Just Updated 6/10/2000 iMovie on OS's older then 8.6?: Jeff would like to know if anyone has gotten iMovie to install on an older OS like OS 8.1? If you have iMovie running on anything older then OS 8.6 Please let me know. Thanks. [Do you know if anyone has successfully installed iMovie with an older OS? The iMovie installer states that OS 8.6 is required. I attempted to install on my 6400/200 w/Vimage 240 running OS 8.1, but could finish when the installer discovered OS 8.1 on my hard disk. Any ideas or is OS 8.6 really the minimum OS required to operate iMovie? Thanks for any info.,Jeff] Reader request: USB joystick and older games: I have a request from a reader who would like to know if anyone has tried USB joysticks with older games that may not use Apples Input Sprockets? Please email seeles@gtlaw.com.au if you have any experiences with this. Thanks. [I was wondering if you could add this to your Readers' Request page I am looking for a new joystick to use with my 6400. I am considering buying a USB card and going for a USB stick (probably Cyborg or Thrustmaster) so I can use it when I eventually upgrade. The only problem is that I still enjoy playing X-Wing which doesn't support the input sprockets used by most USB sticks. I've heard that USB Overdrive allows a USB stick to emulate the keyboard or mouse, but I'm concerned that this may not give the same sort of responsiveness as an ADB stick that is supported by the game. Has anyone had any experience in playing older games such as X-Wing with USB/input sprocket devices? Are there any other patches that allow input sprocket devices to emulate particular or generic ADB sticks? Of course LucasArts could fix all this by releasing updated versions of X-Wing and Tie Fighter for the Mac (the chances of it running on a 6400, however, would be minimal).] Yamaha SW 1000 XG on a 6400: Regis just sent me some info on his experience with this Pro sound card in his 6400. Thanks Regis [Hi Tom, this is Regis. I just bought a sound card Yamaha SW 1000 XG, great value for the money (64 voices of Midi and audio, 12 channels of audio I/O via ASIO drivers and 6 effects of multi processing). This message is only to say that this card works well in my 6400/200 upgraded with Sonnet Crescendo 300/1M. Os is 9.0.4. Midi works well, Cubase VST (demo version) works great and I'm waiting for Digital Performer 2.7 (which is ASIO compatible) to transfer all my old Performer files. I have little synch problems with midi, but not as much as before and no more "audio buffer errors" with audio. Regis] Turbomax ATA/66 PCI IDE card in a 6500: Here is a link to some info on Accelerate Your Mac's web site about this card in a 6500. Click here for more info on IDE adapter cards for the Mac. [http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/6500_TurbomaxATA66.html] ATI's Rage 128 cards and SCSI HD issue update: Tiong sent me some info that he did not have any SCSI HD's in his 6500 but still had major issues with these cards. Thanks Tiong. [Regarding the ATI Rage128/Sonnet fix, I don't have a SCSI hard drive or any drive connected in my 6500's 5.25 bay (there are two fans there though!) but my ATI Rage Orion won't work with any of the 3 Sonnets I have owned. : ( However, the V3 works great! (been working since my second Sonnet and is still working flawlessly with my third Sonnet too.) Regards,] Marcus wrote back saying he had FWB drivers on the SCSI HD. Maybe if it was possible to put Apples driver on it might have worked ok? Thanks Marcus More news on memory leaks in OS 9.0.x: Michelle writes that she found that OT was linked to this memory growing issue. Thanks Michelle. Maybe now we can narrow down a fix? Its still possible that the browser or email client is the problem as many people have noticed Netscape causes memory leaks. [Hi -- I was surfing dejanews trying to find any information about a fix for a problem I'm having. Your url came up in the group for OT 2.6 & Memory Leak, so I popped in to visit. It seems that OS 9.0 and Open Transport together cause a memory leak when TCP packets are being transferred. It seems to only occur when an "upload" packet is sent -- sending email, posting to newsgroups, anything that involves my -sending- rather than receiving. I can receive almost anything without problem. I'm on a G3 powerbook of the Wallstreet variety. I'm running NetRouter and Doorstop Personal. I've tried everything I can think of (including turning off both of the above apps) and have had no success... Did anyone send you anything useful?] ORB drive on a SCSI