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Yup! I just hooked a 20" dell LCD monitor to my old iMac G3. It's awesome. Especially since the original CRT gave me a headache.... :mac:

Yep, I hear ya.

I'm hoping to set up my 8600/300, but that's delayed until I get my new computer room finished. I'm bored of the MDD G4, but still need something that can run OS 9 or earlier for my Alps thermal printer. Applefritter alumni Tyler Sable used to have a nice tutorial on installing a very stable OS 7.5.5, but his site seems to have been lost to the ages. Maybe I won't go that far back...I still remember all the Type -11 errors from that era.

There's just too many computer projects right now, and not enough time. I have to sort through my G4 pile, do clean installs and sell a few off or donate them to the museum; there's the Apple IIc to set up, and several boxes of Atari parts for sorting out. To top it off, I'm hoping to buy a desktop CNC rig sometime at the end of July, so I need to finish some of these projects, and get the renovations finished in about a month.

The 6100 was my first PowerPC machine. It was an upgrade from a Performa 630-something or other. I remember it was more like a PC than a Mac in some ways, especially the power button on the front. No keyboard power on this one.

Powermac 6100--them's were the days. I upgraded from an LC--one pizza box to a larger pizza box. I remember there was a very simple tiny overclocking device for the 6100 you could pick-up that attached to the motherboard somewhere and it had this tiny little fan. It was like a 10 or 20% speed bump. I think there was a ROM upgrade. I don't remember if there ever were any processor upgrades invented--G3 or 604. I always loved OS 7.6.1--very stable and practical. SCSI SCSI SCSI--I got a 4GB HD--humongous! Doesn't the chime sound different on a 6100 or something like that?

The 6100 can run OS's all the way back to 7.1.2. I'm curious what the fascination with 7.5 is? Is there something peculiar about that OS or is that just the OS you happen to have at hand?

Not only did I find some good sites with a whole lot of information, I found out that the Power Mac 6100/60 will not only run OS 7.5, but also run Windows NT.

...providing you have the DOS compatibility card.

Outside of EveryMac and LEM, there really isn't much more info you need on the 6100 that's different from the other first series PowerMacs.
You're limited on the 6100 to two ram slots. Get the RAM cache card if you can, and the 6100 usually clock-chips well to 80MHz, especially if you have the later 66 MHz model.
The PDS slot can be used for the AV card or the DOS card. The DOS card I believe is useless unless you get it with the accompanying Medusa-like video cable. It's also important to get each card's respective angle adapter for it to fit in the 6100 case. Those aren't interchangable between AV and DOS cards. The DOS one has a lot of extra stuff on it, while the AV adapter is pretty much a pass-through.
The AV card was nice if you want higher resolutions with the extra colours, but it's not as good quality for video work as the 660AV and 840AV Macs.

6100 will run 9. Not sure exactly what version, but I don't think its 9.2.2. With a 66mhz and low RAM ceiling, don't expect great performance. Though I did take mine online every once in a while back in the day...

9.2.1 is the highest, but you might be happier with 8.6. It'll be a bit easier on memory than 9.

I recently ran Cyberdog on the 6100, and it was surprisingly quick but suffered a lot of compatibility issues.

The closest to a modern browser for the 6100 is WamCom or Classzilla.

Five? Now you're getting obsessive.

A number of my older Macs have started to suffer from brittle plastic. My 630 in particular, which has been stored at near 68F dry in a plastic bag for four or five years. I did see occasional broken tabs on the 610/6100 style cases when they were newer, but they do become increasingly brittle with age. I've experienced this to a degree with other computers, but the type of plastic used in Macs seems particularly vulnerable. Mac design tending to use plastic tabs for holding parts together makes the problem worse.

One aside I wanted to note, in case anyone's found a solution, is I haven't been able to get any pre-OS 9 system to work with my widescreen's default 1440x900 resolution.

