Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own PowerPC?
amokk asks: "Let's assume for a second that somebody would want to take the time and effort to build a Personal Computer but base it on a PowerPC architecture. Besides saying 'Buy a Mac' (I already have one) or 'Buy an IBM server', is there any way of acquirng the individual parts and slapping them together? Why you would want to do this isn't up for debate. Rather, this is one of those 'wouldn't it be neat if...' type of experiments."
Is "do I want this to be Mac compatible, or Linux/someotherOS compatible".
The latter answer is the easier one - the former is harder, since you would have to find "official" Apple parts to make sure the OS talked nice to all the pieces.
Either way, the idea is an interesting one.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Look here, but it's kind of old. Oh and here also!
You can buy refurb'ed Mac motherboards from Shreve Systems in Shreveport, LA. They are a really good source to start with.
The AmigaOne G3 SE is a fairly generic ATX motherboard with 133MHz DIMM sockets, IBM 750CXe PowerPC chip (600Mhz), 4xPCI, 1xAGP, etc, etc.
.. or is that a bit too easy? :-)
It runs AmigaOS 4 or PPC Linux quite happily. Plonk one of these in a standard case and you've got yourself a DIY PPC solution
Meep meep
The limitation is really over whether or not you want to use the MacOS. If you could use, say, yellow dog linux, then your job is much easier. Buy your processors from Sonnet, your motherboard from any school (they're getting rid of those old 6100/66 machines like crazy... I have 22), grab your ram from the same places... Basically take a bunch of old machines, assemble one that works from their parts, add a new processor. Or you can do what I'm doing and chain a bunch of stock machines together via ethernet. The only problem is they draw 60 amps of current.
Oh, yeah... see if you can get your hand on a workgroup server.
--Bennett Prescott
Former Lord Of Packets
Pegasos
Should be available now AFAIK.
There is also the Amiga One which right now is mostly vapor (E.g. not purchasable at the moment)
See, I mentioned both.
I found a fast warez site: http://warez.it.kth.se
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/15/ 1918233&mode=thread&tid=181
Just stating the obvious
Are you looking for something like this?
From the site:
The boards do appear to be available - anyone tried them?
If you could get Darwin running on such a homemade PowerPC (not made from old Mac parts, but built from 'scratch')... could you then take the pre-compiled parts of aqua out of Mac OS X and run this on your homemade powerpc computer?
Doesn't darwin handle all of the interaction directly with the hardware? If the aqua binaries can run on your homemade powerpc, shouldn't everything work just fine?
And a related question... what if you got Darwin running on an x86 chip with a PowerPC emulator? Could you, theoretically, get aqua to run on such a system?
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Next Weeek On Ask Slashdot: "Let's assume I want to pump gas into my car through the radiator and mix in diet cherry 7-up. WHY is not up for debate. I just need the schematics and blue prints of how to achieve this, and I need this NOW."
The author should ask to ammend the question to include (or not) compatability with Mac PPC as a goal.
Can you buy Motorola motherboards and pop in a CPU? Sure.
That's it??
It would be more interesting to consider the "platform" as part of the question. Some would be exclusively interested in compliant hardware that runs MacOS. Others would just want something that runs Linux.
This site has instructions on what you need, where to get it, and how to put it all together. Pretty useful if you want to build your own Mac and don't want to pay Apple's prices.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
...are there mainboards and CPUs available to end-users that are not in the sky-high price-range that manufacturers take for developer hardware?
I'd be interested in building an ARM-based desktop computer, but it seems there is no normal mainboard sold to end-users. Or is it? ("Normal" = standard form factor, standard RAMs, IDE, USB and VGA included, possibly PS/2 and serial too.)
Same question for the Crusoe, btw. Seems that the only desktop mainboard available is developers only...
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Here are a few resellers of Apple hardware:
Milagro and ETI Express
check it.
Build a Macintosh from Scratch
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
If you really want to build a system from parts there are several places you can go. Motorola sells evaluation platforms that consisto of a motherboard (essentially a backplane) and CPU modules that plug into it. It's calld Sandpoint. You can get third party CPU modules for it from Tundra (who also sells whole kits with their own system board). Marvell/Galileo sells a platform that is well suited to building a PC style machine with PPC hardware, and you can get a variety of processor cards for it ranging from low end G3 style processors up to dual 7450 processors.
Some of the best PPC machines available right now can't be built from parts simply because they're on a single board. My current to y is the cyclades TS-100 it's only 1"x3"x3", has dual CPUs and can be had for under $200.
incripshin
Check out these guides for repackaging either a Beige G3 or Blue/White G3 in a standard ATX case. All that's needed that is "Apple offical" is the motherboard stuff; memory, video ( uses Mac PCI video cards ), HD, and CD-ROM are off the shelf PC items. They use ZIF CPUs which can be obtained from Apple, Sonnet, NewerTech, and many others.
Why you want to do this *IS* up for debate. If you're shooting for a unix (linux/whatever) platform, does it really matter that it's PowerPC? I mean, unix is general enough that unless you've got specific hardware requirements (and processor alone doesn't constitute this -- I'm talking wierd ass PCI cards or other barnyard oddities) it doesn't matter if you're on powerpc, intel, or sparc. The cheapest bang for the buck in this category is, as we all know, intel.
:)
I've no idea what you'd need to do to get this MacOS compatible. Do they still use dark matter (ROM) in those machines? But if you're not going for Mac compatibility I don't know why you want to roll your own.
If you've got a warezhouse full of PowerPC assembly programs then that's a different story. Obviously you're going to need a specific processor to run them. Or maybe you're looking to do embedded system development on a PowerPC?
Inquiring minds want to know. Ok, we don't really *want* to know, we'd really just like to laugh at the idea a bit more.
Specs:
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Motorola and IBM don't sell their CPUs to end users. You can order a G4 or even a G5 (PPC 8500 series) from one of Mot's suppliers like Arrow, but I believe they force you to order in high quantities (40+ at a time).
During the dot-bomb era, several companies like Eternal Computing and Silicon Fruit promised to offer affordable PowerPC motherboards to retail customers. Nothing ever came of it (insert Apple conspiracy theory here).
I think there's a market for retail PowerPC motherboards, or there will be once IBM's 970 hits the market. It's fun to mess with exotic hardware like the PPC, and its performance is very impressive considering its limited clock speed. IBM has published a spec for PowerPC logic boards that is available for free on its website (i'm sure someone else has posted the link by now).
Linux would run on these things in no time (maybe we could even build our own TiVOs with 'em). And Mac OS X would be easy to port, with or without Apple's help.
I don't think IBM would like this idea very much however, since it might undercut their huge margins on PPC-based servers. On the other hand, if they manufactured and sold the motherboard for cheap, they could bring PPC to a much larger audience.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Macopz.com "build a Mac" page
They have links to all the parts suppliers, the parts add up to $800
> I just purchased a new computer, by taking some
> parts out of my old one, giving them to the
> service desk at my local computer shop, and
> telling them how to fill in the blanks
What is this, an AOL forum? I thought this was Slashdot, where people etch their own fricken motherboards, not drop them off at the local shop to get an upgrade.
I think the person is probably asking about commodity parts. Anyone can go into a local hole in the wall PC shop and buy an Intel/AMD compatible mobo and plug commodity hardware (video, NIC, sound, IDE HDs, etc...) into it and get a working computer out of it. But, is it possible to get a PowerPC based mobo with PCI/AGP slots, an IDE controller, USB in an ATX (I'm not a hardware guy, so ATX could be the wrong term) form factor and have it work with an OS like Linux? That would be a great way to get away from the WinTel world and avoid paying the steep prices that Apple fetches. However, since any mobos like this are likely to be made in a much smaller volume and harder to find (implying a small customer base), they would probably be fairly expensive anyway. It's a beautiful idea, but it's not a reality at this time.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Breakfast served all day!
Mac On Linux will let you run MacOS (including OS X) on any PowerPC system that runs Linux -- even if MacOS won't run natively on the hardware. Mac On Linux provides a MacOS-compatible virtual machine (but it doesn't emulate the processor, so it's nearly as fast as running native).
The main problem building a Mac PPC using a refurbished motherboard seemed to be the power supply, IIRC. Needs a 28v trickle feed.
Anyway, worth a read.
Slashdot looked deep within my soul and assigned
me a number based on the order in which I joined
Try here for resellers.
MicroATX mainboard (236 mm x 172 mm)
133 MHz processor slot
600 MHz PowerPC G3 750 CXe - to Dual PowerPC G4 MPC 7450
PC133 RAM (two sockets), up to 2 GB
AGP slot
PCI subsystem with three slots, optional Riser Card
IEEE1394 (Firewire) VIA VT6306 with 100/200/400 MBit data transfer
10/100 MBit Realtek Phyceiver 8201 Ethernet
USB I/O system VIA 8231 with four connectors
AC97 sound subsystem Sigmatel STAC 9766 Codec with mic input, line in/out and headset connector
IRDA for infra-red remote control
ATA100 VIA 8231 with two channels for upto four ATA devices
PS/2 mouse connector
RS232 (serial) port
Centronics port
Floppy
Gameport for PC-compatible joysticks
Open firmware
Two operating systems included : MorphOS and Linux
This was called the "common reference hardware platform". Before Apple usurped back the Power Computing, Motorola, and Umax clones, this was supposed to be one potential answer to building a non-mac powerpc box. Motorola came the closest to accomplishing this by implementing standard PC parts (like ps/2 ports) on their computer.
. sh tml
At one time, back when Microsoft actually supported the PowerPC architecture, Firmworks and IBM actually made a dual-booting macintosh/NT computer in 1996. IBM's motivation was linux, I believe. Check these links out:
http://www.firmworks.com/www/chrp.htm
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CHRP.html
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/9908/19.ibm
I personally LOVED the thought of being able to go to a computer show and putting together an NT or a linux or a mac-compatible computer by purchasing individual parts.
You know, it's really a damn shame this wasn't meant to be.
You need to check out the Acorn community (or perhaps that's where you're coming from?). Acorn was an English Arm-based home computer of the late 80's that competed (none to sucessfully, outside Britain at least) against Amiga an Atari.
Even though the Acorn community is now shriveled enough to make Amiga look healthy by comparision, they have been the one and only group pushing Arm-based desktops over the last decades.
There seems to be at least a couple hardware resellers still in operation. The pricing didn't seem to extortionate to me, either.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
Motorola makes reference motherboards and pre-built systems based on them. You can run MontaVista Linux on them. There's a dual-1GHz model available.
I haven't tried it myself. I suspect it's not cheaper than buying a Mac.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Build a Mac! see Can I build a Mac? see Build a Mac! see Can I build a Mac? see Build a Mac! see Can I build a Mac? see Build a Mac! see Can I build a Mac? see ... ad infinitum...
- I am made of meat.
microATX Mainboard 236mm x 172mm ( 9"3 x 6"8 )
up to Dual MPC 7450 G4 PowerPC® / 2 MB Cache at state of the art speedgrades
maximum 2GB extension by availibility of modules
integrated