MacIvory model I - S/N 463 - Deckard
8 November 2020
Contents
- Macintosh IIfx will not respond to power switch
- Macintosh IIfx still does not respond to power switch
- Floppy disk cannot be inserted into drive
- FWB Hard Disk Toolkit floppy diskette unbootable
- Install Macintosh System 7.1.1 (System 7.1 Pro)
- Install MacIvory support
- Check MacIvory support software
- Create FEP0: partition
- Installation of Genera LISP worlds fails using Apple CD300e Plus
- There is no paging space available for LISP
- LISP stops itself before completing cold load
- FEP Test Main Memory reports continuous errors into eternity
- FEP Test Main Memory reports faulty memory location
- MacIvory Control Panel bombs the Macintosh System during boot with 8 MB NatSemi board
- Limited support for NuBus RAM boards
- AppleCD 150 ejects disc
Problem Log
Macintosh IIfx will not respond to power switch
Nothing happens when pressing the power switch on the back of the machine.
The system batteries are dead. Replace both with corresponding 3.6v Lithium cell, size 1/2 AA.
Macintosh IIfx still does not respond to power switch
Nothing happens when pressing the power switch on the back of the machine, even after the batteries have been replaced.
Connect the system PSU to AC line current... you total yogurt.
Floppy disk cannot be inserted into drive
Disk drive loading mechanism stiff with old grease. Floppy disk may be inserted with greater than normal force; additional manual intervention is required before heads will fully load.
Disk drive S/N 71012117 replaced with S/N 20579270. Original unit marked for reconditioning.
FWB Hard Disk Toolkit floppy diskette unbootable
If the HD Toolkit disk is booted, the system shows the "X" disk icon and ejects the disk. How is this tool supposed to be used on a single-disk system without any other bootable media?
Install Macintosh System 7.1.1 (System 7.1 Pro)
The Apple "Legacy" Software Recovery CD (P/N 600-6684-A) contains both hard disk setup tools and System software, and is bootable.
To format a hard disk that does not have Apple firmware, use:
Disk Utilities »
A separate partition may be created to hold the Ivory FEP filesystem, but it is not necessary to do so.
Install System 7.1 Pro using the Net Install script:
To enable Mac OS access to the CD-ROM drive, the CD-ROM Setup tool must also be run:
Install MacIvory support
Once the system is running System 7.1.1 from the hard disk, install the MacIvory support software from the Symbolics CD.
Check MacIvory support software
Launch the MacIvory control panel to verify the MacIvory hardware is correctly detected.
The control panel displays the following configuration information:
MacIvory model 1, board rev 2.0, serial 463 NuBus memory 16 MB = 2.6MW
For the other MacIvory processor (without the FPA option), the control panel displays the following configuration information:
MacIvory model 2, board rev 10.0, serial 20898 NuBus memory 16 MB = 2.6MW
Create FEP0: partition
To reserve space for the FEP filesystem on the Macintosh hard drive, launch the MacIvory control panel, and click the button marked "New". At least one partition must be created on each disk you wish to use with MacIvory.
The control panel automatically fills in a value for the new FEP filesystem size which is equal to the entire free space on the drive. It is not necessary to accept this value, which is measured in Ivory pages (256 40-bit words). 1000 Ivory pages is equal to 1250 KB. A minimal Ivory partition will be approximately 100000 pages. This is enough to hold the FEP files, one LISP world, and a modest amount of paging space. The space must be contiguous; disk fragmentation can reduce the total space available for creating the FEP partition.
On Thingfishh, it automatically selected 1661056 pages, which was equivalent to the entire free space on the startup volume. I changed it to 1061056 pages. Once the specified size is satisfactory, click the button marked "Make".
Installation of Genera LISP worlds fails using Apple CD300e Plus
When running the initial world installation:
the process fails to read data from CD. The following message is printed in the FEP window:
Superseding condition=> disk: Unit 0 at SCSI ID 6, status: 2, sense: 5, additional-sense: 72, sector NIL, reason: NIL [Error: Error while opening CART30:: UMAKE-INSTANCE on :closed NIL <<Error printing #<DTP-ARRAY 37000554450>>> with REFERENCE-COUNT = NIL] FEP Command:
The FEP is very particular about which CD-ROM drive it can use. It accesses the CD-ROM drive directly, so the CD need not be mounted on the Desktop nor otherwise usable to the Macintosh System for LISP to be successfuly restored.
Test Results
| Works to restore LISP | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | CD150 | 1x, caddy | Works to restore LISP. |
| Chinon | CDA-535 | 1x, caddy | Works to restore LISP. May be used with Mac OS by installing a third-party CD-ROM driver such as the FWB CD-ROM Toolkit. |
| Unknown | |||
| Apple | PowerCD | 1x, spindle | Unit appears to have other problems. No FEP testing attempted. |
| Does not work to restore LISP | |||
| Apple | CD SC | 1x, caddy | May work with FEP to restore LISP but cannot reliably read CD-R media. |
| Apple | CD300 | 2x, caddy | World restore fails with error as above. |
| Apple | CD300e+ | 2x, tray | World restore fails with error as above. |
There is no paging space available for LISP
After restoring the LISP worlds, the FEP fails to cold boot LISP. It prints an error about insufficient paging space.
