The State of Macintosh Accelerators

[GerrySch]

Good afternoon All,

I'm sorry to bother everyone as I'm such a Mac nub but I'm trying to figure out the state of the Mac accelerator world. I have recently gotten back into my retro Macs and bought a pre-2.0 Booster 50-SE30F as it works transparently with my SE/30. I've done some further rebuilding of my SE/30, like recapped both the Digital and Analog boards, resoldered the Analog board to fix cracked joints, replaced the power supply with a brand new one (35-yes old power supplies make me nervous no matter how new the capacitors are, a new cooling fan, replaced the wiring harness between the Digital and Analog boards with 16-gauge wiring for less power drop, added BlueSCSI v2 hard drive emulation, and upgraded its ROM to 32-bit clean. The CRT is bright and sharp so I'm getting a good, solid, clean image to enjoy my SE/30.

One area that the SE/30 needs improvement is the sound quality. Along with sound, I would like to move to a 68040 processor to further increase its speed. In my searching I ran across micromac.com and there are a lot of accelerator choices for Macs at different price points. But, as I read through the website pages, some information is dated. For instance, on the tech support page, the was mention of the upcoming OS8 operating system.

So, does anyone know what the status of MicroMac.com is? I sent tech support an email but there's been no response. I've mostly have been in the Apple IIgs world and have fully decked out some 01 and 03 IIgs computers to the point where there's nothing further available for them. The AppleSqueezer GS accelerators were very expensive and didn't make my machines any faster as my Transwarp GS accelerators ran at 17 MHz and the AppleSqueezers, run at 14 MHz. But, I bought version 2 boards which includes HDMI outputs which pushed me over the edge to get them. And the gentleman who makes them is actively improving them.

So I don't have a clear picture of the Mac accelerator world and I do love my SE/30. Given what MicroMac.com website says, what is the situation for Mac accelerator cards? I also have a couple of LC475s and I've sped them up to 33 MHz (switchable back to 25 MHz) and have full 040 processors. Is there any way to further speed them up? I tried to go to 40 MHz but the computer locked up plus faster '040s were getting expensive.

Is there a suggestion on how to improve my Mac SE/30 sound? Is there a better, faster card that uses a '040 and is available? I don't want to put in a 30-year old card but a new one with modern parts.

Thank you for your response and time,
Gerry

 

[cheesestraws]

So, does anyone know what the status of MicroMac.com is?

It's a bloke in a garage with some loose ends of stuff in boxes, none of which is accelerators, or anything particularly useful IIRC.

what is the situation for Mac accelerator cards?

I don't want to put in a 30-year old card but a new one with modern parts.

You probably just wait for someone here to build a batch and then buy one from them.

 

[Byrd]

Is there a suggestion on how to improve my Mac SE/30 sound? Is there a better, faster card that uses a '040 and is available?

As in output quality, noise? No. Check the trading forums with the likes of Bolle et al that will post up SE/30 compatible 68040 accelerators at random times when parts are available, but they usually sell out within a couple of days.

 

[Mk.558]

I think it was zigzagjoe who said something to the effect that after a certain point the SE/30 (might have been a IIsi) runs out of steam with upgrades and you end up sinking a bunch of money into what is basically a worse Quadra.

Accelerators that jump processor generation (i.e. 68030 -> 68040, 68000 -> 68020/68030) tend to have more compatibility issues than ones that stay in the same processor generation. Each enthusasist has different values for what they want to do with a machine, for me, I want my SE/30 mostly stock. While I could sink a lot of money into a 68040 accelerator, greyscale card, ethernet card, 128MiB memory, aftermarket ROM, and who knows what else, it won't really be that appealing to me anymore. A stock mostly unmodified MK1 Golf GTi has more value today than an extensively modified one, and the same can be said for other things too.

Quadras have limited value to me, almost none, because they don't boot System 6, which, granted, you don't really need on a 68040 since they're pretty snappy on 7.1, but almost every single thing you can do with a 68040 you can do with a PPC 601, which is faster.

 

[zigzagjoe]

I think it was zigzagjoe who said something to the effect that after a certain point the SE/30 (might have been a IIsi) runs out of steam with upgrades and you end up sinking a bunch of money into what is basically a worse Quadra.

