any Apollo fans out yonder?

G'Day, On 12/09/2008, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote: [early models] There is an Apollo FAQ out there somewhere. I *should* have a copy but I don't seem to have with me at the moment. It seemed to go into the different hardware models and supported hardware in reasonable detail. As far as I know, the 3500 was a 3000 with some minor improvements. Opening the box - nothing stood out as being different between them. Internally there could be a couple of minor differences. In terms of memory and hardware, unless you have a complete unit, things are a little difficult. Running from memory here. * Memory is custom Apollo memory. There is nothing on board. You need the memory cards. * The etherenet network card is a 3com model - exact model escapes me at the moment. You will probably need Apollo ROMs to use the card. * Graphics - custom frame buffers. Nothing PC will work. Although I stand to be corrected here. * Hard Disk Controller - was a Western Digital ESDI model. Model escapes me at the moment. I am not sure if there is a ROM issue - assuming you could find a controller. * Hard Disk. There was only a couple of ESDI hard disks that are supported. Good luck finding some. * SCSI. Yes. It was supported and you could hang a larger HDD off the Apollo if you had a SCSI controller. I have no idea about booting or the model of SCSI controller that worked. * Adaptec Tape Controller - I think this was a generic PC unit with nothing special ROM wise. Again, find the right model. * Power Supply. A standard PC power supply could be grafted in to replace the Apollo supply. This was in the days of AT power supplies. ATX is doable, but at more risk and with the assumption you know how to jerry-rig the ATX supply. * PC parallel and serial cards were reported to just work and the DomainOS/Aegis documentation gave instructions on how to set it up. In short. It is a M68K big endian system with a bus for a 80286/80386 little endian bus. Anything with smarts generally had custom ROMs but most of the cards themselves were also seen within PCs. [chomp] Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh