My AOL account has been closed: It is finally closed and any link you may have that goes to my old web site should no longer work. Hopefully since you are reading this, you have my new addresses :)

OSX 10.0.1 released: Apple released an update to OSX. 10.0.1 or 4L13 is the latest version and is only available from the software update feature of OSX. I installed it on my B&W G3 and it has made the OSX Finder much snappier then it was before! Live window dragging is still a lot slower then Windows 2000 but getting better. I still don't think its ready for prime time as there are still to many little quirks that I don't like as I mentioned in my last update.

More help getting OSX to run on the 6400: I have received several emails from readers of mine that have info gathered from various resources that may help us get OSX running on our 6400. Thanks guys! Click here to read it all.

Sonnet OSX info and death of 500Mhz L2 G3?: I received this letter from a reader of mine who heard from Sonnet that they have not gotten anywhere with OSX on the 6400/6500 and that they have discontinued the 500Mhz L2 G3 upgrade!

[Tom, I spoke to a Sonnet customer service rep and they reported to me the same info that on the L2/G3 upgrade to OSX will not take place. The system is not designed to take it. Also they have discontinued the L2/G3 500 Mhz cards. The rep told me they would continue to make the 400 Mhz cards both the 512 cache and the 1 meg 400 Mhz.]

I don't know about the OSX info but I have seen that the 500Mz card has been removed from several Mac catalogs already. I think it was discontinued because the market for the 500Mhz version was too small. Only the 5500/6500 can use it where all the 6400/6500 and like Macs can use the 400Mhz version. So if you are a 6500 owner and want one of the fastest 6500's around, I suggest you find a 500Mhz card before they are all gone!

6400 mother board clocking with a Sonnet G3 installed: Ed sent me some info and a link to his site where he has info on his experiments on clocking the MB in his 6400 to see how it affects the Sonnet L2 G3 he owns. Very interesting reading for tinkerers :) Thanks Ed.

[Hi Tom
I just wanted to pass on a little info. I'm in the process of writing it up now and will post it at my "Clocking the Macintosh <http://www.mcn.net/~nye/> " site as soon as its ready. I still have the motherboard of my 6400/180 <http://www.mcn.net/~nye/Results/Index.html> running at 50 MHz and until I installed the Sonnet Crescendo-L2 G3 350/175/1M <http://www.sonnettech.com> , my 603e processor was running a flawless 225 MHz. Since I only need the 603 to boot, I slowed it down from 4.5x (225 MHz) to 3.5x (175 MHz) to reduce heat in the case. I had 40 MHz, 45 MHz, and 48 MHz crystals ready just in case. I thought with the 50 MHz bus it would be treated as a 6500 and boot at 350 MHz instead of 320 MHz. As soon as it booted I opened the Metronome and was pleasantly surprised! The processor speed at 400 MHz with secondary cache at 200 MHz. I still have my Quick Change Block <http://www.mcn.net/~nye/Block/Index.html> and crystal socket installed so I tried several other frequency crystals and the speed followed proportional to the crystal. Sonnet must use the gestalt ID and not the bus speed to set the card speed. I ran some processor intensive tests to check stability and temperature, at 400 MHz and have not had any problems so far! Knock on wood!!!! I'll post some benchmarks and details as soon as I can.
Ed N]

Sonnet Crescendo driver 1.4.6 coming soon?: I found this on MacFixIt's web site. It seems that you will need version 1.4.6 for nubus Macs to run with VirtualPC 4.0.2.

[Sonnet 1.4.6 coming soon Bruce notes that the Read Me also says that Sonnet software 1.4.6 is needed to use VPC 4.0.2 with Sonnet G3 cards for NuBus machines. However, this software is not yet available. Sonnet told Bruce: "Our QA dept just downloaded a copy of 4.02 and we're going to hammer on it the next few days so hopefully 1.4.6 will be available RSN (real soon now)."]

Getting CU-SeeMe to work through a router: John sends some info on how to get CU-SeeMe to work through a hardware router. Basically it seems that you need a special router to do this and most hardware routers won't work :( Thanks John.

[Hey Tom, I've done it. My ibook is able to do wireless video conferencing. Pretty cool able to show my relatives around my house and share a barbecue with me outside from about 2500 miles away.

