Nitro board in Cube?
David Evans
Seth J. Morabito <se...@loomcom.com> wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I've currently got a NeXTstation Color, with one of the fabled NeXT
>Nitro accelerator cards in it (yes, really).
Guess you're a lucky bastard. :)
>My very serious question is: Can I put the Nitro accelerator card
>into the 040 cube, and have a NitroDimension NeXTcube?
I believe that the Nitro only works on Turbo hardware--I assume that your
colour slab is a Turbo? In that case you'll need a Turbo cube (and perhaps
some brackets to hold the Nitro board in place).
--
David Evans (NeXTMail/MIME OK) dfe...@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Computer/Synth Junkie http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
University of Waterloo "Default is the value selected by the composer
Ontario, Canada overridden by your command." - Roland TR-707 Manual
spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com
> >>My very serious question is: Can I put the Nitro accelerator card
> >>into the 040 cube, and have a NitroDimension NeXTcube?
> >
> > I believe that the Nitro only works on Turbo hardware--I assume that your
> >colour slab is a Turbo?
>
> a NeXTstation Color case, and it is non-ADB. I didn't think they
> made any non-ADB NeXTstation Color Turbo's, did they? Is there another
> way to tell for certain? (i.e., motherboard markings, etc...)
>
Yes they did (i.e. non-ADB NeXTstation Color Turbo's - I have one).
As to using the Nitro. Yes I believe David is right that it will only work
in a Turbo system. Also AFAIK your going to have to find a Socketed Turbo
motherboard or get real brave with a desoldering tool. I don't think
I've seen a socketed Turbo yet.
I really want to get some close-up shots of the Nitro board - drop me
a e-mail if your interested in providing a few.
Randy
rencsok at
channelu dot com
argus dot cem dot msu dot edu
spammers works also :)
Randy Rencsok General UNIX, NeXTStep, IRIX Admining,
Turbo Software Consulting, Programming, etc.)
bes...@cs.wisc.edu
>Yes I believe David is right that it will only work
>in a Turbo system. Also AFAIK your going to have to find a Socketed Turbo
>motherboard or get real brave with a desoldering tool. I don't think
>I've seen a socketed Turbo yet.
All, or more precisely both, Turbo cube motherboards I've seen have a
socketed CPU. I _think_ both my Turbo station motherboards are socketed too
(I'll have to check).
>I really want to get some close-up shots of the Nitro board - drop me
>a e-mail if your interested in providing a few.
So do I. Tell you what, I'll even take them for you. Just send me the little
board... ;-)
- Gareth
spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com
> spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com wrote:
> >Yes I believe David is right that it will only work
> >in a Turbo system. Also AFAIK your going to have to find a Socketed Turbo
> >motherboard or get real brave with a desoldering tool. I don't think
> >I've seen a socketed Turbo yet.
>
> All, or more precisely both, Turbo cube motherboards I've seen have a
> socketed CPU. I _think_ both my Turbo station motherboards are socketed too
> (I'll have to check).
Having a cpu clip doesn't necessarily mean they are socketed. Every Turbo
system I've seen has the clip. And I've checked both of my ADB Turbo Cube
motherboards and they are soldered not socketed. I probably have seen about
10 Turbo Cube motherboards and they ALL were soldered.
I also checked my Color Turbo Station and indeed it is soldered. So I suspect
that motherboard revisions that are not the final revision are likely to have socketed
cpu's (this is true with 25Mhz systems as well Cube or Station). If you have a Non-ADB
system I'd bet it's more likely you'll have a socketed cpu. If ADB then it's probably
more likely it's soldered.
> >I really want to get some close-up shots of the Nitro board - drop me
> >a e-mail if your interested in providing a few.
>
> So do I. Tell you what, I'll even take them for you. Just send me the little
> board... ;-)
I think this comment is quite unnecessary thank you very much. If you'd
like to drool a little then check out this page I put up. If someone manages
to take some pictures top/bottom and scan them @ 150-300 dpi (or would
like to send me copies so I can scan them) I'll add them to the page. I'd like
images raw so I can work with jpeg options myself.
http://www.channelu.com/NeXT/Black/Nitro/index.html
Ken Lui
>spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com wrote:
>>motherboard or get real brave with a desoldering tool. I don't think
>>I've seen a socketed Turbo yet.
My Turbo is socketed. Oh, you guys are talking about Cubes, never
mind.
Ken
--
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kl...@cup.hp.com Cupertino, CA 95014-0795 USA
Information Solutions & Services 1.408.447.3230 FAX 1.408.447.5929
Views within this message may not be those of the Hewlett-Packard Company
Sven Droll
has got a pyro instead the nitro installed?
Just wondering...
Sven
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spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com
> If the color-machine of the original poster is not a turbo, may it be that he
> has got a pyro instead the nitro installed?
>
> Just wondering...
>
No I looked back using dejanews to track down a few of those Nitros that were sold
in 95-97. The origional poster reported that he had been 'GIVEN' a Turbo Color
slab that reported itself as 40Mhz. Lucky stiff. The Nitro will do this in a board with
v74 ROMs (not sure about earlier ROMs) so he is certianly one. From those earlier
posts I know there are at least 5-7 Nitros out there.
Now if I could get the people who have them to drop me some e-mail so I can try
to get some better shots AND try to figure out what is missing on my prototype Nitro
board to possibly complete it I'd be really happy. (Though I have serious doubts
that the prototype board I have can be finished).
BTW: I added some small shots of the board I have to that web page but they
are not high quality. I'd rather have some good 1500x1200 close ups of
the board (front and especially back).
