The 6400 Zone - Apples iTunes and iPod info

1/13/2001 iTunes released from Apple: iTunes is a new MP3 player from Apple that does a whole lot more! It can play and categorize your MP3's, burn them to CD, create MP3's from CD's, download MP3's to your portable MP3 player, play CD's, play internet radio stations, and much more. I have installed it on my 6400, B&W, and PowerBook so far with no troubles.

I have read a few reports from pre iMac owners stating that iTunes quits with an error during launch. Apple states that iTunes is for iMac and newer models only. My 6400 with Vimages G3 is not having any trouble that I know of with it. I did disable the Authoring Support extension as I do not have a CDR/CDRW on that 6400. Maybe that is causing the crashes on pre-iMac systems? At this time only the Macs just announced with CDRW drives can burn CD's with iTunes but Apple hopes to change that soon. Me to :)

iTunes info from MacInTouch: Here is a link to MacInTouch's iTunes info page. On this page I found reference to a hack to get other CDRW drives to work with iTunes.

iTunes info from a 6400 user: Brian sent me some tips on getting iTunes to work. Thanks.

[By the way I was able to get iTunes to work on my 6400 (upgraded as in my previous email). I was initially unsuccessful as the program would hang on launch and require a force quit. One of the forums on this program at MacFixIt detailed problems with iTunes including noting that UMAX scanner software is incompatible with the program. Just unplugging the scanner's USB connector allows the program to launch however. Also the Soundjam extension must be disabled in the Extensions Manager. A work around for this is to place the Soundjam extension in the Soundjam folder (the program can apparently access the extension from there) and all works well. I do not have a CD burner so I have not attempted to hack the program to allow other than Apples burner to work.
Again, thanks for the assistance and for running a GREAT site!
Brian]

2/1/2001 USB extensions installed by iTunes may cause conflicts: I found this on MacFixIt.

[iTunes Asante hub conflict Steve Rubin writes, "Immediately after updating to Mac OS 9.1 and installing iTunes, devices connected to my Asante 4 port Hub were no longer recognized. None of the usual USB troubleshooting fixes worked. I found that disabling several of the iTunes extensions resolved the problem. The extensions are:

Nomad II USB Driver
Nomad MG USB Driver
Nomad USB Shim
USBNomadJukeboxDriver
USBRioDriver"

Steve added that he did not determine if the problem could be further isolated to a subset of these extensions.

MacQuake 3 & Unreal Tournament Disabling the same extensions listed in the above item along with the USB Sound Spacer 2 Driver avoids a freeze when opening MacQuake 3 and Unreal Tournament, according to Ron Siegel.]

2/24/2001 iTunes 1.1 allows Apples Disk Burn app to work on 3rd party CDR/CDRW drives: Scott sends word that he tried the hacks that are posted on the net to get Disk Burn to work with non-Apple CDR/CDRW drives using the items installed with the new iTunes 1.1. Thanks Scott.

[Hey Tom,
Just a quick note to let you know that I successfully installed iTunes 1.1 along with the Disc Burner hack mentioned on XLR8YOURMAC.COM and MacFixIt on my friends 6400. He has a Que (Mitsumi 4802-TE) USB burner, which is one of the ones supported by iTunes 1.1. It is much easier to use than Toast and the Disc Burner app will be especially handy I think.
Scott]

Here is a link he sent to a site that has full instructions on how to install everything

http://homepage.mac.com/ddewey1/discburn/

Here is a web link Scott just sent that has a patch to the iTunes installer so it will work under OS 8.5 and 8.6! Thanks Scott

http://homepage.mac.com/wormintheapple/Downloads.html

4/21/2001 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.

1/19/2002 iTunes Apple Scripts: Here is a link to Apples site where you can find some Apple Scripts that may help speed up some tasks. I believe they work with the classic version of iTunes as well as OSX?

4/7/2002 Latest software version for the iPod and iTunes refuse to work on OS's older then 9.2!: I found this on MacFixIt. If anyone has updated to the latest version of iTunes or the iPod firmware and it does work, please email me the info. Thanks.

[iPod update and 'older' Mac OS versions
A reader found that after updating his iPod and iTunes, he was no longer about to update his iPod. Matt writes:

"I've been using my iPod with an old Mac (which has a G3 PowerLogix card and a Ratoc USB/FireWire card). After applying the latest iPod and iTunes updates, I get a message saying the iTunes will not work on any system older than 9.2."

