Ultimate SE/30 Config?

[Huxley]

Howdy guys,

I've been sinking some time into kitting out my snazzy new SE/30 (purchased from our very own khannonnd). It's working nicely now and once all my packages are delivered this week, it will have: 

• 68 megs of RAM (4*16mb sticks + half the original 8mb it came with)
• Mac ROM-inator II replacement ROM stick
• SCSI2SD with a 16GB card (to be partitioned into whatever subdivisions will make an SE/30 happy)
• Internal Asante MacCon II Ethernet card
• External SCSI CD-RW drive (still trying to find good drivers for this one, since the "Sunset" drive and FWB's CD-ROM Toolkit haven't worked well so far)
• Apple Extended Keyboard II + ADB Mouse

As far as I can tell, the only significant upgrade other than what I've listed above would be a CPU upgrade board, but given the expense and rarity of those I'm not holding my breath. I also know some folks have opted to do a greyscale mod on the internal 9" display, but I'm not super interested in that, since a big part of the nostalgic charm of the SE/30 to me is the black-and-white 1-bit image.

Other than beginning a Captain Ahab-style quest for a 68040 card and the requisite connectors, are there any other upgrades I should be thinking about in my quest for the ultimate SE/30?

 

[EvieSigma]

Are you talking about the mod where people take some other Apple greyscale CRT and put it inside the SE/30 case, or is there another SE/30 greyscale mod I don't know?

 

[Huxley]

Are you talking about the mod where people take some other Apple greyscale CRT and put it inside the SE/30 case, or is there another SE/30 greyscale mod I don't know?

There's a mod that involves a particular SE/30 PDS graphics board that can somehow be adapted (presumably with a lot of hacking and know-how) to drive greyscale images on the standard SE/30 CRT... I think? I have another SE/30 in storage that has a graphics board in the PDS slot, but my very fuzzy memory leads me to believe that the particular graphics upgrade in that machine wasn't one of the ones that were usable for this hack. Someone correct me if I'm wrong!

 

[joethezombie]

Micron sold the "Micron Xceed Gray-Scale 30 Video Adapter", a CRT neckboard which when coupled with companies XCEED Color/30 PDS cards would provide grayscale on the internal monitor.

 

[unity]

Yeah, Xceed is not much "hacking", just installing. Just the darn things are so hard to find and when they are, big $$. Makes me wonder how many Xceeds ended up in the crusher.

 

[Unknown_K]

Greyscale on an SE/30 would be interesting, but I think an external full page monitor would be a nicer option to have.

Are the CPU upgrades the big expense or is it the adapters that keep people from having upgraded SE/30's? I have 2 SE/30's with Ethernet, if I had a cheap adapter with 2 PDS slots I would stick a Daystar 040 into the machine.

 

[Huxley]

Greyscale on an SE/30 would be interesting, but I think an external full page monitor would be a nicer option to have.

Are the CPU upgrades the big expense or is it the adapters that keep people from having upgraded SE/30's? I have 2 SE/30's with Ethernet, if I had a cheap adapter with 2 PDS slots I would stick a Daystar 040 into the machine.

I think it's almost a 50/50 problem at this point - my understanding is that there were a decent variety of CPU upgrades (Daystar '040, Diimo '030, etc.), but most of them have been gobbled up by nerds like me... and even if you can find one, without the even-harder-to-find riser / adapter, you have to make painful choices about which unit to install. I have a fuzzy memory of some chatter here ages ago about someone making a limited run of new SE/30 PDS slot adapter boards - does anyone know if that ever turned into anything, or are we still stuck searching for rare old stock or buying one of the very expensive ones from Japan?

 

[omidimo]

A little about my SE/30 (mis)adventure:

I picked up a Daystar 040, and wanted to use it with an Asante ethernet card. I opted for the Stratos Dual Spark PDS adapter by Artmix. I had some weird power issues with the display so I also picked up Artmix's Hyper power supply. The SE/30 was not happy with the combo of the Daystar and the Asante, but after a few weeks of monitoring eBay, I got a Farallon EtherMac card, and the pair were fine. 

All in all, the whole process has been rather pricy, but there is something about SE/30s that make you want to take care of them.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have a few 040 upgrades but no adapters for the SE/30.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I have a fuzzy memory of some chatter here ages ago about someone making a limited run of new SE/30 PDS slot adapter boards - does anyone know if that ever turned into anything, or are we still stuck searching for rare old stock or buying one of the very expensive ones from Japan?

I don't remember anyone ever having gotten that far, but I was AWOL for quite some time up until April of '09. Might you be remembering my posts at the end of 2014 over on ThinkClassic?

Cloning the Daystar PDS Adapters for the IIsi and SE/30 - Take 2

I'd taken up the quest Gamba and company had abandoned then. I've recently rebooted that project by starting threads asking specific questions and giving detailed requests for help. Seems to be working out a lot better. Few reply in my hacks threads and this way I've been able to turn up some really useful information.

The current hurdle would be convincing owners of adapters to help with continuity testing. Once we know what the PAL(s) pins are connected to on the the PDS we'll know what signals need tweaking. When the PAL(s) pins are traced off again to the Cache Slot, we'll probably have a very good handle on how they've been tweaked.

That open request for pin buzzing goes for any and all versions of IIsi/SE/30 adapters having a single IC (best case) or two or three ICs (still good) on the boards. Once we know what signals are involved on a few adapters we can start the cloning process in earnest.

HELP!!!!! [] ]'>

 

[Huxley]

I have a few 040 upgrades but no adapters for the SE/30.

If you've got an SE/30-friendly '040 adapter you could consider parting with at any point, maybe drop me a PM?