Various questions involving PowerMac 7100, 8100 and Pro Tools

[CMW85]

1.) Does anyone have any experience Running Pro Tools III on the 7100 and/or 8100?

2.) Has anyone compared performance of Pro Tools between the two?

3.) Will the floppy-disc version of Pro Tools III w/ 4.1 update run on a PowerMac 8100? Do I have to use the CD-ROM version?

Digidesign released a special PowerPC CD-ROM version of Pro Tools 4. I am wondering if there would be compatibility issues with the floppy version.

4.) Is there cross-compatibility with floppy-disc serial numbers and CD-ROM serials?

5.) Is it possible to backup the floppies and the authorization disks using a program like HFV?

6.) If you've successfully backed up copies of Pro Tools on floppy-disc, what methods did you use?

7.) What is the best external floppy-drive to use to backup old Mac software in Windows 10?

8.) What is the best external floppy-drive to use with PowerMac 7100/8100?

If someone with direct knowledge could answer these questions and save me hours of research, it would be greatly appreciated! I'm in the process of building a system using the Nubus 12-slot Digidesign Chassis and am trying to get all the firsthand information that I can.

P.S. If anyone has a Nubus Terminator they would be willing to sell, that would be awesome! I'm also in need of the PowerPC ECI card for the chassis that goes into the PowerMac's Nubus slot. I read a post by a user here named kvanderlaag from 2011, wherein stated he had the card but didn't have the chassis. That is what led me to this forum. Thanks for taking the time to read. I'm really in need of the card and terminator, as the chassis is full of Digidesign cards and those two things are the missing links.

There is someone on Ebay Kleinanzeigan that has both of the items, but I was unable to successfully register there. Here is the link to the seller: Kleinanzeigan

If someone in Germany could find out if he's legit and meet him face-to-face on my behalf, that would be awesome! I really need those two parts for the chassis. I want to build a complete Pro-Tools rig circa early-mid 1990s, and don't want to have to wait years just for those two parts.

 

[Phipli]

@ppuskari ?

 

[paws]

I had a setup with ProTools 4.2, I think it was, on a 7100/80 (the last version you can get to run on System 7 by installing a newer version of OpenTransport). I bought two different setups without computers and set everything up myself. I did get some floppies with one of the bundles I got but I didn't use them (some of them were broken). I was able to piece together a working setup with cracked software from the Macintosh Garden so I didn't have to worry about it, thankfully.

I've run it both with an expansion chassis and just a simple three-card setup. I'm not sure what you mean by a Nubus terminator?

I might part with my chassis and card together, but it seems like a shame to break it up when I've had it working.

 

[CMW85]

I'm not sure what you mean by a Nubus terminator?

I have the 12-node ribbon cable, so I have to use the terminator on the last node. I've read that if the terminator is not used, there is distortion during playback. Interestingly, the manual doesn't say anything about 7100 compatibility from what I saw.

Manual

I did get some floppies with one of the bundles I got but I didn't use them (some of them were broken).

I have to ask: Was this your set? This is the set that I have and have not tested them yet. I wondered if your set wound up with me! Lol. Can you verify that the set is complete? The reason I ask is that I assumed that the bottom three disks of twelve were the install disks; most of the copies of Pro-Tools install floppies I've seen pictures of just say "Install Disk" on the label, but the bottom three on mine say "w/DAE PowerMix. Install. Version 3.22." I assumed they were Pro Tools 3.22 install disks, but the seller could not verify if they were complete.

I was able to piece together a working setup with cracked software from the Macintosh Garden so I didn't have to worry about it, thankfully.

Could you send me the link to the file? It would be greatly appreciated!

How many tracks were you able to get on a disk i/o card in your system? (Assuming that is the card you used.) The Digidesign website says 16 tracks per card max, but was wondering how many were typical when actually using the system. The chassis I got came with two disk i/o cards, four DSP cards and three Sample Cell II cards. Is the Nubus DSP card capable of boosting the track count? If so, by how much? I've read that it can double the track count, but wasn't sure if that's the case. Also, did you experience any problems with the chassis ribbon cable?

I was lucky and got the chassis from someone who didn't know what it was, so I feel pretty invested in getting it to work. I hope it works.

I'm also looking for the complete Sample Cell II install disks.

@paws if you're willing to sell your chassis complete. I'm definitely interested. Let me know.

 

[Phipli]

I'm also looking for the complete Sample Cell II install disks.

I might be able to help with that.

 

[paws]

I never bothered with the floppies, but I still have them. I don't think they have authorizations left on them, anyway, so I just relied on cracks. All of this was a while ago, but I'm fairly sure everything came from this archive:

PPC AUDIO software [OS7 - OSX.5.8, some 68K apps] - Macintosh Garden

Mirror of a near-dead torrent file containing a vast collection of PPC (and 68k) audio software, ranging from SSW 7 to Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard. List of items and brief description of the upload are as follows (warning: HUGE): Software fitting its time is a source of inspiration. Working to make...

macintoshgarden.org

I didn't test track counts, really. Disk speed is a limitation, but there's also the concept of "voices", which can either be a disk track or a bus, so routing can eat into the number of tracks you have available in some ways. I don't remember the details to be honest.

