My father tends to hold onto old computer equipment, boxes, and the like. It's not so much an intentional collection, just things never gotten rid of. Since I've been building a small collection, I asked if he had any of the old Apple stuff still, and while he no longer had the SE/30 (heavily upgraded), or the Quadra 800, he did still have the 7300/200 which I remembered had an OrangePC card in it. So of course I'm interested because this is a bit of nostalgia, and would be interesting to play with the OrangePC card a bit. I remember it working quite a bit better than VirtualPC back in the day, and did use it for some Win95 era PC games.
I've wound up taking quite a bit of what he's willing to give up. As he's getting older, there's quite a bit he'll very likely never use again, and after telling him that anything I can't make use of will be sold/donated once I check it, I started loading up a lot more than I originally was looking to pick up. APS external SCSI enclosures that hold a hard drive and a tape or MO drive, a couple old third-party ADB extended keyboards, other assorted ADB gadgets (including an adapter for PS/2 mice), boxed copies of MacOS 8, 8.5 and 9, along with RAM Doubler 9. Some old Apple II disks that I want to see if they still read. He threw a couple more (complete) OrangePC cards at me that I didn't even knew he had as well. The NEC monitor that went with the 7300, and of course the 7300 itself.
I still need to go back for the Apple II+ at some point. That has one bad drive that needs fixing, but otherwise still worked the last time I saw it with a color composite monitor. That one I don't think I'll keep, but I do want to restore it and find it a good home because it is in very good condition for its age, and still has the original boxes.
This will be a lot that I need to go through, and will take some time, so expect many small updates. But we can start with what will be the first steps: Broken plastics of the 7300 and the OrangePC cards.
Because of the old, brittle plastic, the power switch of course broke the first time I tried to turn it on to see if it still boots. Thanks to @alxlab, I printed out their replacement leaf spring. I have to either shave off more of the original switch mechanism to make it work, or go with the full replacement. Haven't decided yet, but at least it can power it on (most of the time) via the button in the short term.
The OrangePC cards though, this is interesting. A 550, a 540, and a 525. All three have their cables and boxes, and the latter two have their software and printed manuals.
The 525 is a Pentium 100 with 16MB RAM. But in the box I found a 200Mhz Pentium w/MMX upgrade from Evergreen and what looks to be the original 8MB RAM stick. Not sure the CPU upgrade will actually work on this board, as the 520/540 needed a custom version of the MMX CPUs that included an interposer which you got from OrangePC directly. Not sure if the 525 also needs it, and perhaps that's why the upgrade sits uninstalled. Need to dig in on that one.
The 540 is surprisingly stock. Has the original 64MB RAM stick, and what looks like a 233 MMX installed. Unfortunately, the interposer that Orange Micro used prevents you from getting the part number off this era of Intel CPUs. Will need to confirm it's the original CPU when I test it, but the test report from Orange Micro in the box says it should be a 233.
The 550 is the one that came out of the 7300. This was the step up from the 540 with 3D acceleration from S3, which barely anything supports. Oh well. It's been upgraded to 32MB RAM and while it originally came with a Cyrix 6x86 "P166+", it also looks like it has been upgraded to a Pentium 233 MMX (I'm not sure if this happened before or after I moved out). I found the original CPU in the box, so I have that on hand as well.
I am not actually sure what I want to do with the cards yet. I know I want to keep at least one to use for some Win95/98 era stuff. But there's no way I need 3. But I do want to make sure they are all functional before I move on. I'd love to get my hands on a 660, but these cards are already rare enough as it is. I feel lucky to just have one, let alone 3 complete units. I don't see much detail on the pinout of the cables for these things, so I might beep out the cable so someone could build their own. There's over a half-dozen ports off these things... that'll be fun.
I've wound up taking quite a bit of what he's willing to give up. As he's getting older, there's quite a bit he'll very likely never use again, and after telling him that anything I can't make use of will be sold/donated once I check it, I started loading up a lot more than I originally was looking to pick up. APS external SCSI enclosures that hold a hard drive and a tape or MO drive, a couple old third-party ADB extended keyboards, other assorted ADB gadgets (including an adapter for PS/2 mice), boxed copies of MacOS 8, 8.5 and 9, along with RAM Doubler 9. Some old Apple II disks that I want to see if they still read. He threw a couple more (complete) OrangePC cards at me that I didn't even knew he had as well. The NEC monitor that went with the 7300, and of course the 7300 itself.
I still need to go back for the Apple II+ at some point. That has one bad drive that needs fixing, but otherwise still worked the last time I saw it with a color composite monitor. That one I don't think I'll keep, but I do want to restore it and find it a good home because it is in very good condition for its age, and still has the original boxes.
This will be a lot that I need to go through, and will take some time, so expect many small updates. But we can start with what will be the first steps: Broken plastics of the 7300 and the OrangePC cards.
Because of the old, brittle plastic, the power switch of course broke the first time I tried to turn it on to see if it still boots. Thanks to @alxlab, I printed out their replacement leaf spring. I have to either shave off more of the original switch mechanism to make it work, or go with the full replacement. Haven't decided yet, but at least it can power it on (most of the time) via the button in the short term.
The OrangePC cards though, this is interesting. A 550, a 540, and a 525. All three have their cables and boxes, and the latter two have their software and printed manuals.
The 525 is a Pentium 100 with 16MB RAM. But in the box I found a 200Mhz Pentium w/MMX upgrade from Evergreen and what looks to be the original 8MB RAM stick. Not sure the CPU upgrade will actually work on this board, as the 520/540 needed a custom version of the MMX CPUs that included an interposer which you got from OrangePC directly. Not sure if the 525 also needs it, and perhaps that's why the upgrade sits uninstalled. Need to dig in on that one.
The 540 is surprisingly stock. Has the original 64MB RAM stick, and what looks like a 233 MMX installed. Unfortunately, the interposer that Orange Micro used prevents you from getting the part number off this era of Intel CPUs. Will need to confirm it's the original CPU when I test it, but the test report from Orange Micro in the box says it should be a 233.
The 550 is the one that came out of the 7300. This was the step up from the 540 with 3D acceleration from S3, which barely anything supports. Oh well. It's been upgraded to 32MB RAM and while it originally came with a Cyrix 6x86 "P166+", it also looks like it has been upgraded to a Pentium 233 MMX (I'm not sure if this happened before or after I moved out). I found the original CPU in the box, so I have that on hand as well.
I am not actually sure what I want to do with the cards yet. I know I want to keep at least one to use for some Win95/98 era stuff. But there's no way I need 3. But I do want to make sure they are all functional before I move on. I'd love to get my hands on a 660, but these cards are already rare enough as it is. I feel lucky to just have one, let alone 3 complete units. I don't see much detail on the pinout of the cables for these things, so I might beep out the cable so someone could build their own. There's over a half-dozen ports off these things... that'll be fun.
Looks like 1995-1997 S3 Graphics Goodness on board.