The chassis expansion anthology for PowerMacs

[Protools5LEGuy]

There are various expansion chassis for Macs:

PCI macs to Nubus



https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/13824-second-waves-pci-nubus-expansion-box-others/



Nubus to Nubus.    

Digidesign NuBus Expansion Chassis (12 Slot)


http://archive.digidesign.com/support/propix/DigiChassis.html

For PCI to PCI Magma is the leader:

PCI Expansion Systems provide an easy way to add multiple PCI and PCI-X cards and drive bays to your computer. A variety of expansion chassis are available ranging from 1 to 13 slot expansion with monitoring and redundant power options. Multiple systems can be daisy-chained for maximum expansion capabilities. Host connection types include standard PCI, Low Profile PCI, CardBus (PCMCIA), PCI Express® and ExpressCard™. Practically any type of PCI card can be used in the Magma expansion chassis ranging from audio processing, video capture, graphics, test & measurement, data-acquisition, SCSI, Fibre Channel, SATA and more.

http://www.magma.com/catalog/classic-pci-expansion

http://www.magma.com/13-slot-pci-expansion




Smaller 7 slot http://www.magma.com/7-slot-pci-expansion


I have seen also some SBS chassis, probably Digidesign/Avid rebranded.

It is important to make a picture catalog of them and the cards. Lots of PowerMacs are sold with one host card! On ebay I have seen lots of incomplete setups without cables or without PSU or only the motherboard on ebay by people who dont have a clue on what is that.
Please Knezzen post info about yours. From SonikArchitects (BT)

 I just bought a new 13 Channel PCI13-R chassis from Magma and was completely and totally unable to get my dual 1 to recognize this chassis. We'll Digi, Magma, no one could help. Instead of formatting as a story...I'll include my email to Magma today when I finally pwned this system.

...

I got it working. This is going to be a long email and I’d like to speak to you as I need to order/swap the cards and cables you sent me for older cards and cables. Contrary to the assertion that your devices do not have firmware/REV versions…they most certainly do and I’ve proved it by solving this problem.

SO:

The controller cards you sent to me (host and expansion cards) do not work with any generation of Protools 24 (Mix, Mix IO, Core, Farm etc) cards whatsoever, in any iteration. My Korg Oasis card is the only card that the chassis can see with the new controller cards you guys sent.

This card (I pulled from a 7slot Magma expansion chassis WORKS). However there is a very specific combination of placement, cards, order and specific versions of software that makes Digi Mix 24 cards recognized in a PC13-R Magma chassis.

Expansion Interface card
PCI-EXP 2.1
PYE 3255A4
01-03522-00 REV (left blank)

I need a matching pair of the above cards and 2 cables (one new and a spare) for my other system. I am happy to send back the cards I just purchased to swap for the older cards. I am also happy to pay for the cables.

I was told this system would work with my Protools Mix 24 system. It’s an absolute miracle I was able to figure this out and since I was very specific in my initial correspondence and made a purchase based on the assertion this would work, I am sure Magma will be gracious and accommodating.

Moving on, to make this work the controller card in a 5 slot G4 can ONLY be placed in Slot 2. It will not work in any other slot. After the card is seated properly you have to purge PRAM and reset the NVRAM. It will not work if you do not do this.

The (old) expansion controller card must be in slot one of the expansion chassis. The old (do not know how many pin) cable must be securely connected.

Next you MUST run the OS9 Magma card viewer application. I got this from your website. If you do not do this before running DigiTest the cards will not be recognized.

Finally you have to have followed the Digi recommended hierarchy of card placement. No other iteration that Core(s), Mix Farm(s), DSP farms (s) will work. I am still unsure how much bus power these will draw so until I’ve worked on the rig for a while, I will not know how many of these cards can be in the chassis and working stably.

Okay so next you have to run the very last version of DigiTest. It was made in August of 2002. It’s the last version of DigiTest in OS9. NO OTHER VERSION OF THIS APPLICATION WILL RECOGNIZE THE CARDS AND MAKE THEM AVAILABLE FOR USE. Once you run this, you test the cards…it all works.

