Thank you everyone for the kind comments about my friend Tom. He always loved to to tinker on his retro computers. He especially loved his Amiga 4000 which I have now in my collection
We used 40 of these machines to run an Appletalk network for a government department that used Macs everywhere. We used Apple Unix on them and had quite a few GB of discs in them. They were a BEAST of a machine. We ran them on a 100Mb/sec Ethernet cards made my 3Com - the cards cost $800 each. They were a workhorse. Ran them almost 8 years in that role before swapping them out for G4's.
Yeah, the noise is the floppy drive eject motor, needs a new gear. The motor will run until the gear position sensor detects it's moved a full revolution, but the gear's broken, so it just keeps spinning.
We ran all of ours on their side. Fun-fact. We had Seagate Baracuda SCSI drives in them. They didn't like being on their side. Had hundred or so fail before we put the machines in tower mode on a bench.
Funny you say this, but this is actually the first lock I ever picked. I got one of those Apple keylock switches from a surplus supplier, a few years after Apple had quit making these. I practiced on that switch till I got good enough to hold the lock, the torsion bar, and the pick all in one hand and pick the lock. Used to do that to show off to friends. It's actually a very easy lock to pick, and can be picked in seconds.
SUN and Industrial grade IBM PC's were also quite expensive. Corporations bought these types of high end computers for their quality and reliability. Downtime could cost 10s of thousands a day for some industries.
They were $2500 if you worked at Apple. Got mine from a friend.... that's how they managed to sell. It was the crappiest Apple computer I ever had, and that's saying A LOT!
Considering the crazy number of RAM slots, plus the crazy amount of software-based interfaces, and the power supply taking up half the machine and probably capable of producing three or four times the needed amperage, most likely it's literally hotter
I never liked the way the external units looked, but the googly eyes totally make the Zip drive aesthetic work for me. Iomega should have made them that way to begin with! :)
@@thedungeondelver I dunno. I never had problems with the SCSI, IDE, or USB versions. The parallel version was terrible, but that was because the port was so slow.
32 bit unclean Macs only use -16- (edit: 24) address lines from the CPU, so that would be 16 megabytes theoretical, but limited to 8 because of the need for other devices in the system.
@@eDoc2020 I thought 32-bit unclean ROMs used 24-bit addressing. Caused a bit of an issue when those 8 bits were used by the OS to store info about the pointers.
Er, not quite right. 32-bit unclean machines use 24 bits of addressing space; which yields 16 megabytes of address space. Various machines had various physical memory limits depending on how their address decoding hardware was set up. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS_memory_management and developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/mac/pdf/Devices/Slot_Manager.pdf for more details.
@@MaddTheSane Oops, I see I accidentialy wrote 16 lines instead of 24. I'll edit my original comment to correct this. My understanding is that the _OS_ using the extra 8 bits wasn't much of an issue because that could easily be updated. Rather the issue was applications bypassing the OS and directly modifying those flags.
He's doing it again! Delighted hand gestures FTW!! The best hand gestures on YT!! Question: Where can i buy the "So, stay tuned!"-Shirt in fancy colors and "The Hand" in the Background?
My dad and I went halves on 160MB of RAM (second hand) back in 1991 for our Mac IIfx machines for “only” $16,000.00 USD. They were a proprietary design which only worked in the Mac IIfx machines and Laserwriter IIntx printers. 80MB in each machine, coupled with our “whopping” 80MB hard drives made those machines formidable Photoshop 1/2/3 machines in their day.
Yeah, I remember upgrading my IIfx to 128MB - it used 68 pin simms iirc. I still have my Mac II and I upgraded to a IIx, again with 128MB RAM. It got more use than the IIfx! I still have it plugged in (although it hasn't been powered on in over 18 years!) The last time I had my IIx powered on it had 6 CRTs plugged in I "played" Doom. Funny as the the smallest screen was 28" yet to make Doom run at any playable speed I had to run the game in a window about the size of a postage stamp! I must get around to posting a few videos - I know where the keys to my Quadra 950 are!
Your compilation issue likely has to do with ANSI strictness of your C compiler. Once upon a time C required all variables to be declared at the top of a function body or code block. You can probably move the declaration of the type to the top and it should be ok
Oooh… I had one of those as my main workstation waaaayyyy back when I worked for Apple. Yeah, the PowerPCs that my project was primarily deployed on were faster, but for what I was doing it was plenty fast enough. Also, using a machine that’s at the bottom end of your supported range as your development machine does help keep your code tight.
@@ActionRetro The time in question was a really weird situation: Steve Jobs had closed down the Advanced Technology Group a little while before I started, but there was a grant contract with the National Science Foundation that was left over, and that grant had been with the ATG. Ostensibly, I was supposed to be doing some distributed web server/database engine programming; and I figured it would probably be in C or C++ (I was also familiar with pascal, but that had been out-of-style at Apple for a decade or so by then). Well, I got there and found out that the project was supposed to be configurable and modifiable by anyone with only basic computer skills, which meant that as a part of the grant contract, the database engine that I had to use was FileMaker Pro, with it’s built-in web server (the one that was a simplified version of Lasso). Eh, it’s a job, I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll either pull a rabbit out of my hat, or explain in detail why you can’t get there from here. Well, it turns out that had painted themselves into a corner, but there was one little possible escape path, if they were willing to slightly stretch the requirements to allow for inclusion of an AppleScript extension that would allow raw socket access. So, I ended up building a load-balancing, redundant cluster architecture, database driven website engine entirely in FileMaker Pro, with embedded AppleScripts to build HTTP transactions to keep everything in sync, and that socket access AppleScript extension to actually move the data from one instance to another. Was it a hack, that really should have been done in C/C++, as a native plug-in to FileMaker Pro? Yes. But, it did work, and on the G3 266 machines that it was deployed (eh, briefly… no more grant money = no more deployment) it was surprisingly snappy. And as mentioned above, when the grant money ran out, so did our employment. The project was then spun off into it’s own nonprofit foundation; but as far as I could tell, we were promised additional funding that never came through. Now, about the fact that it was under the umbrella of ATG: this meant that, technically at least, I was the last person out the door from the Advanced Technology Group (the other two people I was working with - my manager and another guy - were just ahead of me on that last afternoon). Also, there was some equipment that was gifted to that foundation by Apple that I got to haul out of the building: the deployment G3’s, my Quadra, and rather curiously, a Xerox Star… that had been in ATG. Things that make ya go “hmm”, hmm? 🤔
P.s. We had a white board in our office, and of course my manager drew a picture of a dolphin on it, captioned “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”.