I was at Goodwill one day eight or nine years ago, and they had about fifteen or twenty 6100's that someone had donated. By that time, I had had my fill of the 6100 and didn't even bother to look them over. I stopped by the next day and there was a guy buying all of them. I think I remember overhearing how much he was paying, and that it wasn't really that cheap, so I was a bit puzzled. I asked him what he was going to do with them. He said with a savvy smile that there was a special niche market in Mac parts among Mac users, or something like that. I didn't tell him that I was very well aware of the market in Mac parts, including the demand for 6100 parts, and that basically, there was little market at all for 6100 parts that I knew of. Maybe he knew of a market somewhere that I didn't. I wonder what ever happened to all his newly acquired 6100's? My imagination isn't pleasant. The Goodwills here stopped accepting any computers at all not too long after that.

IIRC, I placed a fan under the hard drive and left the card opening in the back open to deal with heat. You could also just remove the floppy drive to create an opening. There are still external SCSI zip drives around if you need an I/O media device. I've still got one I keep around to occasionally use with found legacy Macs. Wait a minute, I'm having a tinge of a memory of having a problem when my 6100's floppy was disconnected. Maybe that's just my imagination at work again. Computer problems--you go through one door and then find yourself in another problem. That's my memory--one very long trail of problems to figure out--often like dominoes--many many that made no sense at all why they happened and how I fixed them. A long memory trail of annoying tinges. I don't think I'll try anymore to remember that one.

I remember adding a small cpu fan that fit into the stock heatsink. That was only after clock-chipping. During one warm summer I put a small fan pointing towards the underside of the case, but it probably wasn't necessary.
As long as the power supply fan is good and the case is free from dust bunnies, you should be okay.

Did your DOS card come with the video cable?

I did find out that you could program it using UNIX, LINUX, or C and C++ Languages.

If you're really keen, take a look at Fantasm.

http://www.lightsoft.co.uk/Fantasm/fant.html

It's a free, open source (ex-commercial) PowerPC assembler for the Mac. Comes with a brilliant IDE.

(It does C too, but assembler is way more fun)

The No.1 site for 6100 lore is http://kan.org/6100

I think there was a ROM upgrade.

Not that I've ever heard of. Are you thinking cache? The slots are right next to each other IIRC.

I don't remember if there ever were any processor upgrades invented--G3 or 604.

Several, and you can still buy the Sonnest 400 and 500MHz G3s new (at least last time I looked at their site) and other models/mfrs show up on ebay with some regularity.

The G3s are by far the most common, ranging from ~180MHz to the 500MHz above, usually with 512k or 1MB of cache. Most of the Sonnet upgrades have a passthrough PDS slot for an HPV or AV video card.

604 and G4 upgrades were also made, but they are exceedingly rare.

Here is another question: I know that there is a slot on the motherboard for a 256k Cache SIMM/DIMM. Someone up on eBay has a 256k Cache SIMM/DIMM for an 8100. Will that Cache SIMM/DIMM work in the 6100?

Yes.

I beleive that it is a 72 Pin SIMM.

Highly doubtful - you may be thinking of the main system RAM, which is 72 pin.

256k 6100/7100/8100 cache is available for like $0.10 from macsales.com. I think they must have bought a pallet of them years ago and they're still disposing of them macsales might also have some good deals on 72 pin RAM guaranteed to work in a 6100. I think the maximum anyone has managed to load is 2 x 128MB.

Go to upgrades, select your model, select all upgrades, and it should show you what's available.

On the other hand, as I mentioned above any G3 CPU upgrade will also have cache on it.

Doc, yeah, I was probably thinking of the cache. So the G3 upgrades went into the PDS slot? That would mean you would have to remove the old cache card and leave the cache slot empty? Can a Powermac start up without a card in the cache slot?

I was at Goodwill one day eight or nine years ago, and they had about fifteen or twenty 6100's that someone had donated. By that time, I had had my fill of the 6100 and didn't even bother to look them over. I stopped by the next day and there was a guy buying all of them. I think I remember overhearing how much he was paying, and that it wasn't really that cheap, so I was a bit puzzled. I asked him what he was going to do with them. He said with a savvy smile that there was a special niche market in Mac parts among Mac users, or something like that. I didn't tell him that I was very well aware of the market in Mac parts, including the demand for 6100 parts, and that basically, there was little market at all for 6100 parts that I knew of. Maybe he knew of a market somewhere that I didn't. I wonder what ever happened to all his newly acquired 6100's? My imagination isn't pleasant. The Goodwills here stopped accepting any computers at all not too long after that.

