My next project is to do an unsupported installation of
OS X on my SuperMac
J700 backup machine so I can set up two of these drives as a
160 MB RAID array, since Retrospect backups are limited to a
single volume. Just need to make sure I have enough RAM and a big
enough hard drive before I get started....
Man, I looked at the price tag for Retrospect and just about
puked. What does it do that "ditto" or "hfspax" doesn't? Or rsync.
Shouldn't be too hard to modify rsync to handle resource forks and
types....
Dantz must have cut a deal with Apple to disable the native
support for tape drives in Darwin. Because who the hell is going to
spend hundreds of bucks for Retrospect when they can integrate Macs
with cheap Unix backup software for free?
Somewhere there's gotta be the necessary stuff that'll let me
build my own Darwin kernel for OS X, so I can hook my SDT7000 up
to my 7600. In the meantime
patching the Amanda client to use hfspax instead of tar is at the top
of my list.
On the other hand, for those with older Macs that still use
SCSI, there are some phenomenal deals out there - like the
current link on dealmac for a refurbished 23 GB Seagate drive for
US$9.95!
Heh. I bought the 47 GB SCSI from them for $40. They must be
having trouble shifting these big old 5.25" drives. That FireWire
adapter? It'll plug right into that drive, and a PC power supply for
it is gonna be close to $10....
I've been using Retrospect to back up networked Macs since the
System 7.1 era. I have no idea what ditto, hfspax, or rsync are,
but none of them sound like Mac applications.
Retrospect is able to fully back up and restore Mac volumes for
both Mac OS X and the classic Mac OS. It works over a
network. It's fast, powerful, and just works. It's probably as
dominant in the Mac world as Microsoft Word is in word
processing.
I have no idea about "native support for tape drives in Darwin."
If it's there, I can't imagine that Apple would have deliberately
disabled, but of such comments are conspiracy theories built.
There is still a heck of a lot of hardware without Mac drivers;
I'd guess any lack of OS X support for tape drives would be
because the vendors haven't created drivers for OS X.
But it's really a moot point, since I need software that can back
up both OS X and classic Mac OS machines. Retrospect does the
job, I know how it works, and I already own it. The only question
is whether I want to do an unsupported install of OS X on my
backup machine.
I had the same problem installing a USB card under vanilla 9.1
(not 9.2 even) on my 7200. The driver that did it for me was this USB
PCI card driver... from Apple!
Another weird combination is 1, 5, & 7 on yielded 270 MHz. I
don't know if these jumper combinations are unique to the G3
AIO or not. Some of the clocking combinations for other G3's do
not produce the same results. I'm sure there are some variances and
different chipsets but there is a definite baseline to work with.
You're right about the bus speed running at 70 MHz; 80 MHz will
not run at any jumper configuration.
Another interesting note is this G3 AIO came out of Roswell, New
Mexico. Scan tag on the right reads City of Roswell. Probably came
from a school in Roswell. I asked the seller who I purchased it from.
and he stated that he believed it came out of Area 51 (?).
As far as I know, the jumper settings are the same for all
versions of the beige G3 motherboard, whether used in the desktop,
minitower, or All-in-One enclosure. I've still got to find the
time to work on my G3/266, which has already been upgraded with a
333 MHz CPU.
I read enough of Low End Mac to be
familiar with your (and the site's) financial problems. I can see,
though, that I didn't make myself clear. My point was that any
serious computer user needs to have a spare in the budget. If the
budget can't afford a spare at the desired level, you might need to
go down a peg.
You wrote that you rely on OS X Mail for your work. That might be
your problem, and you might not be financially ready for OS X if
you want to have any kind of disaster preparedness. If I remember
correctly from other articles, the reason you moved to OS X was
the rules and spam filtering. Rules per se are not that unique to
OS X Mail. While OS X Mail was the first with Bayesian spam
filtering, it is not the only one. SpamSieve
($20 shareware) works great with Entourage and a number of other
email clients under OS X. I also read of an open source
competitor to SpamSieve, but I can't find it at the moment to see if
it also works under OS 9. If so, that might be your solution.
