Turbo Dimension on EBay

This appears to be a Turbo Dimension. I have seen a photo of the motherboard, and it has what appears to be a Turbo CPU (certainly the socket looks like a Turbo), but with 16 memory slots.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11051.m43.l1123/7?euid=f29610480e664f8299f4ee63b8e7f05a&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2FeBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D300885702548%26ssPageName%3DADME%3AX%3ARTQ%3AUS%3A1123

this is very interesting! do you have pictures of the main logic board? never heard of a turbo board having 16 SIMM slots  :shock:


regards,
michael

So they are 30pin simms though?

30 pin simms with what appears to be a Turbo socket (has the turbo heatsink  with the clip across the top).

Quote from: "gtnicol"30 pin simms with what appears to be a Turbo socket (has the turbo heatsink  with the clip across the top).

in this case I highly doubt it's a 33 MHz system. a turbo mobo running @25 MHz is no problem (late production slabs where shipped with this kind of config). but I think that a 25 MHz 040 cube mobo won't work reliable if clocked @ 33 MHz.

Quote from: "gtnicol"30 pin simms with what appears to be a Turbo socket (has the turbo heatsink  with the clip across the top).

That's a standard variation of the 25mhz non-Turbo cube board.  Generally the earlier ones IIRC.  Unless it is a ZIF socket, in which case it might be a new variation.

Note sure how stable this image link will be, but...

apart from the heatsink, this looks like a standard 25 MHz non-turbo 040 mobo to me...

turbo 33 MHz main logic board



non-turbo 25 MHz main logic board

Quote from: "mikeboss"apart from the heatsink, this looks like a standard 25 MHz non-turbo 040 mobo to me...

Agreed.  I've never seen a heatsink like that on a 25mhz board though, interesting.

Exactly... I've never seen a heatsink like that on a 25Mhz board either, and I've seen a lot of motherboards. Somebody might have fitted one to the board though.

okay, got a few additional pictures from the seller. it looks as if the CPU might be in a socket. the plastic frame around the CPU is elevated from the mobo as one can see in this picture:

nitpicking-mode on: these are PGA (pin grid array) sockets, *NOT* ZIF (zero insertion force) sockets. nitpicking-mode off.

The presence of the MO connector is a dead giveaway that it's a non-turbo board.

Wow, that ended up selling for quite a lot.

When was the last time you saw a cube that complete and with a dimension sell for less than $1500?

It's a 33Mhz 68040 XC68040RC33E but clocked at 25Mhz?

An odd configuration.

Weird machine... I figured someone had hot-rodded it or something. Did you buy it?

I did end up buying it. Spent a little more than I should have, but my curiosity got the best of me. The heat sink and socket look to be original to me. A while ago I tried swapping a 33mhz 68040 from an old Mac in a regular 25mhz 68040 board without success. I wonder what the difference was.

Quote from: "jroark"
It's a 33Mhz 68040 XC68040RC33E but clocked at 25Mhz?
An odd configuration.

Things like this are standard actually.  You generally are limited by the bus speed and not the actual CPU speed.  NeXTStations used a multiplexed bus, so you probably would clock it slower especially if there is a socket.  The scenario that I envision is that the original CPU was a 25MHz one, and then it was replaced witha 33MHz one because that was what was around.

I don't know if you overspent that much... it seems like there was a lot of stuff in that pile.

Quote from: "gtnicol"Exactly... I've never seen a heatsink like that on a 25Mhz board either, and I've seen a lot of motherboards. Somebody might have fitted one to the board though.

the picture below is from your own flicker photostream  :lol:

Now I have to go dig it up. I don't remember that board.

That does bring up an interesting thing though: I have one of most models of cube and slab motherboards... it might be a good thing to at least scan them all. There are lots of little things that changed.

@gtnicol

it seems the CPU on your mainboard (PC68040RC-A) is an engineering sample. so this must be a very, very early 040 board!