Accelerators that jump processor generation (i.e. 68030 -> 68040, 68000 -> 68020/68030) tend to have more compatibility issues than ones that stay in the same processor generation. Each enthusasist has different values for what they want to do with a machine, for me, I want my SE/30 mostly stock. While I could sink a lot of money into a 68040 accelerator, greyscale card, ethernet card, 128MiB memory, aftermarket ROM, and who knows what else, it won't really be that appealing to me anymore. A stock mostly unmodified MK1 Golf GTi has more value today than an extensively modified one, and the same can be said for other things too.

Quadras have limited value to me, almost none, because they don't boot System 6, which, granted, you don't really need on a 68040 since they're pretty snappy on 7.1, but almost every single thing you can do with a 68040 you can do with a PPC 601, which is faster.

Yep, that's my perspective: The fastest 68040 in an SE/30 is by most measures inferior to a 25mhz Quadra in practical use. You'll need to pony up $500 or so for one of bolle's ethernet risers and one of his vintage (cached) accelerator clones to achieve that.

Don't get me wrong: I like playing with SE/30s otherwise I'd not have spent the time I have on designing upgrades, but that is the realistic view. IMO I've found the cached 68030 accelerators (Diimo, Powercache) give the snappiest experience with the best compatibility / general usability on SE/30. It won't benchmark as fast as an 040, but there's also the argument of how much use a high-end accelerator even is without adding a video card to the mix. B&W and low res tends to be a limiter before the CPU.

Architecturally, a 68040 in a SE/30 is a compromised system: it is slow and cumbersome to adapt an 040 to an 030 bus and the old chipset starves the 040 of memory bandwidth; thus encumbered the 040 is also notably slower than the stock CPU at scsi/framebuffer/etc access. It's the same issue that Amiga has with their A4000 models.

There's nothing that can really be done regarding the audio output quality on a SE/30. It's 22khz, 8 bit; no way to improve on that. As YMK pointed out it is stereo but only on the headphone jack.
Or, if you're referring to the System 7.5 audio issues w/ the original booster design, run 7.1 instead and you'll find the machine notably more responsive and no audio issues as long as you steer clear of the sound manager extension.

 

[ymk]

There's nothing that can be done regarding the audio output quality on a SE/30. It's mono, 22khz, 8 bit. No way to improve on that.

The SE/30 has stereo output.

 

[Unknown_K]

If you are going to spend stupid money on a SE/30 A Micromac DIIMO cache 68030/50 card with PDS for attaching ethernet would be the way to go. And of course, they greyscale upgrade while you are burning money. Over the years the people who spent all that cash (when it was cheaper to do) seem to want to part out the machine a year later or sooner.

The thing is if I had $1000 to blow on ancient Macs, I would try to hunt down a 9150 Powermac and hope I had enough.

If you want a system 6 compact a SE with a Radius 68020/ 16 or 25 upgrade can be had much cheaper.

 

[cheesestraws]

If you are going to spend stupid money on a SE/30 A Micromac DIIMO cache 68030/50 card with PDS for attaching ethernet would be the way to go. And of course, they greyscale upgrade while you are burning money. Over the years the people who spent all that cash (when it was cheaper to do) seem to want to part out the machine a year later or sooner.

The thing is if I had $1000 to blow on ancient Macs, I would try to hunt down a 9150 Powermac and hope I had enough.

If you want a system 6 compact a SE with a Radius 68020/ 16 or 25 upgrade can be had much cheaper.

Agree with all of this. A maxed-out SE/30 is actually a pretty underwhelming machine.

 

[Boctor]

Seconding most of what's been said, I have a DiiMO 030 and a TwinSpark, but have since removed them. DiiMO's a perfect fit for my recently-revived IIci, but that TwinSpark is just an expensive egg on my face. It was a huge improvement, sure, but without color and 640x480, I eventually regretted it. The SE/30's already king of the B&W compacts, and pretty well-equipped for anything from its own time. I'd even say that Booster clone you've got is a far better value, and it sounds like you've already shown your SE/30 a lot of love.

