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x86 card revival thread

Nathan_A

Well-known member
@Byrd if I had such a card to scan, I would. I'm in the same boat as the rest of you. My only PCI non-OrangePC cards are the Apple/Reply 5x86 card (7") and the Apple/Reply soldered Pentium 100 card (12").
 

Big Ben

Well-known member
Ok so there is a 74F32 near the quartz that could be involved in the clock multiplier.
But I can’t found anything about the sc464ayb.

I’ll try to find out the circuit, I fear the 166MHz-P to be really different and not comparable to the 100MHz one
 

Byrd

Well-known member
Hi Big Ben,

If it's anything like traditional Apple hardware hopefully it'll be a couple of resistors that sets the multiplier over replacement of crystals etc. We should probably start a new thread asking for another member to photograph their P166 card, front and back.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
I've got a 166MHz 12" card, only problem is that it's a hundred miles away at the moment and I probably can't get to it soon. I may be able to have it brought to me this weekend though, so I'll happily photograph it if that works out. (Edit: @jessenator has a beautiful picture of both card backs posted above. I can scan the front, though that photo quality will be hard to match!)

And here's the back side of the Pentium 100 and the Pentium 166 cards compared:
Comparison image here.

I think I didn't want to scan the 166, because by that time I had already put the heatsinks on the Opti and LSI chips (because they need them IMO) and didn't want to get new adhesive pads for them.

On a second note, I picked up a 640/DOS version of the Houdini 486 card this week, and realized the one I pictured in the original doc fits the 6200/6300 board. Really they both should be pictured/described separately. This was a good week for reasonably priced cards, so I picked up an OrangePC 624 too (still haven't found the difference between 620, 624, and 626, so possibly just designates which CPU is installed; this one's a 200MHz Winchip C6. I've got a PL-ProMMX with a 400MHz K6-2 I could try instead, though I'd ultimately rather try this on one of the Reply/Radius 12" cards. @Nathan_A, what adapter did you use to get a K6-III working on the 620?)
IMG_0039.jpgIMG_0040.jpg
 
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Nathan_A

Well-known member
@jeremywork I didn't have to use an adapter for the CPU. I have a patched BIOS image for the card that properly recognizes K6-III CPUs and also properly reports speeds at post (the default BIOS shows 256 MHz for values above 400 MHz or something like that). What this really means is that I have a patched version of the OrangePC application that in it has a patched BIOS grafted into it. I'm not at home right now, so I can't share it, but this coming weekend I will share it.

I also need to see if the BIOS image for the 660 needs updating. I suspect it probably doesn't only because the 660 is a proper "Super 7" board with on-board AGP and supported FSB speeds in excess of 100 MHz. If so, I'll patch it, graft it into the OrangePC app too, and then post an updated one with both patched BIOSes in it at some point.

The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to get the 620 to work with an AMD K6-2+ or K6-III+ (I also haven't tried either of those with the 660 yet either for that matter). At the very least on the 620, despite the fact that the patched BIOS is definitely modified to support the "plus" variants of the CPUs, the OrangePC app doesn't even get far enough to post anything. When I launch the app with a "plus" CPU installed in the 620 it comes back with an error stating that it can't communicate with the OrangePC card. This appears to be some kind of error being thrown before the BIOS image is even sent to the card by the OrangePC app to start booting it. My current hunch is that the OrangePC app may have some whitelisted CPU_IDs or something, and since the "plus" CPUs didn't exist at the time, they never made it into the whitelist. The embedded PC BIOS I've grafted into the OrangePC app definitely has been properly patched to notice and identify those CPUs, so something is erroring out in the OrangePC app that has nothing to do with the BIOS. I suppose it's possible that the custom bridge ASIC that OrangePC uses on these things is performing a similar check and actually rendering the card inoperable with an unknown CPU in it, but that seems less likely to me for some reason. Mostly because even with the unsupported CPU in it the card still responds to other bus probing, etc. At some point I'll try to get my hands on a Rise mP6 and stick it in there to see if it works since it wasn't ever officially supported either.

