Outbound Systems Card for Mac Plus

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Outbound Systems Card for Mac Plus

First post. Tom asked me to upload some images here of this card. I have been an Outbound 125 owner for many years, specifically a 125 owned by Don Crabb which I belive may have been a review unit. Since he has passed, I poked around and it appears he used it for several months. When I bought it I inquired about any Mac that may have been with the laptop, sadly no one knew and Don's wife was not doing well. So I pushed no further. Since then I have been looking for the host card. They seems to be incredibly ellusive. A few weeks ago I was selling some Outbound stuff on eBay and Tom and I ended up messaging back and forth, discussing the card which of course at the time I lacked. Coincidentaly about week later I saw some compact Macs for sale locally and noticed a cable coming out of one. The end connector looked all too familiar, just like an Outbound SCSI host cable. I decided to take the gamble and scoop it up, another Plus (like I dont have enough of those already). I had no clue if the cable was Outbound related or even if the card it was connected to was still inside. Well, I lucked out! Intact cable and card! I have not had a chance to test it yet but I will this weekend. Of note, there is more than just a card and cable. The proper setup will also include a bracket to support the cable which attaches to the metal chasis of the Mac and a pressure pad that goes between the Outbound board and chasis - presumably to prevent the card from lifting off the motherboard.

 

 

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I do plan to take additional

I do plan to take additional photos of the setup, including the bracket, cable, etc. I did pin-out the cable and have attached that here. The connectors do have pin numbers moulded into the plastics. The Outbound end is micro connector. The internal end at the card is two connections. (apparently we can not attach images to a reply?)

 

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Really excited to see these

Really excited to see these photos! And also excited to see that it's all TTL logic, plus a… CPL 20R8L-25NC?

 

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My PrairieTek hard drive has

My PrairieTek hard drive has died in the Outbound. I read here in one thread that a Conner drive may work, but I am not certain since I could find nothign to backup that claim. I do know the machine is very fussy about its drives. Sine I have no external floppy drive for my Outbound, I am stuffed on both ends at this point. And of course we know the floppy drive was a citizen PC drive, but it had a special board. I assume the same may be true internally? If someone has photos or knows about the internal floppy drive setup, let me know please. I would love to at least be able to boto from a floppy - but any hardware I buy is a guessing game at this point. There just does not seem to be a lot of info on these out there. I think I will have to work on getting more photos of my machine taken apart.

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Tom Owad wrote:Really excited
Tom Owad wrote:

Really excited to see these photos! And also excited to see that it's all TTL logic, plus a… CPL 20R8L-25NC?

 

 I dumped that chip from the SE equivalent of the interface card:

http://wiki.pldarchive.co.uk/index.php?title=Outbound_Laptop_SE_Dock_Interface

 

ID sticker on the card I got here says 250523 as opposed to 250524 on the Plus card. It probably is very similar though.

The chip was not locked, so if you've got an ancient programmer that can still read those chips it will be easily dumped. Don't try to read it as a normal PAL or GAL, it will likely destroy the chip.

The CPS programming/read algorithm is vastly different from anything else.

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Very excited to see this! I

Very excited to see this! I hope you don't mind if I mirror the dump here on this post?

unity, do you have a programmer than can read yours?

 

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I have no way to read them.

I have no way to read them.

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