Daystar Digital Accellerator? 50mhz 030

[uniserver]

my buddy sent this to me.

can anyone tell by the looks of it what machines will this work in?

I think he said it came from a Mac II

 

[Macdrone]

I know it works in the SE30

 

[Unknown_K]

Looks to me like that is a Daystar Digital Accelerator II for the original mac II. It has the CPU board that plugs into the 68020 socket of the Mac II motherboard and the optional cache board that plugs into the Daystar accelerator. The setup might be faster then a IIfx. That thing is not going to work in anything other then a mac II.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Interesting pair of cards. Got bigger pics?

That's not a PowerCache card that'll work in later systems, it looks purpose-built for the MacII. Is that SRAM for cache on the daughtercard?

 

[uniserver]

sure i can post full size pictures.

 

[CelGen]

Let me dig up an ad for the card.

Edited: Found it!

The only XCI card I know of that ever made it to market was the SCSI card.

 

[Brooklyn]

Before the IIci was around, day star only made accelerators designed for one specific model. I'd say you have an early one there, not very common.

 

[Unknown_K]

The older systems didn't have a PDS slot so any CPU upgrades needed to plug into the CPU slot while avoiding the other components in the area. The XCI slot/bus is interesting since it runs at 50Mhz (Nubus on a Mac II is 10Mhz), wonder how many cards were made for it if any.

 

[uniserver]

wow bad ass!

jason said, if you could hack that thing into a SE/30, I want it back

 

[uniserver]

I think this would be the best in the IIcx? It looks like there is a un populated 68030 socket there.

I maybe this card would need some work before it would plug into a 68030 socket?

Maybe right now all it will connect to is a 68020 socket for the Mac II it came from?

 

[retrocore9]

How much did the Daystar cards retail back in the day? I did some googling but was unable to find exact prices. I'm just curious as I've seen a few on ebay but they were asking in the hundreds.

Nice card by the way..

 

[Bunsen]

if you could hack that thing into a SE/30 / maybe this card would need some work before it would plug into a 68030 socket?

Not gonna happen.

right now all it will connect to is a 68020 socket

Correctamundo - and that's all it will ever work in. These things are far too system specific to just swap over - and the '020 and '030 busses are very not alike. At best you might get it to work in a different '020 machine: even then you will likely run into problems with component clearances.

Best use for this would be into a Mac II * so you can have a fast-ish five six * slot Nubus machine, that IIRC will run System 6 *. It should compete pretty well against a IIfx, and best of all you don't have to chase up that weird IIfx RAM *.

• 
  * Supported Mac OS: 2.0-7.5.1, 7.5.3-7.5.5
  128MB max RAM with MODE32 (8 x 16MB 30 pin SIMMs)
  http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/specs/mac_ii.html

 

[Charlieman]

How much did the Daystar cards retail back in the day?

Take a deep breath...

InfoWorld

October 31, 1988

Accelerator II From Daystar Speeds up the Macintosh II

BY LAURIE FLYNN

Daystar Digital demonstrated recently a 33-MHz accelerator board for the Mac II that Daystar claims doubles the speed of the computer.

The product, based on the Motorola 68030 and called the 33/030 Accelerator II, connects to the motherboard of the Mac II and uses the original 68020 socket rather than an add-in slot, according to Andrew Lewis, president of Daystar Digital.

When installed as a Nubus card, the accelerator is hampered by the 10-MHz speed of the slot, he said.

The 33/030 product features a memory-caching process that used 32K of 25-nanosecond static memory.

The 33/030 will be available in December for $ 6,000. An optional 68881 floating-point processor will cost $ 1,000. The card also supports the Mac's original 68881 coprocessor.

 

[Charlieman]

The only XCI card I know of that ever made it to market was the SCSI card.

It is my belief too that the SCSI card was the only XCI board which actually shipped. Other boards were announced but do not seem to exist in the wild.

InfoWorld

January 16, 1989

Daystar to Offer 33-MHz SE Accelerator

BY ROBERT SNOWDON JONES

...

Daystar will also introduce three enhancement boards for the Mac II based on its Extended CPU Interface (XCI), which bypasses the 10-MHz limitation on the Mac II's Nubus. The boards plug into the Nubus slot but have a connector that gives them direct access to the CPU. The Video XCI gives higher performance graphics capabilities and is compatible with EGA monitors in addition to the Apple 13-inch monitor and the Sony 19-inch monitor. The Daystar HD XCI uses cache memory to increase performance of hard disk drives.

Andrew Lewis, Daystar's president, said the company will place XCI in the public domain in hopes of spurring more high-speed hardware for the machine. The Mac II's current speed limitations hamper its usage as a CAD or graphics workstation, he said.

XCI is a connector with a few chips, which bypasses the 10-MHz limitation on Apple's Nubus slots. The interface permits a direct 33-MHz path to RAM, video, and disk drives.

 

[Unknown_K]

I never ran into that SCSI card as of yet, must be rare as hell.

 

[Bunsen]

XCI is a connector with a few chips, which bypasses the 10-MHz limitation on Apple's Nubus slots. The interface permits a direct 33-MHz path to RAM, video, and disk drives.

How very interesting....

}

uniserver - the magazine ad posted above implies your accelerator has XCI onboard. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to reverse-engineer XCI, or hand it over to someone who can.