OrangePC Cards

[Spock]

OrangePC 660 Windows compatibility card. 12” full-length card. Supports Socket 7 processors including: AMD K6-II and K6-III running up to 450 MHz, Intel MMX up to 233 MHz and Cyrix 6x86. 100 MHz accelerated board and bus speed. Two 3.3 volt PC100 168-pin SDRAM slots, up to 128mb modules for a total of 256mb RAM possible. 512kb 5ns synchronous pipelined burst level 2 cache greatly enhances processing speed. High Performance nVidia RIVA 128 2D/3D graphics video accelerator including 4mb SDRAM with a 128-bit, 100 MHz memory interface, maximum resolution 32-bit color up to 1152 x 864 DirectX 3D video support, maximum resolution 16-bit color up to 1600 x1200 DirectX 3D video support

An OrangePC card is basically an entire computers guts jammed onto a little board, and with its software, it allows you to run Windows in a window, almost as fast as a real full blown PC, sharing the Macs HD, CD-ROM, and floppy drive.

Thank You for the information now that it has been explained, I can vaguely recall hearing about the card, I was just never sure of what it was called.I would like to get as much information on these I can I am curious to know what happened and why cards like these are no longer around to my knowledge so instead of going off topic in the Blue Dreamer thread i started this one.

 

[madmax_2069]

there is a little converter that plugs into the socket 7 to adjust the power so you can put a AMD K6 III CPU in it. it goes into the socket and the cpu goes into the converter's socket and will make the volts right to where you can use that CPU

this will show you that is is real . there is a version for the AMD K6 III in it i cant find the site that had the version i have that i bought it from

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/8774/power/leap.html#What is

just go from here. i know its out there cause i have a AMD K6 III cpu in mine it orignaly came with the 333mhz AMD K6 2. there is a version for a intel mmx cpu and a version for the AMD cpu's

all this does is regulates the voltage and allow's you to set a higher cpu multiplier

these cards are around still but can fetch a high price (AKA ebay), i got lucky with mine card for only $17 (the price of shipping) well and a few other thing's to so just look around. they are out there some times to be had for cheap. i love finding old URL's to site's and go to google and type in web archive and click the first link or second. and will have a huge archive of site's and some times download's from defunked sites like (AKa Orange micro's site)

 

[ReanimationLP]

You're welcome for the info.

I know too much about way too many different things. ^_^'

The OrangePC cards from what I've read, cannot run Windows XP, which makes me wonder why its not working.

Maybe I'll track one down and figure it out.

 

[madmax_2069]

its prolly more likely no drivers in XP for it. who know's, i know that came out before xp did and when they went down they was in the middle of making it work with xp. but since they are no longer that is going to be hard.

it would be sweet if it was able to work in xp and have drivers to work with all the hardware on the card

 

[ReanimationLP]

If I remember correctly, the hardware is all common PC hardware, including a Sound Blaster 16 chip and a Nvidia Riva 128 GPU, all of which are common in PCs, and XP has built in drivers for them.

 

[Spock]

its prolly more likely no drivers in XP for it. who know's, i know that came out before xp did and when they went down they was in the middle of making it work with xp. but since they are no longer that is going to be hard.

it would be sweet if it was able to work in xp and have drivers to work with all the hardware on the card

What the reason for the cards demise? To costly?

 

[IJ Reilly]

What the reason for the cards demise? To costly?

They weren't much less expensive than buying an entire PC.

 

[4JNA]

They weren't much less expensive than buying an entire PC.

and still bring a ton-o-cash on ebay... unless you find someone that has no idea what they have and list it wrong... wrong name, wrong specs, wrong catagory, etc. i love deals like this!

http://cgi.ebay.com/MR-BIOS-PCI-Windows-on-your-PowerMac-7300-9800s_W0QQitemZ330007956575QQihZ014QQcategoryZ80286QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

edit: this is the older/slower card. sure everyone looking already knew that. the 660 was the fast card with the amd k6-2 chip, 100fsb, and could be upgraded to a max of 256mb ram. the older/slower cards still do a decent job running windows 95. thought i better point it out just in case...

also, the company that made the socket 7 CPU adapter, Powerleap, is still around and selling adapters/upgrade stuff. really pricey, but a good source of info anyway. find the adapter here; http://www.powerleap.com/PL-ProMMX.jsp

 

[IJ Reilly]

and still bring a ton-o-cash on ebay... unless you find someone that has no idea what they have and list it wrong... wrong name, wrong specs, wrong catagory, etc. i love deals like this!