The chassis ribbon cable comes loose quite easily as I remember, and I think the symptom was the computer booting to a grey screen! But when it worked it worked. The terminator in the picture is required, yes. (And strictly speaking it's for the TDM bus, not Nubus, but I didn't remember it until I saw the picture! I can't remember if I have one or two)

My music is mostly electronic, and most of what I did with it was a SampleCell card and just using TDM as a mixer and effects processor, only occasionally bouncing down to disk tracks. The SampleCell software I either got from the Garden or Digidesign's site, they still have a lot of old stuff up: http://archive.digidesign.com/download/legacy

I'll think about selling the chassis. I'm not using it but I doubt I'll get one again if I part with it, so... and it's a bit of a bastard to ship. Where in the world are you?

 

[chelseayr]

@CMW85 afaik there wasn't really any external disk drives for macs except for the model-specific powerbook ones to themselves more or less, and excluding the few early 68k macs that could use the same external disk&floppy drives that the apple ii's used. so basically you'll have to rely on the internal disk drive on the 7100/8100 alone and if its not working then fix or swap it

someone feel free to correct me on this part if needed;
as for external one on windows 10, that would be quite likely usb then, and in that case since apple 1.44mb disks are basically pretty much exactly the same thing as dos 1.44mb disks physically - so in short any good reliable usb disk drive would work with any apple disks on windows (and of course you'll need an extra software on windows itself to let it understand how to read the non-dos disk filesystem tho)

 

[paws]

I don't know for certain if it applies to ProTools authorizations, but I've that these copy protected disks tend to use the floppies in somewhat non-standard ways (to prevent copying) that USB floppy drives don't know how to read. Something about a USB floppy drive being less directly controlled by the software than a normal one.

 

[CMW85]

I might be able to help with that.

@Phipli Please do! It would suck to not be able to use the cards. I've never used Sample Cell before and have always wanted to.

I'll think about selling the chassis. I'm not using it but I doubt I'll get one again if I part with it, so... and it's a bit of a bastard to ship. Where in the world are you?

@paws Thank you for the links. I'm in Northwest TX.

@CMW85 afaik there wasn't really any external disk drives for macs except for the model-specific powerbook ones to themselves more or less, and excluding the few early 68k macs that could use the same external disk&floppy drives that the apple ii's used. so basically you'll have to rely on the internal disk drive on the 7100/8100 alone and if its not working then fix or swap it

someone feel free to correct me on this part if needed;
as for external one on windows 10, that would be quite likely usb then, and in that case since apple 1.44mb disks are basically pretty much exactly the same thing as dos 1.44mb disks physically - so in short any good reliable usb disk drive would work with any apple disks on windows (and of course you'll need an extra software on windows itself to let it understand how to read the non-dos disk filesystem tho)

Thank you for the information @chelseayr - I read a thread on the Avid forums about Pace copy protection. The user said that a SmartDisk USB VST Edition external floppy-drive with the Pace Floppy Enabler were required to use authorization disks on G4s without floppy drives. So my guess would be that it would be exceedingly difficult to make the images in Windows 10. Maybe the Smartdisk would work in a Mac OS emulator in Windows 10.

I don't know for certain if it applies to ProTools authorizations, but I've that these copy protected disks tend to use the floppies in somewhat non-standard ways (to prevent copying) that USB floppy drives don't know how to read. Something about a USB floppy drive being less directly controlled by the software than a normal one.

You're probably right.

 

[Phipli]

Please do! It would suck to not be able to use the cards. I've never used Sample Cell before and have always wanted to.

Paws has pointed you towards the needed software I think. That archive is full of ProTools/SampleCell/Sound Designer II stuff.

 

[paws]

You can get it straight from the horse's mouth, actually:

SampleCell II Mac

I rambled a bit about the SampleCell here: https://rven.se/samplecell/

It's a nice workflow. If you like to get experimental, TurboSynth, SampleCell and a sequencer combine to make a very ergonomic setup for electronic music. It's not limitless but many great things were done with a lot less...

 

[CMW85]

Paws has pointed you towards the needed software I think. That archive is full of ProTools/SampleCell/Sound Designer II stuff.

@Phipli - thanks. Do you know if there is anything extra on the actual install disk vs the download?

You can get it straight from the horse's mouth, actually:

SampleCell II Mac

I rambled a bit about the SampleCell here: https://rven.se/samplecell/

It's a nice workflow. If you like to get experimental, TurboSynth, SampleCell and a sequencer combine to make a very ergonomic setup for electronic music. It's not limitless but many great things were done with a lot less...

