Welcome to the Taco page of the Colour Classic Compendium

Welcome to

Colour Classic Compendium

Presented by Stuart Bell (stuartsmacs at dsl dot pipex dot com)

'Taco'
– a project very much 'in progress'

- putting a G3 logic board and LCD screen in a Colour Classic case

All trademarks, registered trademarks etc. etc. acknowledged.

This text and photographs (c) Stuart A Bell 2002

Initial design decisions:

LCD in CC aperture;

G3 logic board parallel behind LCD.

LCD and driver boards sourced - await installation.

Ports to be accessed via slots in CC case on left side when viewed from front.

Slots cut in CC chassis to allow logic board to get close enough to case wall.

Micro-ATX power supply to be used - see this article

All information is believed correct, but no responsibility whatsoever can be accepted for any consequences arising from your reading of this site. All work is done at owner's risk. Particularly in the region of the CRT and analogue circuitry, potentially lethal voltages may be present, even when the Colour Classic is disconnected from the mains supply.

'Taco'

- G3 & LCD in CC

1: Getting the electronics working - the 'barebones' Taco

After this site confirmed the dimensions, a beige G3 logic board was sourced - thanks to the generosity of John Allen.

Three 64Mb RAM sticks were installed, as was a 4Mb VRAM upgrade (for no other reason than that it was a bargain on eBay!)

An OEM USB PCI card and a 'personality card' from an All-in-One G3 complete the logic board section.

overall view of barebones Taco

CD-ROM Drive issues.
A major problem with getting the system working related to CD-ROM drive problems. Mac OS X is very 'picky'! An Apple-ROMed SCSI drive wouldn't install X, nor would two different IDE drives. Evetually, I bought one pulled from a beige G3 which, as one would hope, worked fine.
Above: the completeb 'bare-bones' Taco sits on top of my monitor. To the rear is the CC front panel and chassis, on which is installed the PSU and one which rests the CD drive. To the left, the logic board assembly and to the right the HD.

Below: the beige G3 logic board with personality card and USB card installed. The CPU is a 400MHz G3, upgrading the 233MHz part which came with the board. Strangely, the 400MHz CPU ran cooler than the original, even without forced ventilation. A 20-way IDC cable which allows a floppy to be connected (under Mac OS 9!) can be seen behind the heatsink. Separate IDE cables go to CD and HD, each one being the master on one of the two IDE channels.

Stability issues.
Under Mac OS X 10.1.5, the barebones 'Taco' was very flaky, with freezing, booting and shutting-down problems.

Jaguar (10.2) seems to have solved all those problems! :-)

A 20-way IDC cable can be seen behind the heatsink; this gives access under Mac OS 9 to a floppy drive.

Separate cables and channels are used for the the CD and HD, to avoid any possible 'IDE slave' problems with the logic board.

Right: The hard drive is a 60Gb Quantum Fireball Plus AS. Even in the open, it got very hot, but a cheap and cheerful HD cooler, purchased here, soon solved the problem.

In its current location, the HD cooler also force-cools the CPU heatsink. In the finished project, it should be possible to direct the air-flow over the heatsink.

(Yes, I know the IDC cable is in focus, not the CPU or HD. This will be sorted the next time I take some photos! SAB)

HD and cpu

Right: The PSU is in its final location in the CC chassis. The AC socket aligns with the 'hole' in the case.

There is no room in the Taco project for a full size CD drive, but I may return to try getting the laptop drive (which Mac OS X refused to boot from) working as a 'non-booting' drive. It will fit quite easily below the chassis cross member where the logic board in a CC normally fits, with access to the rear behind the standard removable logic board cover, thus avoiding more case-cutting. (A standard drive can't fit because the G3 logic board fits right to the bottom of the chassis, limiting the maximum length of a CD drive located there.
PSU&CD

The next stage is to get the LCD section up and running on the 'barebones' Taco - and then the installation into the CC case can be attempted.

23/10/2002.

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'Taco'	– a project very much 'in progress'
- putting a G3 logic board and LCD screen in a Colour Classic case All trademarks, registered trademarks etc. etc. acknowledged. This text and photographs (c) Stuart A Bell 2002	Initial design decisions: LCD in CC aperture; G3 logic board parallel behind LCD. LCD and driver boards sourced - await installation. Ports to be accessed via slots in CC case on left side when viewed from front. Slots cut in CC chassis to allow logic board to get close enough to case wall. Micro-ATX power supply to be used - see this article
All information is believed correct, but no responsibility whatsoever can be accepted for any consequences arising from your reading of this site. All work is done at owner's risk. Particularly in the region of the CRT and analogue circuitry, potentially lethal voltages may be present, even when the Colour Classic is disconnected from the mains supply.	'Taco' - G3 & LCD in CC
1: Getting the electronics working - the 'barebones' Taco After this site confirmed the dimensions, a beige G3 logic board was sourced - thanks to the generosity of John Allen. Three 64Mb RAM sticks were installed, as was a 4Mb VRAM upgrade (for no other reason than that it was a bargain on eBay!) An OEM USB PCI card and a 'personality card' from an All-in-One G3 complete the logic board section.
CD-ROM Drive issues. A major problem with getting the system working related to CD-ROM drive problems. Mac OS X is very 'picky'! An Apple-ROMed SCSI drive wouldn't install X, nor would two different IDE drives. Evetually, I bought one pulled from a beige G3 which, as one would hope, worked fine.	Above: the completeb 'bare-bones' Taco sits on top of my monitor. To the rear is the CC front panel and chassis, on which is installed the PSU and one which rests the CD drive. To the left, the logic board assembly and to the right the HD. Below: the beige G3 logic board with personality card and USB card installed. The CPU is a 400MHz G3, upgrading the 233MHz part which came with the board. Strangely, the 400MHz CPU ran cooler than the original, even without forced ventilation. A 20-way IDC cable which allows a floppy to be connected (under Mac OS 9!) can be seen behind the heatsink. Separate IDE cables go to CD and HD, each one being the master on one of the two IDE channels.
Stability issues. Under Mac OS X 10.1.5, the barebones 'Taco' was very flaky, with freezing, booting and shutting-down problems. Jaguar (10.2) seems to have solved all those problems! :-) A 20-way IDC cable can be seen behind the heatsink; this gives access under Mac OS 9 to a floppy drive. Separate cables and channels are used for the the CD and HD, to avoid any possible 'IDE slave' problems with the logic board.
Right: The hard drive is a 60Gb Quantum Fireball Plus AS. Even in the open, it got very hot, but a cheap and cheerful HD cooler, purchased here, soon solved the problem. In its current location, the HD cooler also force-cools the CPU heatsink. In the finished project, it should be possible to direct the air-flow over the heatsink. (Yes, I know the IDC cable is in focus, not the CPU or HD. This will be sorted the next time I take some photos! SAB)
Right: The PSU is in its final location in the CC chassis. The AC socket aligns with the 'hole' in the case. There is no room in the Taco project for a full size CD drive, but I may return to try getting the laptop drive (which Mac OS X refused to boot from) working as a 'non-booting' drive. It will fit quite easily below the chassis cross member where the logic board in a CC normally fits, with access to the rear behind the standard removable logic board cover, thus avoiding more case-cutting. (A standard drive can't fit because the G3 logic board fits right to the bottom of the chassis, limiting the maximum length of a CD drive located there.
The next stage is to get the LCD section up and running on the 'barebones' Taco - and then the installation into the CC case can be attempted. 23/10/2002.