hd size for quadra 840

[Jacob Yocom-Piatt-2]

i've got a quadra 840 here with a 1.5 gb hd and want to get openbsd onto
it. after reading the install instructions i'm to understand that i need
a 2nd disk to install openbsd onto from the onboard one that's running
mac os 7.5.5. if this is incorrect, do tell.

what is the largest hd that such a machine will accept? i've found one
that's an apple-brand 50.1 gb 50-pin drive.

cheers,
jake

[Martin Reindl-3]

Jacob Yocom-Piatt <jy-p@...> wrote:

> i've got a quadra 840 here with a 1.5 gb hd and want to get openbsd onto
> it. after reading the install instructions i'm to understand that i need
> a 2nd disk to install openbsd onto from the onboard one that's running
> mac os 7.5.5. if this is incorrect, do tell.

No, MacOS is only used as 'boot loader'. You can have a really minimal
MacOS install and use the rest for OpenBSD even with a single disk.

> what is the largest hd that such a machine will accept? i've found one
> that's an apple-brand 50.1 gb 50-pin drive.
>

50pin 50.1GB SCSI disk? Wow.

Here is the pdisk snippet from the RZ26 in my 840:

Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/sd0c'
 #:                type name             length   base    ( size )
 1: Apple_partition_map Apple                63 @ 1      
 2:      Apple_Driver43*Macintosh            54 @ 64    
 3:      Apple_Driver43*Macintosh            74 @ 118    
 4:       Apple_Patches Patch Partition     512 @ 192    
 5:           Apple_HFS untitled         409600 @ 704     (200.0M)
 6:     Apple_UNIX_SVR2 OpenBSD_Root     409600 @ 410304  (200.0M) S0 RUFS k0  /
 7:     Apple_UNIX_SVR2 OpenBSD_Swap     409030 @ 819904  (199.7M) S1  SFS k0  (swap)
 8:     Apple_UNIX_SVR2 OpenBSD_Usr     2881536 @ 1228934 (  1.4G) S2  UFS k0  /usr
 9:          Apple_Free Extra                10 @ 4110470

martin

[Nick Holland]

Martin Reindl wrote:
> Jacob Yocom-Piatt <jy-p@...> wrote:
>
>> i've got a quadra 840 here with a 1.5 gb hd and want to get openbsd onto
>> it. after reading the install instructions i'm to understand that i need
>> a 2nd disk to install openbsd onto from the onboard one that's running
>> mac os 7.5.5. if this is incorrect, do tell.
>
> No, MacOS is only used as 'boot loader'. You can have a really minimal
> MacOS install and use the rest for OpenBSD even with a single disk.

right, though if you lack the OS media, it might be, "exciting" to resize
the existing partition.

If I recall properly, with OSv6 and OSv7, you can put a second disk in,
create a small (I think I've done as small as 50M, if you really know
MacOS, I think it can be as little as 5M, but don't screw up!) MacOS
partition on it (using the hacked Mac HD SC Setup program or similar),
and copy over the system files.  For some versions of MacOS, that didn't
work, but I can't recall which are which.

>> what is the largest hd that such a machine will accept? i've found one
>> that's an apple-brand 50.1 gb 50-pin drive.
>>
>
> 50pin 50.1GB SCSI disk? Wow.

no kidding.  But, I can't think of any reason it wouldn't theoretically
work.  If your source has multiples of that drive available, I think some
of the developers might be very interested (it seems some systems really
dislike "wide drive to narrow computer" adapters).

Be forewarned, the fsck time might be measured in weeks.
Watch heat on 'em, too, the air flow in the Q840/Q800 case seem to be
very poor over that drive.

I run mine with a 4G drive + a 2G drive for /usr/obj.  I should try a
68/80 pin to 50 pin adapter, may work for bigger drives.

Nick.

[Jacob Yocom-Piatt-2]

Nick Holland wrote:

>>> what is the largest hd that such a machine will accept? i've found one
>>> that's an apple-brand 50.1 gb 50-pin drive.
>>>
>>>      
>> 50pin 50.1GB SCSI disk? Wow.
>>    
>
> no kidding.  But, I can't think of any reason it wouldn't theoretically
> work.  If your source has multiples of that drive available, I think some
> of the developers might be very interested (it seems some systems really
> dislike "wide drive to narrow computer" adapters).
>
>  

nick,

found it on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=004&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=140102116635&rd=1&rd=1

i was certainly struck by the size and that it was a 50-pin drive. there
are currently 7 left, although they are ~45 usd / ea after shipping.

> Be forewarned, the fsck time might be measured in weeks.
> Watch heat on 'em, too, the air flow in the Q840/Q800 case seem to be
> very poor over that drive.
>
>  

i definitely noticed that when running mac os with the case off for a
bit. i might have to augment the case in that case, just in case :).

haven't yet taken the whole thing apart and am interested to know how
much memory it will take. any advice here? i have 2 x 16MB sticks of
60ns (i think) RAM that go in 486s and the like, doubtful they'd work
please advise.

cheers,
jake

> I run mine with a 4G drive + a 2G drive for /usr/obj.  I should try a
> 68/80 pin to 50 pin adapter, may work for bigger drives.
>
> Nick.

[Joel Rees]

On 平成 19/04/01, at 14:00, Jacob Yocom-Piatt wrote:

> [...]
> haven't yet taken the whole thing apart and am interested to know how
> much memory it will take. any advice here? i have 2 x 16MB sticks of
> 60ns (i think) RAM that go in 486s and the like, doubtful they'd work
> please advise.

http://www.lowendmac.com/profiles.htm
http://www.info.apple.com/support/applespec.legacy/index.html

I think there are others, as well, but these are the ones I remember.

Sure wish I knew of a source for Q840 in Japan. I've tried several  
times to get obsd and nbsd on my P630 and P550, but it seems I really  
will have to have the 68030 for the latter and a full 040 for the  
former, if these boxes will work at all.

[Michael Thibault]

On 01 Apr, 2007, at 1:00 AM, Jacob Yocom-Piatt wrote:
> i definitely noticed that when running mac os with the case off for a
> bit. i might have to augment the case in that case, just in case :).

That case lid is supposed never to be off when the machine is on.

> haven't yet taken the whole thing apart and am interested to know how
> much memory it will take. any advice here? i have 2 x 16MB sticks of
> 60ns (i think) RAM that go in 486s and the like, doubtful they'd work
> please advise.

MacTracker (http://www.mactracker.ca/) claims the max is  four 32M  
72-pin SIMMs, for 128M of RAM. That's probably the official,  
conservative Apple line, though, given what was available at the time  
of the 840's release.

More here:  
http://www.apple-history.com/body.php?
page=gallery&model=840&performa=off&sort=date&order=ASC

On the 50G, 50-pin, 7200 RPM SCSI drives... now we're looking at 181G,  
50-pin drives. Hmm... Sure, I'll take 6, and, ummm, lemme see, three  
dozen 32M, 30-pin SIMMs.