[Coco] OT old macs ...

[David Hazelton]

Kevin Diggs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>     This vintage of Mac boots into MacOS before Linux. But it is running 
> YellowDog 2.1 (kernel 2.4.10). The source file for the external bus 
> driver is identical in 2.4.28. As already mentioned, I have the external 
> bus as a module. If I turn on the drive after boot and then load the 
> external bus driver I get an error.
> 
>>
> 
>     I just love these 8600s. Lots of fun hardware (video in AND out)!. 
> And a company called Powerlogix makes a 1 GHz 750 upgrade card for $239. 
> Bought this one on EBay for $29 (+ $25). Surprisingly, the 100 MB zip 
> drive works. It alone is probably worth $20 (with shipping).
> 
>     Sorry for the off topic rambling, but anybody know why Apple does 
> not support these upgrade cards? From what I understand M$ made zillions 
> of $$$ selling software. Thats a lot of X sets they are losing.
> 
>                     kevin
> 

I picked up my 7600 at junk store, was just sitting outside.  went in
and ask how much. $10.00 including monitor.  bought a 400mhz/g4 card for
$100 on e-bay and added 128mb (already had 96mb) for around $20.00 and
$50.00 for Panther on e-bay. unfort video in/out doesn't work or the
floppy under 10, work great under 9.22...just needed to keep up with
today's technologies.  I also hate that I need to spend $125.00 on a
real video card.

I knew that linux needed Macos to boot, at least Mandrake's last PPC
version, but I am surprised that it doesn't rescan the pc for devices.
I did try to use openbsd on a Performa 550, but it was so slow.  I don't
remember those SunOS boxes being that slow : )

I have adapters for my scsi devices, so I can connect them to different
cabling.  But I remember reading somewhere that my 7600 had three
separate scsi connectors. 2 internal and one external.  And only after
beating 10.3 into submission did I read that I had to put my devices on
the "fast scsi" bus or was it the other way, for it to work and that the
external scsi did not work.  The new xfacto 3.1 is supposed to fix
this...haven't tested yet.  I know that this is 10.3 stuff. but there
obviously something different about the 3 ports on my machine and 10.3
didn't like the other two ports.  I wonder if this is causing the
problem.  I failed to mention I did have a working HD connected to the
external, that works if I boot 9.22, but 10.3 doesn't see it and System
profile doesn't recognize any scsi bus at all.

If the new Mandrake PPC version doesn't need Macos to boot, I might
throw a drive in and check it out.  I run Mandrake for my PC server.

~David