Duo_Internal_10bT_Hack® . . .

THIS POST, PLEASE! TIA

A little bit of the background info from the other thread posting remains for context . . .

. . . Passive matrix LCDs are OK too, but go for a 250 or a 280 with the active matrix grayscale LCD, I've always wanted one so I could see the freakin' LCD outdoors, all the other LCDs have problems with legibility in sunlight. I finally got a bare 250 for $25 and I love it. I'll be using it to test the hackage detailed below and then give it to my lil' brother so he can run an old version of Word on it for writing on his train commute into Boston.

I've never had a 5xx, so I don't know about them, but Duos are awesome if you use them with software from the era and aren't afraid of re-celling a battery.

jt

*over the top mode(tm)*

If you're into hacking, you can probably get an Asante MICRO EN/SC SCSI->10basetT/ThinNet NIC that'll work fine with a 68k Duo for a very reasonable price as they're (ostensibly) incompatable with PPC 'Books.

Untested (but really promising) hack proposal: cut all the ThinNet crap off the board along with the RJ-45 socket, LEDs and power jack! There's a large "L" shaped section of the PCB that can be lopped off if you move something like 4 discrete components and then it SHOULD fit into the useless Duo modem bay.

A panel mount RJ-45 (hard-wired to the PCB contacts at the last known IC or Via connections of the missing PCB pads) will fit just fine in the (slightly) enlarged RJ-11's location. There's already a SCSI header (pinouts undetermined, but easily buzzed from the SCSI plug/cable) on the EN/SC board for daisy-chaining to the Duo's SCSI HDD cable/connectors. The power leads are hardwired straight to the ADB connections on the Docking Connector (a well documented hack) which is no biggie. The LEDs (or funky colored equivalents) also get hardwired and transferred to holes drilled in the Duo's top deck (to the left of the power button, IIRC) so they're sitting in plain sight to amplify the Duo's "OOH! AHH!" factor in the library.

I think that about covers it, I'll go post this gobbledegook in the hacks section now, there are already high resolution pics of the EN/SC and EN/SC 10T PCBs up in the album in the "Misc Peripherals &" thread.

*/over the top mode(tm)*

p.s. sorry about the tangential noooodge . . . gotta get the .txt out when it's flowin' freely!

***** please don't reply to this post, I'll likely need to edit a cr@pload of typos.

The piccies and more info on a twist to this hack being done in parallel(concurrently?) are in this related post from the _______________ thread:

Asante MICRO EN/SC -> EN/SC-10T . . .

. . . erm Hack :?

. . . ongoing . . . kinda . . . : ::)

Asante_Micro_ENSC_Hack_C01.jpg

Asante_Micro_ENSC_Hack_S01.jpg

Micro_ENSC-2-ENSC_10T_CMPT.jpg

Micro_ENSC-2-ENSC_10T_SLDR.jpg

We were troubleshooting ENSC/2300c problems over on 'fritter . . . coulda sworn I'd had mine working. Turns out the EN/SC does appear to be incompatible with the PPC 2300c, however it also appears that the EN/SC-10T [i]is compatible![/i]

Hence, the ongoing deconstruction project, I got so frustrated I started choppin' components off, while only testing for 2300c compatability after each . . . component removal.

I stopped, figuring I needed to use a 68k Duo as a control to establish ANY compatability/functionality of the vivisection victim.

HEH! :ebc:

The EN/SC is the one on the left in all pics, BTW. There are some ICs and SMT ZITS to be popped off that POS yet, but I've got to set up better testing procedures.

jt

p.s. here's the 'fritter linkage.

http://www.applefritter.com/node/view/547#264

You can see where the cuts will likely be, they're in the "L" shaped area with no visible ground plane between the LED and connector sections and the rest of the PCB. At a later date I'll do scans and the artwork in Illustrator detailing the planned PCB hacking procedures.

jt :ebc:

I'm glad you're taking an interest, then I won't have to do ALL the work!

I've been looking at this transplant for either a Duo's modem bay or a MiniDock for quite a while now, but not lately. (T-REX has been on my mind for a while now, the siren call of a PCMCIA on Duo Hack is almost irresistable . . . =8-\)Everything in the post above was done from memory, so it may need some corrections or at least some fleshing out after fact-checking..

Does anybody know anything about those two unused (twisted pair-ground lines?) pairs on a10baseT 4 pair cable and the RJ-45 connector's pinouts on hubs -n- routers?

Erm . . . how about piggy-backing some other low bandwidth signals?

Like . . . say . . . ADB? :ebc:

It'd be great for a picture frame under controlled circumstances, but using it in the field might get dicey if all those lines are grounded and you forgot to use your special "breakout" cable/dongle/kluge-thingie.

jt

I considered the exact same hack jt contemplates, but my conclusion was that it's considerably easier to stash the main PCB over the HD and place the RJ45 onto a modem-less power-on board. Easier than chopping up the EN/SC that is.