IIRC, I placed a fan under the hard drive and left the card opening in the back open to deal with heat. You could also just remove the floppy drive to create an opening. There are still external SCSI zip drives around if you need an I/O media device. I've still got one I keep around to occasionally use with found legacy Macs. Wait a minute, I'm having a tinge of a memory of having a problem when my 6100's floppy was disconnected. Maybe that's just my imagination at work again. Computer problems--you go through one door and then find yourself in another problem. That's my memory--one very long trail of problems to figure out--often like dominoes--many many that made no sense at all why they happened and how I fixed them. A long memory trail of annoying tinges. I don't think I'll try anymore to remember that one.

My local goodwill doesn't sell computers anymore either Although, one time, (I was about 3, believe it or not) I remember seeing a commodore pet in one! I remembered the name, because I loved the shape. I was just learning to read at the time, so I was lucky that it was simply called "Pet" So, at about 5 (My grandparents got the first computer with internet access that I can remember, so I looked it up. Oh how long it took that old, ad riddled web-page to load. I was fascinated...as fascinated as a 5 year old could be over vintage computers... That's where I first saw a grainy, black and white "Early digital camera" image of an apple //e. Love at first "byte"... I mean sight... xD

I can't recall if you had to actually remove the cache card, but once switched over to the G3 it wouldn't perform any further function.
And yes, you can run without the cache card. The 6100/60 shipped without one.

It's been noted that the G3 cards have a passthrough for the AV/HPV card, note that your DOS card will not work with it. But since you have five 6100s, I guess that's moot.

Or am I whistling in the wind?

The 5300 has an IDE drive while the 6100 is scsi. The CF card mod works because Compact Flash is very similar to the IDE standard.

You might be able to go through an IDE to scsi converter board but they're pricey with no guarantee it would work.

If you need drives, there's still a good number of wide/ultra drives on ebay. The $2.00 (often with free shipping) scsi converters work well, taking the drive to a 50-pin connector that will plug into the 6100. Thanks somewhat to this thread, I've hauled my 6100 out and installed a 9g 80-pin drive with one of these converters and it works great. The only thing you may need to do is use a third party or patched Apple utility for the initial formatting and partitioning.*

* A very handy thing to have for any Mac collection is a bootable CD that has all these handy utilities installed. I took a Norton Utilities CD (since it had a generic PPC System folder on it that boots everything from the 6100 through at least the Sawtooth G4), dumped the System Folder into a 650MB Disc Copy blank image, then loaded that image with utilities and installers. Then burn the image to a blank CD.

I remember there was a very simple tiny overclocking device for the 6100 you could pick-up that attached to the motherboard somewhere and it had this tiny little fan. It was like a 10 or 20% speed bump.

I have one You can still buy them believe it or not.

http://www.well.com/user/oe/

The fan was just a fairly standard small fan of the right size to squeeze in between the top prongs of the 601 heatsink, wired to a 4-pin disk power plug.

Anyone attempting to OC a 6100 in this day and age would be well advised to renew the heatsink paste.

In case y'all couldn't tell, I am also a huge fan of the 6100s. It was my first Mac - indeed the first computer I owned myself.

Here are some of my previous adventures:

6100 Overclocking and cooling
PizzaPlayer: 6100 based rackmount audio FX unit/sampler/synthesizer
Thoughts on a slim keyboard & Display: minimum footprint peripherals for the PizzaPlayer
Powerbook keyboard to ADB: more of the above

you can still buy the Sonnest 400 and 500MHz G3s new

Crescendo/NuBus G3 400 MHz with 1MB cache.
$29.95 (In Stock)

And if you overclock the 6100, I think you also overclock the accelerator

it is possible to use a Cache Card from one of the other PowerPC systems in the 6100 series computers

Only from a 7100 or 8100 series machine - ie, from another 601 machine. The compatibility list for the above accelerator lists all the model names and numbers they were released under.