@@darkwinter6028 that reminds me of the story of the guys who built the PPC graphing calculator, though of course your project was officially kept going while theirs was canned. Similar in being a small team with limited resources though.
That hard drive is a Seagate ST39102LC which means it's an SCA-type fast/wide SCSI interface, 9GB in capacity and 10k RPM. The buzzy noise is probably from the CD drive since most burner drives had tiny fans built-in back then. Some later drives only ran the fan when there was a disc in but others ran it constantly which was really annoying. I usually keep the constant-fan-type drives in external enclosures so I can turn them on/off as needed and reduce the fan noise/dust intake.
Guy casually reverse engineers a set of ram sticks. Mostly just to make them look cooler. My hat is off to that man and stellar work. The custom mod for the titan/ behemoth.
Maybe intented as a server, but also used as a workstation. At the industrial design department, we had a class full of them with each having one 21" monitor and one 14" attached. Printing was via the network on a A3 laser printer. They were loud indeed, but so were most computers at that the time, you didn't know better.
As far as I'm aware all case fans suck air in from the open side of the fan and blow out the grille side (the side that normally has the label). Quick way of working out air flow direction if the fan lacks an arrow or you can't see one from its current orientation.
I bought a new 950 back in '92 to run my entire semiconductor fab lab at the University of Florida. It was maxed out and set up with a number of boards from National Instruments. I used Labview and the Mac to measure temperatures, pH values, control my emergency backup generator and on and on. I used a program, I believe, was called Microphone Pro to call my neat new pager whenever an alarm occurred. It cut down my time running around checking everything each day from 1.5 hours to about 10 minutes!
So I have an old Macintosh clone (Radius 81/110) currently running MacOS 8 and I'd like to port a few of my smaller C projects over. This option (A/UX) is super tempting. The machine has some kind of Sonnet upgrade card in it, but I don't have the correct drivers for it at the moment.
1. Old Apple server gets online 2. Hacker connects to it 3. "Welcome to Apple" 4. Hacker: WTF ?! 5. Several hours later: "My ransomware does not run...!"
If compiling stops with simply too many warnings, going into the make file and editing out or deleting "-Werror" might help. Otherwise, if You can, try figuring out which GCC version the sourcecode wants and get that version. At worst You'd have to compile it too, which would take ages on an old computer. Even on newer ones with "make -j12" or whatever, to run multiple jobs on the compile process, compiling GCC takes a while. Good luck with Your apple behemoth! Really cool thing btw; congrats on owning that stupidly huge looking apple server thingy now :D
you chose the wrong noctua imho ^^ it might make better airflow, but the other one is more optimized for pressure, and the power supply seems to be quite densely packed with components and the airflow optimized fan doesn't have much pressure to work air through there all the way to the back... in the end it still might be enough if you don't load it too much, but I wouldn't trust it for long extensive use.
@@ActionRetro the NF-P12 you showed probably would be fine, but if you want their best fan right now it's the NF-A12x25 that is optimized for pressure and airflow. Noctua has a nice guide for that on their page: noctua.at/en/which_fan_is_right_for_me
Isn’t that drive a SCA drive? I have one in an external enclosure. They are meant for servers. The breakout board adapts the drive to scsi, and has the scsi jumpers for scsi ID on it. I also have some 68 pin scsi drives, but their adapter is just a straight pass through.
@@locnar1701 ironically I just needed to change the scsi I’d on mine as it conflicted with my Umax C500! After posting this too. Lol. Who would have guessed. It is first time I’ve changed it in years.
I’ve been patiently awaiting more of your shenanigans! And the hands gestures of course :) As a side note, as you're a retro channel, it would be hilarious if you made a video about you trying to edit one of your videos on an old Mac... Maybe the overkill G4 Cube! You'd probably lose your mind but it's all for comedy! 😂
On the G4 Cube it would probably be Not so different from editing on a modern PC. The G4 Cube Runs OSX 10.4/10.5 which Supports Lots of editing Software that isn't so different from today's Software.
@@nilswegner2881 How about editing a video on the Pismo? That'll be pretty funny. I'm not talking about his overkill one either; a base model Pismo or Wallstreet will be infuriatingly slow.
A G5 XServe of All Things! If only the prices were reasonable... Even the PowerPC Machines that are basically worthless Go for ridiculous prices... You can basically buy a modern AMD Server for the price of an old worthless G5 XServe.
The Quadra 700 was essentially a Mac2CI case turnedon it'sside. I remember outfitting our 900an950s with 128 megabytes of RAM which came in huge waffle SIMS.
