P1 Rumors, PowerBook Survey, Lombard, and More

NOTE: This Miscellaneous Ramblings column originally appeared on MacOpinion on June 18, 1999. It is republished here by permission of the author and MacOpinion.

Some P1 Surprises?

O'Grady's PowerPage reports that Apple's long-awaited consumer PowerBook - P1 or iBook or whatever it will be called - may not be quite what many pundits have predicted.

According to O'Grady's, the consumer 'Book:

• may not have any PC card slots
• does not have a stereo input jack
• does have the iMac style and is bigger than some are expecting
• has great plastics for getting knocked around (a la the eMate 300), with a retractable handle, in perhaps five entirely new colors
• doesn't run right yet, so that's holding things up
• will have a final shipping price of US$1,299.

Apple's PowerBook Buyer Survey

Apple has posted a PowerBook Buyer Survey Website, where you can tell Apple more about yourself and why you purchased a PowerBook. Apple says that this research will help them better understand and respond to user requirements and influence the design of future Macintosh portable products.

Lombard G3/400 Review

MacInTouch has posted a comprehensive review of the 400 MHz Lombard by Rick LePage.

Rick's summary evaluation: "the new machine isn't an earth-shattering improvement over its predecessor, it is a better portable computer than the older, 'WallStreet' models it replaces."

The review notes that many of Lombard's technical specs are unchanged (or have minor changes) from WallStreet - 66 MHz system bus, trackpad, 45-watt power adapter, no supplied floppy drive, external monitor support (up to 21-inch displays), and two SO-DIMM memory slots, supporting up to 384 Mbytes of RAM.

$27,600 Lombard?

Speaking of Lombard reviews, Carolyn Ong of the South China Morning Post has written a nice one.

"Notebooks cannot get any sexier than the new divinely built Apple G3 PowerBook," says Ms. Ong, who rates Lombard as "way better-looking than even the IBM ThinkPad 600," and dismisses the Compaq Armada 3500 as "basically ugly . . . fat, grey and dated."

Lombard, by contrast comes in a "standard black dress, [and] has curves in all the right places," Ms. Ong enthuses. Not only that, she continues, "The G3 also moves like poetry," with "good hinges that make opening and shutting smooth and effortless."

Ms Ong agrees with my evaluation of the G3 Series PowerBook's keyboard as one of the best I've typed on, and she thinks Lombard's copper-colored, translucent keys "give it a really chic look."

"You have to see it to believe just how great a movie can look played back full-screen on the G3's TFT 1,024 x 768 pixel display," she says.

Ms. Ong notes that the Lombard sells for $27,600 - Hong Kong dollars, I presume!

Buggy USB Implementation in Lombard?

Both Doug Landry's The PowerBook Zone and O'Grady's PowerPage are reporting hassles experienced by readers in attaching external USB keyboards and mice to their new Lombards.

"Imagine something as basic as starting up your PowerBook and expecting to use an external USB keyboard and USB mouse, and either or both don't work," complains one reader, declaring Lombard's USB support, "more of a liability than a feature."

This person was not able to get either his USB Contour UniMouse or his MacAlly iKey USB keyboard to work properly (or at all) with his Lombard, and has reverted to connecting ADB peripherals with Griffin Technology's iMate adapter.

However, another PowerPage reader reports that ADB is not necessarily a panacea, noting Lombard's incompatibility with some ADB hardware key dongles.

A PowerBook Zone reader complains that if you put Lombard to sleep with an Apple USB mouse plugged in, the mouse will no longer work when the PowerBook wakes up. The only remedy is a reboot. The problem was also noted with a MacAlly USB mouse.

ramBunctious Shareware RAM Disk Application

In last week's Road Warrior feature, I mentioned my partiality for RAM Disks. Reader Gregory Santilli steered me to Clark Wood Software's ramBunctious RAM disk program, which claims to maintain the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages of most other RAM disk programs.

ramBunctious offers several options that allow customization for the individual user's desired balance of speed, security, safety, and versatility. For example, you can set ramBunctious to write through to a file on a (real) disk for safety in the event of a crash. You can mount as many RAM disks as you wish (or as many as you have memory for) simultaneously.

Many RAM disk programs require you to reboot before you can see the RAM disk. They also require you to reboot before you can reclaim the memory used by the RAM disk. ramBunctious uses the same memory that applications use,so it can create a RAM disk without rebooting, and you can reclaim memory used by the RAM disks instantly by putting them away.