Part of the reason I think this check is happening in the OrangePC app is because I'm pretty sure it's the OrangePC app that identifies the special PC!fx version of the card (a cut down 660) that was the only card that explicitly didn't support users swapping out the CPU and was "locked" to using the God awful WinChip CPU (a real bummer for a thing that was supposed to be a "gaming" card). The BIOS image for that card in the OrangePC app is one and the same as the one for the 660, so something else in the chain has to be checking for the CPU type and locking it down on the PC!fx.

I've been wanting to step through execution of the OrangePC app with a debugger as it tries to initialize the card and transfers the BIOS over on-demand, but I haven't figured out how to do such a thing. I don't know how to attach a debugger to an arbitrary process for which I don't have the source code and am not building and running from inside of an IDE. All the classic Mac development I ever did that included a debugger back in the day was all done from within CodeWarrior and it was for software I was writing, so I had all the code & symbols there.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
As a separate matter, if anyone has any of those little add-on Vibra16 daughtercards for the Apple/Reply cards handy, I actually need one or two of them. I think both my 7100 and 8100 PDS cards are missing them. At least one of them is for sure. The 7100 and 8100 cards actually have two sockets seemingly for some other daughtercard too, but I have no idea what for.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
What this really means is that I have a patched version of the OrangePC application that in it has a patched BIOS grafted into it.
Whoa, that's slick. Makes perfect sense but I hadn't thought about how relatively easy it'd be to run custom BIOS on these. I appreciate your offer to share it, whenever there's time.

I think I remember reading that the 660 will support K6-2s out of the box, but that something equivalent to a PL-K6-III was needed to use K6-III chips. Your BIOS mod approach would be super clean and should work on the 660 if it does on the 620.

Part of the reason I think this check is happening in the OrangePC app is because I'm pretty sure it's the OrangePC app that identifies the special PC!fx version of the card (a cut down 660) that was the only card that explicitly didn't support users swapping out the CPU and was "locked" to using the God awful WinChip CPU (a real bummer for a thing that was supposed to be a "gaming" card). The BIOS image for that card in the OrangePC app is one and the same as the one for the 660, so something else in the chain has to be checking for the CPU type and locking it down on the PC!fx.
Interesting notes on the 660/PC!fx ROMs... and especially awkward that the CPU lock is purely software; they can't justify the limitation as any sort of hardware cost-saving.

This comes back around to a different issue I'm having with my Orange386 in the IIci. The OrangePC application software is v1.3.2, which seems about as mature as it got, but during POST I see "Extension V.1.2" and I wonder if this refers to the version of Orange's BIOS image. My issue is that the keyboard only responds for a split second after booting. It works long enough to enter CMOS setup but won't accept any input afterwards. It's already timed out by the time I see the option to hit F1. In the dev notes, this issue is described as related to the IIci and fixed in v1.23, though I'm confused as to whether this refers to the application version or the Extension[BIOS] version. I'm also not sure if the versions are supposed to match, though they came off the factory floppy diskette this way...
IMG_0036.JPGIMG_0037.JPG
When convenient I'll try in something other than a IIci and see what I get...

As a separate matter, if anyone has any of those little add-on Vibra16 daughtercards for the Apple/Reply cards handy, I actually need one or two of them. I think both my 7100 and 8100 PDS cards are missing them. At least one of them is for sure. The 7100 and 8100 cards actually have two sockets seemingly for some other daughtercard too, but I have no idea what for.
I don't think the Houdini Vibra module will fit on the 7100/8100 DOM cards. I've only seen one with a daughterboard, and it does have a Vibra chip, but I'm not sure if it's combined with a serial/parallel card or what else those ports would be for.
Reply-Dos-On-Mac-DoM-8100-PDS-Dos.jpeg
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Oh, that daughtercard seems like it is a combo card of some kind? What's that SMC chip for?

I recently saw a picture of the 7100 version of the card with what looked like a Vibra16-only card exactly the same dimensions as the one on the 6100/Houdini card attached to it.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Oh, that daughtercard seems like it is a combo card of some kind? What's that SMC chip for?

