Rhapsody 5.6 what's the difference

I think I found a mint 300 Wallstreet, I want to put OS X Server 1.2 on it.

What are the differences between 1.2 & 1.2v3?, what happend to 1.2v2 and is it possible to update 1.2 to v3 with an updater of any kind (if so where do I download it?) or do I need to buy the v3 CD rom?

Cheers

Bare with me, I'm covering more than just the requested information... plus I'm always a little long winded. :?

The first thing to keep in mind is that Rhapsody was pretty much orphaned at birth. Most everyone who had worked to make Rhapsody 5.3 (Mac OS X Server 1.0) was quickly put to work on the Mac OS X Server Developer Previews.

This is the main reason for the fact that you won't find hardly any differences between Rhapsody 5.3 and any of the later versions. In fact, the whole concept of "versions" is missing from the Mac OS X Server GUI... Apple never intended there to be more than a single release.

Rhapsody 5.4 (Server 1.0.1) was a desperate bug fix. As with most operating systems, it takes the general public to really find the bugs that beta testers often miss.

Rhapsody 5.5 (Server 1.0.2) was actually both a bug fix and feature enhancement release... most notably with the MacOS.app (Blue Box)

Why no Server 1.1? Someone screwed up with the silk screening of Mac OS X Server media and put 1.1 on CDs that were actually 1.0 releases. So rather than recall them, Apple decided to skip the number and go to 1.2 to avoid confusion (though some people still get confused and don't apply the 1.0.2 update).

Feature wise... Rhapsody 5.6 (Server 1.2) really isn't that different from Rhapsody 5.5. The major changes were in hardware support. As it turned out, Mac OS X was taking a lot longer to finish than anyone at Apple had expected, and the G3 based PowerMacs started being replaced with G4 based systems. This meant that Rhapsody needed to be updated to support the new hardware and new processor.

One of the big changes was increased memory support (5.3-5.5 top out at 1 GB while 5.6 can handle 1.5 GB, the notes on this are here (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31274)).

Finally, the differences between 1.2 and 1.2v3:

Essentially... there is none.

When I got my 1.0 and 1.2v3 versions, they came in boxes. But my 1.2 version came in a plastic wrapper. On my shelf I have those two boxes sitting side by side. In the 1.0 Box I have a white envelope with all my 1.0 media and written on it is "1.0" in the upper corner. In the 1.2v3 box I have two such envelopes, one with "1.2" and the other with "1.2v3" written on them.

[/list]When I need Rhapsody 5.6 media, I actually don't look to see which envelope I'm grabbing from the 1.2v3 box.

To date I believe of the seven times I've installed Rhapsody 5.6 on hardware, only twice did I end up with the 1.2v3 installation (once because I planned on installing it, the other time was random). And in fact, as it turns out my current main system (my 8600/300) is running the plain "1.2" version of Rhapsody 5.6.

[/list]The only real difference is support for the Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet. Otherwise, they are the same.

Why the "v3"? Honestly I have no clue where that came from. In the Console it identifies itself as Mac OS X Server 1.2.1. The other question is why the change in code name (from Pele1Q10 to Medusa1E3... though the E3 part may be were v3 came from)? I don't know that either.

The group that was called back to make these updates were most likely not closely supervised, and as there wasn't originally supposed to be more than a single release, I doubt anyone had thought out version rules.

This was, to a degree, the same with Mac OS X up to version 10.1.1. You would have a hard time telling from the Darwin version of 10.0.0 to 10.1.0 what version of Mac OS X you were using (10.0.0-10.0.4 were Darwin 1.3.1 and 10.1.0 was Darwin 1.4.1). That was why Apple changed the Darwin versions with 10.1.1, starting with Darwin 5.1 (so there was no Darwin 5.0 for Mac OS X).

Pretty much, unless you have a Gigabit G4, you really don't need 1.2v3. And because this one version of the G4 is the only hardware that requires it, there is no upgrade or update path.

For a run down on hardware that 1.0-1.0.2 (5.3-5.5), 1.2 (5.6) and 1.2v3 (also 5.6) support, you can check out this page (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106430). Even the original eMac is supported by both 1.2 and 1.2v3, which shows you just how specific this 1.2v3 release was to the Gigabit G4 as far as differences.


Additional References
Like I said, for me (and my old hardware), there is no effective difference between 1.2 and 1.2v3... it is pretty much the luck of the draw as to what I pull out of the box. And for a Wallstreet, I wouldn't think there would be any effective difference between 5.5 or either version of 5.6 (other than having to manually update the Mac OS in 5.5's Blue Box to 8.6). Still, I'm not everyone, so I don't want to say that you should treat them this way. So here is some additional references on all the versions...

Mac OS X Server 1.0 Read Me (http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/1_0_Read_Me.html)
Mac OS X Server 1.0 System Requirements (http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/Sys_Req_1_0.html)
Mac OS X Server 1.0.2 About (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=59005)
Mac OS X Server 1.2 Read Me (http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/1_2_Read_Me.html)
Mac OS X Server 1.2 System Requirements (http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/Sys_Req_1_2.html)
Mac OS X Server 1.2v3 Read Me (http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/1_2v3_Read_Me.html)[/list]And of course when looking at what comes with the packaged versions of these, there is a difference in what is bundled with the OS itself. With the notable exception of the Developer/WebObjects CD which is exactly the same with all releases... the updated developer tools for later versions were only available via the Apple Developer Connection program (or by buying WebObjects 4.5). As a result, there is actually some apps who's source code will not compile using the developer tools included with Rhapsody 5.3-5.6 (sort of a pain, and yes people did try complaining to Apple about this).

Here are the spines of my Server boxes to give you an idea of some of the differences.

Thanks RacerX, that's just what I needed. :-)

So it seems to be only difference is Bluebox and G4 support.  

I was given (thrown in with when I bought a 2nd hand Lombard but never installed) a legit copy of  OS X Server 1.2 from when I worked in Thailand as I was friends with the Apple dealer (you always are when you buy a new Mac I guess) there a few years back.  It was an open box and I'm not sure if it's complete as I only got the CD themselves (Server, WebObjects, NetBoot & 3rd Party Solutions), but I don't seem to have the network setup assisant CD so I assume from the box end scans I have 1.2 as only 1.2v3 seems to have this.  It also seems the 3rd party solutions CD was missing from 1.2v3

So it seems I'll also only have Mac OS 8.5.1, is it possible to update this using  an 8.6 CD ROM from within the bluebox enviroment?, I bet it's not worth the hassle anyway I'm just curios.

Do the same caveats exist for Rhapsody 5.6 as they do for OS X on a Wallstreet, within the first 8gb partition?

