[sine -''-..-]

ive written out my plan and info on overclocking the mp2000/2100

its up on my site @ sinenet

any comments and info would be appreciated!

[Steph]

Hi sine,

It looks feasable, ambitious, a bit risky... I've been eyeing my MP2100 almost since I got it in January, looking for ways to 'customize' it, but so far haven't got up the courage to mess with it. Being a combination of it's price, and difficulty in replacing it, keeping me at bay so far.

What do you expect will be your main benefit from the overclock? Ok obviously it'll run faster, but in what way will the extra 60MHz help you? I've never found the Newton to be slow, certainly coming from a Palm / Visor 16MHz world, the Newt is fast'n'furious.

Anyhow, looking foreward to seeing how it turns out when you've done it!

--Stephanie

[klee6150]

Once you get up all the details and hopefully have a success story, I think I will try it out on one of my extra Newton 2100s.

Good luck.

Karen

[itomato]

Have you done it? Do you have any problems aside from sound?
It says that you can't use the comm port while in high speed mode, I think he says something about ethernet too, but it's hard to tell.

I ran the page you referenced on your site through babelfish, and got this:

click me

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[This message has been edited by itomato (edited 05-19-2001).]

[sine -''-..-]

ive already hacked in a audio out port in my newt, its mounted in the expansion bay... this as well should be quite easy, especially compared to overclocking my ibook. ^_^

btw to see my other projects, goto sine.ath.cx and click projects...

[my7200]

Cool stuff that you’re doing... I also intended to increase my MP2000's speed. Though I think you can actually double the clock speed. Using the crystal isn’t a new thing I had one done for my 7200/90 it got it to 150Mhz... I haven't had time to play with my MP but I'm sure if there are jumpers involved as well as the crystal, you can theoretically double the speed or even quadruple it... but when you start going into those things you may need some form of cooling device to keep the chip cool... theres not much ventilation in those things…

I do remember a Japanese site that showed you on you to overclock most Macintosh hardware but I lost my bookmark… I had to reformat my system (A PC thing: work related) anyways this site showed you on how to even overclock your original iBook 233 to 800MHz!!! F**k why can’t Apple pull those figures when the sell stuff, iMacs are still stuck at 600Mhz… (I can’t remember if he had anything on the Newton)…

Also would any of you guys know where I can find any hardware manuals detailing the StrongArm chip (from arm.com or otherwise) or any hardware blueprints on the Newton design from Apple or otherwise)? Cause I’m also planning to replace the graphic chip to support color as well as different resolutions, and if any of you guys know how to upgrade the inbuilt Ram from 1MB (standard on MP2000) to 4MB I’ll be glad:-)

And yes Hack the planet sine...

[This message has been edited by my7200 (edited 05-20-2001).]

[Paul Guyot]

Though I think you can actually double the clock speed.

I don't think so. 220 MHz is the maximum speed for either the DRAM or the Flash or the ROM Board (I think it's the ROM Board).

Also would any of you guys know where I can find any hardware manuals detailing the StrongArm chip

It should be in the ARM ARM book. You can find it on Amazon, or maybe a PDF version in the ARM SDT evaluation CD.

Cause I’m also planning to replace the graphic chip to support color as well as different resolutions

It would be easier to port NewtonOS to another platform.

Paul

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Newton Evangelist and developer:
http://www.kallisys.com/newton/

[bstone]

How hard is it to get Newtons these days?

[sine -''-..-]

pretty easy...
http://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings...731/index.html

[Steph]

Have you progressed at all with the overclock? I was wondering if you are aware of any things that won't work after overclocking, i.e. serial port, or ethernet cards? Also, when switching from one crystal to the other, how should the Newton react do you think?

well im yet to find the right size crystal, i havent had too much time lately. but as for what the effects will be, i heard that ethernet and serial would be non functional etc... but as for switching, i talked with paul g about that, and we figured that you can only switch the crystal when the machine is asleep, when the lcd is off.

I picked up a couple xtals today, and have my MP2100 open on the bench here, I couldn't find the right 5MHz one but I got a 4.915 which runs the Newt at 216MHz. I couldn't conect to NCU with my ethernet card, however. The sound was fast, but for just alarms or the sort, it was quite acceptable. I haven't got a SMD switch yet, but tried manually switching from one to the other crystal (just moving the hookup wire from one to the other) and the Newton seriously locked up. I had to remove / insert the batteries to get it going again, though other then that it worked fine.

as i said, its not a good idea to switch during operation. if you switch while the machine is running, itll inturrupt the clock cycles and corrupt the ram contents and prolli a bunch of other stuff.

I'm wondering if the switch maybe needs to be 'make-before-break' so that the clock never stops, just sort of shifts up or down. A normal 'break-before-make' switch is going to let the clock completely halt as it slides from one xtal to the other.

thats a really good idea, i should try that. i wonder if i can find such a small make-before-break switch.

One alternative thought I had for the switch was to put it on the side where there is a little plastic 'door', I heard it was for a ribbon cable, for a 'door / keyboard' combo. Anyhow, that little door is covered when the lid is open, and visible when the lid is closed. A suface-mount slide swich could maybe fit there.

again, thats a really good idea. i never thought of that, i should do that.

If the ethernet card would work, I don't know of any reason I'd need to put it on 'normal' speed, I stopped using the serial port when I started using the ethernet card.

yea same here but maybe some games and such may run too fast, and jared would play too fast so id need to slow it for that.

thanks for the ideas, they're very helpful... grr i really need that xtal



[This message has been edited by sine -''-..- (edited 05-29-2001).]

whoa, i really screwed sumthing up... (whoops wrong button) oh well. (all the italics are steph )

[This message has been edited by sine -''-..- (edited 05-29-2001).]

[WL2100]

Hey Steph, good work!
I use a D-Link DE-660 ethernet card with my 215-Mhz AMP2KU.
But so far I haven't gotten my Ambicon AMB8010 to work with the accel. board. Oh yeah mine is installed by Oliver from Pixsolution that I bought from a LA user that has re-entered the Newton world with plans to overclock his latest Newt.

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!ooW ÷)

[Steph]

By the way, Sine, I couldn't find a 'mini' or low profile crystal either. So I used normal sized ones. I used a hot-melt glue gun and stuck them both 'flat' ontop of the big chip that is next to the original crystal (I think that's the graphics driver chip maybe). There is plenty of clearance in the Newton for this, they are sort of sandwiched between that big graphics chip and the plastic case when it's closed.

I brought my digital-camera home from work, next time I have the newt opened I'll take a picture. I was also going to try a 6 MHz crystal, just to see what would happen.

--Stephanie

p.s. If you can get out to Dixie & Matheson in Mississauga there's about four or five shops that sell electronics components, from Active to Sayal to AA Electronics, but for the really hard-to-find parts, DigiKey has a great selection. They'll send a free catalog, and you can request the catalog in either U.S. or Canadian prices. They have the surface-mount switches, as well as smd LEDs and low-profile Xtals and everything else you could want. I'm trying to put together enough other things I might want / need to make it worthwhile as far as the cost of shipping etc. see www.digikey.com

[Paul Guyot]

I was also going to try a 6 MHz crystal, just to see what would happen.

Waste of time, it won't work. The ROM Board won't support it. Maybe with a new ROM Board, but well, it's another story ;-)

Paul

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Newton Evangelist and developer:
http://www.kallisys.com/newton/