On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 02:54:31PM -0400, John Ruschmeyer wrote:
> I am about to get a Performa 630 and was wondering about the state, if any,
> of an IDE driver for NetBSD/mac68k.
> 
> I seem to recall that Ken Nakata had done some work on an IDE driver for
> 1.4, but I gather it was never folded into the baseline. Is anyone working
> on this currently? Any 1.5 IDETEST kernels?

Hrm. I'm about to want a Performa 636 motherboard to work right in
a 63x0's case (they're basically the same machine, of course), and
I'd completely forgotten that we didn't do IDE right. Yuck. I'd also
be thrilled if this had magically been fixed by now.

Fwiw, the CD-ROM (or bay, if you really have a 636, rather than a
636CD) in that machine is SCSI, so if you can do without it, shove
a bare drive in there and save yourself the external case cost. In
order to attach a 3.5 inch drive to Apple's 5.25 inch sled, drill
holes in the plastic (I did this most recently with a hammer and
nail followed up by a pocket knife, but the awl found in your
standard Swiss Army knife works best) 3.75 inches apart lengthwise
and 1.75 inches apart widthwise. (You'll probably want to check to
make sure those measurements are sane, in case I'm remembering
wrong.)

Unfortunately, you can not use the zip drive sleds (alá the 6500),
as they don't have the vertical clearance to slide over the mounts
inside the case.

(I did this for a couple of 7500s I wanted three SCSI HDs in. I
don't have a 636 form factor case right in front of me now, so I'm
not sure how all of that information stacks up, but it should be
pretty similar. This is all stuff I've been meaning to mention for
a while. If anyone's interested in some other hardware hacks with
macs, especially with macs running NetBSD, drop me a line and I'll
be further encouraged to write up some documentation on the kludges
I've done for my cluster of mostly macppc machines and get it posted
in the appropriate places.)

> Also, am I correct in understanding that I'm going to need to replace the
> LC040 with a full '040 if I want to run NetBSD?

Yes, you will. Can't quite recall precisely where I got mine. It was
some web order place in Texas from whom I was ordering a 7500
motherboard. They didn't list the 040s on their web site, but when I
inquired on the phone, it turned out they either had them or could
get them real easy (I wasn't clear on that part). Probably putting
in a few phone calls is your best bet. (Finding mac components,
especially aging ones, can be a bit tough without some old fashioned
leg work.)

-- 
       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net