This report suggests that users who have older versions of the Mac OS (especially those that cannot upgrade to OS 9.2 because of hardware compatibility issues) should use caution before updating to the latest iPod and iTunes updates. We are unaware if its possible (or smart) to revert iPod's software to a previous version. It also appears that iTunes 2.0.4 is more restrictive about the installed OS.]

4/27/2002 Update on previous post stating iPod would not work with latest upgrades: Kev writes that he is able to run his iPod with OS 9.1 and the latest 2.0.4 version of iTunes and the latest iPod 1.1 firmware. Thanks Kev

[Regarding the iPod issue (where older OS's wouldn't sync).
From day 1, running MacOs 9.1, I've been able to sync with iTunes every time, and I'm running the current 2.0.4 version. Upon starting it at first, it gave me a warning 'recommending' iTunes to be run on 9.2 or higher, but it's worked fine.

I also have the most current iPod firmware (1.1) installed, if that's of any importance.
Kev]

I had noted that I found info on another site stating this would not work as OS 9.2 was needed. Well it looks like it can work with OS 9.1 :)

OS9 iTunes visual plugins 5/5/2001

Below are 2 links to sites that have created visual plugins to Apples iTunes. They only work on the OS 9.1 version or iTunes at the moment since Apple has not released a developer kit for the OSX version yet.

7/7/2001 More iTunes Visual Plugins: Dave sent me a link to his site where he has some visual plugins for iTunes. Thanks Dave.

[I've made a few, more in the works
http://members.home.net/peagreen/dhg_plugins.htm

Best
Dave]

5/27/2003 Playing AAC files in OS9!: David found away to play AAC files created from iTunes4 in OS9. Thanks David!

[By changing the file type and creator of the AAC files encoded by iTunes 4 or downloaded from the iTunes Music Store from M4A/hook and M4P/hook respectively to MooV/TVOD or MPG4/TVOD, the songs can be played in OS 9. MPEG/TVOD files are recognized by QuickTime 6.0.3 and can be played in QuickTime or with a QuickTime based music player such as MPLAY. MooV/TVOD files can be played as above but are also recognized by iTunes 2.0.4.
David]

Now this probably won't let you play songs downloaded from the Apple Music Store as OS 9 versions of iTunes have no way to authenticate your Mac for playing them. But if anyone tries, please let me know :)

iPod 11/18/2001

Well what can I say? This thing is awesome! I love it but the price is a bit steep for me at $399 :( I am pretty sure by next year it will be cheaper or have a much larger HD and possibly more features? I bet that many of you, as well as myself, are curious to find out if it will work on a 6400/6500 with a firewire card. I don't have that info yet but if anyone that has an iPod and a firewire enabled 6400/6500 could test for us and email me the info, I am sure we all would appreciate that :) Thanks.

I found this info on MacInTouch that says Sonnet is aware that the iPod works on their Tango card which makes it a good possibility that it will work on the 6400/6500!

[Subject: iPod + Harmoni iMac upgrade

Hi,
I'm tempted to add an iPod and a Sonnet Harmoni early iMac Firewire up-grade to my Santa's list.
FYI: when queried on iPod compatibility Sonnet replied

"The Harmoni is still in active engineering development therefore most questions about it can't be answered because the card doesn't exist yet... As we get nearer to the ship date (mid-December at this point), we might know more... at least one person got the iPod to work with our Tango card and since the FireWire portion of the Harmoni upgrade is based on that, I'd expect there will be no problems." ]

12/22/2001 XPLAY makes your iPod mount on a PC!: I found an app called XPLAY that will mount your iPod on a PC like a HD. It can't add songs that are playable from the iPod but this is a good first step. The next release is supposed to add that support. Now you can share files with PC users from your iPod.

It's nice having an Apple only product that PC users can only drool over :) Now they know how we feel!

1/9/2003 iPod on the 6400/6500: Earlier I posted a request from someone who wanted to know if the iPod worked on our Macs. Gerry wrote to say he has had success with his 6500 and an iPod. Thanks Gerry. He is running OS8.6 which requires some hacks to make it all work so I assume OS9 users will have an easier time?

