Prototype Quicksilver Server Summary

[arn]

An eBay item appeared on Thursday claiming to be a Macintosh G4 Quicksilver 2002 Server Logic board. This auction has since been pulled at the request of Apple.

The auction included a picture of the motherboard which appeared to have 4 DDR RAM slots as well as a mysterious port - which is presumed to be 1394b (Firewire2).

Xlr8yourmac.com's webmaster, Mike Breeden, had word of the unit, but could provide no details expect hint that it is a sign of things to come.

This Appleinsider forum post provides the seller's response to where the motherboard came from:

This board was sent to a friend of mine and was issued as a test board. I have been notified by Apple and eBay that this board was never intended for sale and the auction was cancelled at Apple's request. I apologize to all that this turned out to be a problem.

To all that were interested, this board runs GREAT. The DDR memory really improves the performance. I hope I am able to offer similar boards in the near future.

 

[macstudent]

Someone should ask him if it really was a firewire2 port. Maybe he can take some more pictures for us too.

 

[sparkleytone]

so you have a dual 800 and you are using a peecee?

 

[spuncan]

Thanks Twitch

Thanks alot unfortunatly I never got to see that. Wonder what will happen to the board, high bidder, and seller.

 

[TwitchOSX]

At work

Here at work, they provide me with a lame peecee, and im typing away on my G4 right now, which I bring in every day, however, those pages were still loaded on the PC.. I had already closed them in OSX.

 

[Xapplimatic]

I printed the auction page out as a PDF file to disk.. (thanks OS X!!! If anyone wants it... email me: mxor @ earthlink.net

 

[groovebuster]

Apple would...

... pull the pages anyway, no matter if the board is real or not. If it is real I don't get how it could show up just like that on e-bay (Why they would give it just like that to a moron that even can't have not outdated furniture ). If it is a fake, Apple would pull the page just to protect their product from any misinformation.

So let's be true... that auction isn't of any value for us, 'coz the chances are 50:50 that the board was real.

And it is interesting that he didn't lose a word about the processor it is running with. Also no processor on the board, so what's the point?

For things like that I am sceptical... sorry!

groovebuster

 

[BongHits]

this is my first post at mac rumors. I recently bought a Quicksilver G4 933 w/ 17" LCD after dealing with Microsoft's half ass products for close to a decade. I was curious if that port may be a digital audio link? SP/DIF i think it's called? just a thought because i need one. off topic, does anyone know of a 5.1 or 4.1 surround sound audio card for OS X? im looking to hook up a klipsch 5.1 or 4.1 setup, i just need the card. If that port is the next generation of Firewire, why only include one? And does that mean they're upgrading to USB 2? My final question, when the new motherboard is released (if still G4) can it be swapped with the current G4 motherboard to allow for DDR ram? that would be a great option since i just blew three grand on a computer and (i'm a student) cannot afford another just for DDR. sorry for the rants.

brian

 

[iH8Quark]

Originally posted by BongHits
If that port is the next generation of Firewire, why only include one?

heh...well it looks like you're more perceptive than the rest of us. That's a good point.

Maybe we need a few more "green" people in here. BongHits, eh?

 

[BongHits]

green is king

everbody needs a little green!

 

[Macmaniac]

Red

I must say that red was eye catching! It would be so cool if boards came in colors You could have flame boards that look like fire. Oh the person who has the auction pdf, could you send it to me at flashgordy12@aol.com ?

 

[mac15]

I did some browsing and found the pic
Enjoy

 

[mac15]

Woops
here it is

[image removed per Apple legal]

 

[conceptDawg]

Re: Why only one port....and colors...

As to the question of "why only one of those funny little ports":

If this is a prototype board, it is quite normal to not match production merchandise. The likelyhood of someone NEEDING more than one FireWire2 port on a machine (because there are SO many FW2 devices out there) for testing is quite low. Especially considering it was probably quite early in the testing stage when they first received this board if it is showing up in the 'real-world' now.

It could very well be a FW2 port. As to it being an SP/DIF...it doesn't really look the same. But, you never know. It could be some freaky Apple proprietary port for something we haven't seen yet. Imagine what a picture like this of an ADC connector would have been like. We would have had no clue.

As to the colors on motherboards. I is quite common for Apple to color their motherboards. The new iMac motherboard is aqua-blue, prototypes are red. So it is definitely not out of the question for the next tower motherboard to be colored.

cD

 

[Cloudscout]

Rackmount Rumors?

Think Secret has a story (http://www.thinksecret.com/features/rackmount2.html) about the possibility of rackmount servers coming up. Could these two things be related?

