clubmac@runx.ips.oz (Macintosh Users Group) (10/09/87)
Is it true that Apple has temporarily (for up to six months) stopped Mac II
production? A local distributor of Macs who imports them directly from the
U.S. (bypassing Apple Australia) told me his American supplier received
a notice from Apple informing that the Mac II would be out of production for
up to six months.
Is there a problem with Mac II production?
Jason Haines
Jason Haines, President
Club Mac Macintosh Users Group, Sydney, Australia
Phone Home: +61-02-73-4444
Snail: Box 213, Holme Building, Sydney University, NSW, 2006, Australia
ACSnet: clubmac@runx.ips.oz ARPA: clubmac%runx.ips.oz@seismo.css.gov
UUCP:{enea,hplabs,mcvax,prlb2,seismo,ubc-vision,ukc}!munnari!runx.ips.oz!clubmacjww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) (10/14/87)
I heard a rumor that there will be a new ROM in a month or two.
No reading on its accuracy.
--
Joel West (c/o UCSD)
Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
So. California: where the ground does the Rocking 'N Rolling for youjww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) (10/14/87)
In article <4088@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>, jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: > I heard a rumor that there will be a new ROM in a month or two. I shouldn't have said rumor (and if @&&*&*^ news woulda let me cancel this...) A letter to NuBus developers from Apple dated September 1 says a new ROM is planned in November; new machines will get the ROM and dealers will do a ROM upgrade on any serviced/upgraded machine. The problem is the Slot Manager won't recognize cards with > 1 Megabyte of memory (can you say "24-bit video card?") because it doesn't run in 32-bit mode. In the new ROM, the Slot Manager will run in 32 bit mode, according to the letter. Today, only the lowest 1 Megabyte of address space of a NuBus card is visible to the Slot Manager. Since declaration ROM has to be at the top of the address space, if it uses > 1 Megabyte, the declaration ROM "disappears". Neat, huh? Apple says that card developers should notify their customers if their product requires the new ROM; they will be providing a ROM version application to see whether you need to visit your dealer. -- Joel West (c/o UCSD) Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083 {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
singer@endor.harvard.edu (Richard Siegel) (10/15/87)
In article <4091@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: >The problem is the Slot Manager won't recognize cards with > 1 Megabyte >of memory (can you say "24-bit video card?") because it doesn't run >in 32-bit mode. In the new ROM, the Slot Manager will run in 32 >bit mode, according to the letter. > >Today, only the lowest 1 Megabyte of address space of a NuBus card >is visible to the Slot Manager. Since declaration ROM has to be at >the top of the address space, if it uses > 1 Megabyte, the declaration >ROM "disappears". Neat, huh? > That's *real* neat! What about those National Semiconductor NuBus memory expansion cards that have 4, 8, or 16 MB of RAM on them? Does this mean that they won't work either????! NSI's advertising isn't real clear, but were those cards intended to function under the normal Mac OS, or is UNIX required? --Rich **The opinions stated herein are my own opinions and do not necessarily represent the policies or opinions of my employer (THINK Technologies, Inc). * Richard M. Siegel | {decvax, ucbvax, sun}!harvard!endor!singer * * Customer Support | singer@endor.harvard.edu * * THINK Technologies, Inc. (No snappy quote) *
dwb@apple.UUCP (David W. Berry) (10/16/87)
In article <2999@husc6.UUCP> singer@endor.UUCP (Richard Siegel) writes: >In article <4091@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: > NSI's advertising isn't real clear, but were those cards intended >to function under the normal Mac OS, or is UNIX required? > > --Rich National's large memory boards will "work" regardless of the operating system. However, initially only A/UX will be able to take advantage of them. The toolbox memory manager won't know about them although I would assume that will be fixed "real soon now" You can certainaly expect (NOTE: SPECULATION ONLY!!!!!!!) to see a raft of programs to allow the memory to be used as ram disks, ram cache, special versions of Excel which can access it, etc. -- David W. Berry dwb@well.uucp dwb@Delphi dwb@apple.com 973-5168@408.MaBell Disclaimer: Apple doesn't even know I have an opinion and certainly wouldn't want if they did.
ernesto@nsc.nsc.com (Ernesto Rey) (10/20/87)
There has been a discussion in this newsgroup as to whether any NuBus cards larger than one MByte (in particular National Semiconductor's 16 MByte Memory Card) will work on the Mac II. The current version of the Macintosh O/S memory management scheme assumes a 24-bit (16 MByte) address space. Each of the six NuBus slots in the Mac II is allocated one MByte of the system's address space when in 24-bit compatibility mode (currently the standard mode of operation for the Mac O/S). The NuBus specification defines a 32-bit (4 GByte) address space, where the top 256 megabytes are divided into 16 "slot spaces" (16 MByte each). To make the NuBus slots visible to the CPU when in 24-bit mode, Apple has developed a memory management gate array, the HMMU, which translates 6 megabytes of CPU addresses into the lowest megabyte of each of the six slots. The address space occupied by the slots in this mode is in the I/O space of the classical Macintosh address map, not in the RAM space. This means that memory of any kind that is resident on a NuBus board is not currently managed by the Mac O/S but must be accessed via dedicated "I/O drivers"; An example of this is the RAMdisk device driver that National is bundling with the NS8/16 NuBus memory card. The HMMU can however be reconfigured through a Mac O/S system call to run in 32-bit mode. In this mode, all addresses generated by the CPU are passed directly to the NuBus. This is the mechanism used by NSC's RAMdisk software to make all 16 Megabytes accessible to the system. In a similar manner, any applications developed for use in 32-bit mode are able to access memory directly. In summary, NuBus memory can certainly be used in the Mac II running under the current version of the Mac O/S, but not as main system memory that applications can access by requesting blocks of memory from the memory manager. When the Mac II is running A/UX (which is implemented in 32-bit mode), the entire NuBus address space (and thus any NuBus memory) is directly accessible to the CPU. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | The opinions stated herein are my own and do not necessarily represent | | the policies or opinions of my employer | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,sun}!nsc!ernesto * Ernesto Rey * Compatible Products Group * National Semiconductor, Santa Clara, CA