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Which is the best NuBus cards for II?
- Thread starter megabyte
- Start date
Elfen
Well-known member
It depends on what you want. In the very least you want a Video Card and an Ethernet Card. Everything else is just an option, even the ethernet card is an option but the video card is a necessity.
Which Video Card? Though there are many, the standards are the Apple 8-Bit Video card and the Apple 24-Bit Video Card.
You should also look at the motherboard. See what CPU you have in it, some Mac IIs were upgraded to IIx or IIfx. If so, they would have a 68030 CPU and a 68881 FPU. If it was not upgraded, you would have a 68020 CPU with a 68881 or 68882 FPU and a 688851 MMU or an Apple Custom MMU chip. If you have the Apple Custom Chip, there is a 50/50 change that you could upgrade it with a 688851. This will give you virtual memory and a higher RAM capacity. If not, it is still a good machine though you will not have virtual memory and a low RAM capacity. It depends on what you want to do with it.
Which Video Card? Though there are many, the standards are the Apple 8-Bit Video card and the Apple 24-Bit Video Card.
You should also look at the motherboard. See what CPU you have in it, some Mac IIs were upgraded to IIx or IIfx. If so, they would have a 68030 CPU and a 68881 FPU. If it was not upgraded, you would have a 68020 CPU with a 68881 or 68882 FPU and a 688851 MMU or an Apple Custom MMU chip. If you have the Apple Custom Chip, there is a 50/50 change that you could upgrade it with a 688851. This will give you virtual memory and a higher RAM capacity. If not, it is still a good machine though you will not have virtual memory and a low RAM capacity. It depends on what you want to do with it.
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Are there any sites about retro Macintosh hardware like this one for Amiga - http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com ?
Elfen
Well-known member
Vintage Mac Users are not as fanatical as Amiga Users, sad to say. But we are the biggest group out there and we are bringing back Macs from the grave...
Look at:
everymac.com
vintageapple.org
vintagemacworld.com
lowendmac.com and here - http://lowendmac.com/groups/
thinkclassic.org
macgui.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/schematics.html
http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/m_parts.html
http://www.shobaffum.com/iici/index.html
and a couple or so hundred other websites and webpages. But stick with us and your questions will be answered faster than you spending hours googling Mac Websites and scouring the net.
Look at:
everymac.com
vintageapple.org
vintagemacworld.com
lowendmac.com and here - http://lowendmac.com/groups/
thinkclassic.org
macgui.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/schematics.html
http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/m_parts.html
http://www.shobaffum.com/iici/index.html
and a couple or so hundred other websites and webpages. But stick with us and your questions will be answered faster than you spending hours googling Mac Websites and scouring the net.
ArmorAlley
Well-known member
Hi Megabyte,
I would suggest that you get 2 graphics cards - one capable of 640x480 and 256 colours, the other capable of 1153x768 ( or whatever the standard max resolution of the Mac was) and millions of colours. The former will set you back maybe USD 25.- and the latter maybe $60-80. The Radius LeMans card is a good example of the latter. Radius, SuperMac, RasterOps all have good cards. Generally look for something with 24 or Thunder in the name.
In addition, I'd get a 10 mb ethernet card.
If you are feeling flush, you could splash out on an AudioMedia sound card or on a SCSI card. Popular brands include ATTO SiliconExpress series and FWB's Jackhammer. There is also a real risk that that you will overload the NuBus bus with too much data.
Speaking as someone who probably shouldn't be allowed on eBay, if you aren't going to use it then don't get it. I have a Fibre Channel card that I'm to get working...
Once you have a graphics card, get the board recapped (the onboard SCSI in my IIfx has gone, for example), invest in new PRAM batteries and buy at least 8MB of RAM. You don't need any more than 32MB and 8x4MB is not difficult to find.
Finally, get yourself a SCSI2SD card or one of BigMessoWires' cards to replace your 30 year-old SCSI drive and Mac II will be a lot quieter.
I hope that helps,
aa
I would suggest that you get 2 graphics cards - one capable of 640x480 and 256 colours, the other capable of 1153x768 ( or whatever the standard max resolution of the Mac was) and millions of colours. The former will set you back maybe USD 25.- and the latter maybe $60-80. The Radius LeMans card is a good example of the latter. Radius, SuperMac, RasterOps all have good cards. Generally look for something with 24 or Thunder in the name.
In addition, I'd get a 10 mb ethernet card.
If you are feeling flush, you could splash out on an AudioMedia sound card or on a SCSI card. Popular brands include ATTO SiliconExpress series and FWB's Jackhammer. There is also a real risk that that you will overload the NuBus bus with too much data.
