Twin PCI Riser Project for TAM, 6360, 5x00 Single Slot PowerMacs.

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 24, 2018

My 63060 and its 5400/5500 low drawer brethren are fairly low hanging fruit as far as this project goes, so I'm taking on the TAM challenge first. Cutting that riser down and removing the rearward offset is not biggie, but fitting a second, low profile PCI Card into available CS2 cubic is a quite a bit more difficult challenge. [}

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TAM's out of my price league and not my cup of tea really, but no upgrade challenged Mac should be left behind.

1) if someone would take dead-on pics of the SidePlane cover with a just a port cover plate installed so it's parallel to the straight side that would be great. I can use the plate for scaling a template in AI.

2) Real world measurements of same would be most helpful:

After playing around with Mini PCI overlays, I decided full blown PCI Slot might be within reach, so here's the second slot with a low profile MACALLY USB 1 card set back away from the backside of the SidePlane in the TAM. Given the component heights of Modem and CS2 NIC, I wouldn't be surprises to see a much higher profile PCI card tuck into the Fat Back. Sure a schiznit a full height short length card will fit into the low drawer of my 6360. The arched overhead the TAM's Fat Back is a gauntlet I can't let lie.

Just for kicks, I did an overlay with the CiscoAIRONET WiFi card I've got on the way for testing:

That's the gold standard, don't expect to get anything larger to fit in the TAM, don't have a clue if this one might fit. The foreshortening in Apple's illustration is terrible in terms of distortion, but I guess it looks nice in the manual.

Thanks for the inspiration, JB. You've sent me all over the place with this one, hopefully some of my Alchemy/Gazelle slot multiplication shenanigans will pan out for folks like yourself and techknight who lack risers for their TAMs.

Ricoh chipset PCI to PCMCIA adapter card - possible?

802.11b PCI Cards or AirPort solutions for desktop Macs under OS9 (or less)

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 24, 2018

Approximate setback distance. More is better, what's the maximum length PCI card that will fit in the TAM?

Extreme inset of second slot. USB card is sitting flat atop the video card's heat sink. Top surface of USB card's PCB is even with Component height of card installed in standard slot would be the fudge factor. Figuring customary USB/FW card with just horizontal connectors the inset would be more? Clearing the vertical FW connector on my Tango 2 limits the inset to about 4mm, maybe as much as 7mm.

At 15mm the big caps on the vidcard are 3mm taller than the cap and guide flange of the vertical FW connector of the Tango 2. So the second slot's inset could be something on the order of 7mm less than standard PCI spacing, or just 4mm?

I like JB's solution of using a USB NIC for his TAM. Putting USB/FW or USB only card in top slot with less inset would allow for the likes of the vidcard in Apple's illustration in the standard location. HRMMM, USB networking, a nice big 24bit display and USB peripherals for a TAM displayed next to a daily driver on a KVM?

Music Videos in AVP on the TAM with Bose? Nice distraction. Decisions, decisions . . . FUDGE!

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 24, 2018

Oopsie, visualization of relationship between the cards from the above pics works for me. Probably not true for everyone. It was easy to set up pics with the Compaq riser, but everything is topsy-turvy. So here's the real deal, right side up on a 6500 riser from a few angles.

Card's angled in a bit, but it shows the marked difference between a USB/FW card with all horizontal connectors and my Tango 2 with that (*&$@#$ vertical FW connector.

This shot shows why I have hopes for the exaggerated CiscoAIRONET WiFi card in the overlay above fitting within the Fat Back.

We'll see when it and some SidePlane pics/specs might be posted.

OS9lives report: "I can confirm that Cisco Aironet PCI-352 works well on PM G3 B&W under MacOS9.2.2"

techknight · Jul 25, 2018

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bOrZMJm9hwrxOyIRkxkZlIcF4cocOeqG

I grab that slot plate from a XT-IDE card.

For the life of me I cannot locate ANY of my PCI cards. I know I have them but I forgot which box.

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 25, 2018

I keep track of my stuff in color coded boxes with a slide show alias to the photo index on my desktop.

