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Topic |
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The Balance Of Judgement
Senior Member
Ivory Coast
1006 Posts |
 Posted - 27 Jul 2003 : 17:25:09
I have a question here. Does the Macintosh PCI standard slots have any fundamental voltage/hardware differences from a PC that would cause PC PCI cards to malfunction or damage a system?Is it a matter of drivers or of firmware? I just thought if I am going to make a forray into Macintosh, I have seen advertised upgrade cards for the PC, which are PCI in form and have a new CPu on them, and thought I could get into the dirty code and see if I can write drivers for them. (A long learning time but highly worth it if it is physically possible) So, if these PCi cards are plugged in, will they crash a Mac or cause it to overheat or otherwise obliterate the universe? |
Flash
Full Member
Australia
637 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jul 2003 : 17:37:12
PCI is standard across platforms, differing only in driver requirements (software)- - - - - - - - - - - - -
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it sure beats a blank stare for starting a conversation. 68k ParaMedic |
maclover5
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Australia
5830 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jul 2003 : 17:38:44
There's absolutely no difference. As long as there's drivers for the Mac to use it, it'll work. And even if it doesn't, and you're experimenting, the Mac's PCI slots won't fry anything."**** em" - Jobs in regards to customers
Warrior maclover5
68kMLA
Official 68kMLA Detective 
Number of 68ks Liberated: 7
Number of Contraband (PPC) Liberated from the Dumpster: 1 |
The Balance Of Judgement
Senior Member
Ivory Coast
1006 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jul 2003 : 17:52:23
They don't sell them anymore but hopefully I can find a used card somewhere, they used AMD chips on a PCI card to upgrade systems that were beyond upgrades.Might be worth hacking into.
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Unknown_K
Full Member
USA
602 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jul 2003 : 20:28:06
Yes PCI is PCI not matter what computer it is in.Writing drivers for a computer on a card isnt going to be easy )or possible I bet). There are PCI and ISA cards that are designed to fit into a passive backplane for embedded computing/data aquisition/etc. Thats probably what your talking about. These cards are complete PC's including sound/ram/video/IDE. There were some real old 286 pc upgrades for XT class PC's but those were all ISA. I have never seen a PCI card that upgrades a 486/Pentium class machine into a faster machine.
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The Balance Of Judgement
Senior Member
Ivory Coast
1006 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jul 2003 : 23:59:04
EverGreen Technologoes used to make a CPU upgrade with a AMD K6 on it for older systems that could not handle a newer CPU.If I get a few I can donate them to some of the Mac developers and see what they can dig up.
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PCI Devices
68k of the Week: kastegir's PowerBook 180.