Mac OS 9 Lives

Classic Mac OS Hardware => Video Cards, Monitors & Displays => Topic started by: macStuff on February 22, 2018, 05:52:27 AM

Title: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: macStuff on February 22, 2018, 05:52:27 AM
http://www.gpureview.com/all-in-wonder-8500-card-248.html

(https://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/ati/aiw8500128mb/ati/8500128mb.jpg)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/900/19

just spotted one of these cards for sale locally near where i live
just "WONDER"ing if anyone has any experience converting this card for MAC use in a sawtooth or other AGP Mac?

the article also makes mention that the 64mb "DV" version of the 8500 all in wonder also provides 2 firewire ports??
ive never heard of this..

Quote
The AIW Radeon 8500 128MB differs from the 8500DV in only a handful of ways:

1) Price - $399 for the AIW 8500 128MB vs $299 for the AIW 8500DV
2) Clock Speed - 275/275 (core/mem) vs. 230/190 (core/mem)
3) Memory size - 128MB BGA memory vs. 64MB TSOP memory
4) TV Tuner - Analog vs. Silicon based tuner
5) Firewire support - None vs. 2 ports

now heres the image of the 8500 DV:
(https://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/ati/aiw8500128mb/ati/8500dv.jpg)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/900/13

not sure if anyone has had any experience with this card;
and whether or not it can be used in a mac..
(and if so... does the firewire ports actually work??)

Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: darthnVader on February 22, 2018, 06:07:03 AM
The card should be flashable, but may need some Rom edits.

The Booktree tv encoder won't work with OS 9, but there was a port of the linux driver to OS X. Tho that was years ago, so it may or may not still be downloadable anywhere.

The Phillips tuner won't do you any good anymore, no analog TV, unless you have something old that outputs to Ch.3/4.

The DV ports should work under OS 9/X, as they would be seen as a PCI Firewire device, but should doesn't mean will, as I've never tested it.
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: darthnVader on February 22, 2018, 06:20:59 AM
Booktree 8xx OS X

https://sourceforge.net/projects/xtv/files/xtv/

May need some modification to work with the 8500 AIW, as I'm not sure what Booktree chip it uses.

It's pretty easy to look at the linux sources and the source for the BT8XXX driver from XTV and make the changes needed.

Not that it does a lot of good, unless you have an old VCR you want to connect to video input on your Mac.

Even then, there were may video capture devices for OS X PPC that were a lot better.

BTW, these cards had a "Breakout Box" with some RCA connectors, they'd be useless without them for TV in in these days.
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: macStuff on February 22, 2018, 06:29:48 AM
did u say you personally have experience writing mac rom for the 8500?

heres some ebay links for the dv edition 8500 that i found

8500 dv:
1 https://www.ebay.com/itm/AGP-card-64MB-ATI-AIW-8500DV-Video-Radeon-RAGE-109-84800-00-DVI-Out/263271426182?hash=item3d4c332886:g:F8kAAOSwlxhZg8K7 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/AGP-card-64MB-ATI-AIW-8500DV-Video-Radeon-RAGE-109-84800-00-DVI-Out/263271426182?hash=item3d4c332886:g:F8kAAOSwlxhZg8K7)
2 https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-AIW-8500DV-64M-AGP-Video-Radeon-1394-109-84800-00-/200497203571?hash=item2eae908973 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-AIW-8500DV-64M-AGP-Video-Radeon-1394-109-84800-00-/200497203571?hash=item2eae908973)
3 https://www.ebay.com/itm/All-In-Wonder-AGP-card-AIW-8500DV-64M-DDR-ATI-Rage-Theater-DVI-Vid-out-CATV-/323084382327?hash=item4b39547077 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/All-In-Wonder-AGP-card-AIW-8500DV-64M-DDR-ATI-Rage-Theater-DVI-Vid-out-CATV-/323084382327?hash=item4b39547077)

what are the chances this can work 100%?

Quote
unless you have something old that outputs to Ch.3/4.
that may work well for other devices + vintage computers that connect via RF cable to a "TV"
such as an old commodore?

one observation of these AIW cards is that they all seem to have DVI connection.. whether its 8500 / 9000 or 7500 based gpu
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: darthnVader on February 22, 2018, 06:41:24 AM
Depends on how you define 100%?

