Hardware Porn of the Day: Ancient Apple Mobo - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: tealsuki
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2013, 02:01:05 am
content: Hi all! I'm new here, so for my first post I thought I'd share a piece of computing history I had kicking around.This used to belong to a Macintosh Quadra 800 (which had a whopping introductory price of $4700 according to Wikipedia)The model is Wombat 820-0380-04 (apparently made in 1992), complete with a Motorola 68040 at ascreaming fast33mhzHope you all enjoy this trip down memory lane!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2013, 09:37:23 am
content: That would be around the same speed as a 486DX at 33MHz.Apple don't seem to have changed their part numbering system much; look up the 820-3141-B for example.

author: 4to20Milliamps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2013, 01:08:16 pm
content: They haven't changed their product cost to fair market value much either.

author: tealsuki
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2013, 01:41:53 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on July 27, 2013, 09:37:23 amI hardly remember how either of them performed, but Wikipedia seems to suggest it blew the i486 out of the water at a comparable clock, though heat was a problem.Wikimedia has a wonderful picture of the die

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2013, 01:18:16 am
content: I have a Mac IIci that still works, as far as I know. My first mac (or my wife's); paid full list price for it too :-(68020, IIRC.Worse than that; I think I have SIMMs around somewhere that I had in mind using to upgrade it to 128M of memory (which would be ridiculous!)http://lowendmac.com/1989/mac-iici/

author: tealsuki
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2013, 03:28:24 am
content: Quote from: westfw on July 28, 2013, 01:18:16 amNice! Do you have many good memories with it?There was a period where I collected Macs for pennies on the dollar, and I ended up with a dinky little Mac Classic. Sadly it didn't survive, I found out the chassis was rotted out a few months ago (sitting in a VERY HUMID basement for too long, I guess)I ended up not tearing it down, being too wary of the built-in CRT.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2013, 05:02:08 am
content: Quote from: tealsuki on July 28, 2013, 03:28:24 amWhat, that scary glass vacuum-filled death trap?Actually they are safe, so long as you don't drop it on concrete right next to you.If you want to dismantle something containing a CRT, and so need to safely dispose of the crt, do this:* Put it face down on newspaper (to catch an little glass slivers.)* Wrap a towel around the back and neck of the tube. (It's not going to implode and throw glass everywhere anyway, but just in case...)* At the connector, there's a little glass tube with a melted closed end, between the metal pins. Sometimes it's exposed, sometimes it's inside the plastic plug body (if any.) If you need to, pry off the plastic plug body to expose the tube.* Put the end of a flat blade screwdriver against the side of the end of the little tube, and tap the screwdriver handle with a hammer lightly. The small tube fractures, and air sucks into the CRT via the small hole. A second later you have a no-vacuum glass CRT, which is safe to put in the garbage. (Apart from the pollution issues of the phosphor and leaded-glass face.)One caution: if you do smash the whole thing up, be aware that the phosphor on the inside face is made of very nasty substances, that you don't want to breathe, ingest, or get into cuts. Ditto the coating on the cathode filament, and the 'getter' - a little ring-shaped thing on the side of the electron gun.That's true of all fluorescent lamps too btw. Not talking about the mercury, but the actual phosphor powder.This is another reasons why the whole "tungsten light bulbs are evil, let's ban them and replace with CCFLs" thing is insane. Filament bulbs are entirely non-toxic, and use minimal materials and manufacturing processes.

author: tealsuki
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2013, 05:13:37 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on July 28, 2013, 05:02:08 amI wasn't particularly worried about an implosion, but I had powered it up about a half a day prior to opening it up for an autopsy and I like to think I have a healthy respect for/fear of flyback transformers LOLI don't have a good pair of boots or a particularly well-made screwdriver that would have protected me in case something went pear-shaped on meEdit: If you were wondering, I disposed of the entire unit at the local recycling centre. They run a program for old CRTs and general electronics waste.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2013, 11:19:56 am
content: Quote from: tealsuki on July 27, 2013, 01:41:53 pmAnd theWikipedia page of the 486says exactly the opposite... Clock-for-clock the '040 is faster at synthetic benchmarks like Dhrystone, although other things like the memory subsystem is important too; I remember 486 PCs came standard with L2 cache on the motherboard, usually 128K, whereas Macs didn't.