DayStar Digital, Inc., was a company founded in 1983 by Andrew Lewis as a subcontract manufacturer of electronic assemblies and circuit boards. In 1986, the company released memory upgrades for

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

(Mac) computers as its first products, and in 1987, DayStar began to market processor upgrades exclusively for the Mac, the first being for the

Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic ...

computer. The company focused exclusively on this market for the full range of Mac computers through 1995, utilizing the

Motorola 68030 The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with gener ...

68040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola ...

and

PowerPC 601 The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opene ...

processors. These upgrades were installed directly into the

Processor Direct Slot A processor direct slot (PDS) is a slot incorporated into many older Macintosh models that allowed direct access to the signal pins of a CPU, similar to the functionality of a local bus in PCs. This would result in much higher speeds than having ...

of various Macintosh platforms, as on the

Macintosh IIci The Macintosh IIci is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from September 1989 to February 1993. It is a more powerful version of the Macintosh IIcx, released earlier that year, and shares the same compa ...

, or via an adapter. DayStar became known as the leading "speed shop" for Macintosh computer systems; it won virtually every Mac editorial award given for product excellence and had the top rated brand among peripheral manufacturers. The company also formed unique strategic relationships with many companies including Apple, IBM and Adobe. In 1995, DayStar was one of three companies in the world awarded licenses by Apple to "clone" the Macintosh computer.

Cache and Processor Upgrades

DayStar PowerCache 68030 50MHz with 68882 FPU

FastCache

DayStar introduced their FastCache IIci in conjunction with the release of Apple's

in 1989. It plugged into the

and provided 64 KB of Level 2

cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Science and technology * Cache (computing), a technique used in computer storage for easier data access * Cache (biology) or hoarding, a food storing behavior of animals * Cache (archaeology), artifacts p ...

for the IIci's CPU - double what was offered by Apple's own cache card. An additional FastCache IIsi was offered for the

Macintosh IIsi The Macintosh IIsi is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1990 to March 1993. Introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the other Macintosh II family of desktop models, it was popular for ...

in 1991.

PowerCache

The DayStar PowerCache was a

processor card running at either 40 or 50 MHz, with an optional

68882 The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 are floating-point units (FPUs) used in some computer systems in conjunction with Motorola's 32-bit 68020 or 68030 microprocessors. These coprocessors are external chips, designed before floating point math ...

math co-processor A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography or ...

. The PowerCache plugged directly into the

of the Mac IIci, while in the case of the Mac II, IIx or IIcx, a PDS slot was provided via an adapter that plugged into the CPU socket. The Mac IIsi, LC, or SE/30 could also use the PowerCache with a PDS adapter. In addition to the CPU and (optional) FPU, the PowerCache had 32 KB of Level 2 cache.

Turbo 040

The Turbo 040 was DayStar's

based processor card running at 33 or 40 MHz. The 33 MHz version could be fitted with either a full 68040 or the lower cost

68LC040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola ...

, which lacked an FPU. Both versions came with 128 KB of Level 2 cache. With the exception of the LC, the Turbo 040 was compatible with the same machines as the PowerCache and additionally the IIvx and IIvi / Performa 600.

Power 601

The DayStar Power 601 was an upgrade card fitted with either a 66 or 100 MHz

and 256 KB of Level 2 cache. The Power 601 gave owners of a few 68030 based Macs an upgrade path to the new PowerPC architecture, using the

of the IIci, IIvx and IIvi / Performa 600.

High-performance Macintosh clones

In 1995, the company engaged with Apple in co-development of the first dual processor system, sold only as an upgrade by DayStar. Then, in 1995, DayStar received a license from Apple to produce

Macintosh clone A Macintosh clone is a computer running the Classic Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. The earliest Mac clones were based on emulators and reverse-engineered Macintosh ROMs. During Apple's short lived Mac OS 7 licensing ...

s and the industry's only multi-processor Apple systems, notably the DayStar Genesis MP dual and quad processor systems built around the

PowerPC 604 The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...

chips. In retrospect, the Genesis MP is considered one of the most influential Macs of 1995, and one of the 25 most influential Macs for the first 25 years of the Mac product line. In 2020, the Genesis MP was recently rated #15 in the top 20 Macs of all time. https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/09/20-macs-for-2020-15-daystar-genesis-mp/ The license for all clone manufacturers was for version 7 of the operating system, but when Apple did not extend the license to version 8, it effectively canceled the program for all the clone companies. DayStar Digital eventually dissolved as a company in July, 1999. Key people behind the marketing and technological success of the company include (and in no particular order): Marketing: Gary Dailey, David Methven, Ted Cheney, Jerry DeAvila; Engineering: Bob Hudson, Larry Knight, Irvan Krantzler, Rod Frazer, Henry Kannapell, Chris Cooksey.

References

* Andrew Lewis, personal memoirs, 1993, 2000.

External links

* {{web archive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001018180735/http://www.alcatel.com/consumer/dsl/supuser.htm, title=Official website 1983 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) 1997 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state) American companies established in 1983 American companies disestablished in 1997 Computer companies established in 1983 Computer companies disestablished in 1997 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Electronics companies established in 1983 Electronics companies disestablished in 1997 Macintosh clones Manufacturing companies based in Georgia (U.S. state)