[rescue] PC->Mac->Sun Radeon

[Mike Nicewonger]

> > > Well, after doing some digging around, it seems that
> > > the XVR-100 may
> > > just be the same as the MAC version of the Radeon
> > > 7000.  Witness:

As I pointed out previously the Sun cards and the Mac cards dot -not- have
the same firmware. This I can confirm 100%

> > Only problem is that the Mac cards are more expensive
> > than XVRs from Sun on Ebay. So get a PC card, flash to
> > Mac, and it might work in a Sun? Kinda gross but if it
> > works...

Good luck. See comments above and below.

> There was a lot of to-do about this on the Mac boards (prolly
> still is), b/c of the price differential b/w PC Radeon and Mac
> Radeon.
>
> It was in some cases, possible to do the flashing, but for the
> most part, of the stuff I read around "Mac Radeon Edition"
> days (actually the fastest PCI Mac Radeon--the 7K and later
> are a step backward except in memory) was that the majority
> of the PC Radeon cards had smaller firmware than the Mac
> version, so therefore it was mostly "not possible" to flash a
> PC card with Mac firmware.

Most PC edition Radeon 7K boards cannot be flashed with Sun or Mac firmware
without replacing the flash chip with a larger capacity one. The size needed
escapes my tired brane right now.

I personally have successfully flashed a Sun OEM Radeon 7K to Mac. I have
also successfully flashed a PC edition R7K to Mac firmware after the flash
chip was replaced.

> There were some successful corner cases at the time, but
> it seemed these were early revisions; some hardy souls
> may have managed to figure out what could be axed from
> the firmware, as happened with the cult support of the Voo-
> doo 3 on the Mac.

Great job for a masochist.

> The general consensus was that ATI had done it to keep the
> prices up.  Sucks, but there it is.  Mac ATI cards still fetch
> reasonable prices in the the aftermarket because of it.

Since PC cards are generally fairly dumb devices they didn't need to spend
the extra money on larger flash. Also I am sure the economies of scale come
into play for pricing here as it is likely ATI made 10 times more PC cards
than Mac cards.

Although I will confess I would not be shocked if it was a profit measure
taken by ATI.

What me a cynic??? ;-)

--
Mike N