I am thinking about trying a cpu swap on the SE/30. There is a 40mhz 68030 cpu available. I am pretty sure I have a SE/30 motherboard with the socket style cpu. I think it would work, but the new cpu would only run at 16mhz. Without having the expensive accelerator, is there anyway to make it run at 40mhz ?? I would have to purchase the cpu, so it would be nice to know if there is a way to make it work. Any suggestions ?
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SE/30 cpu swap ?
- Thread starter 30pin
- Start date
The speed of the replacement processor would not be any faster, because it is controlled by other hardware on the logic board. Plus, you'd need to replace the 68882 as well.
Best go with a pds card.
Best go with a pds card.
Unfortunately not possible - but if anyone can prove us wrong, I'm all ears
Apparently the crystal speed can't be adjusted at all. The socketed SE/30 boards are apparently less frequent, apparently CPU upgrades exist that clip onto the '030 socket, but so rare I've never seen one for sale.JB
Here's my baby:
After searching EBAY quite casually for a couple years, I finally came across the socketed board you see in the photo. The key is to find an SE/30 seller who will shot a photo of the inside. That's how I found this board. And to save money on the shipping I asked for the logic board only. The seller was happy to accommodate that as he could sell the rest of the machine for parts.
Now if you are talking about "socketed upgrades" for the SE/30 being ultra-rare, then yes, I've never seen one sold on EBAY in the last 5 years of looking. They must be out there though, most likely hidden inside an SE/30 which the EBAY seller is unwilling to open. Then the person buying it either doesn't know its there or they keep it secret. But I cannot believe that only a couple hundred of those socketed upgrades were ever made, which would explain why we never see them on EBAY. Certainly, they must be out there, somewhere!
So, if rare and in demand among collectors — I happen have one of these, and a spare soldered board to replace it with. Is the socketed version actually worth anything?
They could easily have all been trashed. There were never all that many of them sold. A machine displays no external sign that one is present. A great many, probably a vast majority of SE/30s manufactured have been scrapped by now. It is possible that every SE/30 with one of those upgrades was scrapped at one time or another...
I have a similar worry regarding the "docking card" for the Outbound Laptop Model 125. As you may recall, Outbound's early business model required a purchaser to own a Mac Plus or SE. They then took the Plus or SE to an Outbound dealer who removed the ROMs and installed them in the Outbound Laptop. Then a docking card could be installed in the Plus or SE which allowed the Outbound to use the desktop machine's ports, memory and display when the two were connected by cable.
A Plus or SE with the docking card installed would appear as a broken machine (does not boot -- no ROM installed) and the only clue would be a little connector sticking out of the right side lower vent hole.
I really want one of those docking cards. I suspect they have all been scrapped as Pluses and SEs with them installed are discarded as non-working, their association with an Outbound Laptop long forgotten.
But what is the statistical likelihood that they "all" have been trashed? It gets me to thinking about a much older and less useful computer, which still crops up for sale now and then and now fetches over $100,000 -- the Apple I. And we know just how few of those that were made. And again, they were much older and less useful than say an SE/30, the latter of which was manufactured in greater numbers. So I guess the real question would be, just how many of those SE/30 socket upgrades were made? If they were built outside the USA, my guess is that the manufacturer had a minimum build of 500pcs or perhaps 1000pcs. Unless you own the foreign factory, most factories simply will not build something in quantities less than that. Even if there were only 200 made, statistically speaking, I still feel it is likely that at least a couple are floating around out there, unbeknownst to their owners.
Suffice it to say, when my SE/30 has one of those socketed upgrades AND a grayscale adapter installed (along with my MacCon PDS Ethernet card, of course), my vintage Mac computing life will be complete. "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one..."
Another thought on this swap. The 030 cpu is a more modern model. If I read the specs right it has a 256k cache on it. I was thinking that even if it only ran at 16mhz, there might be benefits because of its more modern design?? The cpu I am thinking about is a "MC68EC030RPC40C" . It said something about being used in embedded applications ? Might this cpu be used in an accelerator as they also have a removable cpu? Any thoughts on this ?
Anyone interested in researching and actually building an accelerator for the se/30? I'm up for it, and can solder pretty dang well, I just am not up with the tech know how Right now I'm trying to duplicate a 68000-16 brainstorm upgrade my brother has, ROMS are the problem.
Right now I'm trying to duplicate a 68000-16 brainstorm upgrade my brother has, ROMS are the problem.Anyone who is thinking about shelling out bucks for a long handled t-15, go to your nearest dollar store buy a t-15 driver (for a buck) then buy a 1/4 inch bit driver (for a buck) take the t-15 home and beat the handle off with a hammer or anything you can use to get to the metal part of the tool, completely remove the handle, select the correct socket to fit the end of the bare t-15 and you are done I've been using this setup for 17 years now, total cost is less than ten dollars No reason to pay Dantheapplemacfella $35.00 for a professional tool 
I've been using this setup for 17 years now, total cost is less than ten dollars No reason to pay Dantheapplemacfella $35.00 for a professional tool I haven't looked into it in any detail, but a cursory examination suggests that those two little SOIC chips on the underside of the upgrade are Flash/EEPROM chips with content which would need to be copied.Anyone interested in researching and actually building an accelerator for the se/30? I'm up for it, and can solder pretty dang well, I just am not up with the tech know how
There's also a modified version of one of the Apple logic (PLD) chips on the upgrade, IIRC.
All 68030s have a 256 *byte* instruction/data cache, not 256k. Further, the "EC" series 68030 CPUs are actually a stripped-down version of the chip lacking a memory management unit. Apple never used an MMU-less 68030 so... it's questionable whether it would work at all. It *might* behave just like the 68020 in the original Mac II and LC, but those machines had some special circuitry in them which, though not a full-fledged MMU, handled the memory-page swapping that all Macs do on power-up. So even if it "would work" as a Mac II/LC CPU once booted (meaning no virtual memory or A/UX/NetBSD/whatever support) I have some nagging doubt it would make it through the ROM initialization process. (I honestly have no idea whether it's dependent on the MMU or not in the SE/30 with its unclean IIx-equivalent ROMs.)
So no, just jamming it in there without changing the clock speed won't help you.
