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Macintosh SE and a HyperCharger '020 Accelerator
Posted by: cgp on 2023-05-22 08:07:42 This is really appreciated, do you have slightly higher resolution copies of the photos? They're right on the edge of readability. Yeah - the originals were higher res and they got mashed. Re-uploading. Do you have a copy of an original drive disk? Or the installed control panel and extension from a machine? Attaching a .hqx. Do you know anything about the 12 and 16MB jumper options? I'm surprised to see them. This shouldn't be possible without an MMU, does the board have one? Nope. I believe it's FPU related as others have suggested.
Posted by: bredfrown on 2023-05-22 08:43:31 cgp, you're a godsend for providing this stuff. Thank you so much!! I will try out this hqx on the one I have too and will report back here. Would you be cool with uploading this to the Macintosh Garden so it can be preserved? I don't mind uploading it for you either if you'd like (I'd credit back to you). As this stuff gets harder and harder to find, it's always great we can share it on forums and stuff.
Posted by: cgp on 2023-05-22 10:26:37 Would you be cool with uploading this to the Macintosh Garden so it can be preserved? I don't mind uploading it for you either if you'd like (I'd credit back to you). There's already a copy on the Garden. Does it not work?
Posted by: bredfrown on 2023-05-22 11:34:58 There's already a copy on the Garden. Does it not work? Just checked the one you posted out – it appears to be the same that's on the Garden. My mistake! I thought this might've been a version that wasn't archived yet. 🙂 I could never get the drivers that GCC to work properly no matter which system I tried. I wanted to double-check and see if this one could possibly give different results.
Posted by: cgp on 2023-05-22 16:26:49 I could never get the drivers that GCC to work properly no matter which system I tried. I wanted to double-check and see if this one could possibly give different results. So .. here's an image of my original install floppy .. perhaps that'll work for you:
Posted by: bredfrown on 2023-05-26 09:36:52 I forgot to update this thread – I gave @cgp 's driver a shot with System 6 and the Mac actually booted with this set of HyperCharger drivers! For some reason, the 2.0 version never seemed to work - System 6 would freeze as soon as it tried to load the driver, but this version works fine. These appear to be v1.0, and they're not archived anywhere from what I have found. I am so greatful that you took the time to make an image of this, @cgp ! As far as performance goes, these preform well, but the ExSys drivers that @Phipli found seem to work better. The only difference being the "Math" score in Speedometer. HyperCharger: 1.19 (if I remember correctly) vs. ExSys: 14.12 Part of me thinks that ExSys is fudging the results, but I'm not exactly sure. I can confirm that my HyperCharger does indeed have the FPU.
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-05-26 10:04:29 HyperCharger: 1.19 (if I remember correctly) vs. ExSys: 14.12 Part of me thinks that ExSys is fudging the results, but I'm not exactly sure. I can confirm that my HyperCharger does indeed have the FPU. That sounds like HyperCharger isn't enabling the FPU, at least in a way Speedometer recognises it, do you have it turned on? Have you tried both SANE settings? Given the age of the software, there is a chance it doesn't enable it in a way that conventional software recognises it. Some early accelerators actually came with software development libraries and mostly expected you to write your own software to use the FPU. If the baseline of '1' is an early 8MHz mac, a float score of 14 using an FPU isn't unreasonable. There is a reason they were desirable for scientific workloads.
Posted by: bredfrown on 2023-05-26 10:08:27 I've tried both SANE settings in the HyperCharger Control Panel, both GCC (General Computer Corporation) and SANE and am getting the same results. I might fire up Swift 3D to see what happens since it relies heavily on the FPU to my knowledge. I'm betting that ExSys is having the something to do with it. I'll report back once I try it out.
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-05-26 10:20:52 I've tried both SANE settings in the HyperCharger Control Panel, both GCC (General Computer Corporation) and SANE and am getting the same results. I might fire up Swift 3D to see what happens since it relies heavily on the FPU to my knowledge. I'm betting that ExSys is having the something to do with it. I'll report back once I try it out. To be clear, this is how much difference an FPU makes, compare the stock SE and the SE/30 in this list. The SE/30 has a 68882, which is better than your 68881, but you get the idea. The "This Computer" score is a 25MHz 68882 upgrade in an SE I think (old photo). ExSys isn't distorting the result, the result without it is somehow flawed. Edit : it's a 20MHz 68882 (weirdly paired with a 68EC030), I found a photo of the setup.
Posted by: haimiko on 2025-11-16 11:36:29 So .. here's an image of my original install floppy .. perhaps that'll work for you: I've tried both the drivers from the hqx and bin files above (v1?) and both cause system 6.0.8 to hang. V1 causes it to hang and sometimes gives me a system 11 error. Any suggestions? What should the jumpers be set to? If i remove Jumper B then I get a MAC sad face . If I boot with the jumper set as in the photo A,B C, E then it boots without the drivers but hangs with drivers installed.
Posted by: haimiko on 2025-11-16 12:40:23 I've tried both the drivers from the hqx and bin files above (v1?) and both cause system 6.0.8 to hang. V1 causes it to hang and sometimes gives me a system 11 error. Any suggestions? What should the jumpers be set to? If i remove Jumper B then I get a MAC sad face . If I boot with the jumper set as in the photo A,B C, E then it boots without the drivers but hangs with drivers installed. View attachment 92585 Ok found the winning combination jumpers A,B,C & E and the floppy image cgp provided above!
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