Well, I guess I should point out what CDs come with each version...

Mac OS X Server 1.0 (and the mislabeled 1.1) come with the following:[list=1]

• Mac OS X Server Install CD
  
• WebObjects/Developer 4.0.1 CD
  
• NetBoot Server CD
  
• Third Party Solutions CD[/list:o]This Mac OS X Server install CD comes with the 8.5.1 version of Blue Box.
  
  Mac OS X Server 1.2 comes with the following:[list=1]
• Mac OS X Server Install CD
  
• WebObjects/Developer 4.0.1 CD
  
• NetBoot Server CD
  
• Network Assistant[/list:o]This Mac OS X Server install CD comes with the 8.6 version of Blue Box.
  
  Mac OS X Server 1.2v3 comes with the following:[list=1]
• Mac OS X Server Install CD
  
• WebObjects/Developer 4.0.1 CD
  
• NetBoot Server CD
  
• Network Assistant[/list:o]This Mac OS X Server install CD comes with the 8.6 version of Blue Box.
  
  So if you have Server 1.2, you have 8.6 in Blue Box.
  
  As for upgrading a 8.5.1 Blue Box to 8.6 (after Rhapsody is brought up to 5.5), all you need is the free 8.6 updater (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60283) from Apple and the font management patch (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60444).
  
  

  Quote from: "brams"Do the same caveats exist for Rhapsody 5.6 as they do for OS X on a Wallstreet, within the first 8gb partition?

  I don't believe so.
  
  I've only used (extensively) either a 4 GB or 8 GB drive in my Wallstreet when I was running Rhapsody on it. I did (for a few days) have a 20 GB drive in it, and yes I did have Rhapsody 5.6 installed on the full 20 GB and working... sort of.
  
  There is a bug with the Wallstreets that makes them vulnerable to magnetic fields given off by some hard drives... mainly IBM hard drives.
  
  What happens is that once the drive has been running for a while (a few minutes) it has generated enough of a field to activate the physical "sleep" switch (which is right next to the hard drive).
  
  So while 5.6 did seem to work just fine on the 20 GB drive I had, I didn't get a chance to test it much because after a while my system would shut down to a hard sleep.
  
  The only limitation that I know of for Rhapsody 5.3 and later is that it has to be on a partition that starts within the first 1 GB of the drive. It works best if it is the first partition, but if it is the second, the first can't be larger than 1 GB in size or the system will not find it.
  
  
  
  This all seems to be a property of the firmware mode for booting. Both Mac OS X and Mac OS 8/9 use the firmware in the default "bye" configuration, while Rhapsody uses saved settings using "boot". The 8 GB limit for Mac OS X is most likely a product of this.

What is this 8gb limit you guys are talking about.  Is it a wallstreet specific thing, or do other G3 based laptops have the same issue.

Chef

Quote from: "nextchef"What is this 8gb limit you guys are talking about.  Is it a wallstreet specific thing, or do other G3 based laptops have the same issue.Chef

If you want to put OS X onto a PowerBook G3 Wallstreet/PDQ or Mainstreet you need to make sure that if the harddrive is bigger than 8gb that you install OS X onto the first partition and make sure it's 8gb or less.  I have no idea why or what happens if you don't stick to the rules, I'd guess it results in file system corruption or won't boot.

I think it's a Wallstreet issue, they have a couple of quirks with HD's, they can only use ATA5 drives as well so I recall.

I don't think Lombards are affected and I'm writing this on my Pismo which has a 60gb HGST 7200rpm 7k60 in it and it runs Tiger on the 60gb partition.

Not sure about Kanga but IMHO it's a bit of a clunker anyway  :shock:

Does OSX run acceptably on a wallstreet, especially at only 300-350mhz.  Will tiger even install, or do you need to us 10.1 or 10.2.  Can you even stick enough memory in one, since in my experience OSX does not run very well without at least 512m, and a gig or more is best.

Chef

Quote from: "nextchef"Does OSX run acceptably on a wallstreet, especially at only 300-350mhz.  Will tiger even install, or do you need to us 10.1 or 10.2.  Can you even stick enough memory in one, since in my experience OSX does not run very well without at least 512m, and a gig or more is best.Chef

Well I'd be surprised if a 300mhz PDQ/WS II didn't make an half decent job of OS X, officially 10.2 is the max but Panther & Tiger run as well using XPost Facto.  I think Tiger might be pushing the boat out a bit but Panther would be OK.  You can get G4's for them as well from Wegener Media for 199 bucks.  You can put 512mb in them.

The graphics chip does suck a bit with 4mb vram (2mb on 233/12") and it's only a RageLT Pro, the real 1st gen Wallstreet (250-292 etc) used a Rage II LT I think which is worse.  I'd have preferred a 292 'cos the bus is  quicker at 83mhz vs 66mhz but the GPU is crap

I'm using 384mb ram in my Pismo which also has a 550mhz G4 in it and a rapid hard drive, Tiger runs very well, in fact I was using the other night editing some DV movies in iMovie 6.  All PowerBook G3's are awsome, Pismo is just a fantastic laptop, I'm gonna buy another soon for spares.  I also have a 2.0ghz MacBook Pro but use the Pismo way more 'cos it's a better computer for everyday tasks like email, surfing etc.  I'm gonna get a slot loading DVD writer soon from Wegener but waiting until I get the Wallstreet as I might wack a G4 in that too.  Apparently, if Tiger senses that there is a GPU that can't handle Quartz or Core then there are routines that allow Altivec to handle/speed up some of the GUI, I can confirm this as I used Tiger for a bit with the 500mhz G3, when I put in the 550mhz G4 it instantly became much more responsive (more than the 50mhz would account for)

IMHO the best way to speed up laptops is swap out the OEM hardrives, every one I've had have been painfully slow, the MBP is OK, but the one I had in my 667 TiBook was crap and I put a 7k60 in it.

Tiger won't install without a twist as minimum for it's a PowerBook G3 "Pismo" beeing the "worst" supported hardware. There is of coures some support application doing the trick for older hardware but i've forgotten the name.

Having Tiger here on a "Pismo" i dare say it runs poorly. Problem's not the CPU - i assume you could cut that down a lot farther than 300 mhz for OS X still working fine but the GPU exspecially for newer OS X versions - having no Quartz extreme capable Graphics Card (simply put 16 mb vram - exists since 10.2) will ruin your experience for sure as the GUI becomes very sluggish.

I dare say i see no point in running any kind of mac os 10.x on such hardware besides proof of concept - most software for daily use won't work within acceptable speed.

