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Novy Mac20 Accelerator Card

captaineos

captaineos

6502
Hi Everyone

I've been meaning to post photos of this excellent 68020 accelerator card for the Macintosh SE line. 

A researcher of physical sciences used this machine as a daily driver, later retiring it for a Quadra 800. 

When I received the machine, it was running a very old version of the Novy extension which wasn't running correctly.  A huge effort was made to track down the latest version of the Novy utility for better System 7 compatibility.  I succeed and found the installation easy.

The performance boost in general use is noticable, for example scrolling windows is smoother.

The delay in providing photos was the board was too big for me to remove with the Novy fitted.  I have since figured out the safe way to remove it.

I believe this card is quite rare.  From memory the Novy company must have been bought out by Daystar, as the latest INIT for the card features their logo.  The old version didn't.

http://imgur.com/a/8zllW

 
Nice!

I'd love to know the technique you used to remove the board - I have an SE with an '030 accelerator board and I couldn't figure out how to remove the logicboard with it attached at all - there just doesn't seem the room.

 
The original SE model doesn't have room to install or remove the motherboard if there is an accelerator installed, the second generation case had room. So how do you install the board then? I have a Radius 25 board I want to install in a dual floppy original SE.

 
I've ever heard of compatibility issues based on a generational difference for the SE.

IIRC, installation instructions for the Radius 16 detailed stretching the chassis sides out for installation/removal of the MobBo/Card combo. Radius followed Apple's design guidelines for an SE PDS card to a point, but most accelerators for the SE needed to exceed the footprint of the spec of the PCB in order have enough surface area.

 
It's not easy.  To install it you first connect the power cable, then insert the right side of the board into the rail.  You then have to gently pry the chassis apart about 1/16" with your left hand while pushing the board to the right, then pop in the left side of the board.  Nudge it the rest of the 1/4" or so into position.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
EEK! Just one more thing! 8-o

We all forgot to mention electrostatic discharge protection/damage. The chassis really should be grounded and a grounding wrist strap attached to the same ground point should be seen in that video. Instructions for touching the case (grounded by the power cord) of the first Signmaker machine before touching anything else and maintaining contact with it while changing bare PCB Font cartridges (only ROMs onboard the cartridges and the support edge under the cover port on the console was unpainted bare metal IIRC) was very highly stressed. I'm not sure if maintaining contact with the ungrounded Chassis of the SE whilst fiddling with the mobo/Analog Board like that is enough protection, but I've gone by that "maintain contact with the bare metal chassis" admonition from those 8bit days on to the present. 

 
Same thing for my Plus/Drexel128k with the MicroMac Accelerator. With no RAM on board it's fairly low profile but needs the stretch apart process.
 

micromac030160502.jpg.ade8f8c833c2192cfbb039187a3185d8.jpg


It wasn't until the SE with its low profile/parallel to the MoBo PDS expansion capability and slotted chassis that any card of any kind could be installed  in a compact without using the chassis stretch method. Even then, oversize/out of spec PDS accelerators generally required the stretch.


The vertical PDS card spec of the SE/30 was far superior, as the card was installed/removed prior to the MoBo procedure.

 
Sweet rig. I see what you are saying about clearance.  I checked out your thread on the mystery D that turned out to be your Drexel, but it's a crying shame the pictures are gone from that thread. We all lose. :-/

 
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