Speaking as someone who probably shouldn't be allowed on eBay, if you aren't going to use it then don't get it. I have a Fibre Channel card that I'm to get working...
Once you have a graphics card, get the board recapped (the onboard SCSI in my IIfx has gone, for example), invest in new PRAM batteries and buy at least 8MB of RAM. You don't need any more than 32MB and 8x4MB is not difficult to find.
Finally, get yourself a SCSI2SD card or one of BigMessoWires' cards to replace your 30 year-old SCSI drive and Mac II will be a lot quieter.
I hope that helps,
aa
> buy at least 8MB of RAM. You don't need any more than 32MB and 8x4MB is not difficult to find.
Going higher than 8MB requires some magic if you have an unupgraded Mac II. As mentioned earlier
> 688851 MMU or an Apple Custom MMU chip
you will need the 688851 to use larger than 1MB SIMMs. I just recently found (and purchased) 4x4MB SIMMs to raise my memory to 20MB, and I looked what seemed like a long time to find these. (I bought memory that did not work a few times before I was successful.) More memory is nice to have, though games that require more than 8MB memory tend to be too slow to enjoy on my system.
Going higher than 8MB requires some magic if you have an unupgraded Mac II. As mentioned earlier
> 688851 MMU or an Apple Custom MMU chip
you will need the 688851 to use larger than 1MB SIMMs. I just recently found (and purchased) 4x4MB SIMMs to raise my memory to 20MB, and I looked what seemed like a long time to find these. (I bought memory that did not work a few times before I was successful.) More memory is nice to have, though games that require more than 8MB memory tend to be too slow to enjoy on my system.
olePigeon
Well-known member
If I had a six slot Macintosh IIx and could have any six cards, I'd have:
1. Radius Rocket
2. Radius Rocket
3. Radius Thunder IV GX 1600 video card
4. 10/100 NuBUS ethernet card
5. FWB SCSI Card
6. NB24 Digital Audio Card
Oh, and a Daystar Digital 040 in the PDS slot.
That's my dream machine (and since I'm dreaming, might as well make it a IIfx with an 040 TokaMac.)
1. Radius Rocket
2. Radius Rocket
3. Radius Thunder IV GX 1600 video card
4. 10/100 NuBUS ethernet card
5. FWB SCSI Card
6. NB24 Digital Audio Card
Oh, and a Daystar Digital 040 in the PDS slot.
That's my dream machine (and since I'm dreaming, might as well make it a IIfx with an 040 TokaMac.)Radius Rocket seems to be a very interesting card. Is it really allows multiprocessing on classic Mac OS?
CelGen
Well-known member
I seem to recall (I'm no expert on this because the cards are overpriced gimmicks people go rabid for) they could be used to offload tasks from the host machine however it requires an unobtanium registration key. Without it you could only run each card as its own mac with standalone install of Mac OS. That being said, Mac OS was never designed for multiprocessing in the first place so I'm optimistic it ever provided any real performance boost. You're better saving the $250+ people pay per card for something better like a transputer board. Probably equally as useless to the average person but still really cool.
You have a Macintosh II though so off the top of my head the Apple 5.25" PC card and drive would be a nice addition along with any of the A/ROSE compatible cards.
You have a Macintosh II though so off the top of my head the Apple 5.25" PC card and drive would be a nice addition along with any of the A/ROSE compatible cards.
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Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
To run a Rocket in the original Mac II you'll need to do the ROM/Superdrive and MMU upgrades, better to start with a IIx.
They actually were useful in some specific, high end applications back when I ran one in my IIx as an accelerator under RocketWare. Having the DSP DaughterCard and RAM right there on the Rocket's 33MHz 68040 bus instead of hanging out there past the 10MHz NuBus bottleneck comes to mind. With a Radius Graphics Card's ability to do NuBus block transfer rates, the Rocket could be pretty spiffy QuickDraw accelerated TPD workstation for Photoshop/DTP without even bothering with RocketShare/Mulriprocessing.
The worst thing about Rockets would be that their OS tolerance tops out at System 7.1P although the host system can run a much later OS.
The RocketShare activation key's not particularly unobtanium.
They actually were useful in some specific, high end applications back when I ran one in my IIx as an accelerator under RocketWare. Having the DSP DaughterCard and RAM right there on the Rocket's 33MHz 68040 bus instead of hanging out there past the 10MHz NuBus bottleneck comes to mind. With a Radius Graphics Card's ability to do NuBus block transfer rates, the Rocket could be pretty spiffy QuickDraw accelerated TPD workstation for Photoshop/DTP without even bothering with RocketShare/Mulriprocessing.
The worst thing about Rockets would be that their OS tolerance tops out at System 7.1P although the host system can run a much later OS.