(Wallstreet will support a maximum of 512 mb ram consisting of 2 x 256 mb pc100 so-dimm)

Quote from: brams

Quote from: "nextchef"All PowerBook G3's are awsome, Pismo is just a fantastic laptop, I'm gonna buy another soon for spares.

Simply true. I love my Pismo and I will give it a special part on my domain, soon. It is one of Apple's major products that will never go out of style.

J

Well someone was faster typing than me  :D

So let's start contradicting your opinion brams, will we?  :lol:

"Pismo" is a great Laptop indeed (since i wouldn't had get one if it weren't).
Probably one of the very best NoteBook desings ever but:

My configuration is pretty close to yours regarding ram and a fast HD (Toshiba @ 5400 rpm 16 mb cache) but i'm  stuck with the original G3@400 mhz

As you say Altivec will indeed substitute for a Quartz extreme capable Graphics Card and speeds up the GUI fore sure but i think it's still very poor (can see that on my sisters original G4 Titanium - the 400 mhz modell).
As well low display resolution is a problem - at least fore me, wouldn't want to do anything but playing the games that won't start in classic on that machine. To the point - although it may be supported i'd use it only for OS 9.

But i agree for the faster HD - think it's the only noticeable difference between my G4 1Ghz PowerBook and my G4 1,67 Ghz PowerBook (had the built to order option for the 7200 rpm drive in it)

Quote from: "PowerPC"Well someone was faster typing than me  :D

So let's start contradicting your opinion brams, will we?  :lol:

"Pismo" is a great Laptop indeed (since i wouldn't had get one if it weren't).
Probably one of the very best NoteBook desings ever but:

My configuration is pretty close to yours regarding ram and a fast HD (Toshiba @ 5400 rpm 16 mb cache) but i'm  stuck with the original G3@400 mhz

As you say Altivec will indeed substitute for a Quartz extreme capable Graphics Card and speeds up the GUI fore sure but i think it's still very poor (can see that on my sisters original G4 Titanium - the 400 mhz modell).
As well low display resolution is a problem - at least fore me, wouldn't want to do anything but playing the games that won't start in classic on that machine. To the point - although it may be supported i'd use it only for OS 9.

But i agree for the faster HD - think it's the only noticeable difference between my G4 1Ghz PowerBook and my G4 1,67 Ghz PowerBook (had the built to order option for the 7200 rpm drive in it)

Well point with the Wallstreet is, I've always wanted one 'cos of the awsome build quality and 'cos I want to run Rhapsody on something.  I also get a kick out of using old hardware (beside the BeBox, SGI & NeXT's) I have about 15 to 20 Macs and love my 840av dearly, but for me nothing is really mission critical so I can afford to mess about, I think the MBP is probably the least messed with Mac I own and is always there for when I screw things up on anything else (which is quite regular).

Regarding the Pismo, I have to say you must get a G4 to make the best out of them.  I have no idea why but my Pismo is much quicker than the 667 TiBook I had which quite frankly was a piece of shit (paint flaking and all that crap), I use it for most of my stuff, and it's not sluggish or slow, though it's not much of a measure it boots in about the same time as my Digital Audio here and thats got a dual 7455 1.4ghz cpu and a 160gb  raid 1 7200rpm.  I use it for about 90% of what I do, it's great to use  on the bed which is where I usually am watching TV and drinking beer and mooching on the 'net, add to that I get about 6 hours out the battery.  I'm not sure on this but, this CPU is a MPC 7410 which is the one with the same pin out as the MPC 750.  Later ones had different pin outs, I think the 7410 is maybe a desktop CPU as it is a lot more responsive than the 667 TiBook which only had a 256k cache, mine was the SVGA one.

I just timed it now, to launch Photoshop CS2 took 35 seconds and Word 2004 took 10 and that was with a few apps running like Mail, iChat & Firefox so maybe with  more ram it would have done less swapping and loaded quicker.

I have a Sony Vaio XG700 at work which is a PIII 750 running Windows 2000, it's a joke compared to the Pismo, it takes nearly 5 minuets to boot up.  The Pismo I think takes much less than a minuet.

I got my G4 upgrade from Wegener Media, I wanted to install myself as I was in the UK on holiday at the time and could not be bothered shipping to the US like XLR8 want you to, plus all the Mac companies in the UK are very expensive.  Wegener I think sold me the upgrade for 300 bucks with 100 bucks rebate for your old CPU, I sold my old G3 500 on eBay for more.  I'd also give Wegener 8 out of 10, I give 8 as the heatsink paste supplied was crap and they didn't give enough, I used some of my own.  Thus I can do nothing but give Wegener a big recommendation, very easy to deal with, good prices, very interesting product range (the slot loading superdrives are way cool)

Quote from: "brams"...than the 667 TiBook I had which quite frankly was a piece of shit (paint flaking and all that crap),...

I had one of these 'nd was very happy with it until i "luckily" poured a full bordeauxglas of african shiraz in it.  :cry:

Well, I use my Wallstreet for Mac OS X most of the time (pretty much everything I write is written on this thing). These are the specs of my G3 PowerBooks...

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet
G4 at 500 MHz with 1 MB of L2 cache
512 MB of memory
40 GB hard drive
20 GB hard drive (battery bay)
CDRW (CD-ROM bay)
USB 2.0 PCMCIA card
Running Mac OS X v10.2.8

PowerBook G3 Lombard
G3 at 400 MHz with 1 MB of L2 cache
512 MB of memory
10 GB hard drive
Wireless PCMCIA card
Running Mac OS X v10.3.9

PowerBook Pismo (wife's system)
G3 at 400 MHz with 1 MB of L2 cache
640 MB of memory
10 GB hard drive
Running Mac OS X v10.3.9

Yes, I'm a fan of the whole G3 PowerBook line too. And I'll most likely grab another Wallstreet in the near future just because I really did love running Rhapsody on it.

While Mac OS X runs great on all my PowerBooks, the Altivec in the Wallstreet does make a difference for many things. Plus I'm just used to working with it... which is why I spend so much time on it. The only times I'm off it are for Rhapsody stuff (which means I'm on my 8600/300) or work projects (which means I'm on my Beige G3... which has a G4 at 533, a Radeon 7000 and a nice 20" display).

Quote from: "RacerX"Well, I use my Wallstreet for Mac OS X most of the time (pretty much everything I write is written on this thing). These are the specs of my G3 PowerBooks...

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet
G4 at 500 MHz with 1 MB of L2 cache
512 MB of memory
40 GB hard drive
20 GB hard drive (battery bay)
CDRW (CD-ROM bay)
USB 2.0 PCMCIA card
Running Mac OS X v10.2.8

Have you not tried using Panther on this system?, I used XPost Facto ages ago on a Power Computing Power Tower Pro with a Newer or Powerlogix G4 400 and it worked like a charm. I think I ran Jaguar on it as it is a while ago.