I have an idea of why the compilation is failing. The piece of code it breaks on is "struct descriptor_data *pt;", a variable declaration in the middle of a block. In the C language before C99, you were only allowed to declare variables at the very beginning of a block, and older versions of GCC defaulted to C89 unless you passed a -std=c99 or -std=gnu99 to them as a command line flag. I would add that to your CFLAGS and try again to see if the build will work. EDIT: Never mind, gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html states that support for it only appeared in GCC 3.0. I'd try moving the declaration to the top of the block instead, then.
OMG, 256 MB of RAM in 1992 is insane! My parents bought a computer with 256 MB of RAM in 2000 and it was like a higher end configuration (starting at 64 MB). This is probably equivalent to a current 768 GB Mac Pro.
Tell me about it, my PC at the time had 64 megs of RAM and everybody thought it was amazing. I used to let it clock the memory up on boot just tp show off.
FYI -- A cheap 80 Pin 15K SCSI drive will run rings around that SCSI2SD V5. Full benchmarks of the much faster V6 on a range of SGI systems here: forums.irixnet.org/thread-2004-post-13344.html
These 15K SCSI Drives are insanely fast. I Run two of them in raid 0 in an older HP Server that I use as a MySQL Database Machine and Media Server. In this configuration the Server actually feels Like I have an SSD inside while it's actually two ultra-320 SCSI Drives.
I had 12 of these Macines. 4 of them were full of Radius Rockets, and one had the A/US WGS 95 SCSI card. I also had a WGS 9150/110. ( Same case, 110Mhz 601PPC. ) The bottom was essentially a modular power supply, with 4 connectors for each hard disk, CD Rom or DAT Tape. The Black connector is an SCA ( System Connector Architecture ) for both Fast SCSI, Wide SCSI and power. )
That style of PRAM batteries in these macs are so weird. I have a PowerMac G4 from 03', dead as a door nail. But my 04' G5? Strong as it was brand new. My iMac from 06? More dead than me on a monday morning after a fun sunday night
I ran A/UX 3.0 on mine, realized what a total piece of crap the Quadra 900 was, and bought a NeXT Cube. It did _EVERYTHING_ the Quadra 900 did. My plan was to get a Quadra 700 and keep the Cube, but I ended up using only NeXTStep after that until NeXT ate up Apple in 1996.
The hard drive (10:36) is a Seagate Cheetah ST39102LC (9GB @10krpm) sca connector scsi www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/scsi/29240c.pdf Those are wonderful drives and are very reliable. Google the model number "ST3....." for info
Looking at your error messages at 24:17, it appears that you're getting a syntax error on db.c. I'm referencing this version of the file: github.com/tbamud/tbamud/blob/master/src/db.c which has the offending line at 2568 instead of 2554. tl;dr move "struct descriptor_data *pt;" up three lines and recompile So, there's a few different versions of C that you need to be aware of: ANSI C and C99. The latter is the version of C that lets you declare variables anywhere inside of a function; while the former ONLY allows variable declarations immediately after an opening curly brace {, which begins a new variable scope. Since you're using an old version of GCC I would imagine it also has the ANSI C limitation. (Fun fact: For a very long while Microsoft Visual C had the same limitation - if you wanted to compile your C code as C, you were limited to ANSI C. If you wanted C99 syntax and features you actually had to use C++, because MSVC++ supported features that MSVC didn't.)
@@babyboomertwerkteam5662 I have to wonder if it would be easier to slightly modify the source to be ANSI C or cross-compile a newer version of GCC to A/UX...
This is the correct answer. I have run into the same problem myself forgetting about old standards when writing code for DOS Watcom C. Putting all your variable declarations at the start of a function in the "old fashioned" way of ANSI C solves all the problems.
MSVC, like a lot of Microsoft software, was amazingly incompetent for its market leading position. (Although, not defining your variables in the function header is heresy anyway. Haha)
13:27 either the mic isn't doing it justice or you have a weird definition of loud. If I adjust my volume so that your voice is around 60 db the pc is still pretty quiet, my pc is way louder in comparison.
@@deltacx1059 it’s a cardioid mic, so everything behind the mic will be way quieter than everything in front of it. No post processing needed, just the physics of the mic capsule.
Is not the mint colour issue to do with the signal getting to the monitor being faulty? Back in the day, I seem to recall swapping out the cable from Mac to monitor one of the main culprits as one of the cores carried each a different colour.
I remember as a kid having some big mac book? With a section that had pictures and specs of all the machines. I always wanted a Quadra 950/workgroup 95.
Hey there fellow A/UX fan. I tweeted at you but since you mentioned my baby in your last video, I put up a build of nano for AUX. Albeit it's a bit of a hack since my scsi2sd environment is MIA currently and I had to use an emulator to throw everything together. I hope you find it useful!
Swapping ram sticks around to different slots to get them to work, the story of my life with my server with 64GB, I had to mark each stick so If I ever have to take them out, they go right back in the same slot with the same CPU, if one is misplaced, just forget it, it wont even boot, I hate it so much, lmao
I believe the Q950 CD option was a caddy loader only. Those faceplates are made of unobtanium. Always wanted to add a CDROM to my Q950 but just looks so ugly without the right bezel!
interesting that your compile is crashing at the make part. What I am used to is, if I got through the configure part then the compilation of stuff pretty always worked. I often had issues with the configure part, that needed to be fixed.
Hi Action Retro! I was wondering what happened to the PowerBook 1400c. Did you ever manage to find a Sonnet upgrade card for it? Will we ever see it in the future? :)
i used to compile circle mud on gcc 2.95 on my 486 running linux i'd be happy to try and help out looking for an emulator that will run a/ux to see if i can get it compiled for you
I gave mine away 20 years ago when I moved down south. It's one of several regrets I have to this day. There is just something about them that's a little bit of awesome.