It should be noted that unlike the RAM Disk program built into the Mac OS, ramBunctious can not be used as a boot volume. In order to work around the limitation, the developer suggests that you set up a minimal Apple RAM disk to start up from, then use ramBunctious RAM disks for all the stuff you typically work on.

The reason that ramBunctious cannot be used as a startup disk is because it uses temporary memory rather than system memory, for the following reasons:

• It allows the user to reclaim the memory by simply unmounting the RAM disk; with RAM disks using memory above BufPtr, the computer needs to be restarted to reclaim the RAM disk's memory.
• It facilitates the ability to have multiple RAM disks online simultaneously.

ramBunctious features include:

• You can have multiple RAM disks mounted simultaneously, limited only by memory available.
• ramBunctious has a "write-through" option. When activated, everything written to the RAM disk is saved to a (real) file. This means that the next time you mount the RAM disk, all the contents are still there. It also adds protection against data loss in the event of a crash.
• ramBunctious uses normal application memory. This means that when you're done using a RAM disk, that memory is available for other applications to use. In other words, you don't have to reboot to regain the memory.
• A Startup Items folder on the RAM disk behaves like the Startup Items folder in the System Folder, except that all the enclosed items are opened when the RAM disk is mounted. You can put aliases to applications in this folder, and those applications will be launched when the RAM disk is mounted.
• Each RAM disk may be configured to be mounted automatically when the computer is started up.
• These options, and more, are fully user-configurable for each RAM disk via a status/settings window.

ramBunctious menus, dialogs, and windows allow easy management of your RAM disks, whether you use a single RAM disk or multiple RAM disks with customized settings for each.

When you create a RAM disk, you can specify initial settings. These settings can be adjusted later using the RAM disk's settings window.

In addition to the standard controls to navigate and enter a RAM disk name, there are extra control protocols, including:

• The popup menu allows you to choose the size of your RAM disk. There are several preselected values, and you can enter any value by choosing "Other..."
• If Startup Items Folder is selected, a folder called "Startup Items" will be created automatically on your new RAM disk. Any files (or aliases) in this folder will be automatically opened when the RAM disk is mounted. This feature allows you to open documents or applications when you start your RAM disk.
• The Open Status Window control determines if the settings window for the new RAM disk will be visible initially.
• The Automount Volume feature lets you start up your computer with a RAM disk already mounted. It works by automatically placing an alias to the new file in the startup items folder of the System folder.
• The RAM-only volume checkbox lets you create a RAM disk without all the contents in an image file.

ramBunctious can be fully controlled by using AppleScript. For more information, see the ramBunctious dictionary (from the AppleScript Editor) and the example scripts included when you download ramBunctious.

ramBunctious also cooperates with Peek-a-Boo, a process analysis program. By running Peek-a-Boo and ramBunctious simultaneously, you can see where the RAM disks exist in the Mac's memory.

Some suggested uses for ramBunctious are:

• Most web browsers use a cache to remember recently-visited sites. Netscape (and Internet Explorer 2.1 and up) allows you to choose where to put the cache. Using a RAM disk for a cache allows virtually instantaneous access to web pages you've previously visited. Furthermore, some versions of Netscape are accessing the cache constantly, and using a RAM disk decreases the irritation of this constant hard-drive chatter.
• Programmers use ramBunctious to speed up project builds. When a project file and all the source code for a project are on a RAM disk, the development system can use the lightning speed of the RAM disk to drastically reduce the time required to build a project.
• Some users like the security implications of a RAM disk. If the RAM disk is not mounted, it is impossible to examine the disk; no one can pry into folders, no one can load sensitive files, and no one can undelete files.
• PowerBook users are often concerned with battery usage; a RAM disk doesn't have the relatively high power requirements of a hard drive.

For more information about ramBunctious, go here.

Saintly PowerBooks?

Many of us consider the PowerBook to be an inspired piece of engineering, thus it is interesting to note that a 100-series 'Book is shown in a BBC article about the Vatican's possibly appointing a patron saint of the Internet. St. Isodore of Seville is the most likely candidate for patron saint of the Web.

Redneck Macintosh Users' Group

Corroborating my theory that conservative Mac users are a more significant and sizable faction of the Mac community than is commonly acknowledged, which I expound at some length on in this week's View From the MacCave column on the MacTimes Network: "The Volvo Syndrome: Is The Mac Really The 'Liberal's Computer?" - is Texas-based James G. Keene's Redneck Macintosh Users' Group Website "For the Rest of Us."

