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- From: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.announce
- Subject: NeXT-Hardware-Internal-FAQ
- Followup-To: comp.sys.next.misc
- Date: 6 Mar 1995 08:39:15 GMT
- Approved: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu
- Expires: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 00:00:00 GMT
- Reply-To: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu
- Summary: Frequently Asked Questions about NEXTSTEP and NeXT machines.
- Originator: nathan@laplace
-
- Archive-name: NeXT-Hardware-Internal-FAQ
- Last-modified: Mon Mar 6 03:03:59 EST 1995
- Version: 3.1
-
-
- These FAQs are under significant construction,
- and may well change form and content over the
- next weeks.
-
- These FAQs focus on various aspects of OpenStep,
- NEXTSTEP, and NeXT machines.
-
- The FAQs are kept on-line at several ftp sites,
- including:
-
- cs.orst.edu
- sonata.cc.purdue.edu
-
- Many FAQs, including these, are available (www, ftp,
- email) on the archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the
- directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under
- which this FAQ is archived appears in the
- Archive-nameline above.
-
- Within each section each question will be preceded by
- a "Subject:" field, allowing news readers to break up
- the file into separate questions. Each question has
- its own unique number. Items that appear within
- sections are not in any particular order, and get added
- and removed over time. Questions marked with a "+"
- are new to this issue, and questions with changes since
- the last issue are marked by a "!".
-
- Submissions, corrections, comments, input, etc.,
- should be directed to Nathan Janette
- <nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu>.
-
- Some important NEXTSTEP & OpenStep Information WWW sites:
-
- NeXT, Inc.
- http://www.next.com/
-
- NeXTanswers
- http://www.next.com/NeXTanswers/
-
- Stepwise NEXTSTEP/OpenStep Information Server
- http://digifix.digifix.com/
-
-
- TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- ------------------
-
- L1.What can be done about older 030 NeXT cubes that have a fan that turns in
- the "wrong" direction?
- L2.Can I connect a SONY 2.88 MB floppy to my 68030 NeXT Computer?
- L3.Why does the OD continually spin up and spin down?
- L4.How many colors can NeXT machines display?
- L5.Why is my machine so slow when I run the monochrome and NeXTdimension
- displays?
- L6.Where to obtain replacement mouse parts?
- L7.Where to obtain extra batteries?
- L8.How to convert a Turbo system to use ADB?
- L9.How to put a 68030 board in the same NeXTcube as a 68040 board?
- L10.How to expand DSP memory?
- L11.How to boot a NeXT without a monitor?
- L12.Two internal hard drives on NeXT Motorolla 68040 slabs?
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L1. What can be done about older 030 NeXT cubes that have a fan that
- turns in the "wrong" direction?
-
- The fan on older 030 NeXTs cubes sucks air out of the back of the cube
- which means that it draws unfiltered air in through the optical disk on
- the front of the cube. This causes optical disks to succumb to dust must
- sooner than cubes with the later version fan which turns in the opposite
- direction.
-
- It is okay to reverse the direction of fans in these machines. If you
- have many third-party cards installed in your cube or an older processor
- board, you may wish to consider not reversing fan direction (overheating
- could become a problem). In any case, do not reverse the fan's polarity,
- only reverse the fan assembly itself.
-
- Try to obtain the cleaning kit and OD filter retrofit parts also.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L2. Can I connect a SONY 2.88 MB floppy to my 68030 NeXT Computer?
-
- The SONY MPX-111N internal 2.88 MB floppy drive which was shipped with
- all the 68040 NeXT machines is *not* a SCSI device, therefore there is no
- way of connecting that particular drive internally on a 68030 system.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L3. Why does the OD continually spin up and spin down?
-
- A big problem with the Canon optical drives is that air flows through the
- drive to cool it. Dust accumulates inside the drive causing it to fail
- with the continuous spin-up spin-down syndrome. NeXT as part of it's
- 040 upgrades provided a dust filter to prevent this. If your drive has
- this problem it usually can be fixed simply by cleaning out dust from the
- drive. NeXT sold a cleaning kit for both the drives and the optical
- disks.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L4. How many colors can NeXT machines display?
