Adding a PCI slot?

Hello,

The cable you linked to on the Computer Geeks site is a USB to Parallel cable. That cable is going to be useful only for devices that are designed to plug into a parallel printer port.

The device you are trying to use comes with it's own PCI expansion card. The fact that it's connector may look like a printer port's connector is irrelevant.

If it requires that PCI expansion card to function, then you will have no choice but to buy a machine with a PCI expansion slot.

A parallel port / USB to Parallel cable will not provide you with the same function that the PCI controller they supply does.

And, there are no USB or FireWire to PCI expansion slot adapters available that I know of. The two designs are so dissimilar that it really isn't a practical product.

It would be technically possible. But, it would basically amount to an external case with slots and it's own controller. Then, a cable to connect it to the Mac. And, drivers to communicate with that external box that holds the card.

I am not aware of any such device that exists to run PCI slots off the USB or FireWire ports. But, if one did exist, it would likely be way out of your reasonable budget.

Additional expansion slot cabinets have been available for PC's for years. They function similar to how I described above. Except, that they plug directly into an existing ISA, PCI, etc. port inside the host computer. And, generally, they have sold in the $1000 to $5000 price range depending on the year and manufacturer.

Unfortunately, the new Macs are not shipping with standard PCI slots. The Mac Pro is the only model with Expansion Slots. And, they have newer PCI standards (PCI Express) that are evolutions of the PCI interface. But, you cannot simply plug a standard PCI card into them.

So, if this device is particularly important, I see your most viable options being:

1) Keep using the older machines for that task

2) Buy a newer Microscope that will interface with the FireWire ports.

I hope this helps.

Let us know if you have other questions.


P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.

Man, what is it with people thinking there is a huge conspiracy about software or hardware designs when all it really is is a bad decision on the user end? Ugh.....You made the wrong decision, not some company trying to rip off the government.

Maybe tell us what model camera you have from Diagnostic Instruments and we can go from there.....Wait I think I found it.....

Try this:

http://gadgets.netscape.com/story/2006/05/30/external-pcmcia-card-slot-with-usb/

"Full height, half length PCI bus slot (desktop) or
PCMCIA cardbus slot (laptop)*"

I think you're in for a rough ride with this route however.

Hello,

I know you cannot order a Mini with a PCI slot. There just isn't any way to implement it in the current design.

About the closest I could imagine would be paying an enterprising hacker to manually construct such an interface and hack it into the computer's circuits. There are such people, I used to be one of them. But, I put my soldering iron away long ago and don't keep-up on the modern circuitry stuff anymore.

At this point, you probably should entertain the various upgrade packages available for the G3 systems. Perhaps getting a G4 CPU upgrade for it and a memory upgrade. But, of course that would depend on you being able to rule-out hardware failure as the cause of your existing problems.

I'm sorry that the situation isn't better for you.

The most recent Mac to accept PCI cards (not to be confused with the newer PCI-X and PCI Extreme) was the PowerMac G5. And, you should be sure to check the specific model for PCI slots if you decide to invest in one of those.

I wish I could give you better news.

Man, what is it with people thinking there is a huge
conspiracy about software or hardware designs when
all it really is is a bad decision on the user end?
Ugh.....You made the wrong decision, not some company
trying to rip off the government.

Maybe tell us what model camera you have from
Diagnostic Instruments and we can go from
there.....Wait I think I found it.....

Try this:

http://gadgets.netscape.com/story/2006/05/30/external-
pcmcia-card-slot-with-usb/

"Full height, half length PCI bus slot (desktop) or
PCMCIA cardbus slot (laptop)*"

I think you're in for a rough ride with this route
however.

Well, I guess you didn't get the cynical joke that reflects a common problem in wet bench research labs when it comes to upgrading very expensive lab hardware.

Tatro, I've had a similar problem with a flow cytometer/G3/OS9 setup in one of the labs I used to work in. We ended up just living with the slowness and the random crashes. Unfortunately, these companies don't always make simple upgrades all that simple, and your options are limited. Besides what mhunter suggested, there are a few other things you could consider to squeeze a few extra months out of the G3.

-You can easily upgrade the G3's hard disk and memory for less than the price of the Mini.
-An external hard disk may help with the storage problems as well.
-Re-installing the OS might help with the constant crashing, but you'd have to set up the camera software again and maybe recalibrate it - another headache and more downtime.
-Assuming the camera works fine with OS X, upgrading the computer and installing OS X will help you control access to the computer and who can store files on it. But OS X on a G3.....

Unfortunately there sounds like there isn't much else you can do. Maybe you can convince everyone in the lab to beg your PI for a new camera? 🙂 Some companies have exchange programs, right?

There are some good resources to buy newer used and refurbished computers on my FAQ here:

http://www.macmaps.com/usedrefurbished.html

That said, You can install a 120 GB hard drive on any G3 Mac, as all include at least an ATA bus. What you can do to temporarily relieve congestion is upgrade your current Mac to have a 120 GB ATA/IDE drive. Most authorized service centers have the facilities to do it, if you can't find installation instructions for your particular Mac.

Then once you have the money to buy a newer Mac, use these instructions to network over the data:
http://www.macmaps.com/network9X.html

Hello,

Sorry to hear that you won't get to use the new Mini. But, I'm glad you found a solution that works for your company.

Tatro,

You made the wrong decision, that is the bottom line. you bought the wrong line of apply hardware. get a tower next time. the mini is a budget conscious product with limited expandability and it is clearly marketed as such. it's not meant for the purpose you intended. it has nothing to do with taxpayer dollars or a bottom line in your case. in this case you spent the taxpayer dollars improperly which is more the case than any other these days. Sorry, I will never agree with you.

You tell 'im, Seed! You're exactly right, it was a stupid, uninformed decision.

Man, what is it with people these days who buy something new and expect it to be exactly like what they had before, only better. It's like buying a new Ford coupe to replace your old sedan, and getting mad at Ford because you didn't realize there's only two doors. If you bought a coupe to replace a sedan, you have nobody to blame but yourself if you needed something with four doors. Of course with this guy it was like he bought a new car expecting to still put leaded gasoline in it because that's what he used to put in his old one. Sheesh!

As many have pointed out, a proper replacement for the G3 would have been a tower, and due to the updates in PCI technology, it should have been a G5. If computers are properly maintained, they'll last forever. Assuming there was no additional software added and they didn't continually upgrade the OS, that G3 and microscope would have been just as good as the day they bought it... oh yes, I mean the day WE as taxpayers bought it. 😉 Only when you buy a new 'scope that needs an OS upgrade or something like FW, USB 2.0, etc. would you absolutely need new hardware to go with it.

This guy has said it's the same microscope, so it sounds to me like he just thought the Mac Mini was "cute" and cajoled his boss into letting him spend taxpayer dollars to buy one. How the guy looked at that thing and assumed it actually had a PCI slot in it in the first place is beyond me. People like that who make uninformed buying decisions based on how "cute" a computer is give the rest of us Mac folks a bad name, because that's what all the Windows sheep think we do anyway.

Okay, I think I'm done venting now. 😉

Try upgrading G3 with PowerLogix. I have G3 with 1.2GHZ upgrade chip and 1 GB memory. Still running fast enough to keep as working system. Could be faster chips now including the G4 upgrade.