…is my edit of the MicroMac Performer card for Apple’s Macintosh Plus personal computer.
It’s a CPU upgrade. It preempts the 8 MHz Motorola 68000 and replaces it with a faster 16 MHz 68030.
It’s also my first PCB design.
Click here to watch the YouTube video
Click here to see the GitHub repository
Click here to read the thread on 68kMLA forums
Performance
(Tested with Speedometer 3.23)
- CPU: 270% faster
- Graphics: 78% faster
- Disk: 139% faster
- Math: 42% faster
Timeline
- 1987: Novy Systems of Edgewater, Florida begins selling 68020 accelerators for Macintosh
- 1990: Novy updates their cards with 68030 microprocessor and rebrands them as the Novy Quik30
- 1990: Quesse Computer and Engineering Solutions condense Novy designs into several GAL chips and create Total Systems Mercury 030 card
- 1994: MicroMac Technology has aquired several Macintosh upgrade companies and sells MicroMac Performer card based on Mercury 030
- 2018: Trash80toHP_Mini and Bolle @ 68kMLA forums reverse-engineer MicroMac Performer and Mercury 030 which share identical schematics
- 2022: Bolle publishes reproduction Performer PCB
- 2025: I redesign Performer PCB
My board is
- 50% smaller
- 77% cheaper to manufacture – 5pcs for $2.07 @ JLCPCB
- Easier to assemble by hand – PLCC sockets are used for GAL chips
- Easier to troubleshoot – GALs can be removed from PLCC sockets
- Specialized for Macintosh Plus only
Can I use this card in my Macintosh SE?
It would work, but the SE has an expansion card (PDS) slot which makes soldering a socket on top of the 68000 pointless.
For the SE I recommend this PCB here.
It looks like this:
What’s a GAL? How do I program it?
Generic Array Logic or GAL chips are semiconductor devices that can be programmed with predefined digital logic functions.
Basically you can roll your own little logic chip.
Yes, you can program them with a TL866/T48 universal programmer. Those are expensive so I use a special Arduino hat called afterburner instead.
You need a PLCC-20 to DIP-20 adapter to insert PLCC packaged GALs (as used on these accelerators) into a programmer.
They look like this:
Can you program GALs for me?
Probably. Get in touch.