Doc: Some of the links up on the information page you sent are no longer valid

http://www.archive.org

Thanks Again. :)

You are most welcome

OWC carries the 256K Cache Card for the unbelievable price of...(drum roll please) 25 cents ($0.25) each! I bought four. lol :)

Hehehehe Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to design an adapter card to use all four 256k sticks in a single slot. The 1MB cache is unobtanium, you see ...

The PDS slot can be used for the AV card or the DOS card. / It's also important to get each card's respective angle adapter for it to fit in the 6100 case. Those aren't interchangable between AV and DOS cards. The DOS one has a lot of extra stuff on it

IIRC, the adapter for the 6100 DOS card actually implements an 040 (Quadra) PDS - as such, the DOS cards for the Quadras and the 6100 are interchangeable.

One wonders what other Quadra PDS cards could go in there ...

One wonders what other Quadra PDS cards could go in there ...

You could try installing one of the Quadra PPC upgrade cards in the 6100 :grin:

Apple's formatting utilities prefer Apple-rommed drives.
If you have other OS CDs or floppies, try one of them, just for the disk utility, then after formatting reboot with your 8.5 CD.
I just formatted a Seagate ultra-wide on my 6100, but after some indecision about which OS to install I now can't remember which disc did the trick. I think it was either 7.6.1 or 8.6.
There's an old program called SCSI Director that will work, as well as FWB Hard Disk Toolkit if you have access to those.

If you have one drive from your 6100s with a working OS installed, you can remove the CD-ROM drive, and temporarily put the working drive in its place. You may also have to change that drive's scsi ID...the Apple default is 0 for the hard drive, 3 for the CD-ROM. Assuming your Compaq drive is set to 0, you just need to ensure the Apple drive is not 0.
With a working drive in there, you can try its Drive Setup, or if you're set up for it, download a different version of Drive Setup.

I did some testing on a fresh drive so see which OS discs will format a non-Apple scsi.
My test drive is a 4 GB Seagate UW 80-pin with a cheap-o Chinese 80-pin to 50-pin converter. scsi ID #0 on drive, #3 for CD-ROM.

7.5 no (this is the OS disc included with the later 6100/66)
7.6 no
7.6.1 no (sorry!)
8 yes
8.6 yes (a beige G3 installer disc)

The 8.1 disk tools floppy is available from Apple's downloads still if you're able to get that image onto a floppy.
One note if that works, is to not format the drive with the extended format if you intend to install a pre-8.1 OS.

Slightly off topic...

Way back when, in the days when a single blank CD cost nearly $20, I managed to borrow a burner and backed up my 6100.
Not having much in the way of spare drive space, I deleted a few games and such that I had on CD or floppy, used Disk-Doubler to compress many of my files, then burned the whole drive complete with System Folder to a CD-ROM.

With a functioning 6100 again, I was able to copy everything onto to a drive, expand it, bless the System Folder, and I had an exact copy of my old 6100 circa late 1996. It's very nostalgic: System 7.5.5, PPP dial-up, Netscape Navigator 1.0N and 3.1, and Photoshop 2.5.1. Utilities include Dragthing, Default Folder, Greg's Buttons and Décor to change the desktop background.

The only thing I'm missing is an AV card. Well, I have one, but I lack an angle adapter for the 6100. But when I made that CD image, my original AV card may have already been toast, thanks to some faulty wiring in the house we were in at the time.

I once had a "beefed-up" 6100 DOS. It had the DOS card (doh!), ran Windows 95 SE and NT, 7.6.1 (hadn't much fun with any 8.x), MKLinux and a G3 upgrade (note: the DOS card did not work together the upgrade as far as I remember). I think I still have some stuff for 6100 machines like the angled adapter card, RAM and upgrade - just will take some time to search my chaos though...

J