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jasonyates · Mar 2, 2003, 07:24 AM

From the information I could find on this card, it seems to have been the top of the line for it's time. I have one in my Power Mac 8500 and it runs very well in classic Mac OS. These don't seem to be very common, so I was just curious if anyone else is using one?

-Jason

Raymate · Mar 2, 2003, 09:56 AM

Yes i have one in my 8500 it runs fine with 9.1

I am just about to retire this Mac now i have had it from new and have a G3/400 card in it the Formac card, USB card and a 2940UW card running a 9Gig 10,000 rpm drive as my main startup disk and a small 4gig on the normal bus. With 320 Mb RAM. With all the upgrades i could keep up with most Mac of say 2 years ago but not anymore.

i so much need a G4

I have this week ordered a 1.25Ghz G4 (with OS 9 booting)

Being an Apple engineer i get to play with all the new toys before i buy them and i must say the Formac card was the best at the time. The only thing you sometime need to remove the dust from the FAN on the card as it can become noisey if it gets clogged up.

And yes i now have some ear defenders ready for my new G4 LOL

jasonyates · Mar 4, 2003, 12:20 PM

I have been building this machine up over the last year or so. I had one down in Florida (I am in Chicago now) and I loved it, so I wanted another. I figured it would be cheaper than a new machine.. I now have:

Power Mac 8500/dual 200mhz 604e (DayStar CPU card)
512mb RAM, 256k cache (I also have 512k and 1mb cache cards but they don't work with the DayStar CPU card)
Two 18gb 10k RPM Ultra2 SCSI hard drives on an ATTO UL2D SCSI card
4mb internal VRAM plus the 16mb Formac card
19 inch Mag monitor

A pretty choice setup overall. I have much less than $1000 invested in it, probably would have been close to a $10,000 system when it was new back in 1996 or so. I like the exclusivity of the DayStar daughtercard, and it ran well in BeOS (which I can't use any more because it doesn't support the SCSI card), but the 604e is just too slow now-a-days. I used to do everything fine with it (and before that I did everything fine with a 33mhz 68LC040), but most web sites are coded so poorly now that they take forever to render. Other things run fine, but web browsing is a big part of my usage so I like it to be fast. Oh well I suppose I will try a G3 or G4 upgrade next.

If that doesn't cut it I'm just going to make my SE/30 with System 7.5.5 my main system. That thing actually rocks for a 16mhz machine.

-Jason

Originally posted by Raymate:
Yes i have one in my 8500 it runs fine with 9.1

I am just about to retire this Mac now i have had it from new and have a G3/400 card in it the Formac card, USB card and a 2940UW card running a 9Gig 10,000 rpm drive as my main startup disk and a small 4gig on the normal bus. With 320 Mb RAM. With all the upgrades i could keep up with most Mac of say 2 years ago but not anymore. i so much need a G4

I have this week ordered a 1.25Ghz G4 (with OS 9 booting)

Being an Apple engineer i get to play with all the new toys before i buy them and i must say the Formac card was the best at the time. The only thing you sometime need to remove the dust from the FAN on the card as it can become noisey if it gets clogged up.

And yes i now have some ear defenders ready for my new G4 LOL