"And what if 'The Rest of Us' don't happen to be tree-hugging granola-munching California types?" asks the site's welcoming statement.

"Yea, we use Macs, but you're not gonna find what you expect on ours. No stinky love poetry, no Broadway musical lyrics, no vegetarian recipes, no sissified crap like that: just the good stuff: practical things to do with your Mac, links to great stuff like nra.org or nhra.org or any second amendment site, and tales of the great stuff we've been up to."

The RMUG staff state their credentials thus:

JGK
Founder, Webmaster, Ringmaster; PowerMac 7600/XLR8 G3/233 Card, PowerMac 7500/132(604), Performa 6116CD (overclocked to 84mHz) '91 Chevy S10 Pickup, Ruger Blackhawk .357 magnum, Mauser '98 7.92mm

DICK
Entertainment head, site approver, pilot of the DickMobile. PowerMac G3/266/DVD, '99 Chevy Camaro SS, Browning M92FS 9mm, Colt AR-15 .223 Fireball

LARDOG
Hardware hacks, games, PowerMac 8500/XLR8 G3/233 overclocked to 266+, Generic Windoze box, Abit BH board and PII/350, Toyota Sillycar Supra

PJ
Philosopher, software reviewer, PowerMac 6400/180, Vimage G3 card waiting to be installed, 92 Ford T-Bird with a bad-ass stereo, Used to have a Winchester lever-action .44...

Ms THANG
Occasional dose of reality, PowerMac 8100/100, (the rest of her life is quite mysterious...)

The RMUG site, which is brand new and a work-in-progress, features various reviews, commentary and "Non-wussy Mac Links."

I love it! You can check what the good 'ol boys and gals' are up to here.

WallStreet and Lombard Charging Problems?

O'Grady's has been posting stories about more than a few G3 Series 'Book users reporting battery charging problems. Indeed, we experienced this glitch with a Series 1 233 demo unit that passed through our shop last December.

O'Grady's notes that "over the last few weeks, there have been many posts about charging problems on PB G3s, in all three versions." Apparently a temporary fix is to play with the AC-adapter plug and reset the power manager repeatedly until the machine begins charging.

While there are several possible malfunctions that can cause this problem, the most likely is reportedly the RF shielding inside the opening for the AC-adapter coming unglued and shorting out. O'Grady's suggests putting some tape around the outside of the adapter plug, which will fix it unless the board has been damaged by short-circuiting.

A PowerBook Source reader named Paul Yoh reported that his new Lombard would not recharge its batteries right out of the box. Apple has agreed to replace Mr. Yoh's 'Book, but this well-known problem should have been eliminated in the Lombard machines.

Apple Posts ATI Video Update 1.0 for Series II (PDQ) G3 PowerBooks

Apple has posted the ATI Video Software Update 1.0 to fix display issues with some PowerBook G3 Series IIs (PDQs), as well as iMacs, and Power Mac G3 systems with the Rage Pro or Rage 128 based graphics systems.

The update corrects the following issues:

• A freeze when using CPUs with high processor speeds (>=400 MHz) and high screen resolution (1280 x 1024) after heavily using off screen graphics memory.
• A crash when millions of colors are used with a high resolution monitor.
• Instances with certain third party applications where scrolling could result in a crash.

The upgrade requires Mac OS 8.6.

That Bronze Keyboard, and Lombard Connectivity Issues

Jason O'Grady's The O'Grady Files column on MacWeek discusses Lombard's keyboard and peripheral connectivity issues arising from Lombard's shift from serial/ADB to USB ports.

Jason notes that "the Lombard keyboard is the same size as the Wall Street keyboard, and typing on it is a similar experience." However, the PC keys: Delete, Insert, Print Screen, Scroll Lock and Pause/Break which appeared as function-key modifiers on Wall Street, are gone from the Lombard keyboard, which is still ADB-based despite Lombard's official USB support.

Jason notes that some external monitors require an ADB connection to relay software commands from the Monitors & Sound control panel to the monitor, and suggests Griffin Technology's iMate USB to ADB adapter as a workaround. For serial peripherals the Keyspan USB to Serial adapter will be a lifesaver.

Ratoc FireWire CardBus PC Card Now Available

The RATOC Systems CBFW2 FireWire CardBus PC Card we reported on here last week is now available from Mac Components Engineered.

MCE is quoting a price of $279 on their Website, which is advertised as a discount from a MSRP of $299. Ratoc had been touting a MRSP $50 lower prior to the card's release.

Road Warrior Mailbag

As usual, The Road Warrior received some interesting email feedback from last week's columns.

Responding to my ongoing thesis that PowerBooks are the computer to have if you're only having one, at least for most of us, Robert A. Worrell, Ph.D., writes:

Obviously not everyone uses their computer the same way, and for some people like "Dave" the PowerBook cannot replace the desktop. However, I replaced my desktop computer, a 7300, with a PowerBook G3 266 seven months ago and haven't regretted it for a minute.

I am a scientist and have a long train commute. My PowerBook contains all of my data (backed up of course) and accompanies me everywhere. I always have my data and references at my fingertips, in lab meetings or at home. My desk is no longer occupied by a large box. I can quickly arrange and display presentations (with a projector). Because I do carry it so much, I do wish it were lighter ( the new Lombard sounds great) but I wouldn't sacrifice the 14 inch screen to do it.

I also find the keyboard easier on my hands than the old Apple extended, but the best part is the trackpad. Far more than the keyboard, a mouse causes me great pain when used for several hours and I never could use a trackball. The trackpad has changed all that. I bought a mouse when I bought the computer. It hasn't left the drawer for 4 months.

Although we'll replace our aging home computer, a 7100, with a Blue and White G3 later this year because of its expandability, I expect a laptop to remain my primary computer and when the consumer laptop comes out, I'm sure my wife will be campaigning for one of her own.

From Chris Long:

Thanks again for your recent advice on the best OS for my PowerBook 3400/180 - but given your RAMBLINGS #17 column of today I think I'll avoid OS 8.5 or 8.6 (re: "MacOS 7.6.1 through 8.6 Performance Compared").

I had a hunch that each progressively newer OS would be bigger & slower than the last - and the graphic charts show this. Given that I'm partial to simplicity & speed, I guess I'll forego the slower fatter bigger heavier (? wow...) newer operating systems and stick with OS 8.0 or perhaps plunge into 8.1 (I've actually had VERY LITTLE trouble with the 'Book as it is - therefore little impetus to upgrade to 8.1).

Again, thanks, and KEEP UP THE GOOD RAMBLINGS - I love reading yer stuff - ESPECIALLY today's "PowerBooks and Subtlety" column. I agree with ALL your comments except that I still prefer a standard full size Apple keyboard (with the 15 function keys) to the keyboard on my PB 3400, which is kind of mushy.

From Gregory Santilli:

Just got done with your article. I understand it, enjoyed it, but disagree.

The delight in a twin Cheetah Raid, the two monitors, 21 and 19 inch Hitachi's, the DSL connection at 1 MB a sec, all make me love my desktop.

I agree with your RAM disk comment. I use 1.32 ramBunctious, and it works just about flawlessly.

I still get a bit of disk access, but loading everything into RAM, and using the RAM disc, is a true delight.

Try loading a RAM disc in under two seconds, 100 MB disc, and then tell me the laptops are the way to go.

Video games are good with my Nexus GA card but not great.

Using two of three slots for 2940's for the Cheetahs.

Wish Macs had more slots, not O like the PowerBooks.

I ran my home computer off a 540c, and for the same cost, as with the Lombards, I have a full house G3 minitower, that I like a lot more than the 540c, and can't get by the difference in value.

Course, I would probably have a Cray, or Big Blue if I could budget it.

Both have their place, and I know you are right that the majority doesn't need this stuff, or they wouldn't be buying lame PC's with hard drives slower than molasses.

From Unix consultant and Mac user Jon Wright:

Love your columns. Sorry about the hassles you have with computer stuff. Saw a reference to MYOB is your latest ramblings. I have been an MYOB user as long as I have been a Mac user. Great package, Y2K compliant, tax updates (for Australia) are supplied on time, great information booklets supplied with support, etc. etc. etc.

I believe that MYOB is the market leader down under for accounting software on both Mac and Wintel.

From Will van Spronsen:

I ordered a 333 MHz Lombard with a leather case from Outpost today after having read your article espousing this beautiful simplicity. You made great sense and got me off the fence. The desktops, (266 G3, 7200/120, and Centris,) are all for sale now, to be replaced by the new PowerBook when it arrives; a 17" ViewSonic at home and 20" Multiscan at the office to plug it into when the need arises. All in all I'm coming out about even monetarily. not a bad move at all.

Again, thanks for the nudge!