I recently saw a picture of the 7100 version of the card with what looked like a Vibra16-only card exactly the same dimensions as the one on the 6100/Houdini card attached to it.
I'm getting hits for "High-Performance Multi-Mode Parallel Port Super I/O Floppy Disk Controller."

Interesting. Definitely not on the Houdini or its Vibra module.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
This comes back around to a different issue I'm having with my Orange386 in the IIci. The OrangePC application software is v1.3.2, which seems about as mature as it got, but during POST I see "Extension V.1.2" and I wonder if this refers to the version of Orange's BIOS image. My issue is that the keyboard only responds for a split second after booting. It works long enough to enter CMOS setup but won't accept any input afterwards. It's already timed out by the time I see the option to hit F1. In the dev notes, this issue is described as related to the IIci and fixed in v1.23, though I'm confused as to whether this refers to the application version or the Extension[BIOS] version. I'm also not sure if the versions are supposed to match, though they came off the factory floppy diskette this way...
View attachment 39766View attachment 39767
When convenient I'll try in something other than a IIci and see what I get...
If you crack open the OrangePC applications in ResEdit, or some suitable alternative, you'll find a resource fork entry called BIOS... might have been ROM, but I'm pretty sure it was BIOS. In there you'll see the various flavors of PC, VGA, and even Orange Micro BIOS "extensions" that are provided to the card at initialization time. ResEdit having a fairly dumb limit of only being able to copy and paste 16k or 32k at a time (whatever it is) made dealing with grafting in patched BIOSes larger than that a massive PITA. Eventually I switched to some other resource editor tool that I can't remember the name of off the top of my head.

That "Extension V.1.2" thing is an extended BIOS thing that OrangePC bolts on during boot in order to do things like map drives, network interfaces, etc. It's similar to the OpROM extensions that PC drive controllers, etc. would load at boot to make sure they were configured and detectable by dumber OSes and or busses that lacked proper probing support (basically anything and everything in the PC world before ACPI was a widespread thing).
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
I'm getting hits for "High-Performance Multi-Mode Parallel Port Super I/O Floppy Disk Controller."

Interesting. Definitely not on the Houdini or its Vibra module.
Yeah, I think there's a way to get a proper gamut of PC I/O ports (Serial, Parallel, etc.) exposed on that thing with that flavor of daughter card. The default octopus cable only has video passthrough and MIDI/gameport (which is inactive if you don't have at least the Vibra16 board). If I'm not mistaken it connects to your PDS card using both the top and bottom sockets at the same time, whereas the Vibra16 card only attaches to the socket closest to the top edge of the card... I think.

Side note: it irritates me to no end that the 7100 board has a proper Socket 3 socket, but the 8100 board has only a Socket 1 socket. I wanted to use my 83 MHz Pentium Overdrive chip in the 8100, but I had to put it in my 7100 instead. It's no big deal, I just don't like the PC in my Mac being noticeably faster than the Mac itself :) .
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
If you crack open the OrangePC applications in ResEdit, or some suitable alternative, you'll find a resource fork entry called BIOS... might have been ROM, but I'm pretty sure it was BIOS. In there you'll see the various flavors of PC, VGA, and even Orange Micro BIOS "extensions" that are provided to the card at initialization time. ResEdit having a fairly dumb limit of only being able to copy and paste 16k or 32k at a time (whatever it is) made dealing with grafting in patched BIOSes larger than that a massive PITA. Eventually I switched to some other resource editor tool that I can't remember the name of off the top of my head.
Thanks for the tip. Unsurprisingly a bit happened between 386 and Pentium MMX, so while I don't see it exactly I'll poke around and see if I can find it.

