Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: Mike on February 27, 2017, 09:44:46 AM
Post by: Mike on February 27, 2017, 09:44:46 AM
Hello again:
This Forum has become a lot more Active since I got my NeXTStation up and running...
I am active (President) of one of the oldest Apple-authorized Mac User Groups in Southern Ontario. In April we will be celebrating out 30th year in operation. I asked one of our Dear Members to check to see if he had some 30-pin SIMMs for me to sort through to see if I could find another set of four 4-MB non-parity SIMMs to augment the four similar SIMMs in my computer.
This NeXTStation came to me with four 8-chip non-parity 4-Meg SIMMs and four 9-chip parity 1-Meg SIMMs for a total of 20 Megs but I read somewhere that mixing parity and non-parity SIMMs was not optimal. I replaced the parity RAM with 1- Meg FPM SIMMs in order to harmonize the RAM.
The Dear Member sent me a picture of his MacJunk and it looks like he has a lot of parity and non-parity FPM SIMMs for me to check out. At this point I have no idea how many of them are 1-Meg, 2-Meg, 4-Meg or 8-Meg chips.
Here is the question: has anyone ever had any luck with installing 8-Meg SIMMs in a NeXTStation ??
And.... if the only set of 4-Meg SIMMs I can scavenge from the Member are Parity, would it be better to have all 20 Megs as parity, all 20 megs as non parity, or 32 megs of mixed (16 Megs of each) ?
As usual, thanks in advance for whatever I get back.
This Forum has become a lot more Active since I got my NeXTStation up and running...
I am active (President) of one of the oldest Apple-authorized Mac User Groups in Southern Ontario. In April we will be celebrating out 30th year in operation. I asked one of our Dear Members to check to see if he had some 30-pin SIMMs for me to sort through to see if I could find another set of four 4-MB non-parity SIMMs to augment the four similar SIMMs in my computer.
This NeXTStation came to me with four 8-chip non-parity 4-Meg SIMMs and four 9-chip parity 1-Meg SIMMs for a total of 20 Megs but I read somewhere that mixing parity and non-parity SIMMs was not optimal. I replaced the parity RAM with 1- Meg FPM SIMMs in order to harmonize the RAM.
The Dear Member sent me a picture of his MacJunk and it looks like he has a lot of parity and non-parity FPM SIMMs for me to check out. At this point I have no idea how many of them are 1-Meg, 2-Meg, 4-Meg or 8-Meg chips.
Here is the question: has anyone ever had any luck with installing 8-Meg SIMMs in a NeXTStation ??
And.... if the only set of 4-Meg SIMMs I can scavenge from the Member are Parity, would it be better to have all 20 Megs as parity, all 20 megs as non parity, or 32 megs of mixed (16 Megs of each) ?
As usual, thanks in advance for whatever I get back.
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: SlateBlue on February 27, 2017, 10:24:28 AM
Post by: SlateBlue on February 27, 2017, 10:24:28 AM
I'm pretty sure you can disable parity on the ROM monitor. To my knowledge, 8 MB SIMMs won't work; 32 MB is the memory cap of boards with the non-turbo chipset.
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: Mike on March 01, 2017, 08:02:46 PM
Post by: Mike on March 01, 2017, 08:02:46 PM
Thanks for the info.
My buddy cleaning out his SCSI stuff brought me a "bag 'o' RAM" to go through and I curse the makers of the stuff. Considering how much the manufacturers were charging for that stuff 25 years ago you would think that it would not have been too much trouble to at least stencil their name and some nominal information on the back of the SIMMs like even just 1-MB, or 2-MB, or 4-MB or 8-MB....
It took a while to search through obsolete data on the internet in order to identify the chips, and some I'm still not sure of, and it looks like they are mostly 1-Meg SIMMs but there are some complete sets of four larger identical chips, including several sets of four 4-MB SIMMs and a set of what might be four 16-MB SIMMs.
The tool I made for pulling the SIMMs works great (I made it out of a bicycle spoke and it slickly peeps in the holes on the SIMMs and pushes back the little plastic locating pin to release the SIMM) and I popped out the four 1-MB FPM SIMMs and replaced them with four 4-MB SIMMs, so I now have the full complement of 32 MB of RAM.
He also brought me a SuperDisk USB floppy drive that worked with my Mac Pro exactly once before it died.
My buddy cleaning out his SCSI stuff brought me a "bag 'o' RAM" to go through and I curse the makers of the stuff. Considering how much the manufacturers were charging for that stuff 25 years ago you would think that it would not have been too much trouble to at least stencil their name and some nominal information on the back of the SIMMs like even just 1-MB, or 2-MB, or 4-MB or 8-MB....
It took a while to search through obsolete data on the internet in order to identify the chips, and some I'm still not sure of, and it looks like they are mostly 1-Meg SIMMs but there are some complete sets of four larger identical chips, including several sets of four 4-MB SIMMs and a set of what might be four 16-MB SIMMs.
The tool I made for pulling the SIMMs works great (I made it out of a bicycle spoke and it slickly peeps in the holes on the SIMMs and pushes back the little plastic locating pin to release the SIMM) and I popped out the four 1-MB FPM SIMMs and replaced them with four 4-MB SIMMs, so I now have the full complement of 32 MB of RAM.
He also brought me a SuperDisk USB floppy drive that worked with my Mac Pro exactly once before it died.
