[rescue] Some other tifbits on the 6100

[wlewis at mailbag.com]

I recently rescued one of these, so here's a few other bits of information on 
them. As I mentioned, watch out for the CMOS ram. If it's gone, the machine 
appears to be dead. 

OS 8.x runs nice, haven't yet gotten a copy of 9 to test it. OS X will never 
run right on it I believe, due to the archetecture. Of the free *nixes, only 
mkLinux will run on them due to the lack of Open Firmware. (This is also why I 
think OS X will never correctly run on it, even if you get a G3 for it.)

There are 2 ram slots with 8mb on the motherboard. The slots officially take up 
to 32mb simms and must be installed in matching pairs. This gives an official 
max of 76 mb. This is what I have in mine. I have read, but not verified, that 
64mb simms will work for a total of 136 mb. A common failure point is 2 RAM 
simms that are not quite matching (one 60ns and one 70ns say). It will randomly 
crash like a windows box in that case. 

The two slots on the left are for the ROM simm and a cache simm. The cache can 
be 256kb, 512kb. or 1mb. The 256 will give between 15 - 20% performance boost. 
The 512 doesn't do much more. But if you can find a 1mb cache it's sweet 
because of the fact that the video is done in system ram - it's only 256 colors 
at 640x480 so the entier video buffer can be cached in a 1mb cache. Major speed-
up. I have a 256 and am looking for a 1mb. Oh, and you can put the simms in 
either slot, the machine won't care.

On the far left is a nubus capable PDS slot. It can, with the right 90 degree 
adaptors, run either nubus or pds cards. Newer (RIP) and Sonnet made G3 cards 
that can use that slot. Sonnet also made a nubus adaptor for it's G3 and sells 
a nubus video card that will work. A nice, but very expensive, way to utterly 
max out a 6100. 

If you have one and want to learn more, there is a great web site at:
http://www.kan.org/6100/

Lowend Mac also has a small section on them.

HTH,

William