Quote from: "brams"Have you not tried using Panther on this system?

Well, there isn't really a good reason for me to do it...in fact, I'd rather not.

I have Panther on two of my systems (my Lombard and my Beige G3), but I actually only did that for application compatibility (and it'll be the only reason I end up running Tiger on anything too).

For me, Jaguar is great... fast and non-resource intensive. The Finder stays out of my way and all my main apps work great. And thanks to the fact that OmniWeb 5.1 bundles it's version of WebKit within the app, I have a browser that has the same compatibility as Safari in Panther.

When I find a system I like, I stick with it. I like Rhapsody, so I've continued to use it. Jaguar was the first version of Mac OS X to displace Rhapsody as my main OS (Jaguar knocked Rhapsody 5.6 off this PowerBook on August 23, 2002), and I still love this version.

And actually, Panther wasn't on any of my systems until last November (when I started building the Beige G3). Before that the only Panther installation in our home was my wife's Pismo. And still today, two of my four Mac OS X systems (my Wallstreet and my iMac) are still running Jaguar.



I'm not much for following the crowd... and the "newest" stuff from Apple doesn't always do it for me. My favorite Apple operating systems are Rhapsody (currently on three systems), Mac OS X v10.2 (currently on two systems) and Mac OS 8.6 (currently on four systems... not counting Blue Box on one of the Rhapsody systems).

I like what I like and pretty much stick with those things. :D

QuoteI used XPost Facto ages ago on a Power Computing Power Tower Pro with a Newer or Powerlogix G4 400 and it worked like a charm. I think I ran Jaguar on it as it is a while ago.

Actually I've been using XPostFacto for quite a few years now, going back to 2001 as I recall. Plus I was following the early work of Steve Setzer before XPostFacto was started (see this article (http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/7300.html)). Additionally I've given a number of presentations showing how to use it over the last few years.

:roll:

Plus I had to have known of it or I wouldn't have been able to get Panther on my Beige G3). :wink:

Quote from: "RacerX"I'm not much for following the crowd... and the "newest" stuff from Apple doesn't always do it for me.

I wish I could be more like this, I must confess I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to that kind of thing :-(

For me, the problem with staying with "older" operating systems is the lack of security updates.  As long as the company or the community is active in finding or back-porting fixes, then you are fine, if not....  With OSX you still have some "safety in obscurity", but I still would be wary logging in at starbucks with an older un-patched/supported OS.
The MS machines I manage professionally are all running win2k whenever possible, because XP/Vista bring nothing to the table that we need.  At some point MS will drop support for the w2k tree, and we will be forced to migrate to something else.  Hopefully this will be a non Microsoft OS, such as linux or OSX, but it is difficult to convince clients to embrace the alternatives available at this time.

Just my 2¢

Chef

Quote from: "RacerX"For me, Jaguar is great... fast and non-resource intensive.

Do you think Jaguar is faster than Panther?, I always found the opposite, I recall all my machines seemed quicker when I put Panther on them, but all mine as supported out of the box so I didn't need any hacks, I recall 10 & 10.1 where real sluggish, in fact I gave up using OS X PB & 10 'cos  I could not bear how slow it felt compared to 9.2.2

Quote from: "nextchef"For me, the problem with staying with "older" operating systems is the lack of security updates.  As long as the company or the community is active in finding or back-porting fixes, then you are fine, if not....  With OSX you still have some "safety in obscurity", but I still would be wary logging in at starbucks with an older un-patched/supported OS.

I'm far more likely to be held up at gun point while at a Starbucks than my computer running an older Apple OS is likely to get hacked in any way, shape or form.

It isn't just obscurity... hackers stopped looking for ways into 10.2 years ago. They never looked for ways into Rhapsody, and most have never even seen Mac OS 8/9.

While observing good security practices is admirable, in all reality it is 99.9999% a Windows problem out side of web servers.

There are no exploits, there are no known vulnerabilities, and there is no one looking for them on older Apple operating systems.

You are more likely to get struck by lightning... on a clear day, then you are likely to have a 10.2 system hacked.

And to this day (and I'm including the Maynor/Ellch magic show) no one has hacked a properly configured Mac (though there was a 10.1 DHCP flaw that could have been exploited at one point... but wasn't).


Further, I'm guessing that you are either relatively young or relatively new to Apple computers. For those of us who have been around for a while... we truly know what it was to have viruses and the like. See, back in the late 80's early 90's Macs were the big targets of viruses. No one aimed anything at PCs. It wasn't until Microsoft installed Virtual Basic Scripting by default on Windows 98 systems that Windows users got their first real taste of viruses.

But here is your real problem... Microsoft left ways into your system for them to get in even if you don't want them in. No other OS by any other company has been so flawed by design as Windows. And even if you trust Microsoft, that doesn't mean that hackers aren't going to find Microsoft's backdoors (they already have been finding them).

Frankly, I wouldn't use Windows if you paid me. And I surely wouldn't ever use it connected to a network of any type (it really shouldn't even be run on real hardware). In fact, if you are using Windows... you were hacked the first time it started up.

There are no old operating systems not made by Microsoft that are at any risk of being hacked. Period.

I know misery loves company, but Windows users have these problems all to themselves now.

But that is just my 2¢. :D

Quote from: "brams"Do you think Jaguar is faster than Panther?, I always found the opposite, I recall all my machines seemed quicker when I put Panther on them, but all mine as supported out of the box so I didn't need any hacks, I recall 10 & 10.1 where real sluggish, in fact I gave up using OS X PB & 10 'cos  I could not bear how slow it felt compared to 9.2.2

Ask yourself this question... can anything that requires more resources be faster?

Sure, with each new version of Mac OS X the system has improved ways of taking advantage of the different resources available to it. So if you are running Mac OS X 10.2 on a multiprocessor G4 with a great video card and a ton of memory... you'll see some improvements when moving to 10.3.

But isn't it a little odd that with 10.0/10.1 you could get away with 256 Mb of memory, and with 10.2 you were okay with between 384 and 512 MB of memory, but then 512 MB started being a minimum for 10.3, and most people recommend at least 1 GB for 10.4.

I run Rhapsody 5.1 on a ThinkPad with 80 MB of RAM and a Pentium processor at 133 MHz... and it is great. Rhapsody on my 8600 with 416 MB of RAM and a PowerPC 604e at 300 MHz is outstanding!

So what changed with Mac OS X?