 

[Backtothemac]

This board is going to be used for...

Hey everyone, I can tell you right now. Write it down. Here are the specs from MWNY.

1.0 1.2 and dual 1.4 G4's all with SOI
No Rapid I/O on this board, but will have bluetooth
266 DDR in 1.0 and 1.2 333 DDR in 1.4's (not positive, could all be 266 or 333)
2 usb 2 firewire 1firewire2.0 and 1usb 2.0
60, 80 and 120GB drives
New Superdrive and faster CDRW's and combos.
Gforce 4MX and Ti's
256,256, and 512 MB of ram exp. to 4GB.
Case revision.

We will see 10.2, updates to iApps, as well as other stuff at NY, but this is by far going to be the biggest.

 

[prechrchet]

New (?) motherboard

I'm by no means an expert on this, but......Is it just me, or are those PCI slots farther from the edge than what they would need to be? I can't help but wondering if this thing isn't one big hoax.

Just my two cents.

chet

 

[ftaok]

Re: This board is going to be used for...

Originally posted by Backtothemac
Hey everyone, I can tell you right now. Write it down. Here are the specs from MWNY.

1.0 1.2 and dual 1.4 G4's all with SOI
No Rapid I/O on this board, but will have bluetooth
266 DDR in 1.0 and 1.2 333 DDR in 1.4's (not positive, could all be 266 or 333)
2 usb 2 firewire 1firewire2.0 and 1usb 2.0
60, 80 and 120GB drives
New Superdrive and faster CDRW's and combos.
Gforce 4MX and Ti's
256,256, and 512 MB of ram exp. to 4GB.
Case revision.

We will see 10.2, updates to iApps, as well as other stuff at NY, but this is by far going to be the biggest.

Why would you need USB 1.1 and Firewire 1 ports if you have USB 2.0 and Firewire 2 ports? The plugs for both USB 2.0 and Firewire 2 are backwards compatible, so if you have USB 2.0 and FW2, there's no need for USB 1.1 and FW1.

 

[mischief]

Re: New (?) motherboard

Originally posted by prechrchet
I'm by no means an expert on this, but......Is it just me, or are those PCI slots farther from the edge than what they would need to be? I can't help but wondering if this thing isn't one big hoax.

Just my two cents.

chet

Read the description in the link. This was destined for a RACK. Rack servers are laid out a bit differently from Tower cases. In fact a thread I started to analyze potential case changes determind that EXACTLY this config would be optimal for a rack.

I will start a thread to thoroughly analyze this.

 

[ClassicMac]

Am I just overlooking it, or is there no socket for a processor on that mobo?

 

[mywar2000]

About the SPI/DF ... Nope thats not a sp/dif connection. SP/DIF actually uses what looks like a normal rca connection. It is, in effect, an unbalanced,stereo, digital connection. As opposed to AES/UBU which uses an XLR connection and is balanced. (and of course stereo)

As far as a socket for the processor...Isn't that on a daughter card in these servers?

Hope that helps a little...


Jeremy

 

[mischief]

Processor socket.

the socket is immediately behind the ports. It appears that the screw-slots out in the middle of the board are the only places to bring standoffs through to hold it up so we can assume that the card is HUGE.

Can someone scale this thing from the fake woodgrain in the table? How big is it?

 

[mcrain]

Re: Processor socket.

Originally posted by mischief
the socket is immediately behind the ports. It appears that the screw-slots out in the middle of the board are the only places to bring standoffs through to hold it up so we can assume that the card is HUGE.

Can someone scale this thing from the fake woodgrain in the table? How big is it?

Why don't you just scale it from something that we know. I mean, how hard is it to figure out how long standard DDR slots are or IDE ports or whatever. Or, for that matter, the size of firewire slots is a known.

 

[crassusad44]

Green, not red

To all you colorblind here at MacRumors! The board is really green, not red! Can't you see??? And it's a G5 motherboard, not a G4!



[image removed per Apple legal]

 

[Backtothemac]

Re: Re: This board is going to be used for...

Originally posted by ftaok
Why would you need USB 1.1 and Firewire 1 ports if you have USB 2.0 and Firewire 2 ports? The plugs for both USB 2.0 and Firewire 2 are backwards compatible, so if you have USB 2.0 and FW2, there's no need for USB 1.1 and FW1.

Actually, 1394b is not backwards compatible. USB 2.0 and 1.1 use the same connection, but not all devices will work with 2.0. That would explain the backwards compat. I am just saying what my guys is saying.