@paws - that's probably the most extensive write-up of SampleCell that I've seen, along with the SoundOnSound article. Is it possible to map samples on the GUI keyboard and then use a controller keyboard connected to something like an Opcode LX5 through the Mac's serial port? I've never actually used any version of SC or Pro Tools before. (I don't really know what I'm trying to say... lol.) I just have a general idea of what I want to learn.

 

[paws]

You mean load a sample and then play it across the keys on an external keyboard? That's pretty much what it's made for! It shows up as an input/output in OMS just like the ports on your MIDI interface. I think you can tell the SampleCell editor to listen directly to an input when it's in the foreground, but you can of course also tell a sequencer if you're using one to listen to the keyboard and send the MIDI on to SampleCell.

I think the original floppies may have included a few sounds with keygroups and such already set up. There were also sound libraries on CD specifially for SampleCell. I don't think I have any, I've only just loaded simple audio samples.

 

[CMW85]

@paws

That's what I meant. Is the voice quality good with polyphony? I have some old EMAX-formatted sample disks and wanted to re-sample (record) them into SC. It seems like using the Sample Cell would be a good way breathe new life into them. I have an old EMAX SE but have never really used it with a computer. Lol.

 

[CMW85]

Spoiler: Pro Tools Videos

Found some Pro-Tools videos discussing the old hardware circa Pro-Tools I-II. Wish there were actual sound-demonstration videos out there.



I can't find any information on the bottom rack module. Looks cool.

 

[paws]

For SampleCell quality, yeah, I think it sounds good. It's not obviously lofi. It's a sampler, the most important thing is what you put in. The filter isn't that great, though, but on the other hand you've got easy access to all the processing you want in the computer. So in some ways it should be more flexible than rack gear from the era, and setting up keygroups etc. on a big screen with the mouse is obviously much better than a rackmount sampler.

One not-so-cool thing about Pre-MIX ProTools systems is they have their own SCSI bus and will only record to drives connected to that. So you can't record to your system drive on these systems, you need an extra drive connected directly to the PT card. It has a 50 pin internal connector but also a hole in the bracket and a special cable to connect to external driver. I think the bottom on in that picture might be an MO drive or something? But I don't know if it was meant for recording or backups. Remember you're in the 100mb HD era, if you're recording eight tracks that's, what, two minutes?

 

[CMW85]

One not-so-cool thing about Pre-MIX ProTools systems is they have their own SCSI bus and will only record to drives connected to that. So you can't record to your system drive on these systems, you need an extra drive connected directly to the PT card. It has a 50 pin internal connector but also a hole in the bracket and a special cable to connect to external driver. I think the bottom on in that picture might be an MO drive or something? But I don't know if it was meant for recording or backups. Remember you're in the 100mb HD era, if you're recording eight tracks that's, what, two minutes?

I noticed that the disk i/o card that came with mine has a breakout cable attached to an internal connector. The 50/50 SCSI drive cable. It took me awhile to find the official name for the cable in Digidesign's support archives. Will any 50-pin SCSI hard drive work? Is there any kind of proprietary software from Digi required for just the drive? Which drives did you use? @paws

It does look like an MO drive in the photo. I really like the aesthetics of the early-90s Pro Tools systems for some reason. There is a Wow-factor for me, because of it being so old and advanced for its time. I bet the MO disk could only hold one song!

I've heard that the outputs on SampleCell can be kind of scratchy. People say it sounds like an Akai S900-S1000. What hardware samplers would you compare it to?

 

[paws]

Which drives did you use?

I used a SCSI2SD, actually. It's still HFS and I don't think you even need to reformat. I don't think there's anything like an incompatible drive, it's just SCSI. You might come across mentions of certain drives being "certified", but that doesn't mean that other drives are incompatible. The main concern is if it's fast enough.

I've heard that the outputs on SampleCell can be kind of scratchy. People say it sounds like an Akai S900-S1000. What hardware samplers would you compare it to?

I've never heard a S1000 in person, but it's the same sort of era and level of technology. I think the original SampleCell was based around the same chip as a sampler by Dynacord (DPS I think? A two-unit rack). It's cleaner than I remember the S900 I once had, but then I tended to overdrive everything I sampled into that... It's a bit strange to group the S900 and S1000 together that way, BTW: They really have no more in common than the name on the face, completely different technology.

 

[ArmorAlley]

1.) Does anyone have any experience Running Pro Tools III on the 7100 and/or 8100?

2.) Has anyone compared performance of Pro Tools between the two?

3.) Will the floppy-disc version of Pro Tools III w/ 4.1 update run on a PowerMac 8100? Do I have to use the CD-ROM version?

