PB 1400c Upgrade Options

[LC_575]

My ultimate goal in upgrading is to max out the memory and add ethernet. I know this PB uses weird, proprietary memory cards; where would I find them for a good price? (And if anyone here can sell me the memory card that will give the the full 64MB, I'm open to offers.) Also, is there any way to defeat the 64mb memory limit? As for ethernet, should U get a Type II/III PC card, or look for the special expansion card?

 

[Strimkind]

I found that its best to find another PB 1400 with max ram rather then buying it separately. It is easier to find that way.

As for ethernet, the PCMCIA card is the easiest to find (and cheapest). The 1400 specific Ethernet card is very difficult to find and costly when it is available.

 

[LC_575]

Buying another 1400c? Seems wasteful.

I have found memory for it on We Love Macs, but it's ridiculously overpriced.

As for the Ethernet, is there any particular Ethernet PCMCIA card that you'd recommend?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I use an EtherLink III with mine, plus the hacked Farallon driver I maintain. Other 3C589 cards may be compatible. (The page is a bit old: my 1400 has a G3/466 in it now.)

http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/mac/enet3c589/

RAM is very hard to find for 1400s. Unfortunately, yes, I agree with everyone else that you're better off finding a parts 1400 and raiding it.

 

[J English Smith]

Ditto. I have been on the hunt for more memory for mine for a long time at a reasonable price. I have seen exactly one standalone card on eBay in that time, and it was just a 24mb one. Look for parts machines where the RAM is specified. Most of the later machines had a 8mb 'starter' card and then anything above that is added ram in the upgrade slot.

The Orinoco cards work well for wireless internet, though the speed is quite slow, of course.

 

[CJ_Miller]

I made my 1400 from two mostly complete units. This gave me the maximum RAM (IIRC 64MB),a G3 processor, and active TFT screen, as well as various extra accessories. Only other things I bought were a 20GB hard drive and a Focus ethernet adaptor. And all of my batteries were dead, just like most of them out there are. I have thought about re-celling mine, but pause and think about redoing them for lithium-ion cells and charger.

Note that a weird limitation of the 1400 is that it can have only one LAN driver installed. With my Focus RJ45 port, I had to completely uninstall the driver in order to use an 802.11 card. It's too much trouble so I just use regular ethernet.

Also, if you go the G3 route, be sure to get a newer version. My old NewerTech one runs so hot that it has melted part of the casing. The newer 400 MHz upgrades like those from Sonnet supposedly run much cooler. Also a G3 won't run alternate OSs such as BeOS or MkLinux but those aren't supported on a 1400 anyway. I found that MacOS 8.6 is happy on mine, 9 uses too much of the scarce RAM. If you have less than 64MB of RAM I suggest an even older OS.

 

[LCGuy]

Ditto. I have been on the hunt for more memory for mine for a long time at a reasonable price. I have seen exactly one standalone card on eBay in that time, and it was just a 24mb one. Look for parts machines where the RAM is specified. Most of the later machines had a 8mb 'starter' card and then anything above that is added ram in the upgrade slot.

All 1400s came with that "starter card"...a little known fact with the 1400 is that it actually has two RAM slots on the board - there's the "consumer" RAM slot where the stackable RAM modules were installed, and the "Apple" RAM slot, where a 4MB or 8MB card was installed to bring the machine up to 12 or 16MB, in conjunction with the 8MB soldered onto the mobo. As far as I'm aware, nobody apart from Apple themselves ever made anything for the "Apple" slot.

For what its worth, the easiest way to get to 64MB is to have the 8MB Apple card already installed, and then install two stackable 24MB modules.

 

[J English Smith]

Yeah, I have a bunch of those little Apple RAM cards, I got them for free once from a fellow hobbyist. If anyone needs one, let me know, I can dig them out. I was all excited until I realized they were for the other connector.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

However, even moving the 8MB "Apple" module to a 4MB unit is sometimes not recognized. It wasn't on my /117, for example, even though it originally worked fine in the /166 it was pulled from.

 

[racepres]

FWIW the 1400 can indeed run MKLinux, and therefore About any older linux PPC distro.

I have personally installed Debian Sarge, on the very 1400 I am on now [with sonnet G3 466 cpu] No more problem than putting it onto a non g3 1400... No Less Problem either.

I am now running , Happily, OS9.1 on this G3 1400 and 8.6 on the "stock" model 166.

I did Not find Debian to be worth the Effort at all. YMMV

RP