Radius Rocket Guide/Troubleshooting Thread

[Unknown_K]

Has anybody considered or attempted to overclock a Rocket Booster? I have a 25Mhz Rocket Booster here and both 33Mhz and 40Mhz 68040 processors in my possession, and there's a nice big clock crystal can sitting right there on the card that looks ripe for swapping out with a socket or variable clock to play with.

Well I assume they designed the board for the highest rated chip they planned on using and just used a different chip and oscillator. Your options were 25i, 25, and 33 for the original rocket and only 40 for stage two.

As far as overclocking a 33 I would worry about power draw and any components that would not run correctly above 33mhz. Also if you have one of the add-on modules they might act goofy or not at all.

Not sure I would bother even if I could find a 40mhz 68040.

 

[Nathan_A]

I kind of assume the same thing about board design, and figure that at a minimum trying to go from 25 to 33 could be an interesting experiment.

 

[Phipli]

Has anybody considered or attempted to overclock a Rocket Booster? I have a 25Mhz Rocket Booster here and both 33Mhz and 40Mhz 68040 processors in my possession, and there's a nice big clock crystal can sitting right there on the card that looks ripe for swapping out with a socket or variable clock to play with.

Upgrading the Radius Rocket 25i

Upgrading the Radius Rocket 25i In the early 90s before Apple was able to release the first 68040 based Quadra system, Radius, mostly known for their video cards and monitors but also a manufacture…

stuffandnonsense.elephantandchicken.co.uk

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Great writeup! Most folks will claim the Quadras were faster, but not the case as you found in benchmarking. Don't recall for sure, but I think the Rocket used interleaved memory? When did Quadras finally start doing that? Glad to hear I don't need to get around to trying the CPU from the FUBAR 840AV board out on the Rockets. Thanks!

Got my Rocket 33 pre-Quadra and it ran straight up thru that era until I had switch to the 2300c as my graphics workstation in the shop for a while. Got the used IIx Launch Pad while I saved up for the newly announced Rocket. Used the 2300c for running PPC code until I got the refurb 6360 and hacked in a full length 1600x1200 Radius PCI card. Then I saved up for the Crescendo G3/L2.

CPUs were pretty far down the list of priorities. The boom truck for sign hanging was my biggest toy ever!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Glad to see this ten year old thread come back to life, just checked, all but a couple of the links on p.1 are dead, gotta take a look at fixing that up.

 

[Phipli]

Don't recall for sure, but I think the Rocket used interleaved memory? When did Quadras finally start doing that?

The rocket does interleaved memory yes, but I actually think I was only using one bank there, so it might be just that it is fast RAM.

I think the Wombat introduced interleaved memory, so 650/800.