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: t-rexky on March 01, 2017, 08:16:36 PM
Post by: t-rexky on March 01, 2017, 08:16:36 PM
Good suff Mike! Email me or call me when you are ready to install the Lighthouse applications and I can help you through the process.
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: Mike on March 01, 2017, 08:51:59 PM
Post by: Mike on March 01, 2017, 08:51:59 PM
Well, hot dog. Yes, we will DEFINITELY be on the phone (or Skype so you can see my screen...) when we do this.
No rush - I know you are busy.
Hey-- I bought a book on the internet today: The Complete Guide to the NEXTSTEP™ User Environment by M.B. Shebanek. Prices were all over the map but I found a good used copy for about $8.50 from a book seller in Chicago who is shipping it to me for only $3.50.
I am downloading the "lighthouse.iso" file from
NeXTfiles/Software/NEXTSTEP/Apps/Lighthouse_Design
Do you want me to burn it to a CD ??
Most of this stuff I don't even know what its for.
All I really want is a good text editor...
What else do I need to get ?
Mike
No rush - I know you are busy.
Hey-- I bought a book on the internet today: The Complete Guide to the NEXTSTEP™ User Environment by M.B. Shebanek. Prices were all over the map but I found a good used copy for about $8.50 from a book seller in Chicago who is shipping it to me for only $3.50.
I am downloading the "lighthouse.iso" file from
NeXTfiles/Software/NEXTSTEP/Apps/Lighthouse_Design
Do you want me to burn it to a CD ??
Most of this stuff I don't even know what its for.
All I really want is a good text editor...
What else do I need to get ?
Mike
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: Mike on March 02, 2017, 04:33:33 PM
Post by: Mike on March 02, 2017, 04:33:33 PM
Check this out !!!
Checking back through the archives of this forum I managed to find the Lightning link with WetPaint and OpenWrite software installers, instructions on how to burn them to disk using my Mac Pro, and instructions for installing it to the ~apps folder, and insert the registration numbers.
What an incredible resource this Forum is.
Now do tell..... Can the NeXTStation play music CDs or is that asking too much to ask... ??
Mike
Checking back through the archives of this forum I managed to find the Lightning link with WetPaint and OpenWrite software installers, instructions on how to burn them to disk using my Mac Pro, and instructions for installing it to the ~apps folder, and insert the registration numbers.
What an incredible resource this Forum is.
Now do tell..... Can the NeXTStation play music CDs or is that asking too much to ask... ??
Mike
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: barcher174 on March 02, 2017, 07:52:31 PM
Post by: barcher174 on March 02, 2017, 07:52:31 PM
I think it actually can, but only using specific CDROM drives (like the NeXT branded one). Never tried though, so maybe someone will correct me.
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: Mike on March 02, 2017, 09:56:55 PM
Post by: Mike on March 02, 2017, 09:56:55 PM
Quote from: "barcher174"I think it actually can, but only using specific CDROM drives (like the NeXT branded one). Never tried though, so maybe someone will correct me.
My CD-ROM drive is an antique that has red and white ports for audio out on the back that accept RCA mini jacks, like the ones that connect stereo turntables to tuners. If there is a audio -in port on the back of the NeXT slab or monitor....
There is an app that shows audio volume and controls for CD playback in NS3.3 but I tried a few audio disks and they did not show up on the shelf.
Mike
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: bobo68 on March 03, 2017, 01:35:21 PM
Post by: bobo68 on March 03, 2017, 01:35:21 PM
I remember that stuff from the old Macs (BTW the NeXT CD-ROM is the same that you could buy for Macs as the AppleCD 150 I think). There are apps that can instruct the CD-ROM to play an Audio CD via the analogue Cinch outputs (the white and red ones). And then there are apps and CD-ROMs that support reading the digital music data from the CD vie the SCSI bus. There are special SCSI commands for this.
If you have an original NeXT CD-ROM I'm very sure you can use the CDPlayer.app (part of the Developer Demos) to play music via Cinch. And maybe you can use the Sound.app to import music digitally.
If you have an original NeXT CD-ROM I'm very sure you can use the CDPlayer.app (part of the Developer Demos) to play music via Cinch. And maybe you can use the Sound.app to import music digitally.
Title: Question about RAM..... for NeXTStation
Post by: Mike on March 03, 2017, 02:44:39 PM
Post by: Mike on March 03, 2017, 02:44:39 PM
Quote from: "bobo68"I remember that stuff from the old Macs (BTW the NeXT CD-ROM is the same that you could buy for Macs as the AppleCD 150 I think). There are apps that can instruct the CD-ROM to play an Audio CD via the analogue Cinch outputs (the white and red ones). And then there are apps and CD-ROMs that support reading the digital music data from the CD vie the SCSI bus. There are special SCSI commands for this.
If you have an original NeXT CD-ROM I'm very sure you can use the CDPlayer.app (part of the Developer Demos) to play music via Cinch. And maybe you can use the Sound.app to import music digitally.
It appears that there is no end to what these things can do.... and I got the very cheapest one, the NeXTStation mono that originally shipped with 105 MB HD and probably 8 MB of RAM. It has a partitioned 4.3 GB Quantum Viking in it now and 32 MB of RAM, thanks to the kindness of t-rexky and others... and is a lot of fun.
Mike