Yes. It shouldn't have been the problem. Just a straight pass through. I was thinking of buying some since 80 and 68 scsi drives are easier to find than 50 pins... form my Vintage Macs and 286, 386, and 486 vintage pcs.
@@auteurfiddler8706 I have purchased quite a few u160 and u320 drives, SCA80, and using the right SCA80 to SCSI adapter, they work great. Not all adapters work the same, though. The ones for Mac must have termination on the adapter board. Something that is missing from most that are on eBay and Amazon.
Same here. The 950 was the Mac mountain top at the time. Had a continuing ed professor who had a design business during the day. He had two 950's... that he would carry home every night, due to the liability of theft (I guess his neighborhood WAS THE HOOD and he didn't believe in insurance.... or whatever). Years later, I'd pick up an 840av at auction for a song, just for the helluv-it.
I scored one of those during the first Dotcom bust. I had a bunch of 9.1gb SCSI drives in it and in an external array enclosure. Ended up with half a dozen 90's Macs at one point. It got to where I couldn't bring any more home so I 'd just rip them open on the sidewalk and scavenge the parts I could carry.
The good old days when top of the line machines for Apple and Windows were rated in double digit MegaHertz, your RAM could be installed in mismatched capacities, you had to know what you were doing in order to tinker with it, install stuff, and fix the goof ups you'd invariably make. One of the CRT guns went bad. I had a CRT monitor that did the same thing. Can you swap out for a different monitor? Or maybe it is the video card? Try switching those out to see if it fixes the problem.
I was a tech back in those days and when the 950 power supplies were delivered by Airborne Express, I always wondered how much Apple was paying for the overnight shipping on those beasts.
I wonder if you can take this case and make a excellent sleeper PC with it? Granted I would only take the case if any of the hardware was damaged salvage any parts that are repairable or in good condition and then resell them as parts.
"No, no, no, light speed's not quick enough. We must go right to...ludicrous speed!" *gasps* "Ludicrous speed? We've never gone THAT fast before! I don't know if she'll take it!" "What's the matter, Colonel, are you...chicken?" 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you everyone for the kind comments about my friend Tom. He always loved to to tinker on his retro computers. He especially loved his Amiga 4000 which I have now in my collection
We used 40 of these machines to run an Appletalk network for a government department that used Macs everywhere. We used Apple Unix on them and had quite a few GB of discs in them. They were a BEAST of a machine. We ran them on a 100Mb/sec Ethernet cards made my 3Com - the cards cost $800 each. They were a workhorse. Ran them almost 8 years in that role before swapping them out for G4's.
That's amazing!
From these to G4s - that's quite a leap!
If I ever saw FORTY Quadra 950's in the same room... I can't even begin to wrap my head around such a sight.
@@frodrickfronkensteen9241 sounds like taxpayer funded number crunching.
That sounds like a supercomputer cluster tbh
Yeah, the noise is the floppy drive eject motor, needs a new gear. The motor will run until the gear position sensor detects it's moved a full revolution, but the gear's broken, so it just keeps spinning.
Adrian from Adrian's Digital Basement has a stock of them
whats funny i have a 1999 dell optiplex and i explained to my little brother of twhy that noise was coming and this video helped me explain it better
There is also a part on thingiverse that you can send to shape ways for $8/12pcs.
Rest in peace, Tom! Thanks for giving us the opportunity to learn about this machine!
"Once you carefully flip this monstrosity on it's side" Me in the morning
We ran all of ours on their side. Fun-fact. We had Seagate Baracuda SCSI drives in them. They didn't like being on their side. Had hundred or so fail before we put the machines in tower mode on a bench.
Its hard to hide the monstrosity in the morning
"This is the Lockpicking Lawyer, and what I have for you today is a Quadra 950..."
holy crap i thought i was the only one thinking this
I just watched a video from him today with his little pocket emp.
Nothing on one, two is binding, three is binding... *(click)* And the server is hacked.
@@juliawolf156 *_H A C K E R M A N_*
Funny you say this, but this is actually the first lock I ever picked. I got one of those Apple keylock switches from a surplus supplier, a few years after Apple had quit making these. I practiced on that switch till I got good enough to hold the lock, the torsion bar, and the pick all in one hand and pick the lock. Used to do that to show off to friends. It's actually a very easy lock to pick, and can be picked in seconds.
That's $6544 in 1992 Dollars.
Today that would cost $12556 2021 Dollars.
Yeah, that's about right for apple prices.
@@proxythe1337 that's for ram and it was exactly what the going rate for ram was at the time, too
SUN and Industrial grade IBM PC's were also quite expensive. Corporations bought these types of high end computers for their quality and reliability. Downtime could cost 10s of thousands a day for some industries.
They were $2500 if you worked at Apple. Got mine from a friend.... that's how they managed to sell.
It was the crappiest Apple computer I ever had, and that's saying A LOT!
Oh God, it's the Cursed Mac's hotter and younger sibling.
Quadlita
That quadra is 29 years old, so go ahead bro.
The more I watch this video, the more I realize what a total piece of crap my old Quadra 950 was!
And it runs Unix.
Considering the crazy number of RAM slots, plus the crazy amount of software-based interfaces, and the power supply taking up half the machine and probably capable of producing three or four times the needed amperage, most likely it's literally hotter
I have been binge-watching your channel over the weekend and loving every minute of it.
I never liked the way the external units looked, but the googly eyes totally make the Zip drive aesthetic work for me. Iomega should have made them that way to begin with! :)
Iomega should've made them not shit to begin with :P
@@thedungeondelver I dunno. I never had problems with the SCSI, IDE, or USB versions. The parallel version was terrible, but that was because the port was so slow.