The bully pulpit of Low End Mac might be enough to find or inspire an
OS 9 port of Bayesian mail filtering.
P.S. eMacs w/regular CD-ROM drives and no modem have been popping
on and off the Apple Refurb Store at $599 with no shipping. While the
RAM is inadequate at 128 meg, that's quite the machine at the price.
The ability to run Quartz Extreme is a wonderful boost to the 700 MHz
speed. On the other hand, they are not portable, either to take to
the office or across the room. Worse than the fact that they weight
50 lbs, there is no place to pick them up. Would it have ruined the
aesthetics to give us some handles?
I'm a long term Mac user, and I expect my hardware to work
reliably for a long time and not need hardware support. I've never
had to make contingency plans for being without a Mac for more
than a couple days - the joy of a good service department at my
local Apple dealer.
But having to part with my TiBook for up to a week means I need
something to replace it. At this point I'm leaning toward a Rev. 2
300-350 MHz blue & white Power
Mac G3 as the most practical solution. I've seen deals
as low as $300 - and I have a credit with MacResQ
that would further reduce my out of pocket expense. Add another
$65-70 for 512 MB of RAM, drop in one of the spare IDE hard
drives, add a decent 17" monitor, and I should be able to come in
somewhere around the $500 mark.
On the other hand, I have seen refurbished CD-ROM eMacs
from the Apple Store for $649. Add $70-75 for 512 MB of RAM
(shipped), and you've got a $725 system. Over twice the MHz speed,
the G4 velocity engine, Quartz Extreme, more drive space than I'd
know what to do with, a one year warranty, and an integrated 17"
display. It's tempting, especially since Apple has already hand
tested the refurb machine before offering it for sale.
You're winning me over to the idea of buying an eMac, which would
relegate my 400 MHz TiBook to use in the field or when I need a
backup. It's tempting, especially since that would postpone the
day I decide that I need a faster PowerBook.
Thinking through another step, the Combo Drive eMac is only $749.
That would let me sell my external FireWire CD burner and watch
the occasional DVD. It may not be Apple's prettiest computer ever
(okay, I think the eMac is ugly), but when you look at the whole
picture, it seems to be one of the most practical solutions to my
problem.
Hard Drive Advice
Jack Long writes:
I have been reading LEM regularly for nearly 4 years and have
found it to be very thorough and useful - I am thankful to have it
as a resource. I do have a question about something you may be able
to help me with - I thought I saw this topic addressed once on LEM,
but if so I can't seem to find it anymore.
I have a Performa 636 as
well as a Performa 6360. I would
like to replace the stock IDE hard drives (250 MB and 1.2 GB
respectively) with considerably larger ones. However, I thought there
was some limitation on how large of a HD could go into these
machines. I can't remember if this constraint was the result of
certain versions of the OS not being able to address a HD over a
certain size, or because the HD had to be formatted a certain way, or
some other reason. Is there any physical or system limitation as to
how large a HD can be used on either machine? Or can I just put in
the largest IDE HD I can find?
I am running 7.5.5 on the 636 and 9.1 (somewhat sluggishly) on the
6360, if it matters. (On a similar subject, I'd also like to upgrade
the stock CD-ROM drive on the 6360 to a CD-R drive - I found an
internal SCSI one, but it says it requires a 50-pin SCSI connection
- is that the right SCSI for me?)
Anything you know about this would be a big help, if you have the
time. Thanks.
As far as I know, there is a 128 GB maximum drive size for
IDE/ATA standards slower than Ultra/133. However, there's no
practical reason to go anywhere near that large on your Performa
636. I believe the maximum partition size supported by System
7.5.5 is 4 GB, and up to 8 partitions are supported, so it
wouldn't make any sense at all to buy a drive larger than 30 GB
for that computer.
