Rare Bordeaux Perch card!

As I recall, C-Cube Semiconductor manufactured the MPEG decoder chip for the DVD-A/V personality card. The modem card in your photo is one of Apple's (failed) early experiments - the Apple Telecom 28.8 soft-modem. It required the Apple Telecom software for functionality. At the time of its introduction, the 603e processors were underpowered for a controller-less modem lacking an onboard DSP. The Global Village TelePort Platinum 28.8 hardware-based modem was much better, in terms of overall performance. Global Village manufactured the hardware-based, 56K v.90/K56flex modem card that was a Build-to-Order option for the beige G3s. It was the same (COMM II slot) 56K modem included with the high-end 6500s, and is installed in the modem slot found on the PERCH card. The beige G3's modem slot is not a COMM II slot, in that it can't use the COMM II slot ethernet card. I bought/installed about 8 of the Apple/GV 56K modem cards in my 6500s and beige G3s, and they were the performance equal of Global Village's external TelePort 56K modems.

Sabrina Mancini wrote:
Yes, was crazy to spend the cash...

I can relate to that, with all the $$ I have put into my G3. I kind of wish I had moved up to a G4 tower that could boot both OS 9 and OS X, (and then I could sink even more $$ into that).

Sabrina Mancini wrote:
...in order to have a complete superior beige you'll need one of these...

I always thought that myself, and swapped out my stock audio card with one of the older basic AV cards, but never really got it to work well, when I try to capture video clips from my camcorder the sound lags the video after a minute or so. So it's nice to have, but I really don't ever use it.

It's interesting to see that older hardware, thanks for sharing. I wonder how well it will work for DVD playback. I was always interested in getting an internal modem for that slot, but I was able to get my external BestData serial port modem to work with OS X built-in faxing.

" I wonder how well it will work for DVD playback."

For optimal playback, you should be running a 300 or 333 MHz G3 processor (or faster). With the DVD-A/V personality card, the 4 MB VRAM upgrade card, and the Apple/Matshita 2x DVD-ROM drive, movie playback with Apple DVD Player 1.x is OK. There's an occasional dropped frame, but for the most part, it's acceptable. With only 6 MBs of SDRAM for graphics support, you can't expect premium performance. Most of my pre-OS X beiges ran the patched (software-based MPEG decoding) Apple DVD Player 2.7, using a Radeon 7000 graphics card. Having 32 or 64 MBs of DDR memory for graphics support is a definite plus.

Yeah, I'd wondered how well it would perform.. thanks for informing, Jeff. I have an original Radeon in here anyway, so I assume it would be a lot better performance than the built-in decoder on the Bordeux, but I still think the Bordeux is a really neat piece of hardware/history... thanks for sharing the picture. I've kind of wanted one of those too, but just wanted an A/V card for completion's sake, which Deborah kindly shipped to me free of charge (Nice lady :))

I had some trouble installing it, but I'm sure I'll get it to work when I get back from college again.

Those several chips on the side look like SDRAM chips.. are they?

You know, I always figured the place with the solderpoints on the Wings and Whisper cards (in the shape of a short, fat SDRAM chip... similar and possibly identical to the chip next to the Philips chip on the Wings) was where the DVD decoder chip would sit, but it looks like not! It's on all three cards. Curious. What is it? A repositioned chip?