Thanks for the pics, the one from the outside is pretty straight on and good to get started! If you get a chance, could you (or anyone) cut a little rectangle out of a sheet of paper to fit over the CS card support prongs and make a pencil rubbing? With that plate you'd need to do cutouts for the plate's mounting bars as well. That's the only way I've come up with to get an accurate template.

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 25, 2018

Hopefully this gets me somewhere in the ballpark. If someone can take a pic of the backside with just a PCI plate installed with the assembly sitting on the floor while standing on a chair inside or outside in available light, that would flatten the perspective to almost nothing in terms of distortion.

Figured out how to fake up a fatback "tube" frame and bolt it up to the inside of my 6500 drawer with the PCI card in the bottom slot.

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 26, 2018

The USB 1.1 Macally card arrived just in time for trials in the new 6500 Room of TAM.

It remains to be seen if this card works in Gossamer, but it's about as vanilla as cards get and fits within the TAM template when installed in the 6500's upper slot! There's about a 6mm air gap between the USB card and the DVD Daughtercard on the Rage128 to cut down a bit!

I was very surprised My Tango2 fit so well without tightening up the slot spacing.

Tango2 is a LOT smaller than the original Tango card, so they resorted to using vertical FW connectors. Mine won't work in either the 6500 or the TAM, but If I dropped the top slot 4mm the real deal would fit in there just fine!

s_l1600_1.jpg.1d3e130be33196bfef8c88eb62fd3eab.jpg

With no pesky vertical connectors there may be no problem at all with Tango. Somebody with the original and a 6500 riser can test fit with standard slot spacing with another card bolted up to the SidePlane as in the illustrations. If the precious can be moved topside, that opens the PCI Slot to any TAM compatible expansion card for whatever. If the slot needs to be dropped a bit, that's the original plan anyway.

I'm surprised the USB/FW ports of these two cards fit with no setback, they just graze my cardboard template. If someone modeled the SidePlane of the TAM is would be easy to print versions with custom cutouts. As they seem to be common, if the Macally card works in the TAM, that coupled with a printed SidePlane for the TwinSlot riser would make a nice set.

But that's not likely and I like the idea of setting the USB connectors away from the backplane for use internally for a 10/100 dongle and WiFi shenanigans. Bringing one USB port and the antenna out the CS2 cutout would be the plan. Add a Video Card in the main slot for KVM'd TAM playtime on two screens?

Whatever . . . nobody seems very interested. :mellow:

CC_333 · Jul 26, 2018

Those Tangos are very nice cards.

In particular, I recently found the newest iteration (finally!), which combines Firewire 800 and USB 3.0, so it's perfect for a modern-ish computer that's lacking USB 3 ports *and* has a need for a few Firewire ones (still useful for the bulk of older audio equipment out there, which is mostly Firewire-based).

Trash80toHP_Mini said:
...CiscoAIRONET WiFi card...

View attachment 24146

I actually have one of these! I never realized it'd work on a Mac (figured it was PC-exclusive), so I've left it in it's box, wherever it is...

It's definitely an interesting device. It looks like some kind of PCMCIA bridge board with networking-specific bits embedded. I wonder if it could work with a card other than the preinstalled Aironet 350? Such as, say, USB or SCSI?

c

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 26, 2018

Sweet find on that Tango. Supposedly it's impossible to do USB3 or FW800 under OS9, one can but wonder if the magicians at Sonnet managed to pull either of that brace of coneys out of the hat?

AIRONET tangent:

On this front, I just picked up my lot of six ($5+$13.95 shipping) "used" cards from the rental office. The two I've checked look NIBish to me. One's in pieces already and it's a close call if it will fit at standard PCI spacing within the Fat Back. I'm still pondering the amount of inset for the second slots spacing. Thinking 2-4mm ATM.

Bridge is a PLI PCI9050

Dunno if it's related, but there's a PLX PCI SDK from 1998

https://www.phenix.bnl.gov/WWW/evb/jseb/SdkProg.pdf

The card's not goldbanded with CardBus indicator, dunno about the connector, hopefully Broadcom was looking toward the future?

Whatever it does, the small IC is a Xilinx xc9536 CPLD

https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/data_sheets/ds064.pdf

WAG: all it does is determine how to run the pretty lights from PCMCIA signals or the PLX bridge?