That "Extension V.1.2" thing is an extended BIOS thing that OrangePC bolts on during boot in order to do things like map drives, network interfaces, etc. It's similar to the OpROM extensions that PC drive controllers, etc. would load at boot to make sure they were configured and detectable by dumber OSes and or busses that lacked proper probing support (basically anything and everything in the PC world before ACPI was a widespread thing).
This makes sense, though I still wonder if there's a version 1.3.2 I'm supposed to have. The Release Note says:
BUG FIXES (1.23)
1. On Macintosh IIci computers, the keyboard emulation would get caught in a communication loop with the Orange386 BIOS, hanging the program at startup. This could be fixed by starting in B/W mode or by entering a debugger (like Macsbug) and then exiting again. This has been fixed.
Perhaps I'm misattributing the issue, because my Orange386 program doesn't freeze, and neither does the blinking cursor on the PC side, just communications to the PC side. I can still switch back to Mac OS and interact with the program. Doesn't seem to make a difference if I start in B/W, though I haven't installed Macsbug yet. Same on System 6.0.8 and 7.1. Could be the card is borked in a weird way. I also can't seem to use emulated graphics, it looks garbled; ISA card works fine though.

Yeah, I think there's a way to get a proper gamut of PC I/O ports (Serial, Parallel, etc.) exposed on that thing with that flavor of daughter card. The default octopus cable only has video passthrough and MIDI/gameport (which is inactive if you don't have at least the Vibra16 board). If I'm not mistaken it connects to your PDS card using both the top and bottom sockets at the same time, whereas the Vibra16 card only attaches to the socket closest to the top edge of the card... I think.
I wonder if there's an even more filled out card; this one seems to have quite a few unpopulated headers too. The 71/81 DOM will be a much cooler card with some hardware I/O :D
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Side note: it irritates me to no end that the 7100 board has a proper Socket 3 socket, but the 8100 board has only a Socket 1 socket. I wanted to use my 83 MHz Pentium Overdrive chip in the 8100, but I had to put it in my 7100 instead. It's no big deal, I just don't like the PC in my Mac being noticeably faster than the Mac itself :) .
Wait, what?! That's a detail worth mentioning in the top post too if I could edit it :)
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Oh! Those ribbon headers on that daughterboard look like they're for a parallel port and a serial port, respectively. I bet if you had a PC/AT bracket with those ports on it and stuffed the other end of the ribbons into those sockets, you'd have your proper hardware I/O.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Oh! Those ribbon headers on that daughterboard look like they're for a parallel port and a serial port, respectively. I bet if you had a PC/AT bracket with those ports on it and stuffed the other end of the ribbons into those sockets, you'd have your proper hardware I/O.
Probably so. I wonder what else *could* be implemented beyond that.
 

Powerbase

Well-known member
I hate to jump in with a question but I have some questions about my 530. Does anyone know if I can upgrade from the Cyrix chip to a K6-2 I have laying around.

I still have to get my 8500 set up so I can even test to see if this 530 even works.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
I hate to jump in with a question but I have some questions about my 530. Does anyone know if I can upgrade from the Cyrix chip to a K6-2 I have laying around.

I still have to get my 8500 set up so I can even test to see if this 530 even works.
It might require some BIOS hacking to properly support a K6-2, but I have no OrangePC 530 to find out for sure.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Here are the Manual and Peripheral Kit Instructions PDFs from my Orange386. I suspect these are the final revisions of these documents due to the dates and configuration of my card.

Observations:
• 'Mac286' is written rather often where I assume 'Orange386' should be, so this probably wasn't written from scratch for the Orange386.
• A9M0110 is listed as both compatible and incompatible on different pieces of documentation. More specifics on @slomacuser's A9M0110 thread:
• The manual specifies incompatibility with the speaker housing on IIcx and IIci models (p17-18.) While there may be some ISA cards which utilize ports requiring it's removal, but everything in the peripheral kit can be installed alongside a VGA card with no conflict.

IMG_0216.jpg
 

Attachments

  • User's Manual OCR.pdf
    29 MB · Views: 6
  • Manual Supplements OCR.pdf
    2 MB · Views: 3
  • Peripheral Kit Instructions OCR.pdf
    2.2 MB · Views: 2

Jamieson

Well-known member
I picked up a IIci off eBay today found this installed inside. I can see it has it's own CPU and RAM, even an ISA slot for expansion, but what does it boot from? There's no IDE header to be found on the board. Does it require an external hard drive?

Photo May 10, 11 50 10.jpg
 
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