Two Workgroup Server 9150/120s!!

[lastmile77]

In approximately 10 years of collecting Macs I've never even seen a Workgroup Server 9150 in person. I saw two on craigslist last night and picked them up today! I haven't powered them on yet but they look good other than some dirt and yellowing on some of the plastics. They even have the keys with them. Apparently they came out of a school. They appear identical with CD drives in the second bay and nothing in the top. Doesn't look like much RAM and no Nubus cards.

I'll probably be selling at least one. I'm down to my Mac Pro, a PC, and an SGI and I keep telling myself I'm not going to build up a computer collection again. But like I said I'd never even seen one of these so I couldn't pass them up. If I do keep one its going to be a challenge to get it "retrobrighted" back to beige. These things are huge. Anyway if someone local to 19464 is interested send me a PM.

Everymac.com says they can take up to 520 MB of RAM (8 MB on logicboard + 8x 64 MB 72-pin SIMMS). Does anyone know if its possible to go higher with 128 MB SIMMS? Everymac tends to be right on upper RAM limits when other sites aren't.

How rare are the drive bezels - I'm guessing the ones from the 900, 950, and WGS 95 would fit. I'd like to either put in a second optical drive or move the existing drive up to the top slot. Wait, wait I said I wasn't going to start this again!!!

I think I read all the Nubus slots are on the same bus. Is that true? And I was hunting around for an expected max speed with a Nubus SCSI card. I remember some old info (from Radius I think) said the 840av either had the fastest SCSI transfer rates or at least was able to capture at the highest speed when using the VideoVision Studio board. Unlike the 9500/9600 this is a giant Mac that can actually hold a decent number of drives (5 behind the top external 5.25" bay). I know you could put drives in the bottom of the 9600 but blocking PCI slots doesn't count. But I figure one modern drive will saturate a Fast/Wide card.

 

[olePigeon]

Wow, cool score. Sounds like a nice machine. Seems infinitely more useful than a 6150, assuming you have the room for it.

 

[Unknown_K]

There are no optical drive bezels for the top slot on a 950/9150. The 9150 had a DAT drive in the top or was blank, the 950 had the floppy drive there.

 

[Bunsen]

Super jealous! I don't know if those were ever exported to this continent.

 

[trag]

Everymac.com says they can take up to 520 MB of RAM (8 MB on logicboard + 8x 64 MB 72-pin SIMMS). Does anyone know if its possible to go higher with 128 MB SIMMS? Everymac tends to be right on upper RAM limits when other sites aren't.

I have never tested it, nor have I heard from anyone who has tried it.

Against: The 6100, 7100, 8100 and 9150 all share a chipset and most of a ROM, which gives them their characteristics. The 7100 and 8100 do not support 64MB nor 128MB SIMMs because there is a CPLD between the memory controller and the SIMM sockets which appears to steal an address line, and possibly a set of RAS lines in order to provide more memory sockets. Only the 6100, which has just one pair of SIMM sockets supports 64MB and 128MB SIMMs.

For: The 9150 has a FAT AMIC chip instead of the standard AMIC chip found in the other models. It is possible that having the more capable AMIC chip provides more memory addressing capability. However, I don't remember if the AMIC has anything at all to do with memory addressing. I think it has more to do with interrupt handling and I/O control.

If 64MB SIMMs are supported, I would also expect 128MB SIMMs to be supported. 128MB SIMMs are simply a pair of 64MB SIMMs on one SIMM (2 banks). Two bank support exists because 32MB SIMMs are all 2 banks, and if a machine supports 32 MB SIMMs then it supports two banks. So, if the 9150 supports 64MB SIMMs and it supports two banks (32MB SIMMs) then it should support 128MB SIMMs.

 

[LCGuy]

I don't know if those were ever exported to this continent.

I'm pretty sure they were - our own Dana had one for a number of years, furthermore - back when I was in high school I did work experience at an AASP, and we had a Quadra 900/950 come in that had had a WGS9150 logic board upgrade.

Either way...nice score. The WGS9150's never been a common machine...so to find not just one, but two...is something. :O