or USB buss with a 6400: Jim sent me some info on his experiences with an ORB drive connected to his 6400 via SCSI and USB. Thanks Jim [Hi Tom, Got the Orb external yesterday and installed it today in a couple of minutes. I got a 25/50 pin SCSI cable to connect it to the SCSI port on the 6400 and am running it that way. It seems fairly quick and took 22 minutes when I copied my HD on to it (1.8 Gig. / 13,000 files). That is a full copy not a backup. The only strange thing it did was make itself the start up drive somehow during installation. If the Orb disk was in it was trying to boot from the Orb drive and I got an error and had to restart. I just went into the Control panel and choose the internal HD again and all is normal. I talked to Castlewood tech support before I got the drive and the only thing they said was that if you run this as a USB drive with OS 9.04 you have to take out one extensions that is loaded during installation, (Remove the "USB Loader" ext), other than that it will run fine either SCSI or USB. I'll let you know about the USB aspect in the near future but SCSI is working fine. If you want to use it as a SCSI device you have to get a cable (6400 needs the 25 pin to 50 pin Orb cable). It used to come with one and a USB adapter but now the included cable and USB adapter are combined into one. The Seagate SCSI 4.3 Gig hasn't arrived yet, maybe monday, but it should be a quick install. Staples has the Maxtor IDE 10.3 gig, on sale today only, for $79, same as the Seagate but to late to cancel, and I might just run up and get one. Wished I would've gotten a backup device sooner, it feels good not worrying about a crash and losing everything. Jim] [Hi Tom, Just for test purposes I connected the Orb to the PCI card - USB port on the 6400 and tried copying my HD over to it just as I did with the SCSI connection and it worked fine but you were right about the speed. While connected as a SCSI device it took about 22 minutes for a full copy (1.8 Gig. - 13,000 files). Connected as a USB device I stopped the copy after 15 minutes and the software said it still had over an hour to go. The files were counting down (13000 down to 11300), but very slowly, so it was working, but I would say it was going to take at least 5 maybe 6 times longer. I'm not sure, maybe it's my USB setup, but I sure hope it's not this slow when I upgrade to a Mac with a built in USB port. I checked the Orb disk I made with the SCSI connection with TechTools Pro 2.5.4 and it checked out OK. I'm able to access and copy files back and fourth with no problems so I'm happy and glad I got the SCSI cable. Jim] More on the Kingston KNE100TX Ethernet card: Adrian wrote Kingston asking if what I had posted before is true and here is their response. Thanks Adrian [Hi, Well I showed that article to our MAC specialist here in tech support and they told me that information on the website is false. The KNE100TX should work fine in the Performa. Personally I would like to know who they spoke with here if in fact they even did. It looks like the article was written last month and I spoke to every technician in here individually and no one ever told any customer that. So, I guess my advice is be cautious about the information you receive on the web. Take care! Larry Davis Kingston Tech Support] I would like to apologize to Kingston for my previous posting. If the reader who sent me the info stating that Kingston said the card was buggy could email me I would appreciate it. Maybe we can find out who told this person it was buggy? Another 6400 info forums page: Pierre sent me this link to MacSpeed Zones 6400 forums page. The forums are at the bottom of the page. Nice to see my site being talked about first in the forums. Thanks :) [http://macspeedzone.com/5.0/upgradesmanufactureresults/6400200_June00.shtml] Here's some more Sonnet upgrade success stories: Just thought I would post some more upgrade success stories. Thanks guys and to everyone who has ever sent me upgrade stories. I like to read them all and shows me just how long the 6400/6500 can last :) [PM6500/275 OS8.5 Sonnet L2G3/300/512 v2.2 installer 1.4.4 96mb RAM Rage Orion 128 latest drivers AppleTV/Avid video 2 monitors One hang on first boot, none since. Sorted out Rage card and twin monitors weeks ahead of G3 upgrade. Two monitors is only stable way of operating this setup and is necessary to continue using TV/Video i/o. Avid Video needs to be on the internal video and G3 extension has to be off as there is a timing issue. Haven't tried the PCI timing ext to see if