Software for Sonnet Crescendo 604e?

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bakkus

Moderator
Staff member
Mar 18, 2022
96
65
18
Greetings all!
Buried in a 7100 I ran across this thing:
PXL_20230712_170022484.jpg


After some research, it turns out this is a Sonnet 604e processor upgrade for the x100 series PDS slot.

I now have it mounted in my 8100, and it didn't blow up!
Unfortunately it's not working either.

I might be mistaken, but from what I gather the Sonnet Crescendo/Encore software such as 2.3.1 only contains extensions for their G3 series.
Even 1.4.2 which is the oldest I could find only mentions G3s.

I see old whispers on the Internet talking about using Sonnet Crescendo v1.0.3 - but where to find it?
I've checked the Garden, Mac Driver Museum and around archive.org.

Any clues?
 

David Cook

Tinkerer
Jul 20, 2023
58
53
18
Had another go at the Wayback Machine, and was able to find a copy version 1.2.4 which works!
I've uploaded it to the Garden along with some information.
Documenting here too, so that others might struggle less than I did.

That's pretty cool. Based on the picture, I thought it was a 7300/7600 card. It should just pop in and work. Upon reading, I understood it was more interesting and it needs software to kick in.
 

bakkus

Moderator
Staff member
Mar 18, 2022
96
65
18
That's pretty cool. Based on the picture, I thought it was a 7300/7600 card. It should just pop in and work. Upon reading, I understood it was more interesting and it needs software to kick in.
These PDS accelerators are a bit more involved than the 7x00-series, since here we're not actually replacing the CPU - we're adding an additional one.
That requires special software trickery to make the OS switch to that CPU during boot.