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Regular PDS Cards in Compact Macs

I’m willing to give anyone who is interested in trying to test stuff an LC PDS card to experiment on. Unfortunately, with the clear case project and other obligations, I don’t have too much free time myself. 

 
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maceffects said:
Mine are Farallon EtherMac the driver disks that come with say they are for both NuBus and LC  .  .  .  If memory serves they had SE and SE/30 cards too.
Click to expand...
Dynamite! When someone tracks down the drivers for those two Compacts we'll have put together a project ready for handoff to the boffins!.

 
I'm surprised at how much interest in this there is. I have little more to offer than an SE FDHD, and perhaps some abilities around project management. It seems to me like next steps would be:

1. Establish a project management board (like Trello) so we can see who is doing what

2. Figure out what steps need to be taken (research this, design this PCB, fab this PCB, etc)

3. ??????

4. Profit!

Is anyone formally interested in looking into this further or am I misunderstanding the level of interest and feasibility in the project?

 
Defo sounds like further investigation is needed.there are boffins and profect people up to the job. Not sure i can add anything know I’m a noob at this stuff

 
I agree, I can provide cards, and even work on producing an adapter, but I am not an electrical engineer.  I am certainty the wrong person for testing and design. 

 
I think the chip that contains the firmware on the card is actually socketed, so that is a positive.    Anyone feel free to send me a PM if you want to make something happen. 

 
Beyond my skills but do know a few people. I’m no expert but surely the code could just be adapted from the original code of the lc card as it isn’t going to be massively different?

i work on sql and vba and generally can adapt code easily enough so sure some c programmer on here could do that in s few days

 
Can you post high res pics of both sides of one of your cards, maceffects? The socketed IC would be the Declaration ROM which may or may not contain drivers. It's socketed to provide for installing upgraded versions. The problematic firmware would be logic within PALs or Gals on the board and the formulas locked away within that handle bus arbitration and the like as I understand it. They're usually surface mounted on boards of that era. Everything may be handled in one large ASIC and that could present problems of its own  .  .  .  or not. [:)]

If anyone can post high res pics of SE, SE/30, IIsi and NuBus versions of Farallon's NICs those would be major contributions to the project along with images of the driver disks and any documentation.

Once pics of the target boards are up, project requirements can begin to be defined.

 
Ok I have uploaded the two cards I have, the NuBus and LC PDS look like they are exactly the same.  My cards are from 1995, far newer than the SE/30 cards were likely to be produced. 

Also attached is a Mac SE/30 one, which has many similarities, however, it has several differences as well. 

IMG_4361.jpeg

IMG_4362.jpeg

IMG_4360.jpeg

farallon-ethermac-030-pds-ethernet-se_1_38f128b6f4aed1a47b24635076f59207.jpg

 
The only difference I see offhand is that all but three of the earlier tech SE/30 card's components, two ICs and the ROM were implemented in that one, high density ASIC, aside from what appears to be the 10bT Transceiver on both newer cards. The NuBus card still clings to the AUI standard, but components for that where dropped in the LC version. One of the guys will make this happen if it can be done at all. The SE/30 retrofit looks like a non-trivial winner, dunno about SE.

 
I'll see what I can do in terms of a comparison of the 020 PDS and 030 PDS pinouts with identical signal and mismatched signals. I've got most of it done already. The DELTA graphic will come in handy, all I need to do is drop out the LCIII PDS extension.

 
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I left the LCIII extension alone as it shows some 030 PDS control lines missing from the 020 PDS pins of the LC NIC boards.

RosettaCache-LCIII-030-003.JPG

It's a ratline PCB layout view of a slot comparison I did ages ago. If someone does a "real schematic" from my AI doodles it may make sense to someone. The PDS and CPU distinctions of some paired signals would be a curiosity I never followed up on. This graphic may have been from a previous LC NIC conversion thread, there may be interesting info there if anyone wants to search it out.

edit: forgot the PDF to go with the thumbnail: View attachment RosettaCache-LCIII-030-003.PDF

 
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Great work, unfortunately I’m not sure what I can do, as it’s above my eltrecial skill level, but I hope someone steps up to the plate to put jumpers and try with the drivers. 

 
Can you guys catch me up on 020 PDS vs 030 PDS? I’m assuming you’re talking about a PDS slot on a 68020 vs a 68030?

In regards to testing, are we to the point where we could grab a bunch of jumper wires, grab a soldering iron, and carefully route pin-to-pin on the card? It seems to me like using an SE/30 is a silly idea... those are rare. Now an SE... those aren’t quite a dime-a-dozen either, but if there’s any hope of compatibility, we’d rather fry an SE, right?

And what *are* the risks, there? Frying the Ethernet card? Frying the logic board? Frying the Motola 6800*0? 

Signed,

A Potato Who is Desperately Trying to Keep up With the Conversation But Really Wants to See Where This Goes

 
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