G3 Desktop sound card

[jamie marchant]

While taking apart a G3 Desktop I realized it uses an interesting sound board which I thought I would share here.(personally I find the modular nature of this board facantaing)

An image can be found here:

http://jamiemarchant.info/stuff/Pics/MacScard.JPG

What I found interesting is the number of expansions. I found some documentation on-line that says that the white 'AIO' connector would be for a board that had RCA jacks and a phonojack on it. I'm not sure how useful this would be.(since you can get adapters for that). The black plug would be for a capture expansion(PCI card?) and the long brown(ISA?) connector would be for a modem?

Now I'm curious and wonder does anyone know:

- What the sorter pad next to the capture input would be for?

- Wether the modem port was actually for a modem or was it to capture and record phone calls? 

- Is the modem card ISA? If so could you put something else in the slot?

- Would the capture card go in a PCI slot?

- How expensive where all these addons back in the day?

- Is the edge connector of the card itself proprietary or some sort of standard?

 

[RalfK]

> An image can be found here:

403 - Forbidden

 

[jamie marchant]

It looks like my web host does not like linking to images directly.(thought it did work at first), this page should work indefinitely:

http://jamiemarchant.info/stuff/Pics/MacScard.html

EDIT: The site will be going down for maintenance Dec 22nd 11 PM EDT.

 

[RalfK]

Do you know this Apple document?

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/0331009APMAVCG3.pdf

This is a description of the optional AV card. But I don't know if it's the same as installed in some 7600/8600/9600 Powermacs.

BTW the brown connector cannot be an ISA or PCI slot because there is no room left for a typical card. And: ISA slots use different spacing, PCI slots use different number of contacts, AFAIK.

 

[jamie marchant]

So the brown card must be strictly a modem card. That AV card would be the one for the G3 Desktop. Looks like it would be handy for it's time.

 

[waynestewart]

It's usually referred to as the personality card. It only fits in the beige G3s. The brown slot is for a modem. There were 3 or 4 different ones with that one being the most common.