4 ms·

StarMax series (and the 4400) seemed to be about as close to CHRP as we got. My off-brand StarMax clone (PowerCity) had a PS/2 and an ISA port. Ran BeOS well, a

by 65a 10mo ago

StarMax series (and the 4400) seemed to be about as close to CHRP as we got. My off-brand StarMax clone (PowerCity) had a PS/2 and an ISA port. Ran BeOS well, and had a quirk that I could hear a tight loop on the speaker.

winocm 10mo ago
Kinda sorts. The systems that the "MacOS on CHRP" thing ran on had a very strange looking device tree, with some bizarre combination of PC and Mac peripherals. Apple Cobra Open Firmware CHRP 1.1 B3 built on 08/18/97 at 13:04:24 Copyright Apple Computer 1994,1996,1997 Copyright IBM Corporation 1996 All rights reserved. ok 0 > dev / ls ff82ec18: /cpus ff82ee08: /PowerPC,604e@0 ff82f600: /chosen ff82f750: /memory@0 ff82f8d8: /memory-controller@fec00000 ff82f9d8: /openprom ff82fab8: /rom@ff000000 ff82ff48: /boot-rom@fff00000 ff830060: /options ff830828: /aliases ff830c78: /packages ff830d00: /deblocker ff8314c8: /disk-label ff832090: /obp-tftp ff835db8: /mac-parts ff836578: /mac-files ff837de0: /fat-files ff839700: /iso-9660-files ff83a148: /bootinfo-loader ff83b7d0: /xcoff-loader ff83c060: /pe-loader ff83c7d0: /elf-loader ff83da18: /terminal-emulator ff83dab0: /rtas ff83dc70: /pci@80000000 ff83ff38: /isa@b ff8414e0: /nvram@i74 ff841ad0: /rtc@i70 ff842500: /parallel@i378 ff842988: /serial@i3f8 ff843020: /serial@i2f8 ff8436b8: /sound@i534 ff850288: /8042@i60 ff8515f8: /keyboard@0 ff854b88: /mouse@1 ff8554c0: /fdc@i3f0 ff858730: /disk@1 ff85bac0: /op-panel@i808 ff85bba0: /pwr-mgmt@i82a ff85bed8: /timer@i40 ff85c070: /interrupt-controller@i20 ff85c250: /dma-controller@i0 ff85c738: /pci-ide@b,1 ff85d028: /ide@0 ff85db78: /ide@1 ff85e6c8: /cdrom@0 ff862e60: /mac-io@d ff863468: /scsi@10000 ff865298: /disk ff8660c8: /tape ff8671b8: /adb@11000 ff867cb0: /keyboard@2 ff8685a0: /mouse@3 ff8687c0: /escc-legacy@12000 ff8689b8: /ch-a@12002 ff868b08: /ch-b@12000 ff868c58: /escc@13000 ff868e40: /ch-a@13020 ff869500: /ch-b@13000 ff869bc0: /via@16000 ff869cb0: /interrupt-controller@40000 ff869e70: /cirrus@e ff86e2c8: /pci1022,2000@f ok 0 > Refer to the "Macintosh Technology in the Common Hardware Reference Platform" book for more information, if you're curious about the Mac IO pieces. The Motorola Yellowknife board seems remarkably similar to this system, as well as the IBM Long Trail system (albeit with Long Trail using a VLSI Golden Gate versus a MPC106 memory controller). Both of them use W83C553 southbridges and PC87307 Super I/O controllers. The architecture is kind of weird, but the schematics on NXP's website can probably elucidate a bit more on the system's design.
fredoralive 10mo ago
AFAIK most StarMax systems that were released (a prototype exists of a CHRP StarMax model) are based on the Tanzania / LPX-40 design, which is mostly a traditional PCI PowerMac[1], albeit with oddities like support for PC style floppy drives. PS/2 is handled by the CudaLite microcontroller which presents it to the OS as ADB devices for example. I've not heard of a version with ISA slots, although I assume you could just have a PCI to ISA bridge chip, even if MacOS presumably wouldn't do anything with it. [1] https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/apple_hardware_devnotes/LPX-40%20Dev%20Note(4400-).pdf https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/apple_hardware_d...
- 65a 10mo ago
  Right, I think those were the closest we got to the CHRP standard, as they moved the platform toward PC-style floppies, PS/2, ATX PSU and even more generic "platform" stuff than most clones. I'm fairly sure I had an ISA slot, I do remember trying to get a bargain bin NE2K card working in mine under linux (it didn't work). Definitely did nothing under OS 8/9. The powercity models were interesting, because they came out after Apple revoked Motorola's clone license. A German company, ComJet, bought up the boards and sold unlicensed clones cheap. Case was slightly different, but otherwise they corresponded to StarMax models (fairly certain they were identical but may have been last revision boards).