The RocketShare activation key's not particularly unobtanium.
olePigeon
Well-known member
Yep. I can confirm that simply having a Radius Rocket in a machine with a Radius 24X video card offers a measurable increase in performance on the video card. It's pretty darn cool even if you never use the Rocket itself. I never thought to measure the performance with more than one Rocket with a video card.
Rockets are finicky, but I seem to recall a user here getting one to work all the way up to 7.6.
Rockets are finicky, but I seem to recall a user here getting one to work all the way up to 7.6.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Concur, it would have been wasted money for a IIci that already had an 040 upgrade. The Rocket turned any of the Mac II series into a Quadra level machine. It used IBM style SIMMs on its own 33MHz system bus (25MHz on the early, low end model) whereas accelerators in the Cache Slot of the IIci or their adapters in the Macs II thru IIcx were bottlenecked using system memory at only 16-25MHz host MoBo clock rates.
Considering the anemic IIcx/IIci power/cooling budget the Rocket's probably on the ragged edge of workable. The most fun I've had with Rocket playtime was getting one up and running in the "incompatible" IIsi, talk about your ragged edges!
Considering the anemic IIcx/IIci power/cooling budget the Rocket's probably on the ragged edge of workable. The most fun I've had with Rocket playtime was getting one up and running in the "incompatible" IIsi, talk about your ragged edges!
Elfen
Well-known member
A Rocket accelerator on a IIci with a DayStar Turbo 040 would be just too much I think. As stated, its too much for the PSU. But if you can get it to work, it would still be too much. How many multiple 68K CPU machines are out there? How many are Mac? Not PowerPC, as I heard of them but 68K (up to the '040)? I do not think I have heard of one.
EDIT: Even on accelerated 68K system, though there are 2 (or more) 68K CPUs, you can only use one at a time.
EDIT: Even on accelerated 68K system, though there are 2 (or more) 68K CPUs, you can only use one at a time.
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Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Multithreaded apps would work fine with the Turbo 040 and however many Rockets under RocketShare. The problem was lack of said software, barely anything out there at the time. ISTR there being RIP software, but can't remember anything else offhand.
Multitasking two apps separately on IIx proc and Rocket worked fine in that config, but wasn't worth the hassle to make use of the 16MHz 030. I went back to using it as an accelerator in the IIx workstation and dedicating the old SE/Radius16 as a dedicated plotter server instead of taking it home as I'd hoped to do.
As Chaos Manor's Jerry Pournelle said: Multitasking = 1 CPU per task. I preferred them being in different boxes . . . so it goes.
Multitasking two apps separately on IIx proc and Rocket worked fine in that config, but wasn't worth the hassle to make use of the 16MHz 030. I went back to using it as an accelerator in the IIx workstation and dedicating the old SE/Radius16 as a dedicated plotter server instead of taking it home as I'd hoped to do.
As Chaos Manor's Jerry Pournelle said: Multitasking = 1 CPU per task. I preferred them being in different boxes . . . so it goes.
Elfen
Well-known member
There is never a "LIKE" button when I need one.
Back to subject...
Megabyte,
Have you tested to see if this Mac II even turn on? And have you checked out the Logic Board to see that it is a Mac II or something else? There were some upgrade kits to make a Mac II into a Mac IIx or Mac IIfx with a logic board swap. My Mac II is an upgraded II with an IIfx board swap.
From there you can decide what to get, but in the very least you are going to need a video card. The Apple 8Bit video card only gives a 640X480 @ 256 Color resolution. If you want more, you are going to need to get a 24big Video Card, and there are many various ones of that, as stated through out the thread.
Then you can work on the disk drives and hard drives after that before deciding on what cards you want next. In the least... an Ethernet card so you can get some network access, and a System, 7.5; in the least 7.1.
After you get it up and running, then you can save your pennies for an accelerator and more RAM.
Back to subject...
Megabyte,
Have you tested to see if this Mac II even turn on? And have you checked out the Logic Board to see that it is a Mac II or something else? There were some upgrade kits to make a Mac II into a Mac IIx or Mac IIfx with a logic board swap. My Mac II is an upgraded II with an IIfx board swap.
From there you can decide what to get, but in the very least you are going to need a video card. The Apple 8Bit video card only gives a 640X480 @ 256 Color resolution. If you want more, you are going to need to get a 24big Video Card, and there are many various ones of that, as stated through out the thread.
Then you can work on the disk drives and hard drives after that before deciding on what cards you want next. In the least... an Ethernet card so you can get some network access, and a System, 7.5; in the least 7.1.
After you get it up and running, then you can save your pennies for an accelerator and more RAM.
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