[Metrophage]

I have also seen adaptors for using PCI cards on the PCMCIA bus of PowerBooks. I thought about this for live use years back but dismissed it as craziness.

[supernova777]

  taken from http://www.ebay.com/itm/Macintosh-8100-Sonet-G3-Pro-Tools-NUBUS-Sound-Designer-Opcode-EMAGIC-Logic-/331344583188?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d25ad1a14&nma=true&si=EVk04xCqgVsPstmiV%252BW82nYqZkw%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[Syntho]

There seems to be a few different expansion chassis boxes released over time with one of them having the card built into the unit itself. I see one of those on Ebay at the moment but it doesn't come with a PCI card for a powermac as well as the cable for connecting the two. I'm not sure how hard it is to find those things.

Something's telling me that all of the audio and processing done in that one box, coming into a single PCI slot on a powermac isn't a good idea. What if you've got 64 tracks or more flying in and out at the same time? Can the powermac handle it ok? I'm afraid of the long term effects of that.

[IIO]

i wonder about that, too.

6 powercore cards in one PCI slot would be very nice, but isnt the PCI bandwith for all possible channels (6*48@32/44) reserved?

[Syntho]

I'm not sure why they've got so many on Ebay all the time without the damn PCI card and the cable for it. You can't run it without it. Anyone have any spares laying around?

[Protools5LEGuy]

There seems to be a few different expansion chassis boxes released over time with one of them having the card built into the unit itself. I see one of those on Ebay at the moment but it doesn't come with a PCI card for a powermac as well as the cable for connecting the two. I'm not sure how hard it is to find those things.

That is the reason I started http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2163.0. We need to have an archive of all the expansion chassis available for ours machines.

I asked there all users to make some photos to know what is it a complete system, to be easier to find parts. Lots of powermacs are sold with the cards inside... We need do differentiate them visually, in case we confuse them with SCSI cards (some systems share same conector?)

[Syntho]

I looked for a manual for the SBS expansion chassis but couldn't find one. The SBS DD007-R (aka MH477) has the controller card built into the chassis itself so you don't need to install it into a spare slot on it. It apparently comes with an additional PCI card and a cable for connecting the chassis to your powermac but I can't find any info on which card and cable to use.

Let's see if we can get more info on these things...

[Protools5LEGuy]

There is a brand called Bit-3 that later became SBS (?)

I make some searches on eBay like
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XSBS+chassis&_nkw=SBS+chassis&_sacat=0

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XSBS+expansion&_nkw=SBS+expansion&_sacat=0

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1312.R1.TR10.TRC3.A0.H1.Xexpa&_nkw=Expansion+chassis&_sacat=58058

And from time to time they give results as :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GE-FANUC-SBS-Technologies-85224042-Backplane-Controller-/200400234186?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2ea8c8e6ca

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GE-FANUC-SBS-Technologies-85224045-Backplane-Controller-/200510179276?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2eaf5687cc

But most of the time, I do not trust sellers that do not know what parts they are selling. But the truth is that the more ignorant the seller is, the cheaper you bought the part...

I looked for a manual for the SBS expansion chassis but couldn't find one. The SBS DD007-R (aka MH477) has the controller card built into the chassis itself so you don't need to install it into a spare slot on it. It apparently comes with an additional PCI card and a cable for connecting the chassis to your powermac but I can't find any info on which card and cable to use.

Let's see if we can get more info on these things...

[Protools5LEGuy]

Please join the antology post http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2163.0 so we all can have all the info in one place. It will take time, but for sure most chassis combinations working on G4s can be reviewed there by us before summer 2015.

Let's wait for :
1 Knezzen to publish some photos on his 2 expansions rigs
2 Let's try to find the parts used by BT on his rigs (already posted there the part numbers)
3 Find out all info we can about Bit-3 / SBS chassis.

Also it is important to notice if they use ATX PSU or custom...

