Just Updated 9/9/2000 6400 Zone Forums image needed: I was wondering if any of you artists would mind making a design logo for my forums? I wanted a image that can represent the forums and place it along with the other images above. I'm thinking of placing it where the 6400 image is right now, so make it about the size of the Amazon image. Thanks. 4x4 Evolution game: Here is a link to a new game called 4x4 Evolution. It is an off road racing game with true to life trucks like the Nissan Exterra. Also here is some info from Accelerate Your Mac on how to get it working with a Voodoo3. [3dfx Graphics Card Tip for 4x4 Evolution Demo: - A reader sends a tip for Voodoo card owners running the 4x4 Evolution beta demo that doesn't require deleting the metal.ini file: " Hey Mike, I notice that no one seems to have hit a elegant solution on the head in the 3dfx forums. I think I may have one. Instead of deleting the metal.ini just edit the "rendererDLLPath=trigl.dll" to read "rendererDLLPath=TRIGlide.dll". Works like a charm on my system voodoo3. Josh] Apples new optical mouse and USB PCI cards?: I found this info on MacFixIt. [Apple optical mouse and older Macs: no go? Dana Ahlgren was told by Apple Tech Support that the new Apple optical mouse is not supported for older Macs using USB cards. Dana could not get it to work on a Power Mac 7600 with a SIIG USB card installed.] Possibly the mouse will work with other USB cards like MacAlly's or Keyspans? Unsupported from Apple just means if it doesn't work then oh well, but not that it won't work. Update on MacOSX files: Here is some info from a reader of mine that was able to find some good info within the OSX files I posted last update. Thanks. It doesn't mean OSX will work yet but we're getting closer :) Click here for more of my OSX info. [Thanks for BootX file!!! I opened it in Word, its contents made me suspect that the "System Disk" application or extension has a lot to do how different machines load the MacOSX-partition of the installation CD! Opening "System Disk" with resedit shows 3 resources called "OFpt", "OFtb" and "OFtc" - here are the initialization script of those different models that are supported. When you click install the first thing that happens is that "System Disk" is called and it prepares your machine (depending on your Machine id) for the booting of the MacOSX installation partition. It does about the same if it is launched singular - not from the "MacOSX installation" application on the CD. If you try to install from a "not supported machine", "System disk" will call the script id -1 in "OFtb" and as you know the dialog DITL id 134 tells you that "Mac OS X is currently unsupported on this machine. The System Disk control panel will have no effect". If you change the first item in "OFtb" to MachineID 512 and OFpt id can then be chosen to an existing script id among those in "OFpt". You can see in "OFtc" that Id 128 "PowerSurge" is older macs of type PowerMac 7300,7500,8500,9500 and Id 130 is beige allinone "Gossamer" G3 Mac. The Id 131 is the traditional beige G3 PowerMac. If I try the Gossamer (Id 130) script for my PMac 5500 (MachineId 512) in resedit and then launch "System Disk" it will let me choose the MacOSX partition of the installation disk as startup disk. When I then restart I can detect that both the IDE and SCSI busses are initialized and searched for MacOSX partitions. This is not with any other script. I've not have had time yet to go further, but I believe the solution to MacOSX installation on 5400/5500/6400/6500 machines lies in to get an appropriate "OFpt" script for the machine. Your tips on copying the MacOSX DP4 CD with SCSI-copy in Toast is great, but it doesn't help me to see the MacOSX partition in the finder. The Linux extension "MountX" doesn't help either! I hope newer versions of "System Disk" will include 6400 support scripts from Apple in the "OFpt" resource!!! I'm keeping a look out. Regards...] Update on G3 upgrades and Audio apps having issues: Here is some info I found on Accelerate Your Macs web site from a company that does not support G3 upgrades with their audio apps! Seems like this issue is much more serious then with just L2 G3 upgrades! [More Feedback on CPU Upgrades and Audio Apps: - Another reader replied to the recent posts on Audio Apps/cards in older Macs with CPU upgrades: " Hi Mike, I saw the item on Wednesdays news page about some problems with G3 upgraded Macs and some audio applications. Here is an excerpt from Arboretum's web page: 'G3 Upgrade Cards Not Supported: We are now able to independently verify what we long suspected, which is that G3 processor upgrade cards for older Power Macs (from manufacturers including Newer Technologies and others) exhibit a number of incompatibilities which well may interfere with audio editing programs. The upgrade card manufacturers themselves are beginning to acknowledge the problem; this ends the mystery surrounding a number of heretofore unresolvable technical issues pertaining to G3 upgraded Macs. Our advisory on this topic is therefore reiterated and intensified: We will not be able to guarantee performance on systems with CPU upgrades. Don't use an upgrade card to extend the life of your old Mac. We suggest you consider trading up to a new factory-built G3 instead.' Arboretum makes several audio applications, with excellent Macintosh support. You can find that quote at www.arboretum.com/S40_support/S40SUPPORTmac.html, about 2/3rds of the way down the page. Personally I think tellling people to buy a new machine is a bit drastic though. For what it is worth, I use several audio apps on my G3 upgraded 8500 (PowerLogix 300/300/1Meg upgrade card) and have never had any problems. -Barry Klawans" As noted in the recent news here, several older Mac owners that were having problems