Of course, if you're itching for an '040 in specific, you can always keep an eye out for a Quadra and find a second Macintosh to restore, assuming you've got the space and the means to hook up a display. I seldom, if ever, see '040 accelerators go for any less than an entire Quadra or Power Macintosh!

 

[uyjulian]

Something like Radius Rocket or PiStorm could bypass the bandwidth limitations by providing its own RAM and storage.

 

[Mk.558]

Thinking about this again, we don't want to dissuade you (OP) from pursuing what you feel like you'd like. You can stick an 040 in a SE/30. But the gains probably don't outweigh the costs, and there's probably a good reason zigzagjoe, one of our regular tinkerers, hasn't made anything available to the public with an 040. Not only is it a niche market, really niche market, but offsetting the cost of development is really difficult and as he said, the benefits just aren't really there.

See here: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/68040-40mhz-se-30-accelerators-that-dont-use-the-pds.50097/

Neat concept, but again, Quadras are designed for '040s and work best with them.

Bolle's work, and max1zzz, do fine reproductions, but even I balked at the 500$ price tag for a greyscale card. Neat? Oh sure. Worth it? Only you can decide. The price is probably about right: he has to reverse engineer the card, dump PALs/GALs/stuff, source often obsolete components and then redesign it with modern principles in mind. Even then he probably still eats at least a small loss.

 

[oldmacuser]

This may be an interesting video for you.

 

[Boctor]

This may be an interesting video for you.

This brings to mind another riser/Twinspark quirk that made me uneasy, the EMI near that top card... Ever put your hand near the anode cap while wearing headphones? BZZZZT.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

The Diimo 030 (the tall card built specifically for the SE/30) doesn’t need Twinspark and sits vertically. It’s my favorite card for these.

 

[GerrySch]

Well, thank you all for your insights, explanations and advise. First, I don't care about the cost. This is a hobby and I feel happy when I am looking at or working on my computers. For example, my IIGSes had Transwarp GS accelerator cards that I spent hundreds on when I purchased them (truly very rare). Then I sent them to Reactive Micro to rebuild them with new parts, larger buffers and the fastest GALs. They both ended up running stable at 17 MHz (10 years ago). Now Reactive Micro will be building their own new Transwarp GS accelerators that will start at 16 MHz. I replaced them with the AppleSqueezer GS v2 as it doesn't take up a slot, it's on a single board plugging into the uP socket, has HDMI out and uses a lot less power, but the downside is that it only runs at 14 MHz. I know all this as I've followed the Apple II world for the last 45 years and have kept track of what's going on. I have a lot of Apple II cards that I've used and retired for something new and better. Just take a look at the CFFA3000. It's a EXCELLECENT product for the Apple II world. I have five of them just to support the developer. Did the same thing with BMOW Floppy EMU. I have six of them across three (A, B, and C) generations. Steve got a kick out of it when I emailed him.

But in the Mac world, I've only tracked it for the last 12 years and I had to start from scratch. I love Apple products and when I saw the SE/30, I wanted one but couldn't afford it. Finally, 10 years ago I decided to say f##k it, I'm buying an SE/30. It was in great shape, poorly recapped but ran fine. Then, in the last 10 years, we've moved all around the country, with me looking for a good job and so all my computers were stored away in boxes. Now that we've settled here in Frisco, I have broken out my Apple IIs and Macs and working and playing with them again (much to my wife's angst). I've already maxed out the LC475s (I have three of them, two in their cases and one bare motherboard) with full 68040 uPs, SCSI2SD drives, a couple of Apple IIe cards (one still in it's original shrink-wrapped box). I could go on but this is something that's in my bones. My first new Mac was the iMac G5 way back in 2005 which I still have. I want to take its OS back to 10.2 so then I can then run OS 9.2.2. My G3 iMac died sometime in the last 10 years in storage so I need to fix it.

So, with your help, I can learn more about this Macintosh world and decide what's next. Thank you Unknown_K for that tip on the 9150 Powermac. If I can get a really fast Powermac that's great! Another example, I was shocked at how much faster an M1 MBP was compared to an Intel MBP. I ended up buying one and 5 years later I'm still happy with it. The Booster accelerator ZigZagJoe makes for the SE/30 is the best bang for the buck given how much snapper it is. It was much cheaper than the Transwarp GS or AppleSqueezer GS in the Apple II world so I'm very happy.

