Just Updated 4/8/2000 6400 Zone remodeling: I have started a major overhaul of my web site. I was getting upset with how unorganized it had become! I'm trying to move info around and make it more user friendly so if you find stuff missing or links broken can you please email me so I can either identify the new location or fix the missing info. Thanks. The link to My Reviews page will be broken on all pages except the home page till next week hopefully. I am reorganizing the locations of my files on the server as well. This page also has been renamed to Misc Mac Info as that is what I have been storing there :) It never had reviews of mine? My site viewed in new web browsers?: With IE 5 and NS 6 preview out my site may become broken in appearance? I already found in IE 5 that from the solid bar just past the gray link pane till the end of my page became all cramped to the left margin? I hope I fixed it? It looked ok in NS 6 preview after the text was reduced to 12pt size! Man what are these new browsers thinking? Who looks at this stuff so large? Please let me know if there are still any appearance issues. Thanks :) Linksys help page: Here is a page with good setup info for the Linksys Cable/DSL modem router. OS 9.0.4 released!: Apple finally got the next release to OS 9 out. 9.0.4 hit made its debut this week. I downloaded it but have not tried it on my PB G3 yet (my only Mac with OS 9 installed). I hope it fixes all the SCSI and sluggishness issues people have had? Let me know how it works for you guys. Thanks. OS 9.0.4 not compatible with 5500?: Mark sent word that on his 5500 with Sonnets L2G3 card he could not get it to boot unless he held the shift key to disable extensions? This was with the Crescendo active or not! OS 9.0 worked fine. Anyone else having issues with OS 9.0.4? Thanks Mark. USB 1.4.1 released: Apple also released there third party USB drivers this week. Version 1.4.1 is supposed to not steal so many CPU cycles speeding up your system. Sounds good. Let me know how it works if you try it. Thanks. New Sonnet L2 G3 temps?: I have had several people write asking me about the temps of their Sonnet L2 G3's. They are reporting higher temps then I posted in my reviews. Two things can be going on here. I heard the new heatsink is smaller so it no longer touches the nearest RAM chips. This will increase heat. Also Sonnet told me awhile back that they might use non-copper G3 CPU's if their heatsink could handle it. This to would explain higher temps. But to set you all at ease, I wouldn't worry unless the temp readings were over 100C degrees as they were built to withstand very high temps. Even higher then 100C but I don't know of any running this hot except for maybe in a PowerBook? More good news about Apples PCI timing extension: Well it seems this little extension is getting rave reviews from many L2 G3 upgraders and non-L2G3 owners! Papa writes that he has had a very stable system since installing this extension. Thanks Papa. I suggest if your having any issue then give this extension a try. [The PCI Timing Extension may not have been prepared for the 6400, but it sure has reduced my crashes and lockups. The only thing that locks up on me now is Microsoft Office products, but then they lock up or"unexpectedly quit" on any Mac I've used them with. Thanks, Papa] MaxPower 2.0.3 final release: Newer released the final version of there universal G3/G4 driver. It is supposed to fix issues with OS 9.0.x. I have a friend with OS 9 on a 6100 upgraded with the MaxPower PDS G3 and the beta driver boots under OS 9 but if you try to restart it will hang at the MaxPower driver. Only a shut down and cold boot works fine? Update: Wow this was fast :) I just tried the new 2.0.3 driver on my friends 6100 and it still hangs if you try a restart? I did notice one new feature in that the icon is no longer displayed during boot. Newer copied Sonnet by adding a splash screen just under the MacOS splash during boot. Very cool even if it is a copy. They also removed the feature of displaying your CPU speed :( I wonder if OS 9.0.4 will help? This is my next test. CD audio cable hack for non-Apple CD drives: Yee-Wie sent me illustrated instructions on how to make the stock 6400 audio cable work with non-Apple CD drives. Thanks Yee. I have posted this with my 6400 Manual. PowerLogix Cache utility slows HD access?: Keith who wrote before saying that the PL cache utility fixed issues with his Sonnets G3 and Avid Cinema now reports that the PL utility slows HD access. Thanks Keith. I haven't heard of this before and I wonder if he had Cache Write Through enabled during his tests? this will slow down HD access and most other functions as writing through the cache is similar to just writing only to the main memory and not having a cache. [Tom, The Powerlogix utility seems to have introduced a new problem in opening files. I am using the new PL G3/G4 cache utility, OS 8.6 and I have an 8.4 GB Seagate drive (hence the good disk results in MacBench). With the PL extension present I noticed some considerable waiting to open documents (up to 15 seconds to open a PDF or 10 seconds for a simpletext file). So I ran MacBench 5 and have a look at the results in the attached PDF - the PL utility has stomped all over the disk access !!! If I start up without the PL extension opening documents is normal and quite speedy. I can still access the PL utility to set the cache and there is no performance hit but there is an issue when running the extension with the Sonnet card. As I said, disk access is severely hit by the waiting that the extension imposes. I have not contacted PL about this as yet. Have you any ideas about this. Also, this G3/G4 utility appears to be new. Has you