Technical DataSheets
(Motorola 68k)
A note to the cyber community:
Help! I need documents to make this site work. If you could xerox manuals and charts for me, I would be very happy as well as the users of these pages. In paticular I need any and all documents for Amiga, Atari, and NeXT computers. I am paticularly interested in hardware specifications, photos and diagrams of any of the computers. Documents for third party cards (Zorro or NuBus) and chipsets would be appreciated.
Contrasting Platforms
These web pages will compare various aspects of 68K based computers. The overall performance and details of the processors raw capabilities will be compared. Information on bus architectures (Nubus, Zorro, ISA) will be detailed. Introduction dates will also be presented in this series to illustrate the technical advantage or the management stupidity for some machines like the Amiga 600 or various Macintosh LC computers.
Macintosh Architecture
Macintosh II Family
These pages are the overview of the Macintosh II family of computers which is primarily centered around Motorola 68030 processor. These computers started the Desktop Publishing revolution and pushed SCSI technology.
Entry Level Macintoshes (LC Family)
These pages are the overview of the Macintosh LC Family with includes the Macintosh Classic II, Quadra 605, and the Quadra 630.
Macintosh Quadra (Centris) Family
These pages are the overview of the Quadra class of computers which is centered around the 68040 processor.
Audio/Visual Architecture
These pages cover Audio-Video architecture which uses DSP and other I/O processors, similiar to the Amiga, for acceleration; The AV architecture was dumped in favor of Power Macintosh architecture.
Radius Rocket Overview
The Radius Rocket is a remarkable technology in the Macintosh universe. These NuBus based cards are essentially a whole miniture Macintosh on a motherboard with the ability to work in parrellel with other Radius Rockets installed into a machine.
Amiga Architecture
This cover the famous Amiga family of computers which were way ahead of their time. The Amiga is famous for the sub-proccessors off-loading I/O traffic from the main processor. These machines were popular for television and graphic markets as well as the consumer and entertainment markets.
Atari Architecture
These computers were popular in the game, hobbyist, and especially music market. The last model was the Falcon computer. The architecture has been extended by CLABS and Medusa whom clone or license the architecture and improve on the design. The newer Hades computers support VME and PCI expansion bus.
NeXT Cubes
These computers were the marvel of the industry and were some of the first computers to utilize the 68040 processor. These workstation computers were abandened as the market would not allow another workstation in the market, and plus SparcStations and other computers were too powerful with their proprietary processors.
Sun Worksations (Sun 3 Series)
These pages cover the Sun 3 Workstations which started with the 68020 processor and ended with the 68030 processor. The 68040 processor was never adopted. In it's place the Sparc processor was used for the Sun 4 Series.
HP Apollos
These pages cover the HP Apollo workstations which was centered around the 68040 processor.
Email: darknerd@mailexcite.com
