IIVX if the PSU will hack it.

 

[LaPorta]

That would be cool, what’s in store for the IIvx? What sort of setup do you have?

 

[SophieRose]

The VX is basically my nubus test machine, it's stock.  The apple kit I have includes.

Mac IIvx

Powermac 8100 110 - HPV videocard. (my main mac which I use for lightwave 3d and hopefully soon logic for some rackmount synth action)

Performa 5320CD 

3x videovision card with expansions. + videovision breakout with video ins and outs.

2x radius rockets

Apple adjustable adb keyboard

 

[nglevin]

Rockets should work great with the IIvx PSU, I had a fully loaded one working fine with the less beefy Q700 PSU. If you have any problems with starting the IIvx while they're connected, you can remove a few of the RAM modules to reduce the power draw and the HEAT those things give.

I'll admit I never really figured out what to do with a Rocket. They're awesomely hacky means of getting another Mac in your Mac. Only problem is, the real time multimedia subsystems (QuickTime, many forms of audio playback) don't know what to do if they can't have the highest possible priority on your Mac.

Web browsing on Netscape 2.0.2 might work in a pinch. Photoshop is an easy one, even though any Power Mac can do the same batch processing jobs better. FrameMaker required a decent amount of horsepower too.

Really something that would act as a pint sized "server" almost seems ideal for a Rocket. I vaguely recall that the AppleTalk interop with RocketShare was surprisingly well done, if not always stable.

3x videovision card with expansions. + videovision breakout with video ins and outs.

That uh, sounds like the beginnings of a great Premiere 4.2 rig. Have you considered showing off to Premiere/Final Cut architect Randy Ubillos, now that he's retired? 

 

[omidimo]

If you keep an eye out on eBay you might snatch up a Booster card. I have the Photoshop and SCSI cards.

Funny thing is I have 3 NuBus VideoVisions and I thought I was a little nutty, but I guess I am not alone!  Though I fried one by accident, bent pins are bad news. 

 

[SophieRose]

There's just somthing about radius kit, i love it. I just missed out on a pivot monitor but I think in reality id struggle with space as ive a few crt monitors already.

 

[omidimo]

Radius is special indeed. The stuff of my childhood dreams. I have been lucky and have gathered quite a few pieces over the past few years including the later and rarer graphics cards.

The Pivots are nice but bulky. I have a grayscale one but its in storage mode. Picked up a 17" Trinitron one, and that one is a beast as well.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

There's just somthing about radius kit, i love it.

I hear you! Sometimes I think I collect Macs as homes for my Radius collection. First workstation was an SE bundled with a Radius16/CoPro used to vectorize artwork for vinyl cutting. Went from there to a Rocket33 in a used IIx, it was perfect for my needs. 20" and then 21" Radius CRTs were a dream later in the nineties. I still have the PrecisionView 2150 as my main Mac display after almost 25 years now. Favorite Mac is a tossup between the IIfx and Radius 81/110. I have Radius VidCards in machines for LC, IIsi, NuBus and PCI slots and a nice set of Radius/KDS LCD displays.

The best and brightest of the Mac team founded Radius to do naughty things forbidden by SJ.

 

[SophieRose]

The best and brightest of the Mac team founded Radius to do naughty things forbidden by SJ.

I didn't know that, that is interesting and explains why it's such decent kit.

 

[omidimo]

best and brightest

SJ would have called them impudent rebels! They did leave the Mac team to pursue their mad plans. It is a darn shame that Radius was a poorly run company, they had the engineering talent just not the forward thinking management end. 

@SophieRose A good old read is this catalog of the Rockets: https://archive.org/details/RadiusRocketBrochure

 

[jessenator]

not the forward thinking management

…not buying After Effects… oof

Dang, those Rockets are a nice find indeed.

 

[LaPorta]

Wow, I did not realize at all just how awesome those things were. I wish I could score one for my Mac II.

 

[olePigeon]

I have a couple myself, one still in the box.   Also have the Photo Booster and SCSI add-on cards.  They're really cool and nifty cards.  I used to have 4 of them, but I sold the other two on here to some peeps.  But not before I took a picture of 3 Radius Rockets all running congruently in a IIci.  I had to boot them in a specific order otherwise the computer would crash.  The bitty power supply was being pushed to the limits. :lol:

By the way @SophieRose, the manual says they double as QuickDraw accelerators and will work with an unaccelerated video card to boost performance.  If you also have a Radius branded video card (even if it's already accelerated) it will improve performance even further.  I've measured this with some benchmarking tools.

Also, what's the complaint about space?  You just have to get creative.  Plenty of room in the bedroom with one of these workbench bunkbeds.

 

[EvilCapitalist]

Whoa, talk about a college flashback

 

[SophieRose]

Oh wow I'd love that bed if it came in a double version with underneath storage and desk.  [8D]

 

[maceffects]

Welcome to the forums!  Those Radius rockets are a good find.  Not easy to get anywhere in the world!

 

[SophieRose]

Welcome to the forums!  Those Radius rockets are a good find.  Not easy to get anywhere in the world!

Really I wasn't sure but I couldn't pass them up for 10 GBP.