noted either setting the backside cache to write-through modes and/or deinterleaving RAM helped. Not all owners have problems, but there have been some reports in the Rate Your CPU upgrade database.] Update on OS 9 and floppies: Greg sends word that removing some USB card support extensions got his floppy working again. Thanks Greg. Unfortunately I do not have those installed on my second 6400 so its not the fix for all issues :( [HI I posted my request for help on the apple web site at the same time as I posted on the 6400 forum in regards to the floppy 6400 problem with OS 9.0.4. After an official apple response asking if I had tried turning off extensions (and heartily scoffing at the treat 'em dumb attitude) I though what the hell I may as well try it (so then I would have a stronger case to scream abuse at them) and after trying it guess what???? It worked. So I spent the next four hours tirelessly turning on and off extensions until I found the culprits. It is the Apple USB Adapter card 1.4.1 drivers on my system. More Specifically it is the "USB device extension 1.4.1" and "USB support 1.4.1" extensions that comes in the USB Adapter card 1.4.1 package. This will explain why not all users could see the problem, they must not have had USB!!!! Feel free to put this on the web site but please don't publish my email as I get enough spam as it is. I just though I should share the wealth.... so to speak. So now I am going to pester the apple web site now as I have not determined what these extensions will do if I try and use my USB devices now????!?!?! At the moment I have USB support 1.4.1 turned off since it is the only one of the two in the extension manager that doesn't say what it is... Hence my system works fine. The other one USB device extension 1.4.1 says that it contains all the apple USB drivers so I did not want to turn this off Hope this helps your problem too. E-mail me back to tell me how you go. Cheers Greg] Tip to get IDE HD's working if they seem not to: I have been conversing with a reader,Steve, who had issues with a new Maxtor IDE HD. It would not be recognized by Apples DriveSetup formatting software. It turned out to be configured wrong. The drive came factory set to Cable Select and needs to be Master for our computers. Cable Select is a new feature that PC's have so you can just plug the drive in and let the IDE controller decide whether its a master or slave. Noname USB cards causing conflicts?: I know Apple states that their USB card support software will work with any USB card that is OHCI compliant but maybe we should stick with the Apple branded cards? I have been getting several emails from people who have had issues from devices not working up to freezes and crashes with non-apple branded cards. And by non-Apple branded I just mean not sold specifically for Apples. MacAlley's and Keyspans seem to be the most popular ones that work. I am using ADC's and they did start selling a card labled for Macs eventually. Also SIIG has a Mac labled card and a non Mac labled card but both have the same specs? This may be one of those times where you get what you pay for :) Sonnet G3 upgrade nightmare!: Sam sent me some info on his horrible experience with Sonnets G3 upgrade. Thanks and sorry Sam. [Howdy. Here's an update for your "Sonnet Compatibility Page:" Sonnet has updated their manual to explicitly state that the crescendo is not compatible with the geo modem and that it has to be removed prior to installation of the accelerator. Otherwise, the upgrade has been a nightmare -- every single program eventually crashes. Upgrade: Sonnet Crescendo L2/G3 400MHz/1MB My system: Performa 6400/180, 56 MB RAM, ATI XCLAIM VR 8 MB, MacOS 9.0.4 I've read all of the pages on your site and will try enabling the PCI Timing Update and disabling the Contextual menu and SOMObjects extensions. Wish me luck. Sam] It is well known that the Geo modem is the cause of many issues on the 6400 but some Sonnet Upgrade users do get both to work just fine. It is nice to see that Sonnet finally admits it! I guess they finally got to much headaches from tech support :) Mine did work when I had my Sonnet G3 so not everyone will have an experience this bad. Sonnet Tempo card and the 6400: I got a good letter from Rodney on his experience with Sonnet new IDE PCI card called the Tempo. Click here for more details. He had a serious issue where his computer shut down because the fan was not working and will probably be unhappy to see me post it but I wanted to let everyone know what can happen when new components are installed. He later found out that the ribbon cable going to the drives was blocking the fan. This can happen to many people as you would not expect this. I know I wouldn't have at first. Update on using a QuickCam and Apples TV tuner issue: I got several emails from users saying that you need to have a monitor on the stock port for the TV/Video system to work. This is true but Clint did have a monitor on the stock port so something else is wrong? Ian sent me an email with a solution he remembered from awhile ago. Hope it works. Thanks Ian. [Hey Tom Seem to remember having similar problems with a serial QuickCam and the TV tuner. It was a while ago....my parents now run the 6400 (I've moved on to a G3 B&W).... I think I had to start the Quickam first, then Apple Video Player (quit Quickcam after) - as I said, it was a while ago & my recollection is a bit hazy, but I think this was the work around (I also read about it in one of the read me files from Quickcam or Apple Video Player). Hope this of some help to the reader... Best regards Ian] Here is some info from Ralph on this subject. His answer was also to try the stock port but he had some other info that is good for any Apple Video Player user. Thanks Ralph. [PS On the stability