experienced this sort of problem with the previous utility they had. One further thing, the clocking app does not appear to work for me at all. I cannot overclock, underclock or even set the clock speed back to 300 MHz and get the OS to run. I either get lockups immediately or a system bus error during booting. Any suggestions on this? Cheers, Keith] Mac Equipment for sale list updated: I haven't been posting that I updated my list in awhile but I thought I would this time as there is a pretty cool offer listed. Eric has 6 old Mac IIcx's running UNIX NetBSD to serve as a network firewall/router for home networks. Very cool idea for an old Mac. Go check it out plus all the other nice things for sale :) New Performa Icon: John sent me a 6400 Icon he made awhile back. Thanks John. I posted it with my other 6400 Icons for download. Its the one labeled JMD. Just Updated 3/31/2000 New Link pane: Well since my frame idea didn't pan out the way I wanted it to I thought I would try the link pane that so many other sites use. I also moved the Hot Topics list in here as many old browsers and a few people with IE 5 said they had trouble with my popup menu. Sigh :( So now they are displayed all the time on the right of my page. I hope to add more links later. this is mainly a test right now. My main page will be much longer now do to all the screen real-estate being used up by the pane but if you have a larger monitor my window should auto size itself to what ever browser window size you pick? It won't get much smaller then barely fitting a 14" monitor though :( I also moved all the text that used to be at the top of this page to the bottom. I call it my site moto text :) I wanted readers to be able to get to the juicy stuff more quickly then having to scroll through the same text over and over everytime you visited. I hope this is for the better :) Hand Crafted CD bezel for the upper bay: I had installed my CDR in the upper bay of my 6400 being used as a file server and got tired of looking at it with no bezel :( I decided to use an old bezel I had collecting dust and cut it up to fit the CDR. I added it to my 6400 Manual. Playing Star Wars Racer without inserting the CD: I just got Pod Racer and the game is very fun to play and my son loves it :) I did a full install and it still required the CD? Well I wasn't going to let this stop me. I found out what it was looking for and created it. It works very similar to playing UT without the CD but even easier. See my 6400 Gaming page and scroll down till you find the UT posting First you must do a full install or it won't work. Than all you have to do is create a ReadOnly disk image with the name Star Wars Racer and then mount it before launching the game. I made my disk image with DiskCopy 6.3.3 at a size of 1.4M. Smaller sizes may work but I thought I would just stick with the floppy size :) No files are needed in the image. Pod Racers security measure is to try and copy a file called mark.dat to the CD. If it can then the game crashes. It if doesn't find a disk named Star Wars Racer then it won't launch. Pretty simple security measure. I found this out by making a read/write disk image and this file mark.dat kept showing up? I did not see it on the Original CD. Not even an invisible file named the same. So I created a new image that was locked and presto it worked :) Have fun! Apple TIL on the COMM II slot of the Beige G3: I clipped part of the TIL to show that the slot on the Beige G3 really is a COMM II slot. But it will not work with ethernet cards. Only the COMM II modem. But that's all we care about anyway right :) [http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n24297 The slot on the personality card uses the same connector as a Comm Slot II connector, and Comm Slot II cards will fit. However, the slot on the personality card is a modem slot, only providing serial support for Comm Slot II-capable modems. This slot does not support Ethernet cards, and should not be regarded as a Comm Slot II slot.] Magicscan software for older UMAX scanner?: Mark writes that he tried Magicscan instead of VistaScan for his Astra1200s scanner and he is loving it. Thanks Mark. [ Dear Tom: Just spent a little time looking at your comments on your Umax 1200S. I was not able to speed up scanning using an Adaptec 2903B PCI/SCSI card, but I thought you might use this information. Vistascan 3.4.1 is the recommended scanning DA from Umax for the 1200S and a series of other models such as the 1220S. I was looking for an update for Vistascan on the British Umax support site and discovered that Magicscan (which is the scanning utility listed for the high end scanners such as the Mirage and Powerlook) could be used on the 1200S series. This little tidbit (ie the undocumented use of Astra scanners is not mentioned on the US Umax site). Umax will not support it (ie tech support), but apparently it works. I downloaded it from the British web site as version 4.40 at the following link. http://support.umax.co.uk/drivers/ms440mac.htm Be prepared for a long download, since the file is 28MB. I was able to use a T1 line at college, and it still took over 30 minutes. I tried downloading at home on a 56K and it failed after 19MB was downloaded. I looked on the US Umax site, but they only had version 4.3 of Magiscan listed. Magicscan 4.40 works beautifully on my Performa 6400/180 with the Umax Astra 1200S scanner. I was getting tired of Vistascan where I had a preview window that could not be resized. I liked some of the basic settings (ie Beginner mode), but wanted something a little better. Magicscan is very full featured. I can resize the preview window. There is a proof feature (that Vistascan does not have), and many more things for me to