I wanna do that to my USB Zip Drive now
You've done Tom right. I'm sure he would've loved the level of upgrade you've done to his old server. I know I would've.
7.0.1 might not be 32 bit clean (or needs the 32 bit enabler), so limited to 48K of RAM
32 bit unclean Macs only use -16- (edit: 24) address lines from the CPU, so that would be 16 megabytes theoretical, but limited to 8 because of the need for other devices in the system.
@@eDoc2020 I thought 32-bit unclean ROMs used 24-bit addressing. Caused a bit of an issue when those 8 bits were used by the OS to store info about the pointers.
Er, not quite right. 32-bit unclean machines use 24 bits of addressing space; which yields 16 megabytes of address space. Various machines had various physical memory limits depending on how their address decoding hardware was set up. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS_memory_management and developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/mac/pdf/Devices/Slot_Manager.pdf for more details.
@@MaddTheSane Oops, I see I accidentialy wrote 16 lines instead of 24. I'll edit my original comment to correct this. My understanding is that the _OS_ using the extra 8 bits wasn't much of an issue because that could easily be updated. Rather the issue was applications bypassing the OS and directly modifying those flags.
That "little green desktop" looks like a superpowered Atari ST.
I was just thinking it looked like a slightly more refined GEM desktop...
12:50 Imagine a Twenty something or Younger hearing their Moden mac playing that sounds.
"woah that's a cool sound!" 🤦
I remember when you could dismantle a mac without removing glue ... And they didn't have magic in them
No magic? How do you explain that error chime then?
@@nickwallette6201 old memory slots and new memory dimms, hey atleast there not soldered onto the board.
He's doing it again! Delighted hand gestures FTW!! The best hand gestures on YT!!
Question: Where can i buy the "So, stay tuned!"-Shirt in fancy colors and "The Hand" in the Background?
My dad and I went halves on 160MB of RAM (second hand) back in 1991 for our Mac IIfx machines for “only” $16,000.00 USD. They were a proprietary design which only worked in the Mac IIfx machines and Laserwriter IIntx printers. 80MB in each machine, coupled with our “whopping” 80MB hard drives made those machines formidable Photoshop 1/2/3 machines in their day.
Holy crap that's awesome
Yeah, I remember upgrading my IIfx to 128MB - it used 68 pin simms iirc. I still have my Mac II and I upgraded to a IIx, again with 128MB RAM. It got more use than the IIfx! I still have it plugged in (although it hasn't been powered on in over 18 years!) The last time I had my IIx powered on it had 6 CRTs plugged in I "played" Doom. Funny as the the smallest screen was 28" yet to make Doom run at any playable speed I had to run the game in a window about the size of a postage stamp! I must get around to posting a few videos - I know where the keys to my Quadra 950 are!
Your compilation issue likely has to do with ANSI strictness of your C compiler. Once upon a time C required all variables to be declared at the top of a function body or code block. You can probably move the declaration of the type to the top and it should be ok
Isn't that what headers are for?
@Charlie Kahn The local variables.
Basically
Int main(string[] args){
int iSV = 0;
Oooh… I had one of those as my main workstation waaaayyyy back when I worked for Apple. Yeah, the PowerPCs that my project was primarily deployed on were faster, but for what I was doing it was plenty fast enough. Also, using a machine that’s at the bottom end of your supported range as your development machine does help keep your code tight.
Wow, cool! What did you do at Apple?
@@ActionRetro The time in question was a really weird situation: Steve Jobs had closed down the Advanced Technology Group a little while before I started, but there was a grant contract with the National Science Foundation that was left over, and that grant had been with the ATG. Ostensibly, I was supposed to be doing some distributed web server/database engine programming; and I figured it would probably be in C or C++ (I was also familiar with pascal, but that had been out-of-style at Apple for a decade or so by then). Well, I got there and found out that the project was supposed to be configurable and modifiable by anyone with only basic computer skills, which meant that as a part of the grant contract, the database engine that I had to use was FileMaker Pro, with it’s built-in web server (the one that was a simplified version of Lasso). Eh, it’s a job, I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll either pull a rabbit out of my hat, or explain in detail why you can’t get there from here. Well, it turns out that had painted themselves into a corner, but there was one little possible escape path, if they were willing to slightly stretch the requirements to allow for inclusion of an AppleScript extension that would allow raw socket access. So, I ended up building a load-balancing, redundant cluster architecture, database driven website engine entirely in FileMaker Pro, with embedded AppleScripts to build HTTP transactions to keep everything in sync, and that socket access AppleScript extension to actually move the data from one instance to another.
Was it a hack, that really should have been done in C/C++, as a native plug-in to FileMaker Pro? Yes. But, it did work, and on the G3 266 machines that it was deployed (eh, briefly… no more grant money = no more deployment) it was surprisingly snappy.
And as mentioned above, when the grant money ran out, so did our employment. The project was then spun off into it’s own nonprofit foundation; but as far as I could tell, we were promised additional funding that never came through.
Now, about the fact that it was under the umbrella of ATG: this meant that, technically at least, I was the last person out the door from the Advanced Technology Group (the other two people I was working with - my manager and another guy - were just ahead of me on that last afternoon). Also, there was some equipment that was gifted to that foundation by Apple that I got to haul out of the building: the deployment G3’s, my Quadra, and rather curiously, a Xerox Star… that had been in ATG. Things that make ya go “hmm”, hmm? 🤔
P.s. We had a white board in our office, and of course my manager drew a picture of a dolphin on it, captioned “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”.