I'll keep lurking and asking questions to learn more as you guys come across as the experts. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to move a 12-partitioned LC475 SCSI2SD drive to a BlueSCSI. Also, does an external BlueSCSI drive emulator with several Mac drive images work with the Hi-Speed SCSI card in an Apple IIgs?

Fun times ahead and thanks to everyone,
Gerry

 

[Mk.558]

All things considered I've been rather proud of our Mac community because for years, decades even, I feel like all the nerds were congregated in the Apple // world and we got left out. In the last 5-ish years or so there's been a lot of great stuff that max1zzz, zigzagjoe, Bolle, and a few others who have made economical but effective upgrades. Recreations of fabled cards like the greyscale card and DayStar accelerators. Oh they come with a price tag, but IMO if you've ever tried to dig for obscure out of production chips, you'll understand.

Example: the AT&T T7220 Ethernet chip used on a lot of SE and SE/30 Ethernet boards is basically unobtainable. Turns out you kind of need one to have an RJ45 10BASE-T interface. Were Ethernet boards popular for SE/30s? Yes. Still are.

P.S. The iMac G5 will never run OS 9.

 

[Unknown_K]

I think both of my SE/30's have ethernet, very useful.

AT&T T7720, you mean one of these?

https://partsmine.com/all/at-t-t7220pc-integrated-circuit-in-dip-28-package-legacy-network-device/

 

[Mk.558]

yeah

I was looking at getting a MacTwister about 2 years ago before I realized those chips are hard to get (i couldn't find any at the time), then just broke down and bought a different Asante SE30 card off ebay with RJ45.

 

[falecore]

Good afternoon All,

I'm sorry to bother everyone as I'm such a Mac nub but I'm trying to figure out the state of the Mac accelerator world. I have recently gotten back into my retro Macs and bought a pre-2.0 Booster 50-SE30F as it works transparently with my SE/30. I've done some further rebuilding of my SE/30, like recapped both the Digital and Analog boards, resoldered the Analog board to fix cracked joints, replaced the power supply with a brand new one (35-yes old power supplies make me nervous no matter how new the capacitors are, a new cooling fan, replaced the wiring harness between the Digital and Analog boards with 16-gauge wiring for less power drop, added BlueSCSI v2 hard drive emulation, and upgraded its ROM to 32-bit clean. The CRT is bright and sharp so I'm getting a good, solid, clean image to enjoy my SE/30.

One area that the SE/30 needs improvement is the sound quality. Along with sound, I would like to move to a 68040 processor to further increase its speed. In my searching I ran across micromac.com and there are a lot of accelerator choices for Macs at different price points. But, as I read through the website pages, some information is dated. For instance, on the tech support page, the was mention of the upcoming OS8 operating system.

So, does anyone know what the status of MicroMac.com is? I sent tech support an email but there's been no response. I've mostly have been in the Apple IIgs world and have fully decked out some 01 and 03 IIgs computers to the point where there's nothing further available for them. The AppleSqueezer GS accelerators were very expensive and didn't make my machines any faster as my Transwarp GS accelerators ran at 17 MHz and the AppleSqueezers, run at 14 MHz. But, I bought version 2 boards which includes HDMI outputs which pushed me over the edge to get them. And the gentleman who makes them is actively improving them.

So I don't have a clear picture of the Mac accelerator world and I do love my SE/30. Given what MicroMac.com website says, what is the situation for Mac accelerator cards? I also have a couple of LC475s and I've sped them up to 33 MHz (switchable back to 25 MHz) and have full 040 processors. Is there any way to further speed them up? I tried to go to 40 MHz but the computer locked up plus faster '040s were getting expensive.

Is there a suggestion on how to improve my Mac SE/30 sound? Is there a better, faster card that uses a '040 and is available? I don't want to put in a 30-year old card but a new one with modern parts.

Thank you for your response and time,
Gerry

Bolle made a limited run of Carrera 040 clones a few years back. I was lucky enough to get one when they were released. Honestly however, 040's in SE/30's can be fickle. For me personally, the 50mhz 030 accelerator is the way to go.