Digidesign released a special PowerPC CD-ROM version of Pro Tools 4. I am wondering if there would be compatibility issues with the floppy version.

4.) Is there cross-compatibility with floppy-disc serial numbers and CD-ROM serials?

5.) Is it possible to backup the floppies and the authorization disks using a program like HFV?

6.) If you've successfully backed up copies of Pro Tools on floppy-disc, what methods did you use?

7.) What is the best external floppy-drive to use to backup old Mac software in Windows 10?

8.) What is the best external floppy-drive to use with PowerMac 7100/8100?

If someone with direct knowledge could answer these questions and save me hours of research, it would be greatly appreciated! I'm in the process of building a system using the Nubus 12-slot Digidesign Chassis and am trying to get all the firsthand information that I can.

P.S. If anyone has a Nubus Terminator they would be willing to sell, that would be awesome! I'm also in need of the PowerPC ECI card for the chassis that goes into the PowerMac's Nubus slot. I read a post by a user here named kvanderlaag from 2011, wherein stated he had the card but didn't have the chassis. That is what led me to this forum. Thanks for taking the time to read. I'm really in need of the card and terminator, as the chassis is full of Digidesign cards and those two things are the missing links.

There is someone on Ebay Kleinanzeigan that has both of the items, but I was unable to successfully register there. Here is the link to the seller: Kleinanzeigan

If someone in Germany could find out if he's legit and meet him face-to-face on my behalf, that would be awesome! I really need those two parts for the chassis. I want to build a complete Pro-Tools rig circa early-mid 1990s, and don't want to have to wait years just for those two parts.

I'm not at all a Pro Tools user.

Concerning floppies, have you looked into using BMoW's Floppy Emu [1]. I try to avoid floppies now when I can. True, it is not all 1995 but it does save a lot of floppy swapping. Many floppies are now too old to be usable and many of us should grease our floppy drives every now and then. My reflection is blushing.

Secondly, the users at MacOS9lives.com [2] seem to really like their music. You should pop by there as well.

Thirdly, I have a PC 8100/80 and I found that NuBus cards didn't necessarily work when I had a NuBus Crescendo card in the PDS slot. The two cards that I wanted to use were the FWB JackHammer and Asante 10/100 NIC. neither of these worked when the Crescendo card was present. The SuperMac Thunder/24 NuBus card did work though. I mention this in case any of the ProTools cards are PDS cards.

[1] https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/
[2] http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/

 

[CMW85]

I used a SCSI2SD, actually. It's still HFS and I don't think you even need to reformat. I don't think there's anything like an incompatible drive, it's just SCSI. You might come across mentions of certain drives being "certified", but that doesn't mean that other drives are incompatible. The main concern is if it's fast enough.


I've never heard a S1000 in person, but it's the same sort of era and level of technology. I think the original SampleCell was based around the same chip as a sampler by Dynacord (DPS I think? A two-unit rack). It's cleaner than I remember the S900 I once had, but then I tended to overdrive everything I sampled into that... It's a bit strange to group the S900 and S1000 together that way, BTW: They really have no more in common than the name on the face, completely different technology.

I'm completely greenhorn with sampling and am going by second-hand information. All of the sample disks that I have were sampled by the previous owner. I've never actually sampled anything myself. I'm just having to read information on forums until I collect all of the parts to actually be able to use the SampleCell. I know that people seem to like the S900 because it sounds gritty.

I'm glad to know that it works with SCSI2SD. I was thinking about getting an 8100 motherboard to use inside a 7100 case. @paws

I'm not at all a Pro Tools user.

Concerning floppies, have you looked into using BMoW's Floppy Emu [1]. I try to avoid floppies now when I can. True, it is not all 1995 but it does save a lot of floppy swapping. Many floppies are now too old to be usable and many of us should grease our floppy drives every now and then. My reflection is blushing.

Secondly, the users at MacOS9lives.com [2] seem to really like their music. You should pop by there as well.

Thirdly, I have a PC 8100/80 and I found that NuBus cards didn't necessarily work when I had a NuBus Crescendo card in the PDS slot. The two cards that I wanted to use were the FWB JackHammer and Asante 10/100 NIC. neither of these worked when the Crescendo card was present. The SuperMac Thunder/24 NuBus card did work though. I mention this in case any of the ProTools cards are PDS cards.

[1] https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/
[2] http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/

What DAW do you use on your 8100/80? I just registered on OS9lives. I read about the Floppy Emu. I wonder if it would work with the copy-protected disks? The FAQ states that it probably won't. I'm almost afraid to try to copy any of the floppy software due to fears that I would do something wrong and corrupt them. I can't find any information on whether Omniflop can copy authorizer disks, but a lot of people use it to make backups of old music software. The SuperMac Thunder/24 looks like a great card. I don't have any PDS cards, but have read about the Nubus Crescendo Card PDS card causing problems.

@ArmorAlley