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USB/Firewire cards (or chipsets) that work in the TAM

joethezombie

Well-known member
there are at least 3 versions of the wings card. I know because i collected them trying to fit one in my G3 AiO, which required one with a special header that's is not present on the other 2 variations.

 

omidimo

Well-known member
That is the internal VGA pass-thru. Those versions of the wings do pop up on eBay, but not as often as the regular MT/DT wings, but more often than the Bordeaux. Imagine if Apple had made just one version that had all the features, would have made life a lot easier now, but they were still overcoming their Performa-itus. 

The fascinating this is that I find more Bordeaux/AIO Wings cards than I do the GeForce 3 AGP that works in the cube, those cards are becoming super rare, like the Sonnet Tango 1.0.

 

EvilCapitalist

Well-known member
With any luck, there will be an end to this saga sometime this weekend.  That beige G3 desktop is supposed to show up sometime tomorrow...

 

EvilCapitalist

Well-known member
My quest is at an end!

The G3 DT showed up yesterday and the lots of cards came in last week and I finally had a chance to get in to everything last night.  As it turns out, the "original" OrangeLink card that was in the lot of many cards I bought was the second revision so I didn't bother testing it (though I will be doing so at some point this weekend).  The G3 DT that omidimo found DID have the version 1 board which I put in my TAM and (after running the pci bridge patch), I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

20170511_221917.jpg

It doesn't show up as anything special in System Profiler, but a USB mouse and my Firewire hard drive showed up and worked without issue

20170511_222308.jpg

The card in its new home

20170511_224010.jpg

The version two card which I'll try out hopefully some time this weekend

The G3 DT was surprisingly well-equipped too, though the case is not in the greatest of shape.  640MB RAM, 4MB VRAM upgrade, the Wings card, and a PCI 10/100 ethernet card.  Definitely going to swipe the VRAM upgrade for my G3 AiO as well as the RAM.

BIG thanks to omidimo for finding this machine!

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Congrats on your hard won treasure, O's the MAN! Now hook it up to a solid state Firewire HDD to see if you've assembled the fastest Twelfth Anniversary Mac extant. [:)] ]'>

 

omidimo

Well-known member
Great news! Glad that G3 DT had the magical card. That feeling of completing the TAM must be nice. Now you can display it proudly.

It is also good that the donor box was good.  A while back I got a G3 DT that had a complete case (w/ OEM Zip bezel) in great condition, but zero RAM, and the v3 ROM dimm was gone too. I did have a spare v2 dimm handy. So if you have a v3 DIMM, you hit another jackpot.

 

Themk

Well-known member
Very nice you got it all completed! Nice catch omidimo!

Firewire and USB co-existing in your TAM has got to be a good feeling :cool: .

 

MJ313

Well-known member
... but zero RAM, and the v3 ROM dimm was gone too. I did have a spare v2 dimm handy. So if you have a v3 DIMM, you hit another jackpot.
What are the benefits of v3 over v2?  Genuinely curious!

Great news about the card as well!

 

Compgeke

Well-known member
It's good to know that card works, because that's actually the same card I had in my Powermac 9600.

5444258143322e1d1a08e8680da47fdb.jpeg.6841f4ce67352a31433686fd67084ab3.jpeg


Eventually I'l try it out in my 6400 for double confirmation that it works.

 

Dandu

Well-known member
Hi, i have a question : i have a TAM but i have note the PCI riser. 

I search the reference (and the size) frome the original PCI riser for the TAM.

I have tried with a "noname" model, but i can't close the TAM with the fat back, and the dual PCI riser from a Power Mac has not the right size. 

 

trag

Well-known member
What kind of USB chip is under that Orangelink sticker? It looks like the secret sauce may be the Opti Firewire chip (or is that the USB chip?).

You've tested other cards with the Hint bridge without success so that can't be the key.

The only known difference between Rev. C AND rev. B Beige G3 ROMs is that the C has an incompatibility with some specific brand of (IIRC) wifi cards. This was documented in the compatibility database at Mike's xlr8yourmac.com. I don't know if the info is still accessible in any form -- maybe the archive of daily news. So much good info is gone from that site.

There must be some benefit to the C or why would Apple have updated it, but us lowly usrrs were never told. Might have something to do with the Rage Pro Turbo (again, IIRC) on the later rev. G3 logic boards.

 
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Compgeke

Well-known member
As weird as the naming is, the OPTi FireLink chip is the USB controller. It's an OPTi FireLink 82C861, the same chip used in the iMac G3. Unfortunately that sticker is basically printer paper and won't come off cleanly or in one piece but on my next day off I'll throw it in a Linux box and see what linux claims the firewire chip is.

 

omidimo

Well-known member
The FireWire controller might be NEC, Lucent, or Ti based on time period and chip size. Just a wild shot in the dark, If I had a 1998 Apple OEM FireWire card then it would be easier to guess. 

Re: ROM C, it was there to help with the multiplier, since they used them for the 333mhz models, where as the 300mhz units still could have come with B. 

 

EvilCapitalist

Well-known member
So there's a new twist to add to this saga.  The original OrangeLink works without issue under 9.1 but when I upgraded to 9.2.2 I got the same symptoms as some of the other cards that "nearly worked" e.g., freezing on startup with a bomb icon for the cursor, freezing at the Happy Mac, and only booting successfully when I reset the PRAM to wipe out the OF patch.  Makes me wonder if perhaps one of the other cards worked, but only under 9.1 like this one since I was testing everything under 9.2.2...

Next thing to check is whether it's the FW/USB enablers in 9.2.2 that cause the problems or something else.  Really the only reason I'd want 9.2.2 on the TAM would be so I could use the newer ATI drivers and get (almost) "Millions of Colors" and I can live without that.

 

Byrd

Well-known member
I tried the "millions of colours" software patch on my TAM just recently. Try it, but you'll be disappointed - "millions" looks nothing like it and it hobbles the speed of "thousands". Didn't take me long to go back.

 

EvilCapitalist

Well-known member
I was running it before I swapped out the spinning disk for a solid state and really didn't notice a difference apart from some of the backgrounds looked nicer.  Easy enough to pick a background that looks good with Thousands of Colors.

 

alk

Well-known member
Do you have a link for that OF patch? It would be handy to have that available...

 
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