Display Postscript (a rendering engine originally designed to be run on 68030 based systems) was replaced with Display PDF which wasn't even finished when Apple released Mac OS X. Add to that the fact that the GUI designers wanted to show off Display PDF's transparency abilities, so they made an incredibly intensive theme. And then there was fact that things like the Finder was made of Carbon... which also wasn't finished.

Mac OS X v10.2 was the first finished version of Mac OS X. After that, they started adding in more "features" to make people buy faster (newer) hardware.

Mac OS X 10.2.8 runs perfect on my iMac (G3 at 350 MHz)... now, if Mac OS X has truly gotten faster with each new version, then 10.4.x should be incredibly fast on this old system... right?

I ran DP4 and 10.2 on a Beige G3 at 233 MHz... 10.3.9 was a slug on that same system compared to those. It was basically unusable until I finished the upgrades (G4/533, 640 MB of RAM, UltraATA-33 bus, Radeon 7000 with 32 MN of VRAM).

What it comes down to is really quite simple... if you have the resources to spare, then the system that takes the most advantage of them will seem faster. But if you don't have much to begin with, a new resource hungry OS is going to be slower.

I agree that for Rhapsody and macos the risk is close to zero, and that windows is the greater target, but OSX is getting much more scrutiny as its market share increases.  I have no knowledge on the state of vulnerabilities in 10.2, so there may not be any, but I highly doubt it.  No complex assemblage of code like an OS is perfect.  All you can do is follow good coding practices in order to reduce the risk to a minimal acceptable level, and hope for the best.  You try your best, but perfection is an un-obtainable goal.

It has been a long time since someone called me young, so thanks ;).  I guess I was just lucky on the apple side, as I have been using them on and off since 1984.  My main school system for writing was an apple //e that I used untill 92-93 when I got my PB160.  I learned to type well on the //e, so I always found it easier and more comfortable to type on it for extended periods.  

I moved more into the "windows" world after I left grad school in the mid 90's, since outside of the creative side, business did not use macs to any great extent.  Being poor also didnt help, as the macs were very expensive in comparison to a PackardBell 486, for example.

Chef

Quote from: "nextchef"I agree that for Rhapsody and macos the risk is close to zero, and that windows is the greater target, but OSX is getting much more scrutiny as its market share increases.

See, your missing the point... Windows isn't a greater target... it is the greatest target.

QuoteI have no knowledge on the state of vulnerabilities in 10.2, so there may not be any, but I highly doubt it.  No complex assemblage of code like an OS is perfect.

I doubt it too. In fact I'll bet my life on the fact that there are flaws and vulnerabilities in 10.2.

:roll:

But by the same token, no one knows of any and (better yet) no one is looking!


You're really missing the point here.

Firstly, why were Macs targets of viruses and not DOS back in the 80's and early 90's?

Here is a clue...

It had nothing to do with MARKET SHARE!

Surprise, surprise... the simple fact is that PC people who love to bring up "security by obscurity" (that is the line , not "safety in obscurity") don't fully understand it. And as a result, wish that as the Macs market share grows it'll become a target.

Which I might add, it won't.

So, what was the magic answer to my question... which in turn is the same answer to why Windows is the target today (and for the for seeable future).

Transmission. The likelihood of successful propagation.

DOS was the king of market share when Macs were fighting viruses and the like.

The reason for picking Macs was the Mac users were more likely to share files than PC users. PCs were little more than type writer replacements, and few PC users shared files. Almost no PCs were on networks, so propagating a virus was either slow or nearly impossible. But Macs were sharing files all the time, and of the computer platforms where people shared files, the Mac platform was by far the largest.

You can't make a virus work unless it can move from one system to another.

Ask yourself this question... if someone offered you a million dollars to build a rocket, but you had to guarantee that it would successfully hit a planet in our solar system, what planet would you pick?

A smart person would pick the planet that is the biggest target.

Jupiter?

No... that is one of the hardest (and smallest) targets from where we are. The answer is Earth.

Virus writers pick Windows because you can't miss.

Lets do the math (from a virus writer's point of view).

Windows has 95% market share and Macs have 5% (over simplified, but these numbers are pretty much what they see). This means that when their virus wants to move to another system from their original system, 95% of the adjacent systems are Windows systems. And from each of those systems 95% of adjacent systems are Windows systems. And so on.

Now lets look at Macs... 5% of adjacent systems are Mac systems. And only 5% of those have Macs as adjacent systems. And so on.

If a virus was released on Macs, it would move very slowly (if at all) and would be traceable back to the starting point (something no virus writer wants to happen). On the other hand, within a few hours most Windows viruses have spread so fast that there really isn't a clear path to the starting point... or the writer

Earlier this year someone attempted to release a virus on a Mac. Within 24 hours there were more than 100 times the number of articles written about this attempt than there were infected systems. The virus went no where (didn't propagate) and everyone knew exactly where it came from.

No real virus writer wants anything to do with that type of situation.

Further, virus writers have gone way beyond script kiddies... in 2002 it became a profession.

Professional software engineers are now writing viruses, worms and bots... and they are profit driven on top of wanting to not get caught. When that happen, Windows became the ONLY target.

Macs will never have more than 10% market share. And they would need something closer to 50% before they became a reasonable target. And even then, Apple would have to have been as stupid in their design as Microsoft to attract much attention.


All these factors add up... in fact they don't add at all, they multiply.

The chances of viruses on Macs isn't determined by market share... that just happens to be one of the many things that, when multiplied together, make Macs as hard to hit as Jupiter.

Why aim at hitting a small dot in the sky when hitting the ground is so much easier?



I hate to break it to you, but Windows has the security market all locked up. There just isn't any room for other platforms there.

Congratulations.

Thats a pretty sad assessment if you think the Mac will never break 10% market share.  I think the market share will jump substantially in the next 5 years, and would not be suprised if it reached 30%.  Now a good portion of these will be Macs running windows, either natively or in products like parallels or vmware, but they still will be Mac's.  IWith the switch to intel hardware, every mac is a potential windows machine waiting to be targeted.

Point taken on market share, let me rephrase it as "exploitable" market share.  This is the major thing now, as it was back then.  I do not count the "type writer replacements" in the calculations as they were not personal computers per se.  Once all those "type writer replacements" became machines running win95 and attached to the network, they became nice juicy targets.

As you said, virus writers are all about the money now.  The point is to grab as many eyeballs as possible, and install as many adware or spam relay agents as they can.  As the virus market gets more crowded, they are going to have to find new targets to go after.  That "Jupiter" target may be harder to hit, but you will not be fighting with a million other rockets going for the easy target.  OSX is the next logical target, especially with all the new users being drawn into the fold.  How many mac users do you know that are still running with admin privelages instead of a limited account?  This fact alone makes "transmission"/infection much easier. and much more like windows.  All the security does not matter if the user still blindly clicks the "OK" box after opening that email attachment.