Slim HDs leave more than enough space for the Micro EN/SC PCB. IIRC, I figured if I desoldered the RJ45 and those pesky LEDs it would fit in there perfectly.

AYUP! I figured on that for my 190 along with the trackball on the 190 and mebbe an analog battery readout meter set flush into the palmrest! For the 5300 too, if I can't score one of the 16bit Video/10baseT cards. But I got sidetracked with the CD installation . . .

NG on the 2300c though, that's where the 1400's PCMCIA card cage with my buddy T-REX belong! If that hack won't work out, I'll be needing that space for an IDE Flash Boot/VM hack and buying a 2.5" IDE->SCSI HDD adapter plate for about 30 GIG or so to go with my Solid State Virtual Memory/boot disk.

How about my notions of upgrading the EN/SC to an EN/SC 10T? I hope to get away with doing it all by hardware removal, but a firmware transplant might be necessary . . . whatcha think?

jt

LOL, jt you are waaaaaaay more ambitious than I have ever been.

PCMCIA _and_ builtin enet! Yikes!

Well, if the PCMCIA gig works, I may not do the built-in ethernet. Were you the Dan that was posting in the WiFi PC Card Hacks thread back on AF 1.5? If so you've probably seen pictures of the butt-ugly 230 carcass I did the fit testing on for the 1400 PC Card cage transplant. If not, I'll have to dig up some links.

However, I greatly admire your persistant struggle(s) against apparently overwhelming odds!

HEH! Wynonna's got the right line . . . "I'm old enough to know better . . . and too young to resist!" :ebc:

I must have missed the reason for "upgrading the EN/SC to an EN/SC 10T". Wassup with that?

EN/SC is incompatable with the 2300c, I saw in the other thread that your "EN/SCs" only have the RJ-45, THAT makes them EN/SC 10Ts, AFAIK. I've got all the literature on'em, have you read the DeclROM info on yours with TattleTech yet? Check the other thread, IIRC we hashed it out there fairly well . . . or not . . .

It all kinda runs together . . .

BTW, why not just hook your HD directly to the ATA bus and avoid the need for an IDE-SCSI bridge? You're using an ATA HD anyway, and a large modern drive will be faster than flashRAM anyhow . . .

Oh, and . . uhh, multiple internal SCSI devices (HD _and_ EN/SC?) Any idea if that would actually work?

Dunno for sure, that's one of the tests that need to be done, but I've only run across two single device SCSI interface devices since 1987, every other controller or interface card I've seen has supported a minimum of two devices.

Will a big modern HDD on IDE in the 2300 really be faster than a PCMCIA/Flash adapter? I doubt Apple's IDE implementation on the 2300 will be as fast as the T-REX bridged PC Card slots, but that's just a WAG, no time for that research as yet.

All these hacks are too complex, gotta do 'em as time, energy and inspiration allow . . .

jt =8-/

[quote=dankephoto][quote]EN/SC is incompatable with the 2300c, I saw in the other thread that your “EN/SCs

. . . QuixHactic_Quest# . . . erm . . . :? . . .
.
. . . whatever . . . * nobody's keepin' count * =8-\

Dude, you seriously gotta lay off the drugs. Or get out of the house more often. Or both.

FOOEY! Haven't done any non-prescription drugs other than ibuprofen in a VERY long time! I'm stuck sorting and packing up all my MacGoodies along with the rest of my stuff for storage or to migrate south . . .

I've gotta blow off steam somehow, playing with the old equipment, documenting some of it and lining up the stuff I need for about a dozen concurrent projects is a good way to do that. Originally, I wanted to bend up some sheet metal for a few hacks before the box brake goes into storage, but that's not gonna happen.

Now I've gotta get some sleep . . .

jt zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

. . . this tekgems outfit on that site , e!

http://tekgems.com/Products/et-10466-nwl-smc2642w.htm

I wonder about starting with one of these or the like . . .

http://tekgems.com/Products/belkin-usb-ethernet-adapter-f5d5050.htm

. . . and bushwhacking its Wifi reception at the USB IC or diverting the processed USB IC's output straight to a USB -> i2C adapter card, serial or some other hackable interface. Firmware and programming/hacking drivers are way beyond anything I could do, but it's an interesting twist to the problem. USB ICs a couple of years ago were microcontroller interface hackable to NuBus architecture Macs and things must have improved since then.

jt :?

. . . it's good to hear from you again! I wasn't really working actively on this one . . . the subject just kept popping up in various threads . . . I think I proposed it about two years ago on AF 1.0 . . . coulda been AF 1.5 . . . dunno?

Finding out about the differences between the two (nearly identical) cards after beating my brains out on the incompatability problems over the summer . . . kinda moved the Duo internal hackage part of the scenario back up to the middle burner during the deconstruction project.

Hack time is over for a while, but now I think I've got a good handle on what to pack for where and why!

HOOOO-BOY! :o I think my coherence index is dropping again . . .

jt