@@darkwinter6028 that reminds me of the story of the guys who built the PPC graphing calculator, though of course your project was officially kept going while theirs was canned. Similar in being a small team with limited resources though.
15:20 My instinct would be to put a Noctua iPPC type fan of sorts in there since it's a server.
That hard drive is a Seagate ST39102LC which means it's an SCA-type fast/wide SCSI interface, 9GB in capacity and 10k RPM. The buzzy noise is probably from the CD drive since most burner drives had tiny fans built-in back then. Some later drives only ran the fan when there was a disc in but others ran it constantly which was really annoying. I usually keep the constant-fan-type drives in external enclosures so I can turn them on/off as needed and reduce the fan noise/dust intake.
I have two of those in an external enclosure. I never used it much because the drives were unusually noisy.
Guy casually reverse engineers a set of ram sticks. Mostly just to make them look cooler. My hat is off to that man and stellar work. The custom mod for the titan/ behemoth.
Awh yeah! My weekly dose of Action Retro :D
Keep it up man!
Maybe intented as a server, but also used as a workstation. At the industrial design department, we had a class full of them with each having one 21" monitor and one 14" attached. Printing was via the network on a A3 laser printer. They were loud indeed, but so were most computers at that the time, you didn't know better.
15:54 when your power supply is a literal grocery bag
As far as I'm aware all case fans suck air in from the open side of the fan and blow out the grille side (the side that normally has the label). Quick way of working out air flow direction if the fan lacks an arrow or you can't see one from its current orientation.
I bought a new 950 back in '92 to run my entire semiconductor fab lab at the University of Florida. It was maxed out and set up with a number of boards from National Instruments. I used Labview and the Mac to measure temperatures, pH values, control my emergency backup generator and on and on. I used a program, I believe, was called Microphone Pro to call my neat new pager whenever an alarm occurred. It cut down my time running around checking everything each day from 1.5 hours to about 10 minutes!
So I have an old Macintosh clone (Radius 81/110) currently running MacOS 8 and I'd like to port a few of my smaller C projects over. This option (A/UX) is super tempting.
The machine has some kind of Sonnet upgrade card in it, but I don't have the correct drivers for it at the moment.
I am glad to see it has a awesome home
Thanks again Bill!
Yep
1. Old Apple server gets online
2. Hacker connects to it
3. "Welcome to Apple"
4. Hacker: WTF ?!
5. Several hours later: "My ransomware does not run...!"
"Why won't my Mach insertion points work!?"
If compiling stops with simply too many warnings, going into the make file and editing out or deleting "-Werror" might help. Otherwise, if You can, try figuring out which GCC version the sourcecode wants and get that version. At worst You'd have to compile it too, which would take ages on an old computer. Even on newer ones with "make -j12" or whatever, to run multiple jobs on the compile process, compiling GCC takes a while. Good luck with Your apple behemoth! Really cool thing btw; congrats on owning that stupidly huge looking apple server thingy now :D
you chose the wrong noctua imho ^^ it might make better airflow, but the other one is more optimized for pressure, and the power supply seems to be quite densely packed with components and the airflow optimized fan doesn't have much pressure to work air through there all the way to the back... in the end it still might be enough if you don't load it too much, but I wouldn't trust it for long extensive use.
Oh, interesting - thank you! Do you have any fan recommendation off hand?
@@ActionRetro the NF-P12 you showed probably would be fine, but if you want their best fan right now it's the NF-A12x25 that is optimized for pressure and airflow. Noctua has a nice guide for that on their page: noctua.at/en/which_fan_is_right_for_me
@@infi84 Thanks for this!!
Or you can just put your hand behind the PSU. Is air coming out? Is it uncomfortably warm? :-)
Isn’t that drive a SCA drive? I have one in an external enclosure. They are meant for servers. The breakout board adapts the drive to scsi, and has the scsi jumpers for scsi ID on it. I also have some 68 pin scsi drives, but their adapter is just a straight pass through.
Yes, yes it is. Those drives were mostly found on Sun hardware or any backplane which need hot swap drives.
@@locnar1701 ironically I just needed to change the scsi I’d on mine as it conflicted with my Umax C500! After posting this too. Lol. Who would have guessed. It is first time I’ve changed it in years.
9.1 GB per the Model Number. 7200 RPM. Workhorse drives. They were awesome sounding
@@locnar1701 My HP Server also has two of those Drives. It's a Standard x86 Server though.
I’ve been patiently awaiting more of your shenanigans! And the hands gestures of course :)
As a side note, as you're a retro channel, it would be hilarious if you made a video about you trying to edit one of your videos on an old Mac... Maybe the overkill G4 Cube! You'd probably lose your mind but it's all for comedy! 😂
On the G4 Cube it would probably be Not so different from editing on a modern PC. The G4 Cube Runs OSX 10.4/10.5 which Supports Lots of editing Software that isn't so different from today's Software.
@@nilswegner2881 How about editing a video on the Pismo? That'll be pretty funny. I'm not talking about his overkill one either; a base model Pismo or Wallstreet will be infuriatingly slow.
@@lukeweeks3470 that would be awesome
There is a lot of good and entertaining info of this channel, but those hand gestures are so annoying, can't watch them!
Now I think that the channel needs an Apple Xserve
A G5 XServe of All Things! If only the prices were reasonable... Even the PowerPC Machines that are basically worthless Go for ridiculous prices... You can basically buy a modern AMD Server for the price of an old worthless G5 XServe.
I was like 'Noooooo!' as you put those original fan screws back in, lol.
