The State of Macintosh Accelerators

[GerrySch]

Good afternoon All,

I'm sorry to bother everyone as I'm such a Mac nub but I'm trying to figure out the state of the Mac accelerator world. I have recently gotten back into my retro Macs and bought a pre-2.0 Booster 50-SE30F as it works transparently with my SE/30. I've done some further rebuilding of my SE/30, like recapped both the Digital and Analog boards, resoldered the Analog board to fix cracked joints, replaced the power supply with a brand new one (35-yes old power supplies make me nervous no matter how new the capacitors are, a new cooling fan, replaced the wiring harness between the Digital and Analog boards with 16-gauge wiring for less power drop, added BlueSCSI v2 hard drive emulation, and upgraded its ROM to 32-bit clean. The CRT is bright and sharp so I'm getting a good, solid, clean image to enjoy my SE/30.

One area that the SE/30 needs improvement is the sound quality. Along with sound, I would like to move to a 68040 processor to further increase its speed. In my searching I ran across micromac.com and there are a lot of accelerator choices for Macs at different price points. But, as I read through the website pages, some information is dated. For instance, on the tech support page, the was mention of the upcoming OS8 operating system.

So, does anyone know what the status of MicroMac.com is? I sent tech support an email but there's been no response. I've mostly have been in the Apple IIgs world and have fully decked out some 01 and 03 IIgs computers to the point where there's nothing further available for them. The AppleSqueezer GS accelerators were very expensive and didn't make my machines any faster as my Transwarp GS accelerators ran at 17 MHz and the AppleSqueezers, run at 14 MHz. But, I bought version 2 boards which includes HDMI outputs which pushed me over the edge to get them. And the gentleman who makes them is actively improving them.

So I don't have a clear picture of the Mac accelerator world and I do love my SE/30. Given what MicroMac.com website says, what is the situation for Mac accelerator cards? I also have a couple of LC475s and I've sped them up to 33 MHz (switchable back to 25 MHz) and have full 040 processors. Is there any way to further speed them up? I tried to go to 40 MHz but the computer locked up plus faster '040s were getting expensive.

Is there a suggestion on how to improve my Mac SE/30 sound? Is there a better, faster card that uses a '040 and is available? I don't want to put in a 30-year old card but a new one with modern parts.

Thank you for your response and time,
Gerry

 

[cheesestraws]

So, does anyone know what the status of MicroMac.com is?

It's a bloke in a garage with some loose ends of stuff in boxes, none of which is accelerators, or anything particularly useful IIRC.

what is the situation for Mac accelerator cards?

I don't want to put in a 30-year old card but a new one with modern parts.

You probably just wait for someone here to build a batch and then buy one from them.

 

[Byrd]

Is there a suggestion on how to improve my Mac SE/30 sound? Is there a better, faster card that uses a '040 and is available?

As in output quality, noise? No. Check the trading forums with the likes of Bolle et al that will post up SE/30 compatible 68040 accelerators at random times when parts are available, but they usually sell out within a couple of days.

 

[Mk.558]

I think it was zigzagjoe who said something to the effect that after a certain point the SE/30 (might have been a IIsi) runs out of steam with upgrades and you end up sinking a bunch of money into what is basically a worse Quadra.

Accelerators that jump processor generation (i.e. 68030 -> 68040, 68000 -> 68020/68030) tend to have more compatibility issues than ones that stay in the same processor generation. Each enthusasist has different values for what they want to do with a machine, for me, I want my SE/30 mostly stock. While I could sink a lot of money into a 68040 accelerator, greyscale card, ethernet card, 128MiB memory, aftermarket ROM, and who knows what else, it won't really be that appealing to me anymore. A stock mostly unmodified MK1 Golf GTi has more value today than an extensively modified one, and the same can be said for other things too.

Quadras have limited value to me, almost none, because they don't boot System 6, which, granted, you don't really need on a 68040 since they're pretty snappy on 7.1, but almost every single thing you can do with a 68040 you can do with a PPC 601, which is faster.

 

[zigzagjoe]

I think it was zigzagjoe who said something to the effect that after a certain point the SE/30 (might have been a IIsi) runs out of steam with upgrades and you end up sinking a bunch of money into what is basically a worse Quadra.

Accelerators that jump processor generation (i.e. 68030 -> 68040, 68000 -> 68020/68030) tend to have more compatibility issues than ones that stay in the same processor generation. Each enthusasist has different values for what they want to do with a machine, for me, I want my SE/30 mostly stock. While I could sink a lot of money into a 68040 accelerator, greyscale card, ethernet card, 128MiB memory, aftermarket ROM, and who knows what else, it won't really be that appealing to me anymore. A stock mostly unmodified MK1 Golf GTi has more value today than an extensively modified one, and the same can be said for other things too.

Quadras have limited value to me, almost none, because they don't boot System 6, which, granted, you don't really need on a 68040 since they're pretty snappy on 7.1, but almost every single thing you can do with a 68040 you can do with a PPC 601, which is faster.

Yep, that's my perspective: The fastest 68040 in an SE/30 is by most measures inferior to a 25mhz Quadra in practical use. You'll need to pony up $500 or so for one of bolle's ethernet risers and one of his vintage (cached) accelerator clones to achieve that.

Don't get me wrong: I like playing with SE/30s otherwise I'd not have spent the time I have on designing upgrades, but that is the realistic view. IMO I've found the cached 68030 accelerators (Diimo, Powercache) give the snappiest experience with the best compatibility / general usability on SE/30. It won't benchmark as fast as an 040, but there's also the argument of how much use a high-end accelerator even is without adding a video card to the mix. B&W and low res tends to be a limiter before the CPU.

Architecturally, a 68040 in a SE/30 is a compromised system: it is slow and cumbersome to adapt an 040 to an 030 bus and the old chipset starves the 040 of memory bandwidth; thus encumbered the 040 is also notably slower than the stock CPU at scsi/framebuffer/etc access. It's the same issue that Amiga has with their A4000 models.

There's nothing that can really be done regarding the audio output quality on a SE/30. It's 22khz, 8 bit; no way to improve on that. As YMK pointed out it is stereo but only on the headphone jack.
Or, if you're referring to the System 7.5 audio issues w/ the original booster design, run 7.1 instead and you'll find the machine notably more responsive and no audio issues as long as you steer clear of the sound manager extension.

 

[ymk]

There's nothing that can be done regarding the audio output quality on a SE/30. It's mono, 22khz, 8 bit. No way to improve on that.

The SE/30 has stereo output.

 

[Unknown_K]

If you are going to spend stupid money on a SE/30 A Micromac DIIMO cache 68030/50 card with PDS for attaching ethernet would be the way to go. And of course, they greyscale upgrade while you are burning money. Over the years the people who spent all that cash (when it was cheaper to do) seem to want to part out the machine a year later or sooner.

The thing is if I had $1000 to blow on ancient Macs, I would try to hunt down a 9150 Powermac and hope I had enough.

If you want a system 6 compact a SE with a Radius 68020/ 16 or 25 upgrade can be had much cheaper.

 

[cheesestraws]

If you are going to spend stupid money on a SE/30 A Micromac DIIMO cache 68030/50 card with PDS for attaching ethernet would be the way to go. And of course, they greyscale upgrade while you are burning money. Over the years the people who spent all that cash (when it was cheaper to do) seem to want to part out the machine a year later or sooner.

The thing is if I had $1000 to blow on ancient Macs, I would try to hunt down a 9150 Powermac and hope I had enough.

If you want a system 6 compact a SE with a Radius 68020/ 16 or 25 upgrade can be had much cheaper.

Agree with all of this. A maxed-out SE/30 is actually a pretty underwhelming machine.

 

[Boctor]

Seconding most of what's been said, I have a DiiMO 030 and a TwinSpark, but have since removed them. DiiMO's a perfect fit for my recently-revived IIci, but that TwinSpark is just an expensive egg on my face. It was a huge improvement, sure, but without color and 640x480, I eventually regretted it. The SE/30's already king of the B&W compacts, and pretty well-equipped for anything from its own time. I'd even say that Booster clone you've got is a far better value, and it sounds like you've already shown your SE/30 a lot of love.

Of course, if you're itching for an '040 in specific, you can always keep an eye out for a Quadra and find a second Macintosh to restore, assuming you've got the space and the means to hook up a display. I seldom, if ever, see '040 accelerators go for any less than an entire Quadra or Power Macintosh!

 

[uyjulian]

Something like Radius Rocket or PiStorm could bypass the bandwidth limitations by providing its own RAM and storage.

 

[Mk.558]

Thinking about this again, we don't want to dissuade you (OP) from pursuing what you feel like you'd like. You can stick an 040 in a SE/30. But the gains probably don't outweigh the costs, and there's probably a good reason zigzagjoe, one of our regular tinkerers, hasn't made anything available to the public with an 040. Not only is it a niche market, really niche market, but offsetting the cost of development is really difficult and as he said, the benefits just aren't really there.

See here: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/68040-40mhz-se-30-accelerators-that-dont-use-the-pds.50097/

Neat concept, but again, Quadras are designed for '040s and work best with them.

Bolle's work, and max1zzz, do fine reproductions, but even I balked at the 500$ price tag for a greyscale card. Neat? Oh sure. Worth it? Only you can decide. The price is probably about right: he has to reverse engineer the card, dump PALs/GALs/stuff, source often obsolete components and then redesign it with modern principles in mind. Even then he probably still eats at least a small loss.

 

[oldmacuser]

This may be an interesting video for you.

 

[Boctor]

This may be an interesting video for you.

This brings to mind another riser/Twinspark quirk that made me uneasy, the EMI near that top card... Ever put your hand near the anode cap while wearing headphones? BZZZZT.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

The Diimo 030 (the tall card built specifically for the SE/30) doesn’t need Twinspark and sits vertically. It’s my favorite card for these.