AST Research Mac86 DOS Compatibility Card Surprise

[Hurry]

Summer is over and I'm back to tinkering. I finally achieved a local reputation as "the guy who will give you money for the old old beige junk you find in your house" and an SE FDHD walked into my kitchen a few weeks ago.

To my delight it contains a PDS expansion AST Mac86 DOS Compatibility card. I think this is my first unexpected bonus goodie find.

The internet is pretty thin on information about this card beyond identifying what it is and what it is for... I don't even see them on eBay. I can only assume they were of limited use, but so far I can't find anything substantial about them.

Anyone here have any recollection/experience with these? Any tips on where to start if I wanted to test it out and see what it can do?

 

[mg.man]

Wow... neat! That (37 pin?) connector will be for a 5 1/4" floppy. Probably the same drive Apple made for the NuBUS card that allowed you to read/write "IBM" and I believe CP/M formatted floppies. There is some driver s/w around for the slightly more common AST NuBUS DOS cards, but NO idea if that'd work with your card.

 

[mg.man]

Ah ha... there's a reference to the Mac86 here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac286

 

[retr01]

And it is also for sale by someone on eBay:

Vtg Apple Macintosh 1988 AST Mac86 Compressor Board for Mac SE | eBay

<p>Vtg Apple Macintosh 1988 AST Mac86 Compressor Board for Mac SE. </p><br /><p>Untested, looks like the unit was openened but never installed, please see photos. Thank you.</p>

www.ebay.com

 

[Hurry]

Wow... neat! That (37 pin?) connector will be for a 5 1/4" floppy. Probably the same drive Apple made for the NuBUS card that allowed you to read/write "IBM" and I believe CP/M formatted floppies. There is some driver s/w around for the slightly more common AST NuBUS DOS cards, but NO idea if that'd work with your card.

It is a 37-pin connector. And that I don't have - an external floppy to connect to this. I was wondering if the board required its DOS input via the floppy or if running a suitable DOS app from something like a BlueSCSI would suffice. I am curious if the Mac286 drivers will work with this, as I can't find any strictly Mac86 drivers online.

I suspect, given my time and resources, I'll end up auctioning or trading this away to someone who has the ability to push it around and possibly document it.

 

[Hurry]

And it is also for sale by someone on eBay:

Vtg Apple Macintosh 1988 AST Mac86 Compressor Board for Mac SE | eBay

<p>Vtg Apple Macintosh 1988 AST Mac86 Compressor Board for Mac SE. </p><br /><p>Untested, looks like the unit was openened but never installed, please see photos. Thank you.</p>

www.ebay.com

Oh cool - I searched high and low and couldn't find anything - I think possibly the seller's use of the term "compression" card might be why this didn't come up in my searches for current / sold listings.

 

[retr01]

Oh cool - I searched high and low and couldn't find anything - I think possibly the seller's use of the term "compression" card might be why this didn't come up in my searches for current / sold listings.

Yep. The seller may have mistaken the card for a video compression card.