The Linksys etherfast Cable/DSL router was not able to do videoconferencing according to their technicians even with port forwarding or DMZ hosting features enabled. In fact I don't believe most of them realized this until we engaged in a five hour troubleshooting session trying to figure out the problem. I had to return the Linksys Cable router to CompUSA in the end.

Did a little more research on the internet and found out that there is one router- the Zyxel 314 Prestige which has onboard support for CUseeMe, Netmeeting, and some other multimedia applications ( apparently just games). I was worried that this support was built only on a PC version of their firmware or that to activate it I would have to mess with a Telnet interface. Neither of the these turned out to be true.

The Zyxel router is the only router on the market that I know explicitly states support for CUSeeME which surprises me. A few salesmen have told me that they too have had incompatibilities with just about any router with video conferencing or video streaming. The linksys team even went as far as to say that live video is impossible through any router! Obviously they were wrong.

On a more technical side. I don't believe that the Airport base station on its own technology would be able to transmit wireless videoconferencing. Although its router does allow port forwarding; from what I can tell it does not allow for a RANGE of port numbers to be opened through its firewall. ( which CUSEEME and other video conferencing programs require) But I can be wrong and may need to try it. I believe however, that I will have the same problems as I did with the Linksys router.

Anyways the way I did it was to use a router with built in CuSeeMe capabilities (Zyxel) and then uplink the Airport as a PCI bridge

essentially disengaging its NAT capabilities along with its firewall. CuSeeMe states in its manual that it would not work with NAT translation or through a proxy server.

I was quite taken aback by how well the system works. This may be the only setup; in fact, that may work so you might want to give it a try.

Also FYI, many review sites list the Netgear 314 as an identical twin to the Zyxel 314 and review them together. While their motherboards are identical apparently their firmware isn't. So don't be fooled. In fact most reviews claim the firmware on the Zyxel produces better (faster) speeds than on the Netgear router. "Off the board speeds" in fact according to most reviewers. This is one serious home router and well priced at $149. The Zyxel router does not include instructions on how to connect on a mac but if you understand basically how to set up any router it should be easy to install. Also if you should have any difficulties connecting with your ISP you may need to set you "username.isp.com/net" in the domain entry option. ( Its the only way I was able to get my setup to work; the linksys router however was able to get through without this option)]

He wrote back telling me which ports are needed to be opened for CU-SeeMe. Thanks.

[The port numbers are 7648, 7649, (TCP & UDP) and 24032 (UDP only).]

More 6500 CPU fan info: Greg sends more info on replacing the CPU fan in your 6500. Thanks Greg.

	OEM	Radio Shack
Current	60 mA	80 mA
Max Air Flow	6.9 CFM	5.3 CFM
Noise	25.5 dB	30 dB
RPM	7300	not listed

I don't think the Radio Shack fan will cause any long term affects but getting the OEM style fan will be a little quieter which is the final out come you are looking for :)

Toast 5.0 on a 6400: Mike sent some info on how well Toast 5.0 is running on his 6400. Thanks Mike. I to have had nothing but success with the new version. I don't even have to turn off file sharing or my server software anymore :)

[Here is a quick note on how Toast 5 is working on a 6400. I have a 6400/200 with a G3/300/1MB Sonnet Card, an ATI Xclaim 3D Plus video card (and yes I have audio problems, although lately they are intermittent), 136 MB Ram, running OS 9.1, and I have a Verbatim (Mitsubishi) 2X2X6X CD-RW. When I was running Toast 4.1.2 I had to make a special extensions set in Conflict Catcher because I was making too many coasters when all my extensions were on. However, (and I am happy to report) 5 is running flawlessly! :-) I even have iTunes running and no bad burns yet. A lot folks are complaining about the interface, but to me I can care less when you have a stable program. Background burning is great!!! I can log online, surf, use MS Word, and still no coasters. Thanks for the Zone and I hope this provides a little feedback on Toast 5.
Mike]

DLink USB card in a 6400: A reader sent info stating that the DLink USB PCI card worked great in their 6400. Thanks.

[Just installed a PCI USB card on my Performa 6400. Works great. The card is made by DLink - model #dsb-500 from Best Buy. I am using system 8.5.1 and The apple USB driver version 1.2.1 from apple site. I have been able to even use my CDRW Iomega drive with a perfect burn every time. No issues. Installed easy. No freezes. Card is $19. I have 56 megs of on-board ram.]