The Mac community must continue to be proactive in this area, or they will fall victim to the same problems as windows users.

Chef

Actually, you are still missing the point... Windows is Windows, be it on a PC or a Mac. In fact, the growth of Mac OS X has leveled off for the first time in the last 5 years. Odd when you consider the fact that Apple is selling a lot of Macs don't you think?

Windows on Macs is the single biggest threat that Apple currently faces. And Apple knows it. The whole point of Apple making the Intel Macs not Windows compatible was to make sure that when people bought a Mac they were using Mac OS X.

A Mac running Windows is a PC... and as a PC those users have no reason to buy a Mac the next time. Apple depends on people using Mac OS X and that Mac OS X makes them buy more Macs in the future.

Apple only caved into letting Windows run on Macs after people found a way to do it (that also ran the risk of killing the system if done wrong). It was not a coincidence that Boot Camp came out days after a successful way of running Windows on Macs was found. At least with Parallels and the like you are running Mac OS X to run Windows.. with Boot Camp, users need never see Mac OS X on their systems at all.

Any one running Windows on a Mac deserves what they get.

As for reaching out to Mac OS X to gain more viewers for adware and the like... you really must not know that much about how Mac OS X works. The reason that all that stuff works on Windows is that the users don't have to do a single thing to have the stuff placed on their systems. You don't have that situation in Mac OS X.

In fact I've actually seen Windows users complain about the fact that you have to authenticate everything in Mac OS X.

And that doesn't even address issues like the Windows registry... why in the world can web sites see Windows' registry? There is no other single security whole as big as how Microsoft has done it's internet connections.

Plus, you are missing the thing that has made Mac survive for all this time... Mac users aren't quite or passive. When anything happens Mac users scream bloody murder.

Most Windows users falsely assume that Windows viruses are computer viruses... and that all computers a vulnerable to them (I hope you aren't that gullible). As such, security problems are a fact of life for them (as it seems to be for you too... I really hope you aren't that gullible).

Quote from: "nextchef"Thats a pretty sad assessment if you think the Mac will never break 10% market share.

It isn't an assessment... it is what I truly hope (and Mac OS X stalling right now doesn't hold well for your 30% figure).

Frankly, I don't want to see Apple with a majority (or even significant) market share. In all actually they have too much as it is (Mac users actually make up more than 15% of all computer users in the US... remember, market share is the percentage of new systems sold each quarter (I haven't been counted in Apple's market share since the third quarter of 2000).

There was an interesting study done back in the 80's that warned against homogeneous computer platforms in government, corporations and other organizations. The model they put forward was the agriculture industry.

Before the dust bowl farmers were planting field after field of the same crops next to each other. What they found out (the hard way) was that this let viruses and pests destroy thousands of fields with almost no way to stop them.

The solution was to not plant similar crops next to each other. Different crops react differently to threats, and by having many different crops you slow and could isolate threats.

The government was warned that using any one platform would give rise to computer threats that we wouldn't be able to keep those threats in check.

The government ignored them, and we have the Windows problem today.

The thing is, have a second major platform isn't all that much better than having only one. What we need is four or five major platforms. I may not like Linux as a platform to do work in, but I absolutely support it as a platform I'd like to see grow. Same with BSD and even Solaris.

I'm not an Apple cheer leader, I'm a realist. I know what is what in the computer industry, and how it can effect my platforms.



Oh, and your comment on why you went PC... why would you think that your logic about virus writers works for them but it doesn't apply to computer service?

Think about... if everyone goes into PC service, then who is taking care of all those Macs?

When I started my consulting business back in 2000, I was supporting both Macs and Windows. By 2002 I had dropped all support for anything Microsoft. And I have no shortage of clients (more work than I really want actually).

See, in reality your logic about virus writers works for service people in the Mac community because Mac service people and consultants aren't trying to hide from the law. It doesn't work for virus writers because the best place to hide is in a crowd of people.

Think about it.

Cool RacerX is spun up! I don't mean that in the children's way, I mean that we can learn more and I mean that most sincerely. Glad it wasn't me that spun him up though :shock:

Quote from: "RacerX"
Windows on Macs is the single biggest threat that Apple currently faces. And Apple knows it. The whole point of Apple making the Intel Macs not Windows compatible was to make sure that when people bought a Mac they were using Mac OS X.

And i thought the whole point in making Macs not Win compatible in the first place was that openfirmeware and powerpc were so much better :D
At least the reason why i switched to Apple, certainly not the crappy OS 9

Quote from: "RacerX"
A Mac running Windows is a PC...

A Computer in general what uses the crappy x86 isa is a pc for me. How could such an inferior cpu desing survive that long and reincarnate  everytime it seems to be dead at last. (And yes - i believe in "the" power - see my nick if you will)

Quote from: "RacerX"
In fact I've actually seen Windows users complain about the fact that you have to authenticate everything in Mac OS X.

Well - i've fooled around with windows vista rcs and it's fare more worse there - actually they cut the "feature" back because most users thought it was just annoying

Quote from: "RacerX"
The thing is, have a second major platform isn't all that much better than having only one. What we need is four or five major platforms. I may not like Linux as a platform to do work in, but I absolutely support it as a platform I'd like to see grow. Same with BSD and even Solaris.

I'd liked to have Irix - but sadly thats gone  :(

Quote from: "Nightengale"Cool RacerX is spun up! I don't mean that in the children's way, I mean that we can learn more and I mean that most sincerely. Glad it wasn't me that spun him up though :shock:

Haha, yes he is, he really go on his soap box!!!, It does make very interesting listening though even if I dont agree with some of his points I agree with most of them. :-)

Quote from: "RacerX"Windows on Macs is the single biggest threat that Apple currently faces. And Apple knows it. The whole point of Apple making the Intel Macs not Windows compatible was to make sure that when people bought a Mac they were using Mac OS X.

A Mac running Windows is a PC... and as a PC those users have no reason to buy a Mac the next time. Apple depends on people using Mac OS X and that Mac OS X makes them buy more Macs in the future.

Apple only caved into letting Windows run on Macs after people found a way to do it (that also ran the risk of killing the system if done wrong). It was not a coincidence that Boot Camp came out days after a successful way of running Windows on Macs was found. At least with Parallels and the like you are running Mac OS X to run Windows.. with Boot Camp, users need never see Mac OS X on their systems at all.

