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Replies:
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Last Post:
Aug 22, 2015 11:49 AM
Last Post By: dougg3
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Posts:
4
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4/23/15
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Rom Upgrade for Supermac Spectrum/24 PDQ+
Posted:
Apr 23, 2015 12:41 AM
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To all,
I've recently acquired a Quadra950 and purchased a Spectrum/24 PDQ+ off eBay.
The card works great in 68k mode, but with the Apple PPC PDS card it chugs... the screen redraw rate is terrible.
I've read that I need to update the ROM to v3.0 or higher. It is currently "1003368-0001A S/24 PDQ+ v1.292".
(note that I intially thought this was a Thunder/24... re-reading the ROM sticker has enlightened me)
I was wondering:
1) Does anyone know of any sources for Rom Upgrades?
2) Are there any software tools to download the firmware from the card? Seems I can use SlotROM / declrom.
3) Could pull the data off the chip directly with a reader, as I'm assuming it's an EEPROM?
4) If I can find an image, I should be able to write another EEPROM get an upgrade working?
... looking
Is there a chance anyone here has the 'latest'/'last' upgrade Supermac ever did?
Did Radius ever then make further upgrades for Supermac cards, regardless that they rebranded them?
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Steven
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Posts:
493
Registered:
7/25/12
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Re: Rom Upgrade for Supermac Spectrum/24 PDQ+
Posted:
Apr 24, 2015 10:33 AM
in response to: stevenh
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If you've got an eprom burner and can find the image, you can probably just buy another chip for it and program that. If you peel back the sticker over the chip, it will probably have the identifier, like 29F040 or something. I assume it's the little square like most of the video cards of that era, and that's the PLCC package.
I don't happen to have a copy of the newer ROM so I can't help you out there.
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Posts:
4
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4/23/15
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Re: Rom Upgrade for Supermac Spectrum/24 PDQ+
Posted:
Apr 25, 2015 1:56 AM
in response to: bbraun
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Got it... thanks for the reply.
I've just tried the Supermac Control panels and it seems it can set custom timings.. I wonder if I can hex-edit them in the control panel or see how it adjusts the timings on the card. That's if it sends them to the card. Are the ROMs writable? The name wouldn't make much sense if they were.
Something to play with...
I tried slotrom anyway and it ran out of RAM whilst trying to pull the bios from Slot10 which I can only assume is the video card. "Not enough available memory" even with Virtual Memory enabled.
Meanwhile, if I, for example, wanted to test your declrom code on the Quadra... how would one go about compiling the code?
I've just tried MPW and CodeWarrior and neither of them are posix-compliant enough or up-to-date with GCC. Libraries missing left right and center...
I take it you cross-compile and then flick over to the hardware of choice to execute?
...it has just occurred to me that the screenshot on your declrom page is not actually of declrom running... it's of another app that views the slot data?
Steven
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Posts:
493
Registered:
7/25/12
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Re: Rom Upgrade for Supermac Spectrum/24 PDQ+
Posted:
Apr 26, 2015 1:58 PM
in response to: stevenh
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AFAIK, the ROM is not in-system writeable, although could probably be erased and reprogrammed in an eprom programmer.
Modifying the control panel probably won't have much effect on the resolutions. I believe the way the old graphics drivers worked is the driver (in the ROM) had it's own table of resolutions and timings.
My declrom tools are built on linux or osx, and they're just used to construct the declrom. Setup the proper tables and required entries, checksum, etc. Any actual code must be provided separately.
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Posts:
4
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4/23/15
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Re: Rom Upgrade for Supermac Spectrum/24 PDQ+
Posted:
Apr 29, 2015 8:38 PM
in response to: bbraun
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bbraun,
I've now got on order a burner, a bunch of EPROMs (I was initially confused with EEPROMs, but they're the just the newer version with electronic-erase), an actual v3.1 ROM burned on an EPROM and the rom image itself.
I was fortunate to find a seller with the v3.1 ROM available.
It seems that I'll want to ResEdit the control panel to edit a resolution in the list for 'display purposes' and then edit the timings in the associated resolution in the ROM. I can't say this will be easy and I can't say if I'll even be capable of doing this. But I'm going to give it a try. Mainly because I got a free LCD that does 1280x1024 and only allows image stretching. You cannot set it to display the current 1152x870 as pixel-for-pixel... so I want the proper 1:1 resolution output from the card.
I've been keeping a post going here: modelrail.otenko.com/apple/quadra-950-updating-graphics-and-dsps
I'll update again if I manage to hack the ROM apart.
Thanks again for the response
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Posts:
1
Registered:
8/21/15
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Re: Rom Upgrade for Supermac Spectrum/24 PDQ+
Posted:
Aug 21, 2015 3:43 PM
in response to: stevenh
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Hello!
Sorry this isn't really an answer to your query, but I too picked up a SuperMac Spectrum 24 on ebay and have been unable to locate drivers for it. If you don't mind, I was curious from where you downloaded your copy? Thanks so much!
-Andy
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Posts:
190
Registered:
8/13/12
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