With Mac OS 8.1 and later, partitions of in the terabyte range are
supported, although the IDE bus on your computers is incapable of
working with more than 128 MB of drive space no matter how you
partiton things.
All things considered, I'd suggest you put the 1.2 GB drive from
the 6360 in the 636. That's nearly five times the storage - and
it won't cost you a cent. Then pick a nice big hard drive for the
6360. I've been very impressed with the 7200 RPM 80 GB Western
Digital with an 8 MB buffer, and it's often available for about
US$80 after rebates.
I'm no expert on SCSI CD burners. Your best bet there is to check
out the reader reports at Accelerate
Your Mac! These will help you determine which drives are
compatible, reliable, and economically sensible.
I don't think dropping Aqua's look and feel would have a
significant impact on Aqua's performance. The architecture is
extremely aggressive, based on a typeset-quality Raster Image
Processor, and just switching to a Platinum look and feel isn't going
to make that go away.
That aside, I agree they should allow you to change some of the
more processor-intensive aspects of the UI. The details of the look
and feel seem to be as well isolated from the app as they were in
Classic - the fact that you can switch Safari's appearance from
Metal back to Aqua demonstrates that (if only I could do that for
iTunes). You can already turn off the drop shadows with programs like
TinkerTool,
so it's quite possible that more of the UI can be customized once
people find the right knobs.
I've turned off drop shadows. It speeds things up, but
sometimes the edges of your windows become invisible. Although it
improves performance, it's a visual mess. I'd like to see Apple
offer maybe a 1 pixel gray shadow as an alternative to the nice
soft edges in Aqua or no shadows at all (which requires a
third-party utility).
Then again, if ever there was an Interface Nazi, it's Steve Jobs.
He did his best to kill alternate appearances in the classic Mac
OS and now seems to be caught between the original Aqua appearance
and the newer brushed metal look as the OS X interface. I
doubt Jobs will ever let the user choose on or the other, let
alone pick from a range of alternatives.
I like the Aqua look and feel, I never did get into Kaleidoscope,
but it sure would be nice if Apple made it easy for the end user
to have a bit more control over the computer for
nonconformists....
I've got to play devil's advocate with a few things in the
article:
"I have several friends who have bought cheap PCs. At the
time, they thought they were getting a great deal. Eventually,
though, I'll get a call because something is irrevocably screwed
up. Faulty hardware, viruses, spyware, you name it. And, because I
like to help people out, I'll truck on out there and help fix the
problem at no charge."
Okay, true. Macs have fewer virusses (virii?) and spyware
problems. However, that's like blaming Pioneer because you bought a
CD player for your car and someone stepped on and cracked the CD you
wanted to listen to.
I'm writing this from a PC. I have no virus problems - but I also
am careful as to what I download, don't open unexpected email
attachments, and have a virus scanner (updated weekly) running
constantly in the background.
As for faulty hardware, that's both a plus and minus - if you
change it to "cheap" hardware. Sure, PC users can get the
latest-and-greatest from multiple vendors. Don't want to pay $200 for
a GeForce 4? Find another vendor selling it for $150. You just have
to watch the cheaper vendors - there's a reason, after all, that
they're cheap. The hardware may be fine, but support is nonexistent
(for instance). Very much a double edged sword.
"If I did charge them for the time I spent on their PCs, their
'cheap machines' would suddenly cost a few hundred dollars
more."
No argument there.
"In addition to the repairs to their machines, my friends seem
to buy new ones every 18-24 months. That adds up, especially
considering that I have a seven-year-old Mac that's still good for
basic email and word processing."
Great first part. Second line trips you up, though. I can wander
down to my mother-in-law's 486 and do word processing and email. It's
more than 7 years old as well. The point isn't that a 7 year old PC
can't do these things, it's that PC users don't keep them
around long enough.
It's not because of parts - the same 30 or 72 pin SIMMs my
Quadras and Performas use can be used in 386-486-early Pentiums.