this makes any difference. However, I now have a G3 for most operations with the Rage Orion and switch to non G3 for video production. A swap to digital camera and a Firewire card would resolve all of this switching but don't know where I can find them for free :) Great site full of excellent info thanks, regards Ian] [Hi, You have a fascinating and well designed site. Well done. I just installed Sonnet's Crescendo G3/L2 350 mhz/1m card in my U-Max C-500, which has a Performa 6400 motherboard. It came with version 1.4.4 of Sonnet's software. It's been souped-up with an IX Micro Twin-Turbo 128 video card, an Adaptec 2930 SCSI card, a Quantum 8.4G internal drive, and 144 megs of RAM. I run 2 monitors and a number of external drives, printers, and scanners. Installing the card is a straightforward, multistep process. One DIMM and the floppy drive must be removed to uncover the L2 cache slot, filled in this case. Both PCI cards must be removed to provide access to the processor reset switch. The L2 card was seated very tightly, but yielded to persistence. Sonnet's instruction manual does not cover the C-500. The manual's instructions for the 6400 cover all of the steps, but the C-500's processor reset switch is located in another location. The manual needs updating. Thus far, I've encountered no hardware or software incompatibilities. The speed increase is impressive. The before and after MacBench 5.0 scores for the CPU and FPU: 250 & 1030, 389 & 1054. Equally important, the internal ATA drive's score went from 642 to 994. This makes my C-500 the rough equal of the benchmark machine. The only potential problem is that the G3 runs warm, 67-71 C (ambient room temperature is 20 C). This appears to be within specs, but it's still too warm. The C-500's case is small, and there isn't much ventilation near the G3's heat sink. This might not be a problem for a C-500 with less RAM and with open PCI slots, but I'd like for it to run cooler and thus will look at some options. Sonnet has done a good with this accelerator. James] Just Updated 6/4/2000 Mac Equipment for Sale policy change: I am implementing the same policy for my equipment list that I have for me Readers Requests page. I will start removing posts older then 6 months as of next week. I will start with postings that have no date posted then the following week I will remove postings dated earlier then January. If you wish me to keep the posting up longer then just let me know and I will reset the clock :) I'm just trying to clean up some old stuff :) User info on Keyspan USB card: Vesp wrote to say he is having no trouble with Keyspans PCI USB card in his 6400. Thanks Vesp. [For your edification, recently I installed a Keyspan USB Card on my Performa 6400 Sonnet Powered G3 Mac OS 8.6. Installation set up was a breeze. Apple USB Adapter Card Support Version 1.4.1 was installed. Epson Stylus Color 740 was connected to USB port. As far as functionality goes the USB card has been flawless.] Utility to tell you what kind of 400Mhz G3 you have: Tiong writes that Newer's Gauge Pro utility can tell you if you have an 8x or 10x G3 CPU. Thanks Tiong. Only 10x CPU's can possibly be clocked over 400Mhz with the Sonnet Clocker, that is if we can get it working :) [Hi Tom, I've been reading about the problems Sonnet L2 users have been facing when trying to get their 400MHz G3 to run faster. Sorry I don't have a 400 to test, but I'd like to advise your readers to do a simple test before they overclock their 400MHz G3s. As you have already stated, some of the 400MHz upgrades do not come with 10x multiplier chips, so users must determine if their chips are 10x capable before trying to clock it over the 8x limit of the older versions of G3. One good software for checking if their G3 is 10x capable is Newer's Gauge Pro (http://www.newertech.com/software/index.html) If Gauge Pro reports the CPU version as 3.0, users can overclock it and make run at or below 10x. However, if the CPU version is below 3.0 (most likely 2.2), the G3 will run at 8x max. Hope this info helps. Regards, Tiong] Apple TIL on installing Mac OS on 21G or larger HD partitions: Apple released a TIL stating that although the Mac OS can see and use very large HD's, the OS installers can't! All this means is that if you wish to install OS 8.5 or older on say, a 40G HD, you have to make sure at least one partition is 20G or smaller. Oh the pain! I wish I had one HD that large :) [http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60448 The installer version accompanying Mac OS 8.5 and AppleShare IP 