Back from the Low End Mac Mailbag is an interesting hardware experiment from a rising contributor in our FaceBook group, Architecture. Enjoy this interesting One Stop Systems P7R4 7 Slot PCI Expansion Unit – and how it works with a Beige Power Macintosh G3!
Introduction
“Testing an 13 slot PCI Expansion Chassis on a G3 Desktop. It works! And now I have 15 slots to choose from.” says Architecture.
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“Host card installs on the first PCI slot, then adds 7-13 slots of PCI to the system. It’s a rough display. Seen better days and basically considering replacing it due to the beat up condition it’s in.”.
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What’s Inside
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“Inside my fully loaded chassis, you can see 7 MIX DSP cards and 3 SampleCell cards. This allows you to fully outboard host all of your audio plugins which support the TDM format. Each card can handle 16 channels of audio, for a maximum of 72 channels in and out.”
“The SampleCell II cards each handle 32 voices of sound at a time, plus 32MB sample ram on each. A total of 96MB and 24 dedicated channels which can be routed to the Pro Tools mixer.”
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Architecture’s flagship Pro Tools MIX rig
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- Model: Power Mac G4 MDD Dual 1.42ghz
. - RAM: 2GB
. - GPU: Stock 64MB Video card
. - Expansion: Chassis host card on PCI slot next to AGP
. - Part 2: ATTO UL3D SCSI card connected to Glyph Trip with 146GB x3 drives and a single 73GB drive.
. - Part 3: 3x ADAT Bridges and 1 888/24 gives me 56 physical channels of audio In and Out
. - Part 4: Ferrofish A32 x2 for Analog-Digital to Digital-Analog conversion. Rosendahl Wordclock generator for syncing all devices together
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Architecture: “a typical workflow window for me using all of this with Logic 6.4 in TDM mode”
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In Conclusion
Even in the 2020s (and likely beyond), musicians, audio technicians and even manufacturers keep the Power Macs of multiple eras alive and kicking. To this day, market forces and innovation as well as sincere enthusiasm for this technology keep this seemingly depreciated platform going.
These are some incredible Power Macintosh setups that help maximize the life of the gear, bringing out the long term value whilst simultaneously also being productive.