The Quadra 700 was essentially a Mac2CI case turnedon it'sside. I remember outfitting our 900an950s with 128 megabytes of RAM which came in huge waffle SIMS.
I have an idea of why the compilation is failing. The piece of code it breaks on is "struct descriptor_data *pt;", a variable declaration in the middle of a block. In the C language before C99, you were only allowed to declare variables at the very beginning of a block, and older versions of GCC defaulted to C89 unless you passed a -std=c99 or -std=gnu99 to them as a command line flag. I would add that to your CFLAGS and try again to see if the build will work.
EDIT: Never mind, gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html states that support for it only appeared in GCC 3.0. I'd try moving the declaration to the top of the block instead, then.
OMG, 256 MB of RAM in 1992 is insane! My parents bought a computer with 256 MB of RAM in 2000 and it was like a higher end configuration (starting at 64 MB). This is probably equivalent to a current 768 GB Mac Pro.
Tell me about it, my PC at the time had 64 megs of RAM and everybody thought it was amazing. I used to let it clock the memory up on boot just tp show off.
15:54 for the size of that power supply, it's kind of disappointing to see that it's only a little over 300W.
Add the PowerPC card from the Quadra 700 and turn the Quadra 950 into the Power Mac 950.
RIP Tom. Your collection will live on!
FYI -- A cheap 80 Pin 15K SCSI drive will run rings around that SCSI2SD V5. Full benchmarks of the much faster V6 on a range of SGI systems here: forums.irixnet.org/thread-2004-post-13344.html
These 15K SCSI Drives are insanely fast. I Run two of them in raid 0 in an older HP Server that I use as a MySQL Database Machine and Media Server. In this configuration the Server actually feels Like I have an SSD inside while it's actually two ultra-320 SCSI Drives.
I had 12 of these Macines. 4 of them were full of Radius Rockets, and one had the A/US WGS 95 SCSI card.
I also had a WGS 9150/110. ( Same case, 110Mhz 601PPC. )
The bottom was essentially a modular power supply, with 4 connectors for each hard disk, CD Rom or DAT Tape.
The Black connector is an SCA ( System Connector Architecture ) for both Fast SCSI, Wide SCSI and power. )
That style of PRAM batteries in these macs are so weird. I have a PowerMac G4 from 03', dead as a door nail. But my 04' G5? Strong as it was brand new. My iMac from 06? More dead than me on a monday morning after a fun sunday night
I ran A/UX 3.0 on mine, realized what a total piece of crap the Quadra 900 was, and bought a NeXT Cube. It did _EVERYTHING_ the Quadra 900 did. My plan was to get a Quadra 700 and keep the Cube, but I ended up using only NeXTStep after that until NeXT ate up Apple in 1996.
What an absolute UNIT. 🤩
And the perfect keyboard for it, the Apple Aircraft Carrier….I mean Pro Extended II.
Sean, I'd feel more comfortable if you put the grille onto the new fan; it would help prevent any accidents that might occur.
The hard drive (10:36) is a Seagate Cheetah ST39102LC (9GB @10krpm) sca connector scsi
www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/scsi/29240c.pdf
Those are wonderful drives and are very reliable.
Google the model number "ST3....." for info
Sean, did you try contact cleaner on the RAM slots? Poor connection can have many causes! :)
Looking at your error messages at 24:17, it appears that you're getting a syntax error on db.c. I'm referencing this version of the file: github.com/tbamud/tbamud/blob/master/src/db.c which has the offending line at 2568 instead of 2554.
tl;dr move "struct descriptor_data *pt;" up three lines and recompile
So, there's a few different versions of C that you need to be aware of: ANSI C and C99. The latter is the version of C that lets you declare variables anywhere inside of a function; while the former ONLY allows variable declarations immediately after an opening curly brace {, which begins a new variable scope. Since you're using an old version of GCC I would imagine it also has the ANSI C limitation.
(Fun fact: For a very long while Microsoft Visual C had the same limitation - if you wanted to compile your C code as C, you were limited to ANSI C. If you wanted C99 syntax and features you actually had to use C++, because MSVC++ supported features that MSVC didn't.)
Very likely to be this since the version of GCC that Sean is using is from 1995 so it definitely wouldn't support C99 XD
@@babyboomertwerkteam5662 I have to wonder if it would be easier to slightly modify the source to be ANSI C or cross-compile a newer version of GCC to A/UX...
This is the correct answer. I have run into the same problem myself forgetting about old standards when writing code for DOS Watcom C. Putting all your variable declarations at the start of a function in the "old fashioned" way of ANSI C solves all the problems.
MSVC, like a lot of Microsoft software, was amazingly incompetent for its market leading position.
(Although, not defining your variables in the function header is heresy anyway. Haha)
By golly that was it! Past db.c now, and updating other files in the same way. Thank you!
13:27 either the mic isn't doing it justice or you have a weird definition of loud.
If I adjust my volume so that your voice is around 60 db the pc is still pretty quiet, my pc is way louder in comparison.
Noise cancelling in post?
@@nickwallette6201 maybe but why use noise canceling when you are trying to show how noisy something is?
@@deltacx1059 it’s a cardioid mic, so everything behind the mic will be way quieter than everything in front of it. No post processing needed, just the physics of the mic capsule.
Technically the fastest 68K MAC is the Quadra 840AV which is now more rare than pink unicorns.
4:16 you are probably the only one who thinks of skill share when you see a key.
15:47 do i see empty cache-slots? maybe another idea for improvement?
And was there a rom slot between the ram slots and the power supply? Could get some custom rom action going.
Is not the mint colour issue to do with the signal getting to the monitor being faulty? Back in the day, I seem to recall swapping out the cable from Mac to monitor one of the main culprits as one of the cores carried each a different colour.