6.1 does not properly deal with volumes larger than 21 Gigabytes. The version of the installer application that accompanies Mac OS 8.6 corrects this limitation. If the newer version of the installer is not available, partitioning the drive so that a smaller than 21 Gigabyte segment is available will allow the older installer to function.] Info on how to extend the range of Apples Airport system: Here is a link to a site with info on installing an external antenna to Apples Airport base station to increase the distance you can be from it. [http://macsupport.about.com/compute/macsupport/library/column/uc052900a.htm] Free Internet access for Mac users: I know many people have tried free internet access services from ISP's and have mixed results from them but I thought I would tell you of a new one I came across which seems pretty safe to try. Its called Freeinternet.com, and they just released version 2 of their Mac client software. I had always wanted to try one of these but kept putting it off, but I have a trip coming up soon and didn't want to fork over $7 an hour to @Home for dial up service! Yes I do still have AOL but I am paying a reduced rate of $9.95 for using AOL services through @Home cable. This lets me keep my web site up for a minimal amount of money. But AOL will charge me $2.50 an hour if I dialup! So Free access here I come. I chose Freeinternet because the sign-up process does not include your name, home phone, home address, or even your current email address! All they required is your state, area code, and zip code which does narrow you down but is not exactly where you live. Then they asked for a screen name to use and a password and that was it for personal stuff, They did ask for current email but I left that blank thinking they would give me an email account anyway so why let them spam my other account. Also a few questions on personal preferences like things you like. This way they can target what ads to place on the banner box which is always present while online. This brings up another interesting tid bit :) The banner box is not bad at 1024x768 but could be a bit bulky on a 640x480 setting. BUT Check this out. At this time for at least my system is crashes after about 5-10 minutes but does not bring my system down. Now you might think what is good about that! Well, I don't get kicked offline when it crashes. I was able to keep surfing for an entire hour before I left for while and it logged me off. I might have been able to go longer if I kept surfing? So for free access and no personal info to give out, I think they rate pretty good :) Procedure to replace Power Supply fan on 6400/6500's: Lance bought and replaced his power supplies fan to try and quiet it down. He wasn't able to find a much quieter fan yet but he wrote an excellent procedure on how to replace it if any of you would like to try? Thanks Lance. I have added it to my 6400 online take apart manual. Help for HP 4MP printer problems: David writes with info on how he fixed his HP 5MP printer problems and thought it might help people with 4MP printers. Thanks David. [I have an HP 5MP, and don't know if the same fix will work for the 4MP, but this is what worked for me under OS 8.5.1 and greater. Remove ALL the driver software provided by HP and print using LaserWriter 8. Under LW8, the 20Mb in my printer is recognized and there is no problem. Good luck. David] Info on using OS 9 under OS X from Apple: Here is a link to some info on Apples web site that might help you understand how far along the integration is between OS 9 and OS X. Remember they still have 6 more months before its supposed to be released but I just wanted to let you know how far along they are. Also don't be surprised if a lot of the features in OS 9 are not in OS X when its released. Its pretty hard to make a new OS as functional as a 15 year old OS in just a few years time :) Interesting fix to get Sonnets G3 card and ATI's Rage128 running smooth together?: Marcus wrote me with this very interesting fix. Before this he had to ZAP the PRAM to get them to work on every boot! Thanks Marcus. [Heureka! I removed my non-Apple SCSI-harddrive and now my G3-card works with my ATI Rage Orion. I guess 60% of Performa 6400 owners have a non-apple hard-drive installed in the upper 5,25"-bay. -- Marcus] I don't know if his non-Apple SCSI HD was formatted with Apples Drive Setup or some thirdparty driver but if you have this setup and removing a non-Apple drive helps your situation, please write me.

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