When running Ivory Breath of Life, select the radio button to initialize the FEP filesystem before beginning the restore. The paging files are created after the LISP worlds are successfully restored; if the restore process fails or is interrupted, the paging files will not be created.
LISP stops itself before completing cold load
When attempting to cold boot Genera, LISP stops and drops into the FEP debugger. The behavior does not change even after performing a full FEP filesystem format and restore from Genera distribution media.
There is likely a failing DRAM on the NuBus memory board.
FEP Test Main Memory reports continuous errors into eternity
The FEP Test Main Memory command reports continuous errors starting after address 5150000 (~1.3 MW). This will continue for as long as you let it, limited only by the speed of the FEP display. I lost patience after about 30 minutes and aborted the test.
Uncorrectable memory error referencing physical 00005152530 at #<DTP-EVEN-PC (150 in (:INTERNAL FEP::TEST-48-BIT-MEMORY 0 #:SPLIT59854)) 37000013002> ECC Syndrome 204; Log Address 00005152530; Error Logged; Errors Lost Uncorrected data: 11320002205537
FEP Test Simple Main Memory reports faulty memory locations
The FEP Test Simple Main Memory finds many memory errors like the following.
Error in Main memory location 00252626644: expected: 2525252525252525 actual: 2535252525252525 xor: 010000000000000 Error in Main memory location 00252626770: expected: 2525252525252525 actual: 2535252525252525 xor: 000000000000200
Locate the failing DRAM and replace. The XOR value is an octal-encoded map of the failing bit. In this case, the chip to replace is the one in the right-hand bank corresponding to bits 7 and 39. (Addresses are relative to 0252600000 for the second NuBus memory board. Boards are numbered in order of ascending slot address.)
![[svg]](gfx/macivory-mem-layout.svg)
Arrangement of Macivory memory on the NS 8/16 board (111 KB SVG)
MacIvory Control Panel bombs the Macintosh System during boot with 8 MB NatSemi board
Removing the 8 MB daughtercard from the National Semiconductor 8/16 NuBus memory card, then reinstalling just the 8 MB base board, causes the MacIvory Control Panel to crash the Macintosh during bootup, leading to an infinite reboot loop.
Note: According to DKS, any revision base board will work in a Quadra, as long as it has the daughtercard installed. Only a revision F base board will work without the daughtercard in a Quadra. All other revisions will bomb the Macintosh System if installed without the daughtercard present. This limitation does not exist with any of the Macintosh II models.
One or more of the soldered-in 41256 DRAMs on the base board has failed. MacIvory uses a small amount of RAM on the NuBus memory board for communications between the Ivory processor and the Macintosh host. If there is a problem with this memory, communications will fail and the Control Panel will crash.
In order to use the FEP memory diagnostics to locate the failing DRAM in this case, either the board must have the daughtercard installed, or a second NuBus memory board must be installed in a lower-numbered slot.
Limited support for NuBus RAM boards
The MacIvory support software only works with a limited selection of NuBus memory boards.
Test Results
| Officially Supported | ||
|---|---|---|
| National Semiconductor | NS 8/16 | 8 MB base board + optional 8 MB daughterboard. Uses 41256 DRAMs; only 4 MB socketed. Rev F required for 8 MB in Quadra. |
| Works | ||
| DayStar | RAM PowerCard | 16x 30-pin SIMM slots. Will use parity or non-parity RAM; 16 MB SIMMs are supported for up to 256 MB. MacIvory I & II will only address up to 48 MB (8 MW), though the control panel will happily report more if it's available. If more than 8 MW is installed, Genera will eventually crash. 24 MB (4 MW) is supposed to be the "sweet spot", regardless of memory board(s) used. |
| Not recognized | ||
| Apple | Display Adapter 8•24 GC | 2x 64-pin SIMM slots; not compatible with IIfx SIMMs. Memory only addressable by on-board AMD 29010 processor. |
| RasterOps | 24si | 4x 30-pin SIMM slots. Memory only addressable by on-board processor. |
| RasterOps | NuBus Accelerator II | 4x 30-pin SIMM slots. Can be configured as RAM disk or GWorld memory. Mac OS driver on old RasterOps video card setup diskette. |
I have heard rumors that Intel made a NuBus memory card as well. I have been not been able to learn anything more about it, nor locate one for testing.
Update: The FEP source code reveals that the NS 8/16 and RAM PowerCard are the only supported memory boards.
AppleCD 150 ejects disc
When attempting to mount a CD on the AppleCD 150, the orange activity LED lights, the disc spins for a few seconds, and then is automatically ejected. The green power LED may or may not be lit. The behavior is the same whether or not the drive is connected to the Macintosh.
Electrolytic capacitors on the drive logic PCB have failed. Replacements should be no more than 5.4mm in height.
- 100µF 16v 6.3mm dia. (qty. 4)
- 47µF 16v 6.3mm dia. (qty. 3) †
- 10µF 16v 4mm dia. (qty. 2) †
† part is equivalent to those used on various Macintosh mainboards.