If you're looking for the card to work under OS 9, then the DV ports should work. Working as a video card it would need to be flashed with the Mac Rom, and that may or may no need some ROM edits.

I never flashed an AIW, but I've flashed a "million" 8500's, I'm the founder of the Mac Elite, and a moderator at Strangdogs. Very few people know more than I do about flashing video cards to the Mac.( Atri and the Rominator ).

If you want the video capture to work under OS 9, you'd have to write the driver yourself, and a soft video digitalizer.

 
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: macStuff on February 22, 2018, 07:26:41 AM
wow ok 8)
in that case - thanks for all your hard work!  8) 8)
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: MacOS Plus on February 22, 2018, 10:05:17 AM
... I'm the founder of the Mac Elite, and a moderator at Strangdogs. Very few people know more than I do about flashing video cards to the Mac.( Atri and the Rominator ).

  Much respect to you!  It's quite an honor to have you here and to make your acquaintance.  I've used those resources for longer than I can remember.  I never imagined we'd have one of you guys participating on this forum.
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: macStuff on February 22, 2018, 10:10:24 AM
I never flashed an AIW, but I've flashed a "million" 8500's, I'm the founder of the Mac Elite, and a moderator at Strangdogs. Very few people know more than I do about flashing video cards to the Mac.( Atri and the Rominator ).

did you mean to say "Arti" ? i guess that makes you responsible for most of the rom files here: http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

do u have any experience shrinking Firmware (such as the firmware for the Sil3112 from the Seritek 1S2)
Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: darthnVader on February 22, 2018, 12:29:09 PM
I never flashed an AIW, but I've flashed a "million" 8500's, I'm the founder of the Mac Elite, and a moderator at Strangdogs. Very few people know more than I do about flashing video cards to the Mac.( Atri and the Rominator ).

did you mean to say "Arti" ? i guess that makes you responsible for most of the rom files here: http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

do u have any experience shrinking Firmware (such as the firmware for the Sil3112 from the Seritek 1S2)

Yes, Arti Itra, and that's not me, he is really the brain behind most of what we know about Fcode Rom's.

It was a team effort, me and Joe Van Tunen really started Mac Flashing of ATI cards back at the old Xpostfacto forums, but I had an old Geforce 2MX PCI card I wanted to get working in my Powermac 8600.

Someone figured out how to flash a PC 7000 to Mac, as the ATIFlash.exe would not flash the full 128k rom to the card. Then I figured out how to flash a PC 8500. Then ATI sent out a bad update for the Mac 8500 and bricked a bunch of retail 8500's so they had to make a flasher that would flash a card with a bad eeprom. That made it so anyone could flash a PC 8500 in their mac, with no need for a PC.

Ebay blew up with people selling flashed 7000/8500's.

Then ATI started putting 64k eeprom on their retail PC cards and had all the board venders do it, so people couldn't flash them.

sprinter figured out how to remove the 'NDRV' from ATI cards so they were less then 64k.

I went on about getting my Geforce 2 working.

So while later people figured out how to flash a PC9800 to Mac. I ran across the Strangdogs forum in my searches for Nvidia Roms. People were flashing ATI cards, and some Geforce cards, but knowone knew how to edit the BMP. So I took what I had learned of it, and Hexedit, and edited, and edited, and flashed, and flashed(nvflash) until I got a working PC 5200 in may Sawtooth.

Once we knew that, we could turn any Geforce card into a Mac card.

People started stealing our work, that we stole from nvidia, and selling them on Ebay. ;D

Now that there is no market for people to sell flashed cards for PPC Mac's, mostly because you can't buy those old cards new in enough numbers to make any money. I'm trying to get the Rom Makers Arti's wrote added to the mac elite wiki.

It's an OS X app, you just drop a PC nvidia rom on it, and it spits you out a Mac Rom.

We'll have to see how that goes, it's not up to me, really it's up to Arti.........

Title: Re: ATI Radeon 8500 "All In Wonder" AGP
Post by: macStuff on February 22, 2018, 05:35:24 PM
well you seem to be a missing link between here + there!  8)
cant wait to see what happens next  ;D