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Mac IIfx surprise packet
Posted by: TimHD on 2016-08-12 19:11:42 So, I manage to snag an illusive 'Wicked Fast' Macintosh IIfx on eBay... While getting a Mac IIfx was great, of more interest was finding out what was inside this beast - eBay shared this glimpse of what was inside... Getting my hands on it at last and opening it up, I found that all 6 nubus slots were full: Time to find out what was in this lucky door prize... Now, working through these... 1st card: Radius Video card of some sort? 2nd card: Apple PC Drive Card with 50pin interface- what does this do??? 3rd card: Macintosh Display card - a 'Toby' video upgrade? 4th card: Workstation Display card with 13w3 connector (for full page tall monitors?) 5th card: Macintosh II Video Card - the standard card that comes with this machine? 6th card: Farallon Network card of sorts? Thinking that was all, I delved a little deeper and found some more things on the motherboard that caught my eye: What's those massive RAM chips doing over there? Closer view - Kingston 2MB (with a stack of smaller chips on the back) Any thoughts on why so many cards in this beast (can it handle that many) and what monitors / drives these will work with? NB: Apparently the owner had inherited it - "looks like a lot of parts" and figured the buyer "may know more about it than him"...
Posted by: Carboy7 on 2016-08-12 19:27:50 All I want to know is, how much money did that cost?
Posted by: TimHD on 2016-08-12 19:43:10 Oh, and this was in with the pack of cables that came with it... a PowerR Inc. Universal Video Adapter, Model: Universal 3202+" Which Video Card would this one be for (or all of them)? Per, WayBackMachine, the non '+' version had these specs: Model 3202 Video Adapter For Macintosh computers with external monitors. The Power R Model U3202 splits Macintosh output to D-15 and an HD-15 connectors. Allows any Macintosh computer with an external monitor to drive two monitors, LCD panels or projectors simultaneously. Fixes sync problems. No power supply is needed. Easy to hook up. No tools, drivers or adjustments. (Also see model AV-10.) Specifications: Compatibility...................640 x 480 or built-in video; Apple II GS Input................................D-15 connector, 18" cable Video Output...................D-15 connector for monitor Pinout..............................2,5,9=RGB; 1,6,13=return; 3=sync; 4,7,10=monitor sense LCD Output.....................D-15 HD (VGA) connector for LCD Pinout..............................1,2,3=RGB; 6,7,8=RGB return; 13=Horz; 14=Vert; 5,10,11 =Gnd Scan Rates.......................35 kHz, 15.75 kHz or 24.5 kHz horizontal; 60-67 Hz vertical Output Level....................0-1V analog RGB; TTL positive or negative horizontal and vertical sync Power..............................0.35W (70mA at 5V) from computer's ADB connector U3202 Price.............. $199.00
Posted by: Byrd on 2016-08-12 20:05:57 Nice lot, I'd suspect the IIfx if owned by a collector was used as a "nubus dumping ground" of cards as storage. Card 2: Drives an external 5.25" Apple PC floppy drive Card 3: Toby video card with video RAM maxed out Card 4: Video card to drive Apple Portrait Monitor JB
Posted by: joethezombie on 2016-08-12 22:22:50 Nice find! I think the IIfx could support up to 6 displays. My IIfx also came with multiple portrait display cards, and an "opus" card. We surmised the system was most likely used in a radiology environment. Those RAM cards are pretty wild you've got there! Weird. I was fortunate that my IIfx came with 64MB, which seems to be enough so I haven't yet coughed up the upgrade to 16MB SIMMs... those guys are hella expensive!
Posted by: Scott Baret on 2016-08-12 22:25:08 Note on Card #2: The drive in question is the Apple PC 5.25" drive. This is NOT the same drive as your run of the mill Apple II type drive. It's a special drive with a lever for ejection (rather than the spring-loaded mechanism the other drives used) which reads PC-formatted disks. It's intended to be used with Apple File Exchange and other programs for swapping of files (and perhaps emulation via SoftPC or a similar program).
Posted by: commodorejohn on 2016-08-12 23:07:55 If it's "illusive" I hope you didn't pay much for it... 😉
Posted by: TimHD on 2016-08-12 23:27:38 All I want to know is, how much money did that cost? A gentleman never tells... Let's just say the price paid was worth an entry in this nubus card lucky dip contest. Now, I just need to get it going - it does that 'Mac II thang' of the power light coming on for a sec, then shutting down. Possibly the batteries are too weak to kick it off (2 x 2005 Vartas) or the usual Mac II PSU issues!
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2016-08-13 00:20:01 Radius Videovision card (basic, missing the other sandwich board and you still need the breakout box).
Posted by: TimHD on 2016-08-13 00:25:31 Radius Videovision card (basic, missing the other sandwich board and you still need the breakout box). Sigh! 8( The long search for missing pieces commences... Managed to the the IIfx to spark into life - resat the RAM and ROM and took out those mad looking Kingston 2MBs and she came to life ok. Now, I just need to find a 7.5 or 7.61 HDD to chuck in there as I think 7.1.2 doesn't shutdown these 'keyboard button to turn on' models (is there a hardware shutdown command with keyboards? e.g. holding the eject key for 10 secs?)
Posted by: CelGen on 2016-08-13 18:25:39 Card 2: Drives an external 5.25" Apple PC floppy drive The cool thing is that there is nothing magical about the connector. It's literally all the pins for a generic 5.25" floppy drive plus +5 and +12 for running the floppy drive.
Posted by: TimHD on 2016-08-13 21:17:02 Radius Videovision card (basic, missing the other sandwich board and you still need the breakout box). So this is what I am looking for...? http://radius.vintagebox.de/Products/0504spec.html
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2016-08-13 21:23:48 http://www.applefritter.com/files/images//pb040033-5503_0.jpg Shows the breakout box and the daughter card add-on.
Posted by: TimHD on 2016-08-14 01:41:57 Saw one of those daughter cards (though it read' upgrade card'). Some commentary suggests these cards have additional decoders on them. Will set up a ebay alert, but it could be a long wait!!
Posted by: trag on 2016-08-14 02:33:12 I always thought that the small card at the end was the optional one that makes it a VV "Studio" instead of just a VV card, but I could be wrong. There was a PCI version of this card as well and my understanding is that the breakout bar for the two vrrsions are distinct but they look very similar, so be careful not to end up with a PCI card's breakout bar. Finally, macmetex, on Ebay used to have a bunch of this stuff including full Telecast systems, so you might check with him for the parts you want. I've always suspected that he somehow ended up with the old Radius Vintage stock.
Posted by: CelGen on 2016-08-14 09:18:38 daughter cards / Some commentary suggests these cards have additional decoders on them. They add JPEG hardware compression. You're better off finding another VideoVision if you want both the Studio upgrade and the BoB.
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2016-08-14 12:08:06 Easier and probably cheaper just to buy the complete card. Yes, the two breakout boxes (PCI and Nubus versions) are different.
Posted by: mrpippy on 2016-08-14 23:36:21 Believe it or not, I stopped today at a local thrift store which never has interesting electronics, and found a Radius VideoVision break-out box just like the pictures in this thread! The connector is a female DE15, same as a video-card side VGA monitor connector. PM me if you're interested 🙂
Posted by: olePigeon on 2016-08-15 10:45:52 To answer one of your questions: Yes, it can handle all those video cards. You could theoretically install 6 video cards and have 6 monitors connected to it (which would be awesome.)
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