6100 DOS Cards,

Macintosh Quadras,

And you.

Background:

I've always thought the idea of having both a mac and a pc in one box was a good one, but I've

never found a solution that actually worked with reasonable speed at a low enough cost to make it

worth it. When I saw an ad for a dos card for the powermac 6100 for only $149 I knew that time

had come.

One problem. I have a Quadra 700, not a Powermac 6100, but why let such a silly little problem get

in the way? By the way, Apple officially recommends against this, but is that really a surprise?

Machines that can use the DOS card:

These cards will work in any machine that has an (1) '040 PDS and (2) Enough room to fit the card.

This basically boils down to the following machines: (Thanks to many of you who have submitted

information about these configurations working!)

Centris 650

Quadra 650

Quadra 700*

Quadra 900/950

Quadra 800 - see link for more information on this configuration

Powermac 6100/66

* This is the only configuration I have personally tested.

Of course if you have the powermac, why are you reading this page?

Machines that cannot use the 6100 DOS card:

Mac Plus,SE,SE/30,II,IIx,IIcx,IIsi,IIci,IIfx,LC,LCII,LCIII,IIvx,Quadra 605, Classic, Classic II, Color

Classic

Performa 200,4XX,600

Quadra/Centris 610 & 660av - see link for more information on this configuration

See: http://www.paranoia.com/~anton/houdini/ for info on a 610 compatible card

Performa 63X,64X,52XX,62XX,63XX - These machines have an LC-Compatible PDS which is not

compatible with either the adapter from the 6100 card nor the DOS card itself. If you want to use a

DOS card in these machines, I suggest you check with Reply or Orange Micro.

Powermac 7100/XX, 8100/XX - These have a 601 PDS that consists of two long slots of about equal

length. The DOS card itself is designed for an '040 PDS which is one long slot and a short one and is

a different type than that of the 601 pds. The adapter for the 6100 will not fit in any machine other

than a 6100 class mac. It is the same type as the 7100/8100 but it is not the same size. If you want to

use a DOS card in these machines, I suggest you check with Reply or Orange Micro.

All PCI powermacs and performas.

Doing it!

Be aware that on the Quadra 700 this procedure will involved modifying your case, as well as some

other work. Read all of the directions before proceding.

How to make it work: (Quadra 700, Centris 650, Quadra 650)

Disclaimer: This is a nasty process involving fun hardware hacking. For legal purposes, I am not

actually suggesting that you do this to your computer. This is for informational purposes only blah

blah blah. Bottom line: If you blow up your computer, it's your own fault not mine. I make no

guarantees about this information.

Take the DOS card out of the box. You will notice that there is a metal cage with a small card in it,

and that the actual DOS card is attached to this cage. You remove this card from this cage by

removing the brace in the upper and lower corners (2 screws) and then carefully removing the DOS

card from the riser card. You can discard the cage at this point, or keep it in case you ever try to put

this in a 6100.

Open your computer (turn it off first). Insert the DOS card into the '040 PDS on your motherboard.

If you have a machine with an internal cd-rom drive, you can follow the directions in the included

manual on how to get the sound support installed. Attach the video cable as per the manual. If the

card fits, you are done with the hardware portion of this project. Put the case back on, and go to

software installation.

If you have a Quadra 700, it's now time to get nasty...

The card as shipped will not fit in your case, as it is too tall. You will need to modify your case in

order to provide some headroom for the card. You could simply close the case over the card, but I

wouldn't recommend putting that kind of pressure on your logic board for an extended period of

time. You will most likely cause permanent damage. To make room for the card, look at where the

card and the case make contact when you attempt to put the cover on. You will need to remove

some of this plastic in order to make the card fit properly.

I took a radial arm saw (Don't cut your arm, fingers or otherwise off), placed the cover on the

platform, and CAREFULLY lowered the saw into the cover to remove the plastic. The 10" blade on

this saw worked perfectly, and I was able to simply remove the plastic that protrudes down from the

top of the cover. This is actually easier than it sounds. DO NOT CUT A HOLE IN YOUR COVER.

The cooling inside your Quadra is delicate, and you don't want to mess that up with a big hole in the

top. You could also do this procedure with a router, or other tool that would allow you to

CAREFULLY cut into the underside of your cover.