Beats me why anybody would want one today. Talk about behind-the-curve technology!

 

[madmax_2069]

Beats me why anybody would want one today. Talk about behind-the-curve technology!

even tho it behind the curve as you put it . its still somthing of a rarity you dont see a pc with a Mac OS compatibility card in them do you. still tho the concept is cool and people that have them know what i mean. the thing works and works great a AMD K6 3 with 256mb ram a soundblaster 16 and a nvidia 128 will and should run xp nicely but i dont think we could ever get it to work on it unless some one know's why it dont work and can fix it. prolly the software side of the card.

i bought my adapter for $30 USD and the AMD K6 3 500 mhz cpu for $5 $35 in total.

the pc 660 was even faster than the gameing version it was the fastest card of its type

i seen old isa type card you put into a old 486 to make it have a 233mhz P1 mmx and memory video and other stuff on it sorta like the orange micro but it was for a Pc to upgrade it to be faster

 

[4JNA]

...should run xp nicely but i dont think we could ever get it to work on it unless some one know's why it dont work and can fix it. prolly the software side of the card.

you hit it. it's the software (host interface) that is the limiting factor. required software to 'share' the host resources, and that software isn't going to be updated anytime soon... they also ran into a power problem at the time. there is a limit to the amount of power that can be supplied on a pci slot, and that limited the cpu/memory/chipset. would be interesting with the current ultra-low power hardware that is available to see how fast these could be running today. sun still has current cards like this for their sparc workstations/servers, but cost about 3x more than the computer of the same specs. what is cool is that you can put several cards in a host, and build you own all-in-one cluster.

fun for the history/tech of it, but a cheap pc and VNC would be a way better answer. probably why these went away.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Well, Windows XP claims minimum requirements of a "233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended", 64 MB of RAM. Those are the absolute minimums. So an Orange card with a K6-III should run it. I know that a Riva 128 and a Sound Blaster 16 will run in XP just fine. (I've even run a positively ancient Matrox Millenium on XP without problem, on a 233 MHz system with 64 MB of RAM, even!)

And I have a friend who runs XP on a Pentium Pro 200 MHz with 128 MB of RAM just fine. (Pentium Pro is the architectural ancestor of the new 'Core' chips, whereas 'just plain' Pentium or Pentium MMX used a much older/slower architecture; although when XP first came out, I ran it on a notebook with a Pentium MMX 266 MHz processor an 64 MB of RAM.)

So if you can't get your Orange card to run XP, it must be a problem with the Orange card. (Heck, I've run Windows Millennium on Apple's PC Compatibility Card in a Power Mac 6100, and that only has a 66 MHz 486. When I get that system out of storage, I'll see if I can force it to run XP, or at least Windows 2000, which claims a 133 MHz Pentium-class processor as the minimum.)

 

[4JNA]

...So an Orange card with a K6-III should run it. I know that a Riva 128 and a Sound Blaster 16 will run in XP just fine...

i agree. actually the k6-II would even work. i use xp pro on pII-300 systems as routers/proxy servers for remote clients. the card will run xp just fine. the problem is the software used to integrate the card and client os into the host (macOS). it was never written to support nt, 2000, or xp. ME is a upgraded version of 98. even the .cab files are still named 98.

it's kinda like needing an updated driver in the windows world. drivers for 95/98/me won't work for nt/2000/xp. host software for 'old' won't work/support 'new'.

of course if you prove me wrong with a screen shot, i'll deny the whole thing...

 

[madmax_2069]

So if you can't get your Orange card to run XP, it must be a problem with the Orange card.

any orange micro cannot run xp cause of the software that runs the card, the card is more than enuff to run xp i wasnt saying it couldent, im saying the software for the card in order to run the card is incompatable with xp before orange micro bit the dust they was making xp compatable software for the orange micro pc cards that could run xp. it would be cool to be able to get the software compatable with xp. but im not going to hold my breath

 

[ReanimationLP]

If I ever got my hands on the card and the software, I'm pretty sure I could whip up some kind of hack for XP to run on it.

 

[JurgenWigg]

Haha I remember these! I looked into getting one way back, about 10 years ago now, and they were impossible to find/super expensive because they didn't make 'em anymore.