Is this seculation or are you stating fact?, I find it hard to imagine that this was not part of the plan from day one.  That's not to say I don't agree that it may or may not damage Apple in the long term and I agree with the comments that a Macintel is a PC, no doubt about it.  And it was obvious that somebody would get OS X onto a PC and Windows onto a Mac, it had to happen as the hardware was so close.

Quote from: "RacerX"Any one running Windows on a Mac deserves what they get.

You are obviously not the gaming type then, Macs under OS X are positively shit at playing games compared to Windows, I hate Windows as much as the next person, but the choice and quality of gaming titles is awsome, add to that that games seem to be better under DirectX than OpenGL and the configuration options for controllers etc is better.  I used to have a PC just and only for games, now that has gone out of the window as I play games on my MacBook Pro.

Quote from: "Nightengale"Glad it wasn't me that spun him up though :shock:

Yes, I push my points pretty hard... but I don't want anyone to take it personally. :oops:

Quote from: "PowerPC"And i thought the whole point in making Macs not Win compatible in the first place was that openfirmeware and powerpc were so much better  :D

I really liked the PowerPC architecture better too. If Microsoft hadn't monopolized all of IBM's attention, then we'd most likely still have PowerPC based systems today.

Quote from: "PowerPC"I'd liked to have Irix - but sadly thats gone

I had it listed in my original draft... I guess I'm still in a state of denial.  :(

Quote from: "brams"Haha, yes he is, he really go on his soap box!!!, It does make very interesting listening though even if I dont agree with some of his points I agree with most of them.

Maybe I should change my name to Soap Box Racer.  :lol:


:?  Hmmm... wait a second...

:x  Just what points don't you agree with!



... just kidding. :wink:

From the people I talked to at Apple from before the Intel Macs release, after their release and finally after Boot Camp was finally released... Apple wanted no part of Windows running natively on Macs, and they only undid what they were using to stop Windows from installing after someone came up with a method that when done right would let you install Windows and when done wrong killed your system.

So no, running Windows natively wasn't part of Apple's original plan. Parallels is currently the system that Apple pushes as their preferred way of running Windows apps on Macs.

But lets run down the reasons why this is the worst thing Apple is currently facing (and why they tried to avoid it).

First, the switchers. As I've already pointed out, even with Apple's great sales numbers, Mac OS X has stopped increasing in its usage according to a number of surveys. Why is this? Because switchers aren't actually switching.

In a dual boot system, it is a pain to move back an forth between operating systems... and people are more likely to stick with what they know rather than what is better. Plus they'll be less incline to learn the new system. Windows on a Mac stops switchers from really switching.

Why is this a bad thing? Isn't Apple a hardware company?

It is bad because Apple depends on customer loyalty. And if you aren't hooked on Mac OS X, then there is nothing to stop you from buying some other PC in your next purchase.

Second, the developers. With Windows running on Macs, why port their apps to the Mac platform? Just tell people to install Windows and run the apps that way.

That is what is happening with games now... and normal apps will soon follow. Once applications start disappearing from the platform, users will follow. No apps, no users, no more Mac OS X.


The simple fact of the matter is that people are lazy. If they don't have to learn something new, they won't. If they don't have to support multiple platforms, they won't. With Windows running side by side with Mac OS X, switchers (and gamers) are spending most (if not all) of their time in Windows. And with Windows running side by side with Mac OS X, developers can tell people to just boot Windows.

What many people don't know is that what has been holding Linux back from becoming a great platform is the fact that it has been running on the same systems as Windows. They have a hard time getting people to make it their only platform, and they have a really hard time getting developers to take the platform seriously.

We Mac users are about to face the same thing... and Apple knows it.


We can even go back to the early days of Mac OS X... many people didn't boot into Mac OS X for one thing and back into Mac OS 9 for another... the stayed in one because it was too much trouble to keep rebooting. The point of Classic was to keep people in Mac OS X, same with Parallels. But with Boot Camp you don't have Mac OS X running while Windows is running.

Out of sight, out of mind.

You bring up games... I had a number of titles that were Mac OS 9 only, and for quite some time my iMac was always in Mac OS 9 because of that.

What eventually made me stop booting Mac OS 9? Ghost Recon (and ports of some of my other favorite games).



The problem is that the community isn't aware of the impending doom that is awaiting us. You are happy because you got what you wanted (games on your MacBook Pro) but you don't realize that by getting what you wanted you will also lose the Mac platform.

This is a true case of "careful what you wish for, you might just get it."

You're happy now, I wonder if you'll be feeling the same way five or so years from now. Your games are coming at a pretty steep price. :shock:

Hmm you rise some very good points there, that I had not considered.

Quote from: "Soap Box Racer ;-)"Second, the developers. With Windows running on Macs, why port their apps to the Mac platform? Just tell people to install Windows and run the apps that way.

That is what is happening with games now... and normal apps will soon follow. Once applications start disappearing from the platform, users will follow. No apps, no users, no more Mac OS X.

That one had dawned on me, I'd also thought that perhaps conversely people would boot OS X, see it was better and on the their next SW purchase buy the OS X version but the thing about booting and rebooting into Windows and X is a pain.

For me I actually have Windows 2000 installed on my MacBook Pro and that is only for games, It's also handy to have for upgrading firmware for some of the stuff I own like Digi cams etc.  I also use it for some of the stuff I work with (training apps that kind of thing),  But I only boot it once a week.

Quote from: "RacerX"This is a true case of "careful what you wish for, you might just get it."

- Cue spooky music - I imagine visions of Pin Head from Hell Rasier, which is where I belive you got that line from?

Quote from: "RacerX"You're happy now, I wonder if you'll be feeling the same way five or so years from now. Your games are coming at a pretty steep price. Shocked

Are you suggesting that for Macs or even perhaps Apple Computer that in 5 years it will all be over 'cos they switched to Intel? are you saying we should all take Windows off our Macintels?

Personally for me I think it was a step backwards going to x86, I've lived with the assertion rightly or wrongly (I'm easy to brainwash) that RISC is was better for various reasons, this can be seen from the likes of all the decent workstations and some degree various CRAY which used DEC Alpha AXP's.  I realised the Intel and AMD Hammer CPU's achieve what they due by brute force and little else, programming friends inform that PPC is better for some reason.

I was gutted when I read Intel CPU's where going to appear in Mac but I can understand why IBM threw in the towel (economies of scale/size of market) & Apple who needed better than what IBM had planned.  Thus I got over it.

The reason I can't believe that Apple did not plan to put Windows on the Macintel was that it was obvious it was going to happen one day with or without Apples blessing and probably sooner rather than later.