-
- The monochrome machines can display 4 gray levels. You can use color
- apps on a monochrome machine, they will converted into monochrome
- images and dithered accordingly.
-
- Color NeXTstations can combine 4 bits of red, green and blue primaries
- for a total of 4096 "pure" colors. The imaging functions dither the
- image to produce intermediate colors.
-
- NeXTdimension can combine 8 bits of red, green and blue for 16,777,216.
- There are not 16 million points on the display so all can not be displayed
- at once. Further display technology limits the usable color space.
-
- None of the NeXT products support color look up tables where the user can
- define their own color palette on a per window basis. This feature is
- useful for displaying images which have adaptive lookup tables, and
- display pure grayscale images on the color NeXTstation. On the
- NeXTdimension images can be converted to full 24 bit representation.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L5. Why is my machine so slow when I run the monochrome and
- NeXTdimension displays?
-
- There is a bug with the window system in which if you select the
- monochrome display as your primary display the server will be much much
- slower. The solution for those wishing to use both displays is to select
- the color (NeXTdimension) display as the primary display. The most
- optimal configuration at present with the NeXTdimension is to run only
- the color display.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L6. Where to obtain replacement mouse parts?
-
- [jdavidso@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu]
-
- For those who have need of a new button in their mouse, and don't want to
- pay for the whole mouse when it is only the button that has gone bad, we
- have recently discovered a satisfactory replacement for the Omron
- switch. It is in the Digikey catalog, # 931, Jan-Feb 1993, page 141,
- under Cherry switches D4, DG, and DH series. Digikey part # CH164-ND,
- Cherry part # DG1C-B1AA. We ordered one of these, and just received it
- today. Tried it out, and it sems to be working flawlessly so far.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L7. Where to obtain extra batteries?
-
- Battery part number: BR 2/3A 3V Lithium Battery (Panasonic)
-
- Source: Engineered Assemblies & Components Corporation
-
- 5204 Green's Dairy Road
- Raleigh, NC 27604
- Phone: 919-790-9700 (ask for Debra)
-
- Price: $16.71 for 2 batteries incl. shipping & C.O.D.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L8. How to convert a Turbo system to use ADB?
-
- [From: Brad_Sime@NeXT.COM (Brad Sime)]
-
- If ADB equipment are used with older NeXT systems they won't work properly.
-
- Here are the ADB requiments:
-
- a) A Turbo computer.
-
- b) CPU eprom version 74.
-
- c) New revision computer to soundbox/monitor cable. The part
- number is molded at both ends of the connector:
-
- CableNEWOLD (Non ADB)
-
- NeXTcube4534150
- NeXTstation45351532
- NeXTstation color 45362286
-
- d) New revision monitor which uses a vertical scan rate of 72hz
- instead of 68hz, except on NeXTdimension systems color monitor
- stays 68hz.
-
- MonitorNEW (72hz)OLD (68hz)
-
- 17" monoACX (N4000b)AAA (N4000a & N4000)
- 17" colorADF (N4006)ABG (N4001)
- 21" colorADB (N4005a)ABH (N4005)
-
- e) ADB soundbox for color sytems. S/N prefix ADD instead of ABN.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L9. How to put a 68030 board in the same NeXTcube as a 68040 board?
-
- [Felix_A_Lugo@ATT.COM]
-
- ********************** DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER **************************
- The following procedure is not supported by NeXT, Inc. and will
- definitely void the warranty on your NeXT computer. Follow it at your
- own risk. I disclaim all responsibilities for damages caused by
- negligence in following the procedure. There is no guarantee that the
- procedure will work on all versions(?) of the NeXT cube hardware. All I
- know is that it worked on the NeXT cube I was working on!!!! SO BEWARE!