On eBay there are motherboards of MAGMA chassis for a fraction of the price of a complete system.

 

[Syntho]

I'm kind of tempted to pick up an expansion chassis but I won't unless it includes the Host PCI card. None of the ones on Ebay right now do.

And yeah we need Knez and BT to swing by and let us know which cards and cables we need.

[Protools5LEGuy]

I'm kind of tempted to pick up an expansion chassis but I won't unless it includes the Host PCI card. None of the ones on Ebay right now do.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAGMA-PXB-4-4-Slot-PCI-Expansion-Chassis-w-PXB-PGHOST-Powerbook-Module-19289-/181545896261?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a44fa8945

This thing seem complete. You just need a powerbook.

[Syntho]

How would you connect that to a powerbook?

[Protools5LEGuy]

How would you connect that to a powerbook?

I have no idea. Some powerbooks had expansions port for having 2 batteries instead a CDRom and a battery. Pismo generation? Wallstreet?

The seller mention powerbook, and it seem like a swappable part. Maybe someone from old school..

[Syntho]

From taking a look at wikipedia, it seems the old PCI 2.0 standard can pass 133MB/sec. That's definitely fast enough to handle as many tracks as you can probably come up with. However that's for the whole PCI bus, not a single slot. What if you're running a Powermac 9600 with 6 PCI slots?

I don't know if the System Bus speed is a factor in this either, because isn't the system bus speed the thing that dictates basically the entire speed of the machine or something? And I remember IIO saying something about RAM speed playing a factor as well.

[Knezzen]

I can't bounce a project to the boot drive on the MDD for instance. It gives me an error message about "slow PCI bus". Bouncing to the project drive works though (the boot drive is on the ATA33 controller, so the ATA100 is free for audio data only).

If I add a PCI SATA card to the equation, I can't use all the DSP's on all the 7 MIX cards at the same time. Will give me the same error message. Without the SATA card and a drive on the internal ATA100 controller, all is well and I can use all the DSP's.

So trying to relieve the PCI bus of as much stress as possible it probably a good thing.
Getting a machine with a fast bus and keep the PCI slots clear of anything you don't have to use.
I only have the Magma chassis controller in mine. Nothing else.

[Syntho]

I read that when guys were using accelerator cards for Pro Tools that they had to slow the SCSI accelerator card down by 50% since the card was working too fast for Pro Tools. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[Ed Redfern]

having had a pci expansion unit to run DSP's, firewire, USB and other interfaces to keep SCSI to the G3, running a full 24 track count on the coe and 2 farm cards it hadn't much trouble at all.

magma chassis use unique boards and now it's different cables so you wouldn't confuse them with  scsi leads. PCI Bus works on total load of all streamed channels,  so at 133mhz rate, you can perform quite a bit. what bottlenecks most of all in certain situations is buffering data to storage because of the amount of data bounce via SCSI as an example, it can have a knock on effect. These are good systems if you configure the storage controller inside the expansion chassis and mount drives inside (7 or 13 slot types) where you can install SCSI drives, the raid controller, the TDM boards, etc, then hook this up to your host mac and load a firewire / usb card and that's it. keep the main internal card structure reasonably clear other than vitals.

[IIO]

knezzens experience is typical for protools, those cards are very picky with bandwith and so it is questionable if you can hook another 100 PCI cards to a system.

one can also run into trouble with systems which hold one or more PCI graphics card.

i also wonder if it is possible to make up some rules what will work and what not.

[Knezzen]

knezzens experience is typical for protools, those cards are very picky with bandwith and so it is questionable if you can hook another 100 PCI cards to a system.

I wouldn't add anything more to the equation. If you need faster disk access, RAID two drives on the internal ATA100 controller.

Im still using a regular 7200rpm drive, although with 12mb cache.
Haven't had any issues yet (using 60+ tracks in 24bit 48khz) with drive access, the big problem is the clogged bus when using a lot of TDM plugins.

Would love to get even more speed from the bus, but getting it over 167mhz seems to be problematic.