First off I just want to say sorry for the spares updates to this site. Working 5 days a week, going to school, running TW Computing, plus raising a family have finally taken their toll on my time to work on this site. I am not going to stop posting new updates but there may only be a few a year instead of every month like I use to.

There are many 6400/6500 users still out there and I hear from new ones all the time. This site will remain useful for a very long time :-) Now, on to the news.

5500 mother board in a 6200 case: Lucas sent me some info about his system. It's a 6200 with a 5500 mother board inserted and he says it works just fine. Thanks Lucas.

[The Board Just Slid In Place Of The Performa 6200 Logic Board. I Do Not Currently Have Any Pictures Of It. I Have Just Installed 9.2.2 On It and The Computer Works Beautifully. The Power Supply Works Without Any Problems. I Also Have A MultiTech MultiModem USB Plugged Into The USB Card. I Am Going To Upgrade The Hard Drive To 9.5GB Today.]

I asked if there was room for the 2 slot PCI riser card and here is his reply.

[Yes There Is More Room In The Bay Where The Motherboard Goes But I Don't Have A 2 Slot PCI Riser Card, I Installed A Richo CDRW Drive In Place Of The Apple Drive.]

Sounds like this would be a very nice upgrade for any 6200 users out there :-)

Looking for old Apple OS install CD's?: I found a site that sells all of the old Apple OS installer CD's.

http://www.applerescue.com/

They even sell CD's with all the Apple OS updates for people that don't have high speed internet connections to download them and they sell all the Apple Tech manuals! I'm not sure if these are the true Apple Take Apart manuals but it sure sounds like it.

OEM OS 9.1 installer CD that works on our Macs: Speaking of OS install CD's, many of you know that not every OS installer CD will work on a 6400/6500. There are some OEM full install CD's that just refuse to install the OS on our Macs. The installers bought from a store are usually universal and will work on any Mac that the OS runs on but OEM installers typically only work on the Mac they came with. DStick found an OEM CD for OS 9.1 that he says worked on his 6360. Thanks DStick!

[I recently found an iMac software install disc that will install 9.1 on a 603e processor machine. I purchased it from Other World Computing. The disc I have is solid gray in color,says iMac Software Install, Mac OS version 9.1, CD version 1.3, number 691-3097-A, copyright 2001. I was skeptical when I bought it, but their web site said it would work on any PowerMac shipped with a G3 processor or upgraded to a G3. I have a 6360 with a Newer Tech G3 upgrade]

Here is a link to this product. It probably won't be around for long!

http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_Specials.cfm?ID=5913&Item=APLOS91CD

The link has a picture of the CD and the serial number on the CD does not match the serial number DStick mentioned but the description for the product says it will work with a 6400/6500.

Apple Manuals: And speaking of Apple Take Apart manuals, Tom sent me a link to a site that has many of them posted for download. Thanks Tom!

http://www.whoopis.com/computer_repair/

Another happy Sonnet Clocker user!: Reinhard sent me some info on his experience with the Sonnet Clocker on his 6500. This little utility is still coming in handy :-)

[Hello Tom,
although it is possibly not interesting to anyone anymore. I thought I'd let you know that my 300MHz G3 (in a 6500) now seems to be running like a charm at a whopping ;) 400MHz. The CPU is a 2.1 Version, hence no speeds over 400MHz accessible, but nevertheless I think this is enormous already and it actually made me stop thinking about the purchase of a 500Mhz module.... Cool utility :)
Thanks again!
Regards Reinhard]

Update on using a ethernet cards with Realtek chip sets: Daan posted some information that is found in the readme that come with the Realtek drivers that could help some people having trouble with these cards. Thanks Daan.

[Just read on the frontpage about the RealTek drivers not working for everyone... Have you followed the hints in the Readme? The extension recognizes the card form it's id, which should be pci10ec,8139 (look it up in Apple Menu->System Profiler). If it isn't that, you need to modify the driver using a hex editor, as is explained in the install.txt file. For example, I had to change it to pci11f6,8139 and after that the driver worked flawlessly.]

Falk has another reason for why some of these cards may not work. Thanks Falk.

[Hello Thomas!
Just wanted to let you know that in some DFE-530 Cards (especially mine :- ( ) a DAVICOM Chip is soldered. This little baby isn't compatible with the Realtek ones and maybe that's the reason for some cards not working.
-Falk]

You can read more about these ethernet cards here.

IXMICRO Twin Turbo card in a 6400: Wil says he was able to fit a Twin Turbo card from a 9600 into his 6400 with a bit of cutting and its only $14.95. Thanks Wil!

[I have installed a ixmicro twin turbo 8 mb video card in a 6400 and it works! Since the card was made for a Mac9600 it is too long so I cut off the tail (about the last 3 1/2 inches) since there is no electronics on that part of the card, installed it in the PCI slot. It was still a little longer than the mother board but it easily pushes the ribbon cable out of the way and causes no problems. I was running 8.6 and upgraded to 9.1 which allowed the card to recognize an additional screen resolution. The card is available from Wegenermedia.com (just scroll down a bit to find it) for $14.95 plus shipping. I obtained the ixmicro 9600 graphic accelerator from OS 9 since is was not provided with 9.1 but it does not seam to provide any additional features. Other ixmicro drivers (4.02) do not recognize the card and therefore do not load on startup. The 6400 has a Sonnet 320MHZ upgrade card, max ram, a D-Link ethernet card and a 30 gig Maxtor HD. After a few days of using the card I have not had any conflicts and the machine runs just fine as it always has.
Regards,
Wil]

Nice fix to change Apples TV/Video system from always switching to NONE for audio input: Justin sent me some info and an Apple Script he wrote to force his Apple TV/Video player to change from input source NONE to the CD-TV-Video input. Thanks Justin. Here are the files so you don't have to search for them.

[Hi Tom,
Just wanted to let you know I found a fix to the sound input issue with the Apple TV/Video Player and Mac OS 9.2.2. I found like some of your other readers that the fix about disabling the sound manager extension only solved the problem of the sound input going to "none" for a brief period of time. Thus I hunted around and compiled a simple Applescript to set the sound input to CD-TV-Video before opening Apple Video Player. This script also maximizes the TV window to full screen and use two scripting additions that need to be placed in the System\Scripting Additions folder. These are:

1. AutoType

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~jedavis/projects/mac/autotype.html

2. Sound Input Control

http://osaxen.com/sound_input_control.html

The Applescript is:

try
sound input source 5

end try

tell application "Finder"
activate
select file "Apple Video Player" of folder "Apple Video Player ƒ" of
folder "Applications (Mac OS 9)" of startup disk
open selection
tell application "Apple Video Player"
AutoType "3" holding "Command"
end tell

end tell

I have this script compiled and sitting on my desktop. I am not sure if the sound input source number will change for other machines but this works for a PowerMac 5500.

I have also included the script and scripting addition files.

I hope this helps other users. Thanks for a great site.
Regards
Justin]