All these gaint corporations fail miserably when they try to lock things up, it throws down the gauntlet and people pick up the challenge just to show they're hacking prowess and just for the hell of it.  I can't imagine Apple thought they'd be able to lock Windows out of the equation.  Hollywood tried to lock DVD's up using CSS and that got hacked as you know by a 16 year old Finnish student.

Windows wasn't able to run on EFI based systems that weren't specifically set up to support it. Apple thought that people killing their systems while attempting to hack them would be enough of a deterrent... but they weren't expecting that people would start collecting prize money for successfully hacking the system.


But yes, Windows running side by side on Macs with Mac OS X could very well place Mac OS X in the same position as NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, Rhapsody, IRIX and the Be OS are in today... great operating systems without current applications.

The current hardware sales are mainly the iPod halo effect... Apple products are a fad right now. But that won't last, and Apple knows this. Their main goal was to hook people on Mac OS X... but most of the people they had hoped to hook aren't even using it now.


Frankly, if I was the head of Apple I would have locked down the platform much better. The reason for not doing a better job was Intel.

Apple is not (and will not be) Intel's biggest customer. What Apple brings to the table (and why Intel has wanted Apple as a customer for about 10 years now) is their ability to implement new technologies.

PC makers have to wait for Windows to support hardware, and Microsoft doesn't support hardware that isn't shipping on PCs... USB was caught in this trap for almost 4 years before Apple single handedly pushed it into being a standard. Intel gives Apple preferential treatment because Apple can showcase Intel technology that other PC makers won't.


But Apple never wanted to go head to head with Windows. And with Macs booting Windows now, that is exactly what has happened.

It may look really nice right now (Apple reporting record profits), but the slide has started... and it'll be interesting to see what Apple plans on doing to try to stop it.

As it stands, odds are that many of those people who bought Macs are not going to buy them again. They missed what makes Macs special, so they appeared to be little more than a luxury PC to most of them. Something to show off as a status symbol.

Quote from: "RacerX"Windows wasn't able to run on EFI based systems that weren't specifically set up to support it. Apple thought that people killing their systems while attempting to hack them would be enough of a deterrent... but they weren't expecting that people would start collecting prize money for successfully hacking the system.


But yes, Windows running side by side on Macs with Mac OS X could very well place Mac OS X in the same position as NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, Rhapsody, IRIX and the Be OS are in today... great operating systems without current applications.

The current hardware sales are mainly the iPod halo effect... Apple products are a fad right now. But that won't last, and Apple knows this. Their main goal was to hook people on Mac OS X... but most of the people they had hoped to hook aren't even using it now.

Frankly, if I was the head of Apple I would have locked down the platform much better. The reason for not doing a better job was Intel.

Apple is not (and will not be) Intel's biggest customer. What Apple brings to the table (and why Intel has wanted Apple as a customer for about 10 years now) is their ability to implement new technologies.

PC makers have to wait for Windows to support hardware, and Microsoft doesn't support hardware that isn't shipping on PCs... USB was caught in this trap for almost 4 years before Apple single handedly pushed it into being a standard. Intel gives Apple preferential treatment because Apple can showcase Intel technology that other PC makers won't.

But Apple never wanted to go head to head with Windows. And with Macs booting Windows now, that is exactly what has happened.

It may look really nice right now (Apple reporting record profits), but the slide has started... and it'll be interesting to see what Apple plans on doing to try to stop it.

As it stands, odds are that many of those people who bought Macs are not going to buy them again. They missed what makes Macs special, so they appeared to be little more than a luxury PC to most of them. Something to show off as a status symbol.

Damn, you're right on every single count, however no matter how hard you try you could not lock out Windows,  not unless you shipped OS X burned onto roms on the motherboard that is.

If it's got an x86 CPU, that means the biggest hurdle is overcome, even if they had used a custom ASIC for the Northbridge or Southbridge or whatever some clever person is gonna have to gumption to reverse engineer it and write drivers for it for Windows.  In anycase sadly, Apple's volumes are that small as they basically do not matter, sure it's great to have Apple as your customer because they are "cool" and that halo make you cooler I guess, but if they vanished of the face of the Earth tomorrow we'd be gutted but the world would carry on without Apple.

I think they where stuck between a rock and a hard place, where would they have got CPU's that mattered outside of Intel or AMD?, everything is is gone except SPARC as far as I know, and AMD Hammer blows SPARC out of the water, iirc is there even a SPARC that can be used in portables.

I do hope you are wrong, but when I think about the points you've raised it does make me think this could be the last stand.

Don Estridge and Bill Gates have got a lot to answer for  :evil:

Quote from: "Nightengale"Cool RacerX is spun up! I don't mean that in the children's way, I mean that we can learn more and I mean that most sincerely. Glad it wasn't me that spun him up though :shock:

Yea, I am getting pretty good at getting him "spun up" lately ;)

Chef

Ok .. puttin on the flame retardent suit for this one ... everyone hold on.

Now hear me out before pulling out the BFG's.

Apple is a consumer electronic and content delivery company now, not a computer company.
 
Apple sees the eventual demise of its computer hardware business, and is trying to get out of it.  iPOD, iTV and the iTUNES Store is the future of apple, and Steve knows it. Computers currently are a necessary evil, in order to further their consumer electronics and media aspirations.  By switching to the x86 architecture it allowed them to basically outsource their hardware development to Intel.  No more need for apple to design or contract for special north/southbridge or memory controllers, just let intel do it.  They can still spend ther time on the design and outward appearance of the systems, since it still is a Mac after all, and that is what people expect.  As others have stated, if they really cared about keeping OSX contained, they would have stayed with the PowerPC architecture, and their proprietary hardware.  They did not, and that speaks volumes about the priority of things inside Apple.

Look at the last few keynotes, and what do you see .. iPOD .. iPOD .. iTV, and oh by the way we still have our Computers over here to connect your iPOD to, and run the ITUNES store to buy content with.  But if you have a windows pc, that is ok to, as long as you buy our new iPOD.  Apple wants to position itself as the defacto content distribution mechanism for the world.  You want a song, go to iTUNES, you missed last nights episode of lost, go to iTUNES, you feel like watching a movie, go to iTUNES.  And what are you going to listen/watch that content on??? An iPOD or iTV, since you have no other choice with the current "FairPlay" DRM.

The iTV device just re-inforces both points even more.  It is a way to get content onto your living room tv, which means by definition that a person will no longer be sitting in front of the computer, be it a Mac or Wintel.  The computer becomes just a "bit bucket" to store content that will be consumed on the iTV or iPOD.  Yes you may have to sit down at it currently to purchase the content, but I would bet that future versions of the iTV device will even remove that restriction and allow you to purchase content directly from your couch.  