Eu tenho a maquina o meu é um Quadra 900, modelo antes desse
Very creative opening
I remember as a kid having some big mac book? With a section that had pictures and specs of all the machines. I always wanted a Quadra 950/workgroup 95.
Hey there fellow A/UX fan. I tweeted at you but since you mentioned my baby in your last video, I put up a build of nano for AUX. Albeit it's a bit of a hack since my scsi2sd environment is MIA currently and I had to use an emulator to throw everything together. I hope you find it useful!
Swapping ram sticks around to different slots to get them to work, the story of my life with my server with 64GB, I had to mark each stick so If I ever have to take them out, they go right back in the same slot with the same CPU, if one is misplaced, just forget it, it wont even boot, I hate it so much, lmao
What a beautiful machine!
Excited hand is excited again!
Your monitor has been visited by the ghost of Jack Tramiel.
😂
I believe the Q950 CD option was a caddy loader only. Those faceplates are made of unobtanium. Always wanted to add a CDROM to my Q950 but just looks so ugly without the right bezel!
interesting that your compile is crashing at the make part. What I am used to is, if I got through the configure part then the compilation of stuff pretty always worked. I often had issues with the configure part, that needed to be fixed.
Ports and features 😂 waiting on the Sean-score in the weekend category 😜
Hey Great Video! What monitor are you using? Looks like a beige LCD of some kind. Please share!
Hi Action Retro! I was wondering what happened to the PowerBook 1400c. Did you ever manage to find a Sonnet upgrade card for it? Will we ever see it in the future? :)
i used to compile circle mud on gcc 2.95 on my 486 running linux i'd be happy to try and help out looking for an emulator that will run a/ux to see if i can get it compiled for you
Crikey - what timing!
Ikr
I gave mine away 20 years ago when I moved down south. It's one of several regrets I have to this day. There is just something about them that's a little bit of awesome.
Tom's a true lad. Oh man purple pcb ram, makes me feel some kind of way.
Tom would drooling at those upgrades id imagine
The hard drive you have there is using an SCA80 connector.
Yes. It shouldn't have been the problem. Just a straight pass through. I was thinking of buying some since 80 and 68 scsi drives are easier to find than 50 pins... form my Vintage Macs and 286, 386, and 486 vintage pcs.
@@auteurfiddler8706 I have purchased quite a few u160 and u320 drives, SCA80, and using the right SCA80 to SCSI adapter, they work great. Not all adapters work the same, though. The ones for Mac must have termination on the adapter board. Something that is missing from most that are on eBay and Amazon.
Can you run modern minecraft with sodium and phosphor and lithium on upgraded g4
Perfect Segway to the advert!
5:37 fun fact, the base model no isight iMac g5 20" which I own came with stock 256mb ddr 400 ram
Just looking at the thing with keys inside it, it looks like it will rev up when you turn the keys
I wonder if there are any ways to upgrade components of A/UX for better chances of compiling?
The sad Mac sound still haunts my nightmares as a child. Had a SE/30 and had it sad Mac once... Scared the heck outta me.
Gawd, I wanted one of these so,bad in the day. My next choice would have been an 840AV.
Same here. The 950 was the Mac mountain top at the time. Had a continuing ed professor who had a design business during the day. He had two 950's... that he would carry home every night, due to the liability of theft (I guess his neighborhood WAS THE HOOD and he didn't believe in insurance.... or whatever).
Years later, I'd pick up an 840av at auction for a song, just for the helluv-it.
A right-angled screw driver seems like it'd be pretty useful here lol
I scored one of those during the first Dotcom bust.
I had a bunch of 9.1gb SCSI drives in it and in an external array enclosure.
Ended up with half a dozen 90's Macs at one point.
It got to where I couldn't bring any more home so I 'd just rip them open on the sidewalk and scavenge the parts I could carry.
The good old days when top of the line machines for Apple and Windows were rated in double digit MegaHertz, your RAM could be installed in mismatched capacities, you had to know what you were doing in order to tinker with it, install stuff, and fix the goof ups you'd invariably make. One of the CRT guns went bad. I had a CRT monitor that did the same thing. Can you swap out for a different monitor? Or maybe it is the video card? Try switching those out to see if it fixes the problem.
The 1992 mac pro... awesome
now that is a beautiful machine I wish I had one truly
I was a tech back in those days and when the 950 power supplies were delivered by Airborne Express, I always wondered how much Apple was paying for the overnight shipping on those beasts.
Atari ST TOS green background at 18:05 ! :)
Great vid! Enjoyed learning about this behemoth.
I wonder if you can take this case and make a excellent sleeper PC with it?
Granted I would only take the case if any of the hardware was damaged salvage any parts that are repairable or in good condition and then resell them as parts.
I was using one of those back in the 90s with 2 external 9GB hard drives to run Avid Media Composer . I think just the drives alone cost $5,000 each.
Unacceptable fan noise? I can't hear it at all over the roar of my Intel MacBook Pro's fan!
I use screw spacers when I make mods to original manufactured equipment.
how can you go into google drive with tenfourfox ??
The hard disk is a 9Gb @10K Ultra2 SCSI drive from around 1998.
i used to play Awakened Worlds, MUDs are so good
what about ALL the 30 year old dust inside the PSU ??
"No, no, no, light speed's not quick enough. We must go right to...ludicrous speed!"
*gasps*
"Ludicrous speed? We've never gone THAT fast before! I don't know if she'll take it!"
"What's the matter, Colonel, are you...chicken?" 🤣🤣🤣
I thought you found a WGS 9150, the only Mac I want that I don't have.