A few days ago I got an Storm 604e/200DP (same as Umax S600) with dual 604e 200Mhz, 256mb RAM (4x 64mb) and a IBM 4gb SCSI hard disk.
Now I'm planning to use this machine as a server (webserver, FTP and FirstClass), first I wanted to use Mac OS X 10.1 as OS, but inspite of what I read, 10.1 does not support dual 604. So I'm going for Yellow Dog Linux now.
But anyway, ofcourse I could put in a G3/G4 upgrade, but I think dual is more intresting. Now I was wondering, the Apple 9600/200DP machines uses 1 processor card with 2 processors in it; the Storm/Umax uses 2 processor cards with 1 processor on each; wouldn't it be possible to take the processor cards from two 9600/200DP's and to have quad 604e in the Storm machine????
That would be intresting to see. I have a Umax S900D w/400megs ram, 6Gig hd but only one CPU a Newertech running at 300 MHz. What you are proposing would be a neat trick.
I don't think the motherboard architecture could handle 4 CPUs.
There was, however, an early DayStar Mac clone that was quad-proc. And IIRC it used the 604.
I think you recall correctly. However the multi-processor Mac machines never got very far because there was so little software that could do anything with more than one processor. Even the Mac OS couldn't make use of them. A shame really.
The DayStar machines with 4x200Mhz CPUs were, indeed, 200Mhz 604e chips. They were all 4 on one CPU card.
Every 4x200Mhz DayStar tower I've ever found in surplus has had it's 4-way SMP card removed and a 300Mhz+ G3 card installed. Pragmatic, maybe, but sad, because that 4x200Mhz card will work in a 7- or 8500 as well. I really want a 4x200Mhz 7500 as an internet server.
To do what you're saying, I would first find a 2x or 4x 604e card and try it in the main CPU slot of your S900 without the secondary card. If it works and both CPUs are there, maybe try adding the secondary card. I doubt that you'll be able to get two 4x604e cards in there, however, because the secondary slot takes a proprietary "UMAX Second CPU Card" and not the standard Apple card.
So I think you could get three or even five CPUs, but I don't think that 8 is possible with the motherboards that we have available.
That was the Daystar Genesis. I only ever saw one of these, at a graphics house here in Chicago, and it was configured with an on-board disc array. It was supposed to be a photoshop rendering workstation. The owner said it was unreliable, constantly freezing. They never could get it to run consistently.
It occurs to me that someone here in the Applefritter community has one of these with the multi-processor card and a disc array...I remember a comment to the effect of this box sounding like jet powering-up when the discs begin to spin and the cooling fans running.
tony b.
of apple producing a quad G5. Or better yet, 2x dual core G5's
Maybe I'll just pull a /. on this and post: In Soviet Russia your Beowulf cluster of SMP Dual-core G5s welcome YOU as their new overlord!
Yellow Dog Linux and Debian PPC - probably a lot of other unix distros as well - have support for multiple 604s. Install MacOnLinux on top of that, and you *should* in theory be able to take advantage of multiple CPUs, at least while multitasking. I doubt you'd be able to get a single Mac process to parallelize, but you should be able to monopolize one CPU with one app, and run another on another. Maybe by starting multiple instances of MOL. I've never tried this, but it seems like it should be possible.
Check out this website...
http://radio.weblogs.com/0100077/stories/2002/08/28/howToInstallLinuxOnADaysta.html