- ********************** DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER **************************
-
- Here we go! I'll first provide a description of the hardware I was using
- and comment on what I accomplished and how I got the information on how to
- do it!
-
- The hardware included a NeXT cube with 660 MB drive, OD, etc., a 68040
- upgrade board, and a 68030 motherboard. I successfully installed both
- the 68040 and 68030 boards on a SINGLE NeXT cube and linked them together
- through their ethernet ports. The 68040 was configured as a boot server
- and the 68030 was used as its client (booting off the network for lack of
- an additional hard drive).
-
- The procedure reconfigures slot #2 on the cube's back-plane as slot #0.
- This provides two slots configured as #0, required for booting the two
- motherboards. Once I determined what the slot pin-outs were (thanks to
- my good friend John Chmielewski), it was a matter of time before the two
- boards happily co-existed.
-
- The procedure:
-
- 1. First, follow the procedure on the NeXT User's Reference manual for
- removing the system board (Appendix C: Opening the Cube, page 291 of the
- 2.0 manual).
-
- 2. Using the NeXT supplied screwdriver, remove the two screws that
- attach the power-supply housing to the cube (the screws are located on
- the lower part of the housing) and gently pull the housing out. Set it
- aside in a safe place (away from kids and nosey friends!)
-
- 3. Remove the two plastic grooved plates (used to slide the system
- boards in) at each side of the inside bottom of the cube. (For each plate,
- lift the side closest to the rear opening and gently pull them out). Set
- them aside.
-
- 4. Using the NeXT tool, remove three screws holding the back-plane to
- the cube and then take the back-plane out of the cube. Let the cube rest
- for a while.
-
- Inspect the back-plane. You will see five bus slots (four vertical and
- one horizontal). The horizontal slot connects the back-plane to the
- power supply housing. We're only interested in the four vertical
- slots. From the factory these slots are configured as 6, 2, 0, and 4
- (starting from the left and going right with the horizontal slot at the
- bottom). The system board connects to slot #0 (which you've probably
- noticed). Each slot contains three columns of 32 pins. Following is an
- ASCII representation of one of the slots:
-
- x y z C B A
- o-o o 32 . . .
- o-o o 31 . . .
- o-o o 30 . . .
- o-o o 29 . . .
- 28 . . .
- .
- .
- .
- 3 . . .
- 2 . . .
- 1 . . .
-
- ...where x, y, and z are labeled GND, SID, and VCC, respectively. The GND,
- SID, and VCC "holes" are used to configure the slot number using simple
- binary encoding, where GND is logical zero, VCC is logical one, and SID
- (for Slot-ID I guess) determines the current bit state (one or zero).
- Notice the four rows of GND, SID, VCC triads; each row is equivalent to
- one bit position in the slot number, the bottom row bit position 0, the
- top row bit position 3. This gives a total of four bit positions, or 16
- possible slot numbers. To encode a slot number, you need to connect an
- SID row to its corresponding GND or VCC row. For example, the diagram
- below shows the configuration of the slots in my cube's back-plane
- (you'll have to look very closely to see the actual connections):
-
- SLOT #6SLOT #2SLOT #0SLOT #4
- BIT 3:o-o oo-o oo-o oo-o o
- BIT 2:o o-oo-o oo-o oo o-o
- BIT 1:o o-o * o o-o *o-o oo-o o
- BIT 0:o-o oo-o oo-o oo-o o
-
- ... Now on with the procedure:
-
- 5. To reconfigure slot #2 as slot #0, cut the trace between SID and VCC for
- bit position 1 (see * o o-o * above) and connect SID to GND on the same row.
- I used the SIMM removal tool supplied by NeXT in the 040 upgrade (talk
- about multi-purpose) to cut the trace! Very gently, scrape the solder
- off between the two holes. Take a paperclip, shape it to fit between the
- holes in SID and GND, and trim it down to an even 1/4 inch (perfect fit)!
-
- That's all there is to it. If for some reason you ever want to revert to
- slot #2, just remove the paperclip from GND-SID and reconnect it to
- SID-VCC.
