MacFilter: A Performa 5300 is TAUNTING me!

June 13, 2005 5:12 AM

MacFilter: I have a Perfroma 5300 I just got from a friend. It needs a NIC. I have cracked open the back and have no idea what kind of slot this is. When I am calling around to my local Mac repair shops what should I be asking for? Also, can I buy it on the web. My end goal is to have some sort of *nix FTP server running on it.
posted by Livewire Confusion to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Have you checked http://www.everymac.com/ ? They should tell you what that slot is (possible an ISA slot?)
posted by gren at 5:26 AM on June 13, 2005

It is a LC-PDS Comm slot. There are loads on eBay.
posted by cillit bang at 5:32 AM on June 13, 2005

Sorry, I should have said "LC-PDS slot". The Comm slot is a separate thing, which you can also add an ethernet card to, but it won't work as well.
posted by cillit bang at 5:41 AM on June 13, 2005

Thanks so much I am glad to see I can get one cheaply!

Hey, since you know so much... I am curious what are these other ports in here, and even better yet what can i do with them? AND will those devices work under *nix?

THANKS!

BTW, I love those Cillit Bang commercials!
posted by Livewire Confusion at 5:49 AM on June 13, 2005

check out everymac.

I think an install of Yellow Dog might work. They did a power PC specific distro...and I think it's mildly generic enough to know about those slots
posted by filmgeek at 6:42 AM on June 13, 2005

I found this on the yellow dog distro website

"The following will simply NOT FUNCTION with Yellow Dog Linux
WGS 9150, 8150, 6150
PowerBook 5300, 2300, and 1400
Performa 63xx, 62xx, 61xx, 54xx, 53xx, and 52xx
IBM RS6000 models: Power series 830, 850, 40P"
posted by Livewire Confusion at 8:58 AM on June 13, 2005

Good luck getting anything other than Mac OS 8.1 to run on that thing --- the logic board used in the 53xx and 62xx is NuBus based, not PCI which means modern Linuxes and BSDs just won't run on it. You can try to tinker with the Nubus PPC Linux distro but I don't think it's being actively maintained.

Just realize that you have a Mac which is much happier running old Mac abandonware or functioning as a perfectly usable doorstop.
posted by nathan_teske at 11:03 AM on June 13, 2005

Good luck getting anything other than Mac OS 8.1 to run on that thing --- the logic board used in the 53xx and 62xx is NuBus based, not PCI which means modern Linuxes and BSDs just won't run on it. You can try to tinker with the Nubus PPC Linux distro but I don't think it's being actively maintained.

Just realize that you have a Mac which is much happier running old Mac abandonware or functioning as a perfectly usable doorstop.

MK Linux is running on it right now.
posted by Livewire Confusion at 12:11 AM on June 16, 2005