Once you have successfully modified your case to accomodate the Dos card, you will need to make a

cable to connect external speakers to your DOS card. You could conceivably hack a cable that would

patch into the speaker in the mac case as well, but I don't know if this card will provide enough

volume for you to hear anything, as it's meant to patch into the CD audio cable.

You will need a "build it yourself CD audio" type connector from an electronics store and a 1/8 inch

headphone jack in order to make this work. Take the ends off of the cable that comes in the package,

and separate the four wires on each end. Take the "pin receptors" out of the "built it yourself"

package, and solder them to one end of the cable. Bend the pins to make them as short as possible,

and tape up each individual cable with electrical tape, to prevent shorts. Solder the other end of the

four wires to the 1/8 inch headphone jack. You should now have a cable that has a headphone jack at

one end, and four "pin receptors" on the other.

Place the pin receptors on your cable on the pins protruding from the DOS card for "sound out."

Thread the headphone jack out the port on the back of the case. Plug in powered external speakers,

and you are ready to go. I know this was a bear, but when you fire up Command and Conquer, and

the music starts crankin', it's worth it!

Software Installation:

You MUST have PC setup 1.5. The video on my card was a disaster until I upgraded to PC setup

1.5, and then everything worked great. Download this from apple's ftp sites before proceeding if you

do not have it.

Install PC setup 1.5 according to the directions on screen. Since there are dos cards made for the

Quadra 630 series, it will not blink by the fact that you have an '040, and will install without a hitch.

At this point, you can basically follow the directions in the manual. Use the PC Setup control panel to

create a virtual hard disk. Now you can fire up your dos card for the first time. You will need to

insert the dos 6.22 disk one that came with your card. Install dos on this virtual hard drive, and you

will be ready to go. By the way, you may need to find your own dos mouse driver. I brought one

home from work... I think one may be included in the 1.5 distribution, but am not sure. Windows will

support the mouse no problem, but DOS games and programs will require you to install a mouse

driver.

Colin Johnson (colin@ap.net) writes:

Your page says you may want a mouse driver for DOS, here is an easy way to get one..

Insert Windows disk #4 into the floppy drive and type the following at the c:\> prompt:

EXPAND A:MOUSEHP.CO_ C:\WINDOWS\MOUSEHP.COM <RETURN>

Then add the following line to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

MOUSEHP

I have not tried this, but it might work if you are out of ideas. The PC Compatibility CD that came

with the PCI dos card for my machine at work had the Microsoft mouse drivers on it, so you might

be able to get those by downloading the dos half of PC Setup 1.5.

Caveats:

This is DOS folks, along with all the problems that come with it. If you install the Apple software, all

of the cross platform stuff, the cd-rom drivers, the soundcard drivers, a mouse driver etc. you will

find that the machine has used up so much "conventional" memory that you can't run anything. This

is uncool. I have installed only a mouse driver and the CD-ROM driver. The games all use their own

soundblaster stuff, so it's not necessary, and the apple things for cut and paste are basically a waste of

memory.

If you use the old software, you will have problems when you switch back from the dos card to the

mac environment. Update to pc setup 1.5.

Put a SIMM in this thing if you want any speed at all. This card uses 8 chip, non-edo, 72 pin simms.

These cost about $65 for a 16MB simm at Fry's these days. The simm is the single greatest thing you

can do for this card for speed. It's unusable without it.

It's a DOS compatibility card, not a PC compatibility card. The method with which hard disk access

is handled means that any OS that does not use BIOS calls (all but dos) will not work. This means:

You cannot run Windows NT

You cannot run OS/2

You cannot run Linux (yet)

You cannot run Nextstep

You can only run Dos, Windows, and Windows 95. If anyone has successfully found a way to get any

other operating systems to work on these cards, please let me know and I'll change my information!

Obviously this is a lot of work if you have a Quadra 700, but all told I spent maybe 2 hours in

hardware work, and the rest has all been struggling with DOS! It's well worth it, and a few hours

time is worth the $500 savings over a card built for the 700 to me.

If you have any comments or questions, let me know. Thanks.

joel@fefcful.org

©1996-04 JagWerks Media