play with. I have also set up a friend who has the Astra 1220S on a Blue&White G3, and Magiscan 4.40 worked just fine. There is one feature in Vistascan that I still use, and that is the Vista Access control strip module, to verify that the Astra 1200S is recognized. You are free to use my text on your website. Mark] Update on using Apples PCI Timing extension: Papa writes that he tried the PCI Timing extension with his Sonnet 300/1M upgrade and it got rid of all his random lockups! Thanks Papa. [BTW, installed the PCI extension as you mentioned on your web site, and my random Finder crashes have disappeared! Also, no more random lockups in Netscape or some of my other more esoteric applications that I had been experiencing.] Farallons Comm II 10/100 Fast Ethernet card not compatible with OS 8.1 and Keyspan USB PCI card installer not compatible with OS 9: Herbert has been exchanging email with me to figure out why he had such poor performance with his Farallon CommII ethernet card in his 6400. He found that their 1.x driver was very suggish and would crash with OS 8.1 and the 2.1 driver did not work at all. He installed OS 9 then the 2.1 driver worked great. But then he had a problem with his Keyspan USB card. The fix was to reboot back to OS 8.1 and run the installer? Man, do we all have to keep several systems installed for situations like this? Possibly? Thanks Herbert. [Thanks, Tom, for all your help! I decided to shell out the $$$ for OS 9, and with Conflict Catcher the System merge was a matter of 3 minutes. Now everything works as advertised :) The Com Slot card feels (subjectively) even faster than its PCI sibling! The Keyspan USB card works fine with the Rio, but the Keyspan USB Card Assistant 1.35 can't find the card. The installer from Keyspan doesn't work with OS9, I kept getting the error "previous corrupt files found" without any files installed yet. So I restarted with OS 8.1, installed the files without problem, moved them over to OS 9 and was able to use the Rio. This is not a problem so far, as I use the port only for the Rio, but later maybe other USB devices might follow ... Did you hear about this issue? Thanks, Herbert] I haven't tried OS 9 on my 6400 yet but I used Apples 1.3.5 drivers which are probably what Keyspan used also and they work great with OS 8.6. Maybe Apples installer will work under OS 9 better? Avid crashing with Sonnets G3 fixed?: Keith was having many issues runing Avid on his 6400 upgraded with Sonnets G3. He found that disabling the backside cache with a Control Strip module called G3 Strip would help but then tried Power Logix's Cache Profiler and he said it fixed all his troubles! Thanks Keith. [Tom, So far the Powerlogix utility works even better than the G3Strip. Something weird happens if the PL utility is used when the G3 is running. I turn off speculative addressing, disable the cache and play an avid movie and it plays fine. After this I can reenable the cache (even run it at 200MHz) and turn on spec. addressing and it still peforms properly. However, when capturing video with Avid cinema, the captured movie is not the same length as the time you capture ie. capture for 10 seconds and the resultant movie is truncated after 4 seconds. Really odd. If I use premiere to capture (using the avid card for digitizing) it works properly. I'll leave it to someone else to figure that one out. Finally, I have changed the Crescendo extension from"INIT" to "scri" to make it load first (just before the PL extension). An avid captured movie will play fine with this setup (cache at 200MHz, spec addressing off at startup)without having to turn things off and on. I have yet to test the capturewith this setup, but I'll try a few things to see if Avid cinema will behave. Cheers Keith] Voodoo3 2D slowdown related to the HD driver?: Tiong writes that he found out that his Voodoo3 had poor 2D performance until he downgraded his HD'd driver to the Apple Drive Setup that came with OS 8.6! Very interesting. Thanks Tiong. [Hi Tom, I have mananged to solve my RD9/Voodoo3/slow 2D problem. It turns out to be the Disk Driver! What happened was that after I installed the new Maxtor, I installed OS 8.5 from the original CD. Then before I had anything installed, I upgraded it to OS 8.6 with the free download from Apple. During this upgrading process, the installer told me that the disk driver could not be updated because I wasn't using an Apple disk. So, when I installed the Sonnet Crescendo 1.4.2 extension, I used the included Drive Setup to update the Disk Driver. This turns out to be the problem as the Drive Setup with the Sonnet 1.4.2 installer was for OS 9. Good thing I was in the "thinking" mood today and I remembered that installation step. So what I did was to use the Drive Setup that came with the OS 8.6 update installation and updated (downdated?) the disk driver again and my V3's 2D with RD9 is back to normal speed again. Whoohoo!! = )] I wonder if the newer Apple Drive Setup being bundled with Sonnets 1.4.2 installer is all they changed from the 1.4.1 installer? Remember they said all they changed was the installer and not the Crescendo extension.

L2 G3 Upgrades Apple Service Manuals My 6400 TA manual Sonnet Clocking Gaming News ATI Rage128 Voodoo3 OS 9 info OT 2.6 for old OS's iTools info Run Alternate OS's Spec Comparison Page Vimage compatibility user letters install review Sonnet Tech compatiblity user letters install review hack for stability Sonnet clocking Crescendo 1.4.2 installer Newer Tech compatibility user letters Power Logix Alternate OS's Avid Cinema Cable/DSL Modems CD-ROM's FireWire and USB cards Geo Modem Gaming News iTools MacOS 7.5.x - 9.0 info Magma PCI Chassis Voodoo2 Voodoo3 6400 Icons for download