ProMax TurboMax/33 (Acard chipset AEC-6210)

[macStuff]

https://web.archive.org/web/19990505200215/https://www.promax.com/turbo.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/19990922012341/http://promax.com:80/turbo.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/19991106120903/http://promax.com:80/turbo.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20000815110037/http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/Acard66vsTurbomax.html
https://www.macworld.com/article/1015126/turbomax.html
aec-6210 is a model number consistant with ACARD technologies products

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5028.0;attach=6374;image
https://web.archive.org/web/20000815110206/http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/

TurboMAX offers a data storage breakthrough for Macintosh owners. For the first time, you can install a PCI card in your Macintosh that will allow you to add fast, inexpensive, Ultra DMA EIDE/ATA hard disk drives to PCI Macintosh computers. High performance, high capacity storage at unbelievably low cost. As much as 185 GB of data storage for little as $2555.00. This is enough storage to hold 12.5 hours of DV video! G3 computers built prior to May, 1998 can now install two additional EIDE drives from 25 to 37 GB each. Five additional EIDE disk drives can be installed in Blue/White G3’s introduced June 1, 1999 and all G4’s.

TurboMAX Kits include a TurboMAX/ATA PCI host adapter especially configured for Ultra DMA disk drives. Disk drives can be formatted with standard MacOS partitions or can be striped in pairs as RAID-0 for sustained transfer rates high as 29 MB/sec using optional striping software such as Remus. The TurboMAX card supports channels 0 and 1 with master/slave capability.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010305214210/http://www.acard.com:80/ide/AEC6210U_UF.htm

AEC6210U/UF PCI Dual Channel Ultra IDE Adapter

AEC6210UFThe AEC6210U/UF is a high performance PCI ultra dual channel IDE adapter.
AEC6210U/UF support full feature PCI 32-bit bus master transfer capability  including PCI enhance data transfer command(133MB/Sec).
       AEC6210U/UF support Scatter/Gather function to improve performance under
multi-tasking O.S.

 
Feature

    Powerful advanced setup function
    Up to 8.4GB per one drive under dos environment
    Up to 2048GB per one drive
    Int13h extension supported
    Device supports
        Hard disk, ATAPI device
    OS compatibility
        DOS, Windows 3.X, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Netware 3.x, 4.x
        DOS/V... etc. compatible.

 
PCI Bus

    Scatter/Gather function supported
    Automatic FIFO threshold selection
    Low command overhead
    Multi-threaded multi-tasking
    Flash BIOS interface (AEC6210UF only)
    Burst master cycle support up to 133MB/Sec (at 33MHz)
    PCI Plug and Play (Coexist with on-board IDE)

 
IDE Bus

    Dual channel IDE Bus
    Supports ANSI x3t9.2 cam ATA3/ATA2
    Supports 4 IDE devices
    Supports Ultra DMA mode, Data transfer rate up to 33MB/Sec
    Auto recognize ATA & ATAPI Device

[macStuff]

turbomax firmware downloads
https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=other_turbomax.html&title=Other%20%7C%20TurboMax

Turbomax Flasher v1.7.4
Turbomax Flasher ATA/33 BinHex (135k)
Note: Turbomax Flasher ATA/33 is only for the ATA/33 cards.
Turbomax Flasher v3.01
Turbomax Flasher ATA/66 BinHex (60k) or Stuffit 5.x (44k)
Note: Turbomax Flasher ATA/66 is only for the ATA/66 cards.
Turbomax Flasher v3.08
Turbomax Flasher ATA/66 BinHex (60k) or Stuffit 5.x (44k)

https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/FTP/turbomax/Flasher_v1.7.4.sit.hqx

[macStuff]

 

turbomax/33 = AEC-6210UF = ATP850UF Acard Chipset

https://web.archive.org/web/20000816012816/http://home.owc.net/~gcole/maxtor_raid.html https://web.archive.org/web/20000816012821/http://home.owc.net/~gcole/ibm_raid.html

[macStuff]

heres the card without stickers covering chips

[(S)ATAman]

This is the ACard product which was literally "borrowed" by ACard.
ProMax took a SIM to the market, using ACard chipset. Acard got in mood - and "borrowed" the idea, adopting the UDMA/66 card for the Mac.
Originally they had no clue about the Mac.

Their next step was "SCSIDE" - which was based on the idea of TurboMax/33: while Apple did not had "ATA (IDE) Manager" in every Mac, they had the SCSI Manager everywhere. So an ATA card could be successful by implementing the ATA - SCSI translation.

ACard put that translation idea in their UDMA/66 product and later on the chip level as "SCSIDE".

So the road for Promise was paved... But their first good ATA product was the UDMA/100, the UltraTek/66 was horribly slow in Yosemite and Sawtooth. The problem was with the chip. On the other side the UDMA/66 chip of ACard was very good and Sonnet liked it.

I have to admit, ACard did a very good job "borrowing" the TurboMax/33 software. But I wasn't very happy back than.