Suprise found in a Quadra 700

[Johnnya101]

Got a Quadra 700 in my big haul the other day. It had some sort of card installed, but I wasn't sure what. Judging by the stickers on it and files on the hard drive, it was first used as a web server, then turned into a Photoshop machine. Has the Onescanner software on it to go with my Onescanner. Guess this is the one that was used with it.

Also has a 160 MB quantum prodrive. As a side question, are these generally good hard drives or are these the ones with bad rubber? It is working fine as of now...

Anyways, see if you can find the suprise below. 68MB ram and max vram, but that's not the main suprising thing.

 

[trag]

Nice.  A PowerPro or whatever it was called.   I get confused because I think there was one model with SIMM sockets on board and another model that is purely a CPU upgrade.

 

[Unknown_K]

They made one for the 040 PDS slot which was just the CPU, and one with CPU + RAM + cache PowerPro 601. They also made one for the 030 PDS slot (IIci) I think it is called the Daystar Turbo 601. The 040 LC PDS version was the Powercard.

 

[Johnnya101]

This one does not have any slots that I'm aware of. There are a bunch of ICs on the back though, like an organized array.

On the fence now with it. I could swap it into my nicer 700 that is unyellowed and clean, or keep it in the computer it's been in... Hmmm. I'll probably leave it and clean the case.

 

[Unknown_K]

Cleaning the case would be a given for me. Actually I tend to strip them completely, clean them, looks for pieces floating around, then put them back together. Q700 should be just as easy to clean as a IIci.

 

[AlpineRaven]

Daystar/Apple PowerPC 601 card?

Any pics of the card inside it?

My Quadra 700 has Apple PowerPC 601 card in it as well which was originally surprise find in Quadra 950 which I took it out and put it in Quadra 700.
Cheers

AP

 

[Johnnya101]

Here it is. Very dusty since I haven't cleaned it up yet.

 

[EvilCapitalist]

That's the Apple-branded (but still made by DayStar) PowerPC upgrade card.  If you switch out your 25MHz clock chip for a 33MHz one the card will run at 66MHz as opposed to the 50MHz it's running now.  From what I understand these are stable into the 70MHz range if you go for really overclocking your machine.

 

[Brett B.]

Good score.  I had a Daystar 601 upgrade in my old IIci - they are cool upgrades.  Might think about rigging up a fan to blow over the heatsink, mine ran incredibly hot.

 

[Quadra]

When I turned on a Quadra 700 that I just bought, it made a weird startup sound that I didn`t know. I thought there was something wrong with it.

A "Power Macintosh 700" it was.

When I opened it, I found that card inside. Later I noticed that the cards empty box was among the stuff that came with the Quadra.

So I pulled it out of the computer and put it in the box. No need for a 50 Mhz Power Mac.

 

[Jinnai]

Weird flex, but OK cards with boxes are awesome too. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

With a user name like Quadra, what were you expecting? :lol: Sweet finds all around, not my cup of tea, but very cool nonetheless. I imagine that PPC upgrade made its Photoshop host fly. Run TattleTech to check it, its speed and if that IC array on the solder side is cache. It wouldn't make any sense to me to make such a card sans cache.

 

[LaPorta]

That's pretty sweet. Would love to find something like that! I've never found anything "cool", just plain-jane machines.

 

[Johnnya101]

Keep looking! Ive never found anything "special" until this haul. Multiple "surprises" and Im still finding them!

 

[trag]

They made one for the 040 PDS slot which was just the CPU, and one with CPU + RAM + cache PowerPro 601. They also made one for the 030 PDS slot (IIci) I think it is called the Daystar Turbo 601. The 040 LC PDS version was the Powercard.

Thank you for listing those.   I appreciate the refresh to my old memories.  

The Turbo601 I'm familiar with, as I had one way back when.   It was a bit like a dancing bear.   It wasn't that the bear danced so well, but that the bear danced at all.    The info on Brinnoven's (now gone) Turbo601 Home Page was great.    I think it's either archived or in the Way Back Machine.

Anyway, I ultimately sold mine and used the money to buy a refurbished Power 120 from Power Computing.   The Turbo601 gave the IIci good CPU speed, but the subsystems were still substantial bottlenecks, even with a JackHammer card and a Thunder IV GX.

I actually wrote the article on Marc Schrier's site for upgrading the Turbo601/66 to around 90 - 96MHz.  Basically, change the Turbo601/66 from clock doubling to clock tripling.  Kind of useless for most people, I think.   My Turbo601 would run at speeds over 90MHz.  Most folks PPC601/66 chip probably wouldn't manage that.   These days, I don't think there's anywhere to get the needed ICS9178 chip, unless one is willing to kill an 8100/100 or faster.

 

[Unknown_K]

The 601 was kind of a dog for PPC and putting one into a 030 system would slow it down even more. I have a Powerpro in a 950 because I needed it for an AVID setup (about as common as one gets). The Powerpro with cache and RAM is the most useful model (and rare and expensive).

I can see why people who spent thousands of dollars for an old 030/040 mac would pony up for a Daystar PPC to keep their systems going (cheaper then a whole new machine) but these days where a real PPC is cheaper then the accelerator I don't see the point other then having an exotic collection. The most realistic CPU upgrade would be an 040 in a IIci because no adapters are needed.

 

[Paralel]

The 601 was a good first step, like the first Pentiums. Not great, but good enough to get things rolling.

 

[Unknown_K]

The 601 was a good first step, like the first Pentiums. Not great, but good enough to get things rolling.

The 601 was mostly stuck running 68k code under emulation and by the time major apps were written for PPC (and Apple made their OS mostly PPC code) the original 601 was too slow. The first thing I did with my PM 7500 was replace the 601-100 CPU. The 604/603 chips were much better and the G3 was great for its time.

The Pentium line ran x86 code natively and fast as hell. It was until the Pentium Pro that x86 CISC started switching to a RISC architecture with a CISC type decoder front end.

 

[AlpineRaven]

PowerPC is bonus to have in Quadra 700 - it is under powered but its good enough for apps/games under 68k coding - I love having PPC in my Q700

Cheers

AP