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SuperMac Thunder/24 ROM needed

I

ipv7net

6502
Hi, I'm not sure if this is the correct place for such request, but I have a SuperMac Thunder/24 card with an old rom on it (1.15) and I'm searching for a newer rom for this card, supposedly it will gain on-the-fly resolution switching with a 3.x rom plus I think better ppc compatibility.
I have an eprom programmer and plenty of eprom so if anyone has a dump of the rom and it's willing to send me a copy please get in touch.
Thank you.

 
I should have that ROM - or at least have a card with it on it. One of my two Thunder II GX should be 3.0.0. Those cards should use the same ROM as the Thunder/24.

I‘ll check if I have a dump handy already, if not i’ll make one.

 
Bolle said:
I should have that ROM - or at least have a card with it on it. One of my two Thunder II GX should be 3.0.0. Those cards should use the same ROM as the Thunder/24.

I‘ll check if I have a dump handy already, if not i’ll make one. 
Click to expand...
If the card you're referring to is the one posted in "Bolles finds" thread I can confirm that indeed mine it's the exact same card minus the dsp daugher board, also in said picture it's possible to see that one of the card is sporting an eprom labeled exactly as "thunder/24 V3.0.0" so the rom it's the same and also the correct version, if you can find or make a dump of that eprom (probably a common 27c512) I will be really happy and very thankful for the favour.

This is my Thunder/24, an older revision (rev D) with some rework that became standard on later revision. (also the eprom is not the original v1.15, in the meantime I found a dump of rom v.161 and put on a spare 27c512)

supermac_thunder24.JPG

 
Bolle said:
There you go...

View attachment 27485

Mind sharing the 1.61 and your 1.15 just for completeness sake?
Click to expand...
Thank you for the dump but it seems to be incomplete, it's half the size (32Kb) of the two other copy I have (64Kb each), tried it anyway (for the little time it takes) and with it the board doesn't work (no video output, not recognized by tuttletech in any way), maybe you read the eprom as a 27c256 insted of the (supposedly) correct 27c512 ? can you check it ?

No problem sharing my copy of the rom for the card, here's the two version I have, 1.15 was the original version on my card and 1.161 is the one found on the bitsavers.org archive, this two rom works without problem at least with my revision of the Thunder/24.

View attachment SuperMac Thunder24 V1.15.bin

View attachment SuperMac Thunder24 V1.161.bin

Thanks for your time !

 
Oops, possible I messed that one up.

Just grabbed a dump I had flying around in my ROM dump folder.

I‘ll read the chip out again this weekend.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Unknown_K said:
I think you need 3.0 for PPC machines (and probably OS 7.5x and over).
Click to expand...
Correct, NuBus PowerMacs need the 3.0 firmware. There was a guy on Amibay selling Spectrum/24 firmware roms a few years back and that was version 3.1

I have a couple of Thunders that need their firmwares updated. Is this a good all-around programer to get? Oh and thanks @Bolle for putting them up.

 
omidimo said:
I have a couple of Thunders that need their firmwares updated. Is this a good all-around programer to get? Oh and thanks @Bolle for putting them up.
Click to expand...
I had great success with various eprom with a cheap and pretty easy to find "minipro tl866" programmer, it's a small usb programmer with good support for most of the eprom or flash memory, you can find it with a variety of adapter for 50/60$, it's now an obsolete product but it's software and driver was last updated on 10/2018 and works with pretty much every windows version out there (from xp to win10).

 
I think it was replaced by the TL866II Plus, unless you mean the Plus is also out.    The Plus replaced the 866A and 866CS according to this article:  http://blog.obdii365.com/2018/03/22/mini-pro-tl866ii-plus-vs-tl866a-vs-tl866cs/

I've been watching the II Plus with 25 adapters on Ebay for several months.  It's not an urgent purchase, as I already have a programmer, but I want a newer one.   But I just never seem to have the spare $125 left over in the budget.  

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TL866II-PLUS-25-Adapter-TL866CS-TL866A-TL866II-plus-Programmer-set/232489072939?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=532270262515&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

For $53 you can get it without the adapters and then just pick up a cheap DIP to PLCC adapter, which is a workable choice if your only/main application is for old video card ROMs.    In my case, I want it because it's reasonable modern and has all those adapters for newer, or more commonly used now chip packages.    My old programmer was discontinued with Windows XP was still a thing and sockets for it were a couple hundred dollars each and are almost impossible to find now.

 
Yes it was replaced by the TL866II Plus but you can still find the old 866 around, the plus has a lower maximum vpp voltage (18v vs 21v for the old 866) and that's could cause problem working with some very old eprom, I had trouble in the past with usb programmer not having enough vpp voltage to program older 2716 and similar eprom that need 21v or even 25v. If you need to work with more modern stuff sure the plus is a better choice, I usually work with obsolete stuff (70's and 80's computer, 80's eletronic injection system, and so on) so the lower vpp worries me (I have an older sunshine expro80 programmer that's great for some really old and odd chip but it's isa interface and dos software isn't really practical to use now).

Software wise the minipro programmer was very good with excelent compatibility and frequent update to add support for new chip, I don't think one can get something better without spending much more.

 
Awesome tips!

There were some reviews that had complaints about lack of 21v support, but for my purposes I only have some SuperMacs and a few DayStars to update. so the plus model might be adequate. 

 
Just looked at one my Thunder/24 cards and it has the 3.1 rom. I am assuming once I get one of the eprom tools, I can use that to extract the more recent rom and save it to share with you guys in addition to programming new ones. Learning new things :D  

 
Mine was kinda buggy so I didn't use it.  Also, it doesn't support 16 colors.

I don't know what ROM version mine is.  Do any of the other ROMs add additional bit depth options?  I'd use mine if it did 16 colors.  I need 4-bit color for many of my early color games.  They won't run in 8-bit or 24-bit mode.

Frustratingly, the Radius Thunder 1600 does support 4-bit color, but it seems to be rarer and more expensive than its SuperMac counterpart.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
olePigeon said:
Frustratingly, the Radius Thunder 1600 does support 4-bit color, but it seems to be rarer and more expensive than its SuperMac counterpart.
Click to expand...
Yes the Thunder IVs are becoming Xceed level rare, might be due to people not wanting to sell them as they are the Rolls Royce of 68K NuBus Graphics. 

 
The Supermac cards were sold for quite a long time and probably in great numbers. Radius didn't make that many Thunder IVs and the Nubus era was coming to a close by the time they got it to market (1995 when PCI PPC was out).

To give you an idea about pricing in the 2000's I purchased quite a few decent Nubus cards and accelerators for as little as a few bucks each but the Radius IV 1600 was $100 a pop even back then.

 
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