Bought a 486 \ VOGONS

Bought a 486

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First post, by xjas

Posted on 2016-10-24, 01:24

xjas Offline

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Ten bucks, couldn't resist. Here it is:

Wait a minute...

Did you see it yet?

Here's the back:

Yes, this is one of Apple's many experiments in the '90s to give their machines just that little bit more widespread appeal. Note that it does not have an x86 "compatibility card", rather a complete x86 PC on the same motherboard. Which, in lovely '90s Apple fashion, slides out with just two clips & two screws:

Apparently some of these came with an Intel DX2/66 and some of them came with a Cyrix, and some of them ran the 486 at 70MHz. I didn't pry the heatsink off yet so I don't actually know which one mine is. Mine is the LC630 which means it has a 68LC040 with no FPU but you can upgrade that to a full-featured 040, which makes it identical to a Performa 640. Apple. why u do this ??

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 1 of 5, by xjas

Posted on 2016-10-24, 01:24

xjas Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2564
Joined: 2015-09-07, 02:29

I had a look for bulgy caps but I actually don't see any of the typical electrolytic type caps at all. Here's the underside of the board:

Note the three separate SIMM slots - one main one for the system RAM (there's also a few MB soldered onto the motherboard), a proprietary Apple one for cache, and a third one on the riser board for the 486 - empty here because it's completely optional. You can happily divide the main RAM between the Mac & x86 at will.

Some quick research told me this thing has a "Soundblaster compatible" sound card for DOS stuff. Well, no, it has a genuine Vibra16 with a real goddamn OPL3 chip and an actual MIDI port. Yeah, was pretty pleased to find that when I took it apart.

The sound card is actually a beautiful bit of bizzarechitecture. That 15-pin MIDI/gameport is exclusively for DOS software, Mac MIDI used the RS422 serial port and joysticks at the time were ADB. Well, the gameport is on its own card on the PDS slot which is the direct bus to the 68040 (e.g. equivalent to VLB.) Madness: