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2 NuBus Cards: What do I have and what do they do???
Posted by: DistantStar001 on 2026-09-27 16:05:39 Just as the title says. I recently acquired two NuBus cards, but need identification so I can determine how or if I can use them. The first I'm pretty sure is a video card (of some sort) made by RasterOps (seen below): I'm hoping that it will support 24-bit color on a Macintosh IIci, IIcx, or IIfx. However, when installed, while the monitors control panel does recognize a second monitor attached, I get no picture from the card. Moreover, the resolution appears fixed (but does not match any of the adaptor settings attached) and only gives me an option of 256 colors or grey-scale. It's possible there is a driver I'm missing, but it would be helpful to identify the card to find the correct driver. The second (made by DayStar) is a bit more confusing: As seen in the pictures, the card appears to have a Motorola 68CH000 CPU, 4 1MB 30-pin sims and (what looks like) a second NuBus connector on the back end? there also appears to be both internal (50-pin) and external (25-pin) SCSI connectors. I think it might be some sort of accelerator card, but then anything it would install into should start with a 68020 CPU or better. Also, more than likely, support much more than 4MB of RAM as well as internal SCSI support. So what exactly is this supposed to do?
Posted by: obsolete on 2026-09-27 16:32:59 Card #2 is definitely a Daystar DiskRunner: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/daystar-diskrunner-info.52954/
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2026-09-27 16:50:55 Rasterops Colorboard 104 I believe. If so 1024x768 @60hz ONLY
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2026-09-27 17:11:41 https://books.google.co.nz/books?id...YpsAqPykoh_8tM8b02vYzQ&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y
Posted by: DistantStar001 on 2026-09-27 17:50:00 Rasterops Colorboard 104 I believe. If so 1024x768 @60hz ONLY https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=5T4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=SuperMac+"Spectrum/8"&source=bl&ots=lIobm97QLP&sig=BUB3nYpsAqPykoh_8tM8b02vYzQ&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y Thank you! With this information I was able to adjust one of my adaptors to produce a picture, even if it is only as a second screen (I know how to fix that). However, I am still only getting a 256 color option when this is supposed to do over 16 million (certainly the board's splash screen would indicate as much). Do I need a driver for that? If so, where can I get it? Card #2 is definitely a Daystar DiskRunner: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/daystar-diskrunner-info.52954/ Excelent. I'm guessing that I need to reroute my drive to the internal SCSI connector in order to use it. Not sure what use it will be for me, but it's fun to have all the same.
Posted by: Byrd on 2026-09-28 00:06:53 Try drivers here, you might be lucky as Rasterops released all in one driver packs for their cards. Mac Driver Museum - Knight Tech Archive The DiskRunner card looks like fun. You probably don't need a software disk cache enabled in the Memory Control Panel with this running, benchmarks would be interesting to see. I'm currently playing around with a Promise DC4030-VL2 in a 486 machine and this looks much like it's SCSI equivalent!
Posted by: DistantStar001 on 2026-09-29 23:24:32 Try drivers here, you might be lucky as Rasterops released all in one driver packs for their cards. Mac Driver Museum - Knight Tech Archive The DiskRunner card looks like fun. You probably don't need a software disk cache enabled in the Memory Control Panel with this running, benchmarks would be interesting to see. I'm currently playing around with a Promise DC4030-VL2 in a 486 machine and this looks much like it's SCSI equivalent! So this is what I've figured out so far: First: I finally managed to get the drivers on to my IIci. Since transferring files from a modern Mac is a major PAIN, I ended up finding the same files on Macintosh Garden (which my PoweMacG3 is still able to access). Unfortunately, after installing on my IIci (using System 7.1), I'm still only getting 256 colors from the card. Second: Looking at the card itself, I noticed that the three major graphics ICs are BT457G080s. Which as far as I can see are 8-bit color chips, each capable of addressing 256 colors each. I'm guessing that by using three of them, this is supposed to produce 24-bit color support, but my IIci doesn't seem to see it that way. Everything I've found tells me this is supposed to be software enabled, but so far I haven't found the right drivers. Third: THIS CARD DOES NOT WORK IN A QUADRA 650!!! I tried installing it in each of its 3 slots, to see if I could get something better than 256 colors, but all I could get was a sad Mac. Which is weird since it came with a Macintosh II 256 color graphics card that does work in the machine (but I removed it since the Quadra puts out 32,000 colors natively). Forth: As for the DayStar… I'm going to need a longer SCSI cable to test that.
Posted by: olePigeon on 2026-09-30 12:32:18 Excelent. I'm guessing that I need to reroute my drive to the internal SCSI connector in order to use it. Not sure what use it will be for me, but it's fun to have all the same. I'd be curious if it works for you. Looks like @zigzagjoe had one, but it wasn't working. Maybe if yours works the two of you can get the other one working. Looks like a fun device. I wonder how it compares to connecting a drive to something like a JackHammer.
Posted by: olePigeon on 2026-09-30 12:33:35 Forth: As for the DayStar… I'm going to need a longer SCSI cable to test that. If you just wanna test it, I put that kind of card in the slot closest to the power supply. I then put a piece of paper over the power supply and lay the HDD on top of it, then connect it to the card. It's only testing, doesn't need to be pretty for a few minutes.
Posted by: zigzagjoe on 2026-09-30 12:52:02 I'd be curious if it works for you. Looks like @zigzagjoe had one, but it wasn't working. Maybe if yours works the two of you can get the other one working. Looks like a fun device. I wonder how it compares to connecting a drive to something like a JackHammer. Yeah, no dice with mine. I haven't gotten particularly deep in it, but the sheer complexity of the card renders it rather opaque and difficult to troubleshoot. I'll be curious if his works. I think the daystar card might give a good showing in random access due to the cache, but i expect in most cases the DMA capable jackhammer and silliconexpress are faster.
Posted by: lauland1 on 2026-09-30 16:03:06 Some macs will need a "32 bit color quickdraw" extension to go above 256 colors, depending on their rom, regardless of what the card is capable of. I don't know off the top of my head which ones. It is possible the card may not support full 32 bit addressing, which the quadra might require. This is a wild guess.
Posted by: DistantStar001 on 2026-09-30 16:49:27 Some macs will need a "32 bit color quickdraw" extension to go above 256 colors, depending on their rom, regardless of what the card is capable of. I don't know off the top of my head which ones. It is possible the card may not support full 32 bit addressing, which the quadra might require. This is a wild guess. I've seen this, but have been unsure as to where to get it (assuming I don't have it already) or how to install it. When I searched on both Macintosh Garden and the Macintosh Repository, all I found was a disk for Color LaserWriters. I did place the QuickDraw component into my system folder as instructed, but there seemed to be no change.
Posted by: zigzagjoe on 2026-09-30 18:00:36 Some macs will need a "32 bit color quickdraw" extension to go above 256 colors, depending on their rom, regardless of what the card is capable of. I don't know off the top of my head which ones. It is possible the card may not support full 32 bit addressing, which the quadra might require. This is a wild guess. 32 bit quickdraw extension applies only to IIx, Iicx, Ii, Se30 under System 6. Later ROMs and Systems have it integrated. The card should also be fine regardless of 24/32 bit mode, Apple was rather good about backwards compatibility for nubus. I would suggest dumping the card rom using SlotROM or similar as that will show which bit depths the card can support.
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