I'm going to e-mail one guy that I know has at least one Nitro and JPEG daughter
card and see if I can coax him into sending me some nice photos or high density
scans.
I'm tempted to make a list of people who did have them and give links to their for-sale
posts since they were once public. But I'm not sure they would appreciate this?!
Neosoft News
Yes you may create a Nitro Dimension Cube ... I did it and it is a joy to
use. However, you must have a turbo board for the Nitro card. And it must
be a socketed board so that the 33mhz 040 can be removed and the Nitro card
inserted. I am not aware of any turbo cube boards that were socketed so you
must have someone perform that task for you - unless you have the equipment
(I didn't ;-)) Enjoy!
Buddy
>My very serious question is: Can I put the Nitro accelerator card
>into the 040 cube, and have a NitroDimension NeXTcube? Obviously,
>this would be the Ultimate Envy Super NeXT from Hell, and I'd dearly
>love to if I could. But equally obviously, I don't want to fry the
>Cube, OR the Nitro card.
David Evans
<spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com> wrote:
>
>I'm going to e-mail one guy that I know has at least one Nitro and JPEG daughter
>card and see if I can coax him into sending me some nice photos or high density
>scans.
>
Jeez...you're planning on making the JPEG daughter card work? According to
our "usual" NeXT contact about all things graphical it chugged along for a
whole 66ms before crashing the ND *and* the '040!
spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com
> In article <71q316$ngk$1...@msunews.cl.msu.edu>,
> <spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com> wrote:
> >
> >I'm going to e-mail one guy that I know has at least one Nitro and JPEG daughter
> >card and see if I can coax him into sending me some nice photos or high density
> >scans.
> >
>
> Jeez...you're planning on making the JPEG daughter card work? According to
> our "usual" NeXT contact about all things graphical it chugged along for a
> whole 66ms before crashing the ND *and* the '040!
>
Look again. The part way finished card I have appears to be a Nitro not the C-Cube
daughter card.
http://www.channelu.com/NeXT/Black/Nitro/index.html
There was a time I had contacts at C-Cube that were willing to help get the JPEG
daughter card to work using the CL-560. Unfortunately the one person I know who
has a number of these cards hasn't been quite forthcoming with information on them.
At least not yet, and there is no point in doing anything with the C-Cube compression
cards/ND at this time. You want video get a O2 or Octane, Jaleo/Flint(Effects), and
a decent RAID :)
David Evans
<spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com> wrote:
>Look again. The part way finished card I have appears to be a Nitro not the C-Cube
>daughter card.
>
Ahhh--I wrote before I saw that picture.
>There was a time I had contacts at C-Cube that were willing to help get the JPEG
>daughter card to work using the CL-560.
Presumably this doesn't have the stupid buffer problems of the CL-555...
>At least not yet, and there is no point in doing anything with the C-Cube compression
>cards/ND at this time.
I agree. A shame that it didn't happen properly when it was supposed to.
spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com
> In article <71t2e5$4i5$1...@msunews.cl.msu.edu>,
> <spam...@ruin.the.internet.channelu.com> wrote:
> >Look again. The part way finished card I have appears to be a Nitro not the C-Cube
> >daughter card.
> >
>
> Ahhh--I wrote before I saw that picture.
>
> >There was a time I had contacts at C-Cube that were willing to help get the JPEG
> >daughter card to work using the CL-560.
>
> Presumably this doesn't have the stupid buffer problems of the CL-555...
Looking at my CL-550/560 manual from C-Cube. (It's been a while).
The 560 has a 128x32 CODEC FIFO Buffer it "is used to filter out
fluctuations in the data rate". Unfortunately the pin-outs and control
lines acted significantly different so one could not just drop a 560 in
a 550 socket and expect anything to work. I suspect if this chip had
it been available earlier to NeXT it would have worked quite well
relieving the i860 of a significant portion of the interrupt requests
needing to be serviced by the CL-550. Not to mention giving significantly
better I/O rates and FULL D1 I/O rather than 1/2. Ah well.
> >At least not yet, and there is no point in doing anything with the C-Cube compression
> >cards/ND at this time.
>
> I agree. A shame that it didn't happen properly when it was supposed to.
>
I think that one is a long story. The rush for MO is also another. I'm sure
many have various horror stories in the 0.8, 0.9 days about using the MO
exclusively as the system disk.. This is one of the main reasons the 40M
HD swap drive was quickly introduced. Shortly after Cubes with 330,660,
1.6G HD's were introduced. I'm sure Mike or someone else knows the
exact timeline/story.
Mike Paquette
> There was a time I had contacts at C-Cube that were willing to help get the JPEG
> daughter card to work using the CL-560. Unfortunately the one person I know who
> has a number of these cards hasn't been quite forthcoming with information on them.
"A number of these cards" ?!?? Well, two, actually. Two boards with parts
installed, one of which burned up. What was left was donated to a NeXTWorld
auction as a novelty item.
I can safely guarantee that 'making them work' would require a new board
layout, and at least one custom ASIC (not enough space available to do this
with PALs, and you can't make the board much larger without causing
thermal problems).
Mike Paquette
David Evans
>technical details, from a layman non-hardware guy point of view.
>Please forgive lame innacuracies, and the fuzziness -- I will try to
>take more CLEAR pictures soon.
>
Jeez. That "through-hole on both sides with slight pin offsets" scheme is
really frightening!
Emmett McLean
>In article <slrn73tce...@motherbrain.squeep.com>,
>>
>>I've currently got a NeXTstation Color, with one of the fabled NeXT
>>Nitro accelerator cards in it (yes, really).
What do you see when you run the command hostinfo from the command line?
Cheers,
Emmett