Ivory III in Quadras?

[berni@iml.fhg.de (Stefan Bernemann)]

    Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1991 01:33 MET
    From: Palter@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (Gary M. Palter)

	Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1991 23:46 EST
	From: futrell@corwin.CCS.Northeastern.EDU (robert futrelle)

	Putting and Ivory III in the new Mac Quadra 700 would be 
	interesting because it has built-in ethernet so there
	would be no slot needed for that.  It also has a bunch
	of VRAM for video, so no card needed there either.
	My impression is that Symbolics has the Ivory working
	in a Quadra 900.  

    It's not yet fully functional.  We are still working on the software
    changes needed to get a MacIvory to run in the Quadra series.
    I can not comment on how or when the updated software will be made
    available to customers as we haven't yet made any decision on that
    issue.
		      
			  The 700 would be a slick package and
	I'm waiting to here whether we'll be seeing an Ivory
	board working in that.  

    Installing a MacIvory model 3 in a Quadra 700 may be prohibited by
    mechanical and/or power problems.  While I don't expect any such
    problems, until we actually test it, I can't say that it will work.  We
    will be getting access to a Quadra 700 shortly to check out these
    issues.

				I realize that the 700 and 900
	aren't much faster than an FX, 

    That depends upon whom you ask.  One magazine claims the Quadra is 1.2x
    a IIfx which, indeed, isn't much but another magazine claims they're 5x!
    Apple has been claiming 2x to 3x.

				       but they're certainly 
	faster than the CX and CI and rumor says they'll be
	significant upgrades to 700 and 900 in the Spring.
	If Symbolics will support disks that use the SCSI 2 bus
	then we can get some faster paging too. 

    The MacIvory relies on its Macintosh host to perform all I/O.
    Therefore, the MacIvory can only use those devices and busses support by
    the Macintosh.  At this time, there is no model Macintosh, including the
    Quadras, which support the SCSI-2 bus.  In fact, the Macintosh still
    does not fully support the original SCSI bus standard.  (E.g., the
    Macintosh doesn't implement disconnect/reconnect which is necessary to
    allow asynchronous SCSI operations.)

    It's true that the SCSI implementation in the Quadras provide
    signigicant performance enhancements over previous Macintosh models.  So
    far, however, in our preliminary testing, we've only seen around 25%.
    In addition, we are testing some third party SCSI accelerators as well
    in an attempt to improve performance of MacIvories in older Macintoshes.

						(did I spell SCSI
	right?).  

    Yes.

		  Our biggest performance challenge is CLIM and
	since we'd like to deliver on plain macs, it would be
	quite a development package to have both machines sitting
	there!  700 will go to 20MB RAM with regular SIMMs and
	to much more with bigger SIMMs, so that won't be a problem
	on the Mac side.  

    The largest SIMM that can be used in a Quadra is a 16MB SIMM which
    yields an absolute maximum of 68MB in the 700 and 256MB in the 900.
    There are several companies today selling 16MB SIMMs.

			  But I ramble.....

	bob futrelle

	   Prof. Robert P. Futrelle
	   Biological Knowledge Laboratory
	   College of Computer Science  161CN
	   Northeastern University
	   360 Huntington Ave.
	   Boston, MA 02115

	   (617)-437-2076
	   Internet: futrelle@corwin.ccs.northeastern.edu
Hello,
Same questions as Bob's, are there any news answers six months later??

By the way, what's the status of MacIvory running under MacOS 7.x??
(I've not heard any official statements concerning this topic up to
now...)

Have a nice weekend - Stefan.

Mail: Stefan Bernemann        ! Phone:  +49-231-9753139
      c/o FhG IML Dortmund    ! Fax:    +49-231-9743211
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      D-4600 Dortmund 50, FRG !