of the ATI TV player with OS8.6. I was getting random system freezes with the TV on with nothing else running sometimes. Even going to a system control panel with the TV on would lock things up. This issue seems to have been fixed with my recent upgrade to OS9.0.4. PSS Using Apple TV tuner/player with built in graphics card on OS8.6 with a PM5500 or PM6500. There were some stability issues when trying to capture snapshots. Make sure you have the latest and matching versions of the Apple TV player and its Video extension (1.7.3). Also turn Vitural Memory ON. That should make TV or Video screen snapshots stable again. PSSS If a return is not possible and switching monitors to the Apple graphics card is too much of a pain or still will not allow the Apple TV Tuner to work with the rage card left in the PCI slot. And since the USB camera can send video to the Apple TV software, you can try a USB video input device like XLR8 InterView and connect a VCR tuner or go with a USB TV tuner like MyTV. Its going to add $80 for the USB video converter or $170 for the MyTV as opposed to the $140 for the Xclaim 128 VR w/TV though. If switching your monitor to the differant graphics cards does the trick, than maybe a monitor switch will get the job done for you like the $60 manual KVM 3 port switch by CompuCable (this one has Mac inputs and a Mac/PC output). When you need the 3D game power of the ATI card, switch the monitor to that card and when using the TV, switch to the built in Apple card. This last option only makes sense if you can leave the ATI PCI card in place and get the the AppleTV tuner to work using the built in Apple card.] Update on iBook, USB, digital phone modem info: Ralph, this is for you :) I found some info on a USB GSM device that you asked about so here it is. [http://www.digicom.it/english/products/tables/gsmusb.htm Per Olsen found a USB-to-GSM adapter, Palladio USB, that allowed him to connect his iBook to the Internet via GSM-based cell phones: "The product comes in configurations with cables for Nokia, Ericsson or NEC phones (maybe more?). The fact that it is a USB product, makes it a very flexible product, since it will work on all computers with USB - even G4's (if you need to move your workstation into the middle of nowhere)."] UPS Backup batteries on a 6400: Here is a little (ok a lot!) of my experience in getting a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) to work on my 6400's. In general, any UPS will work to keep the computer alive during a power outage for a brief time but I wanted unattended shutdown capability in the event I was not around when the outage occurred and the computer was running. It doesn't do any good to have a backup batter for an unattended computer because if the outage is long enough the batter will die and your computer will still not be shut down properly! I read a lot on these and found that APC has some older software for serial port Macs but I wasn't sure about it and I didn't have any serial ports left :( I do have a USB card though so I thought I would try one of these new USB UPS systems. APC did not have theirs out at the time I was looking so I tried another companies first called MGE. They make a UPS called the Ellipse and I tried the 500VA USB version. 500VA being about 250W-300W so it would power the computer and monitor in an outage. The specs require any USB Mac with OS 9.0.4. Well I had a PCI USB equipped Mac so I tried it. NO GO :( The 6400 recognized that there was a device on the USB chain but complained it had no drivers for it? Well the Ellipse is supposed to tie into OS 9's new power management features and requires no software according to the web site. Basically it turns your desktop Mac into a powerbook. I emailed MGE and they didn't have an answer? I had a B&W G3 that is USB native so I didn't return it and moved it to my B&W G3 which is waiting for OS 9 to try the battery. So, I tried APC again and theirs was still not ready, so I looked around and found Belkin. Belkin has a system that unlike MGE's, uses software called Sentry Bulldog. They do require you to have OS 9.0.4 also though. It was cheaper then APC's so I thought, what the heck, and tried it. Well this one works and works well! Once plugged into the USB port the Mac instantly recognized it and the software started giving statistics on the battery. It shows whether your running on the battery of from the wall, battery charge level, and time till the computer shuts off when on battery. It also has features to auto shutdown and boot at scheduled times and the ability to turn off receptacles. I hope not the ones the computer is on :) Anyways it has been through 3 power outages so far and it has shut the computer down fine each time. I haven't tested to see what it does if you have documents open though? I think you will lose any open documents? But with a battery you have some time to get to the computer and save those documents that you normally wouldn't have in an outage. Lastly, I got some info on APC's USB UPS and it doesn't sound good :( It seems to have the same issue as MGE's in that it only works on USB native Macs? The problem with this for older Macs is that USB native Macs are also newer Macs which can access the Power Management features of OS 9.0.4. The drivers that the MGE was complaining about are in the Apple USB drivers but are not activated unless on a new USB native Mac. But I see it this way, having full control of your battery is better then just a warning that the "computer is going to shut down in 10min" with no control of that time or knowledge of battery performance! Belkin gets my vote :) Tripplite also sells UPS systems for iMacs but I did not notice anything about unattended shutdown software? The 6400 Zone Archives

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