Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

Swift Griggs swiftgriggs at gmail.com
Mon Jun 13 11:30:06 CDT 2016


I noticed someone selling a 660AV in my area on Craigslist. I went and got 
it because for $50 he had a nice little Apple display with the machine 
that matches my Quadra 700 and an Apple Adjustable Keyboard in good 
condition to go with it. Turns out he gave me a whole slew of spare mice 
and an extra Apple Design keyboard (a good, if ugly and PeeCee lookin', 
spare).

The 660AV was dead when I brought it home. It would bong normally but 
wouldn't produce any video. The RGB video connector on the monitor was 
smashed out of shape, too. So, I used a sheet metal tool to re-smash the 
connector back into the right shape, and some needle nosed pliers to 
straighten the pins. Then I replaced the PRAM battery on the mobo and that 
fixed it. I guess they don't quite last 23 years.

The weird thing about this machine is that it says "PowerPC" right on the 
front, but it's *NOT* a PPC. It's most definitely a 25Mhz 040'. I wonder 
why that's there? Maybe the guy took the badge from another system, but I 
don't think so. This was the original owner. I also wonder why this one is 
called a "Quadra" when I know I used to have a 660AV that was a "Centris". 
Wikipedia seems to imply it was just a marketing name change only. 
However, the article also mentions that most of the Quadras don't have a 
floppy with motorized eject. Well, this one does. Perhaps it was replaced. 
I just wonder what's up with these little nuances. 

The best part of this deal is that the Apple Adjustable keyboard feels 
mechanical, and I've been pretty impressed with it so far (once you 
carefully remove the plastic wristrests). It was a bit yellowed, but a bit 
of retr0brite treatment restored it to bright white. It looks pretty much 
new, now. I gotta do the Quadra 700 and 660AV next. They aren't badly 
yellowed, but somewhat. Since neither is scratched up, they should restore 
nicely.

My plan is to run A/UX on the Quadra 700 and MacOS 8.1 on the 660AV. Right 
now I have everything in pieces. I'm waiting on another SCSI2SD to come to 
be able to set them both up. Plus, I just got the one SCSI2SD and I'm in 
the process of benchmarking it on several different OSs. I wish the US 
vendor would sell the newer (v6) board, as it's supposed to support 10MB/s 
synchronous (if your SD card can do it, and most can these days). All they 
have on Ebay right now are the older 5.x based cards (which is like the 
one I have now).

-Swift


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