by 65a 10mo ago

winocm 10mo ago

Kinda sorts. The systems that the "MacOS on CHRP" thing ran on had a very strange looking device tree, with some bizarre combination of PC and Mac peripherals. Apple Cobra Open Firmware CHRP 1.1 B3 built on 08/18/97 at 13:04:24 Copyright Apple Computer 1994,1996,1997 Copyright IBM Corporation 1996 All rights reserved. ok 0 > dev / ls ff82ec18: /cpus ff82ee08: /PowerPC,604e@0 ff82f600: /chosen ff82f750: /memory@0 ff82f8d8: /memory-controller@fec00000 ff82f9d8: /openprom ff82fab8: /rom@ff000000 ff82ff48: /boot-rom@fff00000 ff830060: /options ff830828: /aliases ff830c78: /packages ff830d00: /deblocker ff8314c8: /disk-label ff832090: /obp-tftp ff835db8: /mac-parts ff836578: /mac-files ff837de0: /fat-files ff839700: /iso-9660-files ff83a148: /bootinfo-loader ff83b7d0: /xcoff-loader ff83c060: /pe-loader ff83c7d0: /elf-loader ff83da18: /terminal-emulator ff83dab0: /rtas ff83dc70: /pci@80000000 ff83ff38: /isa@b ff8414e0: /nvram@i74 ff841ad0: /rtc@i70 ff842500: /parallel@i378 ff842988: /serial@i3f8 ff843020: /serial@i2f8 ff8436b8: /sound@i534 ff850288: /8042@i60 ff8515f8: /keyboard@0 ff854b88: /mouse@1 ff8554c0: /fdc@i3f0 ff858730: /disk@1 ff85bac0: /op-panel@i808 ff85bba0: /pwr-mgmt@i82a ff85bed8: /timer@i40 ff85c070: /interrupt-controller@i20 ff85c250: /dma-controller@i0 ff85c738: /pci-ide@b,1 ff85d028: /ide@0 ff85db78: /ide@1 ff85e6c8: /cdrom@0 ff862e60: /mac-io@d ff863468: /scsi@10000 ff865298: /disk ff8660c8: /tape ff8671b8: /adb@11000 ff867cb0: /keyboard@2 ff8685a0: /mouse@3 ff8687c0: /escc-legacy@12000 ff8689b8: /ch-a@12002 ff868b08: /ch-b@12000 ff868c58: /escc@13000 ff868e40: /ch-a@13020 ff869500: /ch-b@13000 ff869bc0: /via@16000 ff869cb0: /interrupt-controller@40000 ff869e70: /cirrus@e ff86e2c8: /pci1022,2000@f ok 0 > Refer to the "Macintosh Technology in the Common Hardware Reference Platform" book for more information, if you're curious about the Mac IO pieces. The Motorola Yellowknife board seems remarkably similar to this system, as well as the IBM Long Trail system (albeit with Long Trail using a VLSI Golden Gate versus a MPC106 memory controller). Both of them use W83C553 southbridges and PC87307 Super I/O controllers. The architecture is kind of weird, but the schematics on NXP's website can probably elucidate a bit more on the system's design.

fredoralive 10mo ago

AFAIK most StarMax systems that were released (a prototype exists of a CHRP StarMax model) are based on the Tanzania / LPX-40 design, which is mostly a traditional PCI PowerMac[1], albeit with oddities like support for PC style floppy drives. PS/2 is handled by the CudaLite microcontroller which presents it to the OS as ADB devices for example. I've not heard of a version with ISA slots, although I assume you could just have a PCI to ISA bridge chip, even if MacOS presumably wouldn't do anything with it. [1] https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/apple_hardware_devnotes/LPX-40%20Dev%20Note(4400-).pdf https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/apple_hardware_d...

65a 10mo ago
Right, I think those were the closest we got to the CHRP standard, as they moved the platform toward PC-style floppies, PS/2, ATX PSU and even more generic "platform" stuff than most clones. I'm fairly sure I had an ISA slot, I do remember trying to get a bargain bin NE2K card working in mine under linux (it didn't work). Definitely did nothing under OS 8/9. The powercity models were interesting, because they came out after Apple revoked Motorola's clone license. A German company, ComJet, bought up the boards and sold unlicensed clones cheap. Case was slightly different, but otherwise they corresponded to StarMax models (fairly certain they were identical but may have been last revision boards).