[Hi Thomas,
I'm writing you because I found your web site. I have had an iPod, and I have just gotten around to trying to install it on my 6500 running OS 8.6. I found someone who allowed iTunes to work on 8.6, so I have that working fine now. I installed a firewire PCI card, and that seems to be working now. In fact, I even connected my iPod, which shows up as an external hard drive, which it is, of course. The only thing left is to be able to get the iPod to function as a music playing machine. The software on the iPod itself will only install onto an OS 9.x machine. So, have you been able to come up with anything that will allow the iPod to work with 8.6? Thanks,
Gerry]

Later he wrote:

[Hi Tom,
Well, it looks like I'm set. I could not hack iPod software to allow 8.6 to recognize the iPod, but there are freeware and shareware programs that will allow you to access the music on an iPod while it is connected in firewire format! There are three or four programs available at VersionTracker. com that will fit the bill. The one I like best is called PodMaster 1000. These programs are billed to work in OS 9.x or OSX.x, but I've tried two of the ones that are supposed to work in OS 9.x, and they work in 8.6. So, now things are all set. Thanks again for your site. I think I'll be accessing it again sometime, if I ever get around to trying to install another HD in my 6500.
Gerry]

3/11/03 iPod issues with Evergreen Firewire/USB combo card in a 6400?: John writes that he is unable to get his iPod to work with his 6400 by connecting it to an Evergreen combo card. He says it works fine on his G4 system so its not the iPod. Here is what he wrote.

[I'm the one having problems hooking an iPod up to my 6400. Looking on your site, I see that "Gerry" presumably can connect his iPod to his 6500. Could you ask Gerry (assuming you still have his email address) what Firewire card he is using? I'm very suspicious that my Evergreen Firewire card is the culprit here. I have had some occasional problems with copies to my external Firewire drive hanging, which I originally assumed was an issue with OS 8.6 having immature Firewire support. But, I saw this same problem under OS 9, so I suspect it is either the card or the 6400 architecture. But, it does seem others have had success with Firewire cards, and so I'm considering a different card (perhaps a Sonnet Tango or OrangeMicro).
Thanks,
John]

Later he wrote,

[On my OS X G4, I do have iTunes 3 running. I also previously thought
that perhaps there might have been some sort of backward compatibility
issue, but after one of many restores of my iPod, I plugged it only into
the OS 9 environment of my G4 to reload all my MP3s before trying again
to connect to my 6400.
John]

Earlier I had posted that another user (Gerry) was able to get an iPod to work on a 6500 running OS 8.6 but he didn't say which firewire card was used? If Gerry is reading this can you please email me with what firewire card you used. Thanks :)

UPDATE 3/12/2003: John wrote back to let me know he found a fix. He needed to revert to an older Firewire driver, version 2.3.3. Thanks John.

[SUCCESS!! My 6400 and iPod now play nice together!! (Evergreen Firewire Card Users Take Note

Well, I don't quite believe it, but it appears that I've solved the problem. A question from our leader Thomas regarding what versions of Firewire made me think a bit. I had tried nearly every version of Firewire Extensions available to OS 9 and nothing worked. However, I previously was using OS 8.6 with my Evergreen Firewire card and I had recalled that Firewire v2.3.3 was mentioned somewhere as the only version (or the highest version) that works with 8.6. Of course, when I installed OS 9, a newer version of the Firewire extensions was installed.

It occurred to me to try using the v2.3.3 Firewire extensions with OS 9, effectively "downgrading" my Firewire extensions. IT WORKED!!! For whatever reason, it appears that my 6400 w/Newertech G3 and Evergreen Firewire/USB card needs to continue to use the v2.3.3 Firewire extensions, even under OS 9.0.4! I don't know why this should be, but I know that I can now plug in my iPod, which is immediately recognized under iTunes, and play songs off my iPod through my 6400! Now, I'm going to try upgrading back to OS 9.1 (with the v2.3.3 Firewire extensions) and see how that goes.

The only real downside to this is that I've just taken away one of my major reasons for getting a new machine to run OS X at home.
John]

If anyone else is having issues with the firewire ports on the Evergreen combo card, I suggest trying this version of the drivers and please email me your results. Thanks. This fix may help with issues on other FW cards as well.

This page was archived in 2023 as part of the Mac Hut archive and is no longer updated.