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Super rare Macintosh II Daystar PDS adapter

EvieSigma

Young ThinkPad Apprentice
I'm interested in the idea of an expansion for LC040 machines with a FPU add-on...unless the 030 compatible FPU is even harder to find than a 33MHz full 040.

 

Bunsen

Admin-Witchfinder-General
I don't think they're compatible.
 

Wouldn't the FPU in the 68040 interfere with the 68882 (unless you have a LC 040 with no FPU)?
No, I think the system just ignores the off-chip FPU.
 

 
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Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
This rings a bell, I seem to recall that the PowerBook Duo 280c had a problem in that it wasn't possible to have an FPU, where the '030 Duos could use an -882 in the DuoDock.

 
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herpderp

Member
I realize this is a thread necro, but if anyone is interested, I have one of these mythical PDS adaptors, albeit for the Macintosh II.  It is different (and maybe rarer?) than the IIx one, as it pulls data and signal from the MC68851 PMMU memory management unit as well as the MC68020 CPU to work its magic.   The card consists of a PDS slot glued to the 68020 bus via some PAL chips, and a programmable ROM (probably some boot time glue to deal with the bus signals/INTs/MMU). PM me if interested.  I'm not interested in price gouging, I'd sell it cheap. 

20181204_004118.jpg

 

CC_333

Well-known member
How cheap is cheap? :)

I actually have a Mac II, and I *might* actually have a use for this (dunno what it'd be (what's it for?), but I'd figure something out), if it's cheap enough for me to afford.

c

 

herpderp

Member
I can see there is some price history floating around on the internet/eBay, and it seems to be worth anywhere from $25 to $40.  I'd let it go for like $10-15 I guess, or maybe less if that's not reasonable.  I don't have a use for this anymore, someone else may as well enjoy it.

 

CC_333

Well-known member
Hmm, OK. I can probably afford that in a week or so.

I guess I'll take it, if nobody else has!

c

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
A Mac II and IIcx adapter recently sold on ebay cheap. I have one of both. I think a working Mac II is probably as hard to find as the Daystar adapter.

 

Paralel

Well-known member
I don't think they're compatible.
 

No, I think the system just ignores the off-chip FPU.
 
A very late reply... But the 68882 can be used, but not like a typical "FPU" with the 'LC040. It has to be run in "Peripheral" mode as an external device. So, it would be very slow. This was done on purpose by Moto' to prevent people from using the 68882 with the 'LC040 like it was used with the '030, as a cheaper option than a full '040. There was one originally planned for the 540c card cage by Sonnet, but they dropped it before it went to production because they realized 1) Not much demand 2) The performance was truly awful.

 
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