It's not reliability - as I've mentioned, the 486 downstairs is
still usable. No reliability issues (despite it being, of all things,
a Packard Bell).
It's not a matter of speed - you can't really surf the
'net effectively on a Power Mac
7100 (one of the networked machines here) - it works, but it's
sluggish, though, again, email is fine. It just "feels" slow or has
problems processing "modern" (read: often gimmicky or "feature"
laden) websites.
This, I think, is a matter of culture. The PC "culture" is one of
disposability, fed by ever increasing "feature sets" (read: bloat) in
applications and operating systems.
The Mac "culture" is one that sees the machines less as "a
computer" and really tends to personalize the beasts - the best
thing I can think of is that old, comfy pair of jeans. Sure, they
might be a little worn now, but they fit "just right."
"And don't forget the warranty! If you don't buy a chop shop
PC and get one with a decent warranty, you're covered, right?
Maybe. How much is your time worth? How much is your data worth?
The time you're on the line getting something fixed under warranty
is time that could be spent generating money or doing something
pleasurable."
Can you really use this as an argument? Time is time, whether it's
calling Apple or Dell (or emailing, searching for updates, etc.)
"And I won't even mention lost data. It goes without saying
that lost data can be major expense."
Again - same argument as virii and spyware. It's the user's
responsibility to back up their data. With CD-Rs as cheap as they are
- and standard in most PCs and Macs - anyone who doesn't
copy their important data over is just asking for trouble. You can't
really use this as an argument for Macs or PCs. Data is data,
and losing it is just as frustrating regardless of platform.
I use both.
I won't pretend to be platform agnostic. I recognize that
people are productive using Windows computers, that they are not
the unreliable monstrosities some of us remember from 1990s
versions of Windows, and that they're simply more affordable up
front than Macs.
I have a lot of reasons for choosing the Mac OS over Windows, and
the price of hardware, the availability of unimaginable amounts of
software, and the general reliability of the machines are not
factors that sway me. It's culture: I'm not a conformist, I don't
like monopolies, I do like underdogs, I don't like Microsoft's
business practices, I like the way Apple handles copy protection
(mostly by ignoring it), I don't like draconian digital rights
management, I like the tighter hardware/software integration of
the Mac, and I don't like the idea of disposable computers.
You've really hit the nail on the head. Old Macs retain value as
personal computers, but old Windows PCs, for the most part, are
simply cast aside. It's very much a matter of culture, and Apple
is at odds with the dominant American consumer culture.
Interesting take on the second hand market affecting the sales of
new Power Macs - you make a very salient argument. I believe that
the majority of the reason for poor sales is the absolutely terribly
price/performance ratio of these machines as compared to the overall
market at the moment. While Apple has made great strides in
rectifying this situation in recent months, a PM Tower is still well
overpriced for the comparable performance, particularly in light of
good ole' Moore's Law, which as we all should know - governs the
expectations of the marketplace.
The good is the enemy of the best, and the good enough is the
enemy of the upgrade - especially in tough economic times.
Although the price/performance ratio improves with every speed
bump, the economy is in the dumpster, and until that changes,
people and businesses are going to postpone new equipment
purchases as much as possible.
I see that as a much bigger factor in the low level of Power Mac
sales than the used market.
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Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04.
PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche.
Mac of the Day: Blue & White Power Mac G3, Jan. 1999 - The most colorful Power Mac introduced an innovative 'drawbridge' enclosure.
List of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
July 6 in LEM history: 00: 3 user accelerators - 01: SCSI and FireWire Disk Mode - Stick with the Mac - Computers for college - 05: Optimizing OS X performance - Return of the bumper snicker - 06: Can consumer MacBook replace 2 PowerBooks and a ThinkPad? - Vintage Macs with System 6 run circles around 3 GHz Windows PC - Run Windows apps without Windows
The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03.
Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops.
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