6500/300 and Avid info: Marc sent me some info on how his 6500/300 with the Avid hardware is working compared to an iMac for audio/video capture. Thanks Marc. His email was pretty long so I put it on a different page.

iTunes Helper: Here is a link to a web site that hosts a free app called iTunes Helper. It tries to give you support for more CDR/CDRW drives then iTunes and Disk Burn can by them selves. It does require that you own Toast 5.0.1 as well though.

Voodoo5 fixes audio stuttering issues with Sonnet G3: Bryan reports that replacing an ATI Rage128 with a Voodoo5 card fixed the audio issues he had with games and having a Sonnet G3 upgrade. Thanks Bryan.

[Hello I posted this message in February:
[I have a 6400/180 w/ 136MB of RAM upgraded with a Sonnet L2/G3/400 1MB/200 cache ...... also an ATI RAGE Orion 128 I am having a sound problem that I can't seem to solve. I have tried the PCI Timing Update trick, the 2d accel. Disable trick, and the ATI Extension one.... none have helped me in my situation. The sound is great except for in games .. all games have choppy sound once numerous sounds start happening, or doors open, walking noises, ambient sounds, etc ....

I have MacOS 9.1
ATI Drivers are the ones that come w/ 9.1
OpenGL is version 1.2.1
ATI RAGE Orion 128 Card
Sonnet Driver is v1.4.5

everything is as recent as I can get it and I can't seem to get it.. everyone else seems to be having luck.. well what are they using for OS and etc... ???
Thanks for the help
Bryan]
______________

Well good news!! I solved the problem! It is the ATI Rage card's limitation... not the limitation of the 6400!! :) Anyhow, all I did was replace the Orion with a VooDoo 5 PCI card... yep thats right, it fixed all sound problems and games run much much smoother might I add..
Bryan ]

I still believe its an issue with the 6400 as well as the ATI Rage128 because G3 and G4 systems do not have this problem. Not even systems like the 7500 or 9600. It is some issue with the 6400 which is amplified with the introduction of Sonnets G3. Now ATi also has some issue with their Rage128 that gets affected by this where newer or older versions are not? The RagePro as well as the Radeon both seem to not be affected, as well as other cards like the Voodoo4/5. The Voodoo3 is in the same boat as the Rage128. Some people have no issues and other have some issues? Needless to say, it sounds like getting an even newer video card is the fix :)

Avid Cinema, 6400, QuickTime and System 8.6: Charlie sent word on how he fixed getting Avid to run under OS 8.6. Thanks Charlie.

[I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you what a great site you have. But it's a great site, and one that helped lead me to the solution to my Avid Cinema problem. I've come up with a compromise solution that seems a little more manageable than those you've posted. If it can help any of my fellow 6400 users to prolong the lifespan of the Avid software, please feel free to post it.
Best wishes,
Charlie
-----

Worked out a solution for getting Avid Cinema to work with System 8.6, thanks to help from <************>, who wrote:

> If you have updated your quicktime, > that could be the problem. The fix was to trash quicktime, and > reinstall off of the original Avid Cinema disks. I don't recall what > version of quicktime AC came with, but that is the last version that > it works properly with.

Reluctant to make quite so drastic a move, I tried an intermediate measure.

* From my System 8 CD, I copied two extensions -- QuickTime and QuickTime PowerPlug (v. 2.5) -- into the "Extensions (disabled)" folder of my computer's active System 8.6 folder.

* Creating an Avid Cinema set in Extensions Manager, I disabled later versions of QuickTime extensions and activated the two older versions.

When I restart with the Avid Cinema set (still under System 8.6), the Avid software works as it used to.

Two notes:

* I believe later versions of QuickTime (v. 3+) may also do the trick; the conflict seems to have arisen with QT v. 4+

* I've also installed the Avid Cinema U3 Beta extension, which is not specifically recommended for the Performa 6400. It didn't fix the problem on its own, and I don't believe it makes much difference for 6400s. But those for whom the QuickTime extension swap doesn't work may want to try it anyway. Details at http://www.avidcinema.com/support/downloads/ppcdownloads.html
Charlie]

I think I might have info similar to this on my Avid Cinema help page? But it never hurts to reinforce it :) Basically he says that reverting to QT 2.5 or possibly 3.0 will allow you to run Avid in OS 8.6.

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