-
- 6. Now put the cube back together. First, re-install the back-plane
- using its three connecting screws, then snap on the plastic plates, and
- finally insert the power-supply housing and secure with its two
- screws.
-
- At this point the cube is ready to take on the two system boards (it is up to
- you to determine where/how you want to use the two boards; I'll explain
- how I used mine) ...
-
- 7. I installed the 68040 in the original slot #0 and the 68030 in the
- reconfigured slot #0 (previously slot #2). The 68040 was used as the
- main processor board. I connected the 660 MB drive, the OD, and the
- monitor to it.
-
- NOTE: Before beginning the procedure, I went into the NeXT Monitor on
- the 68030 and disabled the Sound out, SCSI tests and verbose test mode
- and enabled serial port A as a console terminal. I also made "en" the
- default boot device. I setup the 68040 as a boot server and taught it
- about the 68030 (which took some time in getting it setup properly).
-
- 8. I connected the 68040 to the 68030 using a thin-ethernet cable and I
- booted. First thing I noticed was that the 030 timed-out a couple of
- times waiting for the 040 to tell it to boot. But after the 040 was up,
- the 030 booted nicely.
-
- That's all folks. Hope all this made some sense and people find it
- useful.
-
- Comments:
-
- - To power off the cube, I have to first shutdown the 030 (I run "halt -p" as
- root from a telnet connection and wait for the 030 to go down), and I then
- power-down the 040. If you shut down the 040 before the 030, you'll have
- to pull the power plug to turn the machine off. The cube will not power off
- if either of the two boards is providing a load to the power-supply.
-
- - Remember, I've only performed this procedure on one system. I do not
- know what will happen on your system. So make sure you plan ahead what
- your going to do and that you understand the procedure.
-
- - I don't know what problems may arise when you add a board that uses the
- NeXTbus, such as the NeXTdimension, or how it will behave. If someone is
- courageous enough to perform the procedure and intalls another board,
- please post your results to the net.
-
- - If you think this procedure has done any good for you, please feel free
- to send in donations. 8^) (think of it as "hardshare")
-
- ________________________ UPDATE TO PREVIOUS ARTICLE __________________________
-
- To clear up some misunderstandings with the settings in the "p"
- command of the NeXT monitor (these settings are only required for the
- system board that doesn't have the NeXT display monitor connected):
-
- 1. Sound out test must be "no"; the boot process will not proceed if the
- monitor isn't connected to the board and this is set to "yes" (the sound
- out tests will fail, aborting the boot procedure).
-
- 2. SCSI tests should be "no" if you don't have SCSI devices attached to
- the board (SCSI tests will fail otherwise, aborting the boot
- procedure).
-
- 3. Verbose test mode must be "no" for booting from the network. If set to
- "yes", the boot process will timeout waiting for a BOOTP and you'll be
- left in the monitor with no means of restarting the board (except
- pulling the power plug)! This is probably true also for booting from an
- OD that hasn't been inserted (assuming the OD was attached to the
- board).
-
- 4. Allow serial port A as alternate console if you want to view the boot
- process (for problems and peace-of-mind).
-
- 5. Other settings were not modified from their factory defaults or had
- no effect on the procedure.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L10. How to expand DSP memory?
-
- The Speech Recognition Lab at San Francisco State University has
- developed a DSP memory expansion board for the NeXT computer that
- provides the maximum memory supported by the DSP56001 processor. We are
- now offering this board to those whose are interested in
- high-performance custom DSP development.
-
- -- The board is a 576KB DSP expansion memory board organized as three
- non-overlapping 192KB banks: X-data, Y-data and Program. The board
- uses relatively fast (<35ns) SRAM. This board compares with NeXT's DSP
- memory expansion board, which offers only 96KB in an imaged memory
- configuration.
-
- -- The board is a high-quality, 4-layer board, open-circuit tested
- prior to assembly. It fits into the DSP memory daughterboard slot on
- all NeXT machines.
-
- -- The price will be $600. Please let us know if you are interested.
- Delivery will be in about 3-4 weeks.
-
- -- Contact Tom Holton (th@ernie.sfsu.edu). E-mail is prefered. The
- address is:
-
- Tom Holton
- Division of Engineering
- San Francisco State University
- 1600 Holloway Avenue
- San Francisco, CA 94132
- 415 338 1529 (phone)
- 415 338 0525 (fax)
-
- Note: Because we've organized our memory as three separate
- (non-overlapping) banks (X, Y and P) of 192KB apiece, none of the DSP
- memory image functionality provided by NeXT with its existing 8K base
- configuration, or its 96KB DSP expansion module is supported. While we
- cannot guarantee that every existing DSP application ever written will
- be plug-and-play compatable with our DSP expansion memory, we are not
- aware of any existing applications that use the image functionality.
- The MusicKit, and demo programs that use the DSP, such as Mandlebrot
- and ScorePlayer, work fine with our memory module.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L11. How to boot a NeXT without a monitor?
-
- [From: The Onyx Kitten <onyxcat@vesta.unm.edu>]
-
- The procedure is to just touch pins 6 and GND on the DB-19 NeXT monitor out
- with a 470 Ohm resistor (450 is the actual resistance, but 470 ohms is
- more commonly found in resistors). Pin 6 is the power sense, and pins
- 13-19 (and the DB shell) are the GND. Just say "pin 19", it may be easier.
- There's a pinout diagram of the DB-19 in the NeXT Users Reference Manual.
-
- If you have an old Cube, the power supply needs to have more power drawn
- from it than an 030 (and 040?) board uses to stay on. So: On the DB-19,
- attach a Power Resistor (20 Ohm, at least 20 Watt) between pins 12 and
- GND. (Pin 12 is -12V, pin 13 works well for GND). Then just "touch" the
- 470 ohm resistor as described above, and you're set. The 20 Ohm resistor
- draws an old 030 running monitorless in an old CUBE), but it isn't
- necessary - just don't touch it (*HOT!* ;-)
-
- To power off, type "halt -p" as root on the machine (either through a
- terminal connected to port A, or over the eithernet connection).
-
- Also, you have to have the Rom Monitor settings done correctly. The
- important ones are:
-
- Wait until keypress? N
- Sound out tests? N
- Port A as alternate Console? Y (if you have one, it's nice)
- Verbose mode? N (I think this may need to be N to work, don't remember).
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Subject: L12. Two internal hard drives on NeXT Motorolla 68040 slabs?
-
- [From: takken@hulme-pc-2e.Stanford.EDU (Todd Takken)]
-
- It is possible to fit a second internal hard drive in
- a NeXT slab, in addition to the floppy drive and the
- first hard drive. The second drive must be third
- height, or 1 inch high. There is no room for a half
- height device. Buy a bracket or make one out of sheet
- metal for the 1 inch high drive. On 25 MHz mono
- stations the SIMMs are smaller and the drive doesn't
- have to go all the way against the back wall. In
- this case, glue the bracket to the underside of the
- NextStation cover, centered from side to side and as
- far to the back as possible. This is sufficient. On
- 25 MHz colorstations, however, one must file away a
- bit of the interior metal on the cover in order to
- glue the bracket fully to the rear of the cover. Once
- this modification is done, the drive will clear the
- RAM when the cover is closed. Screw the drive into
- the bracket, with the power and SCSI plugs toward the
- right hand side of the NextStation so that the cables
- will reach. Go to your favorite computer store and
- get both a "dual internal SCSI bus cable" and a "dual
- internal SCSI power cable." Plug in the cables to
- both internal hard drives and close the cover.
-
- This was verified on both a 25 MHz mono and a 25 MHz
- color NextStation. No power or heating problems
- occurred.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________________
-
- Editor: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu
- --
- Nathan Janette
- Systems Manager, Axel T. Brvnger Lab
-
- Internet:nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
-