Not rare but unusual thread.

[Strimkind]

Nothing too spectacular in my collection but I do have:

Expansion Bay HD for a Pismo

Some old Massive SCSI case (maybe HD?) that I picked up with 2 512s and a 128k

G3 Vimage upgrade for 1400 (never heard of the brand before)

Thats about all that might even stand out.

 

[Bunsen]

Quite a few oddities there H3NRY, but these three pique my curiosity:

a spread spectrum wireless base station with 68K CPU, RAM, 3 expansion slots, etc. from 1991a LocalTalk - ethernet bridge with built-in HD and NAS

a HD which emulated an Apple//c floppy or a Mac 128 floppy depending on firmware

As does this!

• CardReader (Simcards and others) for ADB

Strimkind's post reminded me of another oddity of mine: a tower with 7 slot loading SCSI DVD-ROM drives. There's also a 3U rack storage server that mounts 14 IDE/ATA hard drives to a SCSI bus.

 

[MrMacPlus]

Not exactly sure whether you'd call these unusual but here goes:

-Original HP Vectra (PC Semi-compatible from 1985)

-An e-Reader for my Gameboy advance (the card reader where you could tediously read a tiny program by scanning around 10 barcodes)

-A still-functional (AFAIK) Game Genie for my original Gameboy

-A still-functional (AFAIK) Game Genie for my (broken) NES.

-All sorts of other peripherals for that old NES including a power pad.

 

[avw]

As does this!

• CardReader (Simcards and others) for ADB

Sorry, ... that should be "for ADB-Macs", of course it´s for the serial port.

 

[Mike Richardson]

NIB Apple Extended Keyboard II - I had two of these, sold one of them.

NIB Apple Modem 2400 baud

 

[macgeek417]

Post your unusual things you have.
Gravis Mac Gamepad.

Ment to be ADB but has a serial? type connector. Must be in the wrong box but looks the same as the picture.

Meh. i have 2 mac gamepads.

 

[shred]

I have a wooden crate with a large Apple logo and the words "Expedition Equipment" stencilled on top of it. It was part of an Apple sales promotion from the mid 1990s.

 

[Bunsen]

Heh. That's cool. Got any pics?

 

[oldmossinger]

would like to add a couple of things I've found in my collection:

a MacPhone (the one that attaches to the side of a compact (any one have a line on a good copy of the software?))

a MacHandwriter tablet

an ADB 4 port switcher for kb/monitor

a LaCie FM Tuner (ADB)

 

[olePigeon]

Formac ProFormance 3 video card.

32MB video card with 3D glasses. This was in 1997. It was a pretty darn good card for its time. I think it's funny that ATI and nVidia are only now getting into 3D games. I had Quake 3 running 3D on my Formac. It was fun.

 

[netfreak]

Poqet PC (the netbook of the 1980s.. runs DOS 3)

CP/M cards for Apple II (never learned enough about it to test)

IIgs Woz Edition w/ RAM upgrade and SCSI (no longer have)

If any of that really counts... Better yet, maybe the eWorld brochure I found yesterday.

 

[trag]

What I really would like to see are those 128MB 72pin Simms in 50NS (!) which were availaible for a short time around 2001 for my 6100 w/g3 and 2nd videocard.

Any particular reason that 60ns won't do? They are not uncommon.

 

[Unknown_K]

I bet the 6100 does not run any faster with 60NS SIMMs either, just because the RAM is faster doesn't mean the chipset timing will take advantage of it. Now if you want to hack the system timings I can see wanting faster memory.

 

[Christopher]

Got another thing to add.

Intel web camera with composite video output.

 

[cangrande]

LaCie FM Tuner (ADB)

This gadget produced one of the great one-liner reviews in a Mac magazine (can't remember which one):

"Use this $50 gadget to turn your $2000 computer into a $20 radio!"

 

[coius]

Would a 144MB Memory expansion card for the 3400c count?

EDIT: Sorry, 128MB.

 

[Quadraman]

Power Computing Power 80/100/120 machines--the 8100 clone. These have spots for 5 NuBus slots on the motherboard, but one would need to steal the Fat-AMIC chip from a 9150 to implement the two uninstalled slots.

Is stealing the controller the only mod required?

AMIC is a 160 pin chip and FAT-AMIC is 208 pin.

The regular AMIC is in 7100 and 8100s

In the Power 80/100/120 the AMIC resides on the I/O daughter card, which is unique to those machines.

to replace the AMIC with a FAT AMIC you'd pretty much have to redesign that card

Their original plan was probably to sell a three slot and a five slot version. The three slot version would use the AMIC I/O card. The 5 slot version would have an I/O card bearing the Fat AMIC.

So the only difference between PCC's three slot and five slot versions would be the I/O card.

So, the question is, was there ever a five-slot I/O card made?

I'm willing to bet at least one prototype machine with the 5 slots enabled was made. It was obviously their intention to utilize those additional slots at some point or they wouldn't have included the pads on the production machines or put the controller on a swappable daughter board.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

More unusual was the PCI/NuBus Riser that PowerComputing released for some model or other, but it's probably too rare to list and i don't have one!

I've got an IR wireless ADB Mouse, does that count?

 

[envirogeek]

Nova fan controller, 1 installed in my iix, 1 still in shrink wrap.

Adjusts power supply fan speed based on a temperature sensor probe you tack to your internal hard drive with foil tape.

 

[trag]

More unusual was the PCI/NuBus Riser that PowerComputing released for some model or other, but it's probably too rare to list and i don't have one!
I've got an IR wireless ADB Mouse, does that count?

PowerWave. My friend who worked in PowerComputing support says that riser card never really worked all that well though. The combo riser card had a name, and now I can't remember it. My old posts on the topic were probably at Powerwatch.com and that site is long since history, although there might be an archive.

I have an IR wireless mouse which works in either an original Mac (through Plus) or as an ADB mouse. However, it has a noticeable bit of latency, so I prefer a wired mouse.