This card definitely belongs in its own Peripherals development thread, if any Networking/PCMCIA guru or two wants to delve into its secrets I've got a couple of spare Card/CD/Doc sets for testing in anything old world (and get it running in Alchemy/Gossamer architectures [}

] ) anything pre-Beige G3 would prove useful. Testing for compatibility a/o setting the board up to run any number of interesting PCMCIA cards would be great.

All I ask is that you document everything you do in your own Peripherals Topic so maybe I could learn a little something about the processes? I'm sure others here would like to see that unfold, brilliant success or epic fail, it would be a great learning experience for all.

techknight · Jul 26, 2018

Keep in mind, on your 6500 pic the first PCI slot is in the wrong position for a TAM. Great on a 6500 but not for a TAM. It needs to be higher. Not sure if it needs shifted over front or back, but I do know it has to be higher.

techknight · Jul 27, 2018

However.... That would work:

http://www.microsatacables.com/pci-riser-32bit-to-dual-pci-slot-with-flex-cable-pci-32bit-dl10cm

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 27, 2018

You misunderstand, I know the 6500 riser is all wrong for the TAM. It's also all wrong for the 6360, but that makes no difference for what I'm in the process of doing. Right now I'm only concerned about an additional slot's physical relationship in reference to the first. Working down from the standard slot for any given riser to the motherboard connector will be easily done with a few measurements when the time comes for board layout..

I've bolted up the template, pitching a little Fat Back tent in my 6500 for visualization only. Card combination possibilities and determining setback and inset dimensions for the second slot in relationship to the first is the order at hand.

I need to get a good flat perspective shot of the SidePlane/RFI shielding with plate or stepped measurements from plate to curved edge. Either will allow me to adjust the template's curve and its placement for greater accuracy.

Right now it's all about where that curved line sits in relationship to the standard slot/cover plate . . .

. . . and about testing some crap to stuff in there if and when.

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 27, 2018

That flex cable won't work at all. It has two slots aligned at standard spacing. The connectors need to be a scootch closer together and the second slot needs to be set back from the first for making use of any connectors that belong outside the case.

View attachment 24141

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 27, 2018

AIRONET adapter card is PCMCIA only, cardbus won't insert. It also appears to be Network specific, so hopes of hooking up anything interesting are likely dashed.

Dunno if Mac compatible PCMCIA WiFi cards and drivers could work. PCMCIA report is grayed out in TattleTech so I'm thinking that's bork the driver connection. Could be a hail Mary reception?

Are all AirPort cards CardBus or was the first one PCMCIA?

Trash80toHP_Mini · Jul 30, 2018

If someone could scan the solder side of the TAM's PCI Riser for me it would be a huge help. I've got 6400 and 6500 risers in hand, but I can't find my 6360 board and riser. Does anyone know if it's the same as the 5x00 riser? I'd hope so. :-/

View attachment FunkTownRiser-ALPHA-00.PDF

Trash80toHP_Mini · Aug 1, 2018

I'm ready to start bolting parts together for a dummy model for test fitting. I need a scan of the solder side of the TAM riser to determine X, Y offsets from edgecard teeth to connector pins. If the CS2 riser is included on the scan, all the better for developing offsets for my second slot.

Trash80toHP_Mini · Aug 1, 2018

If someone could print this file at 50%, cut it out, test fit and let me know if it needs to be trimmed and by how much it would be a big help. TIA

View attachment FunkTownRiser-ALPHA-001.PDF

Trash80toHP_Mini · Aug 2, 2018

Forgot to include the keying slot in the above pic. Just cut a big V notch in the card outline to get it to fit. Taping the print to a piece of cereal box cardboard or the like along the top edge before cutting the card shape would be best. Then tape the sides after making those cuts.

If the Fat Back fits with the cardboard cutout in place we're good so far. I'll put up another PDF that can be cut down gradually at the top edge until it clears to give max height of riser with card installed. Anyone could do that for me with what's up now. Rubber cement is the bomb. :approve:

Here's a visual of the scan that's needed for the next steps in the design process.

If anyone with a 6360, 5400 or 5500 could scan the low, single slot riser for me I could stop excavation efforts to find mine and skip over the scan step as well. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.