paws

Not sure if this helps at all, but all the simple passive MIDI interfaces work like this. MIDI is a serial port at 31.25KHz, which the Mac can't do natively, so to do MIDI you need a breakout box that supplies a 1MHz clock. I have schematics for something like this somewhere but my Macs aren't hooked up due to moving. It's extremely simple, though, literally just the clock on the right pint (and some components normally required for MIDI, which is a current loop, not a TTL connection). Unfortunately I don't think there's driver sources available for this.

Yeah. "The worst one", I think. It came stock with a 601 as the only PPC machine, but can be upgraded as I remember.

Well, they're undesirable unless you happen to have a Nubus card you want to use, or are just interested in this (brief, transitional) period of Apple's history. I paid 200 euros for a 7100 off eBay for a project (vintage ProTools music setup) just a few months ago and I'm very happy with it. Are there more people like me? I don't know, but I'd say all the things you talk about are the least desirable. SCSI CD-ROM drives aren't rare, for HDs I'd much use a SCSI2SD anyway. It's the computers themselves that should be salvaged. I'm sure there's someone who wants them.

Isn't a daisy chain when devices have an in and out and you connect one to the other? In SCSI all devices are connected in parallel, even on external cases that have two ports, they're just paralleled together. I think that's what's meant by a Y-cable.

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/psimac-10 Have you looked at the contents of the second archive in this link? Not sure what "other Psion Mac software" covers.

I think System 7.1 was current when the original Newton was released, but I don't know the exact requirements of the Connection Kit. It'd certainly be the most appropriate, but might be hard to find at a sane price... edit - haha, sorry, didn't see you'd already dismissed the idea!

Hey! I have a G3 Lombard with a rather dim display, dimmer than I'm assuming they came from the factory. I'm wondering if I can replace the backlight or panel? I also just tripped over a guide to replace the 12" Powerbook's LCD with a higher resolution one (1400x1050) - I don't know if that's possible with older ones, but it'd be extremely cool if it were. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Aluminum+12-Inch+1-1.5+GHz+LCD+panel+upgrade/3117

Hey, just tripped over this post. I'm wondering if you ever got your setup running. I've got one and it's pretty decent when it runs. I don't think it matters what SCSI ID the disk is, but you need to format it as a regular Mac drive, then it will show up on the desktop as well if you need to copy files on or off.

Hotline is my recommendation for an original Mac file downloading experience! I actually just got my PowerMac 7100 on Hotline again last night, after having similar issues as you. There are a few Hotline servers still serving Mac files for download. Client here: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/hotline Servers are registered to trackers, a list of which can be found here: https://hotline.fandom.com/wiki/Trackers

All the same reasons you use an open source compiler to generate machine code for a proprietary CPU: Out of principle, because it's more future proof, and frequently also because they're just better software. I don't know about the Lattice tools, I've only used the open source ones, but the Xilinx tools are gigantic, slow, buggy, and the versions I used made you do a complete 7GB download for each tiny bug fix upgrade.

Huh, interesting. So even a brand-new CF card is actually just a physical adapter away from the original PC AT bus from 1980-whatever? That's cool.

Sidenote: PCMCIA is 16-bit, CardBus is a 32-bit slot, but unlike the older format it multiplexes address and data pins, so there's a little more to it than that. But I think CompactFlash is always 16 bit, it's just that CardBus slots are backwards compatible. I don't think CF cards are any faster in the newer slots, and I imagine you're right that the card slot will have a slower connection to the rest of the system than the IDE connector. BTW, Powerbooks support Cardbus from Wallstreet onwards according to EveryMac.

I'm quite sure there was no discernible difference between ADB and PS/2 when I was testing my StarMax tower. I'd kind of assume that, for compatibility, whatever is handling PS/2 just turns it into the same kind of data that normally comes in over ADB, and that that's why there's no driver needed.

Ah! The SCSI2SD v5.1 has an option to enable/disable termination. Unchecked it, and now it works. Wonder if that option basically means the SCSI2SD hogs the entire bus... Edit - now I see - it's because both the ACARD bridge and SCSI2SD have built-in terminators, and they were both enabled. Frailty, thy name is SCSI...

I've tried both with and without termination. With an active terminator on the enclosure, I either get the blinking question mark or sad Mac and an error (which I don't remember). So the error in question is only with no termination. I tried a bunch of things earlier, as far as I remember the terminator didn't make a difference when it's only one device...