Apple mystery card

[vniow]

Saw an article over at Xlr8yourmac and thought it may be of some intrest..

http://xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/apple_trimedia_card/apple_trimedia_card.html#storytop

Hi Mike,
Here's one for the weird file-
That's (2) FW400, I think SCSI, (2) BNC, and what looks like a SVHS port but there are too many pins ( not serial).
Wondering if you can post a "what the hell is this" query with the pics linked from your site...
This is the only thing I can find anywhere near what this beast is:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-262502.html
(titled "Apple's answer to MMX" dated Jan. 16th, 1997 which talks about Apple using two TriMedia multimedia accelerator chips on a board w/FW ports.)

And it won't boot into 9 with the card installed (2 machines tried) and X shows 4 bridges on the PCI card, with no info available.
Weird, eh?
(name withheld by request)

The Tri-Media chip marking is: E-TM1S-1.1 C60765/9729.
I wonder if 9729 is perhaps a date code (week 29 of 1997).
One of the TI chips (343S1209) shows © Apple, 1997 but I've not searched the web for any info/data sheet on the chip part numbers. (One of the TI chips I suspect is a FW controller.) The Digital chip is marked: 21152-AA DC1040(can't make out last letter), 21-44048-01 (the 8 may be a B, can't tell).

I'm guessing this was some sort of capture card but if any reader knows any history on it let me know.

 

[applemacdude]

quote:

" Apple was working on this right before the NeXT merger, return of Jobs. I think it was codename south by southwest (SXSW) or something related to the southwest. The Trimedia chip was made by phillips and was a DSP processor. Apps had to be rewritten to take advantage of it. At the 1997 boston Macworld Expo, phillips trimedia team had a booth setup and I did a press interview with them. They wouldnÕt comment on any future products at the time, but I knew they were working on this because there had been a few leaks to MacWeek and MacWorld magazines.