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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."
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
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?
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."
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
You know, I keep wondering if we'll ever see the return of Mac-clones. Because Darwin is open-source, it should be possible to port it to any other PPC-based machine. Quartz and carbon and cocoa all ride on top of Darwin and don't know what is underneath, so once you've ported Darwin, you should be able to install the full MacOS X.
This would be a better situation for Apple than their old clone prorgam was, because Apple can force the other hardware vendors to port Darwin to their own clones and support it themselves, and pay Apple for the bit that provides the interface. It would also help Apple spread the cost of Darwin development out a bit.
Probably a pipe dream, but still...
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
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
Breakfast served all day!
This is incorrect. The Apple ROMs you're referring to haven't been used in a long time, like more than 5 years. All modern Macs use Open Firmware. This is exactly why people are asking about do-it-yourself Macs so often. It's now possible.
Darwin is not open source.
/bin/sh, and adds python and ruby as scripting languages.
Here is a quote from the Darwin Website:
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Darwin 6.0.1, the Open Source core underlying Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar". The Darwin kernel features many enhancements from FreeBSD 4.4 and the KAME IPv6/IPsec code, and is one of the first Open Source operating system releases to be built using GCC 3.1. Darwin 6.0.1 features improved support for POSIX threads and adds several reentrant C library functions, as well as numerous new and updated libraries including ncurses, bzip, and SASL. Darwin now uses bash as the default
We are updating the Darwin Tools package enabling you to build Darwin components on top of Mac OS X itself. [Sep 23 2002]
GPL no, open source yes...
-Craig
A FAQ is available.
I believe that there are a few components of MacOS X that Apple has licenced and cannot release the source to, so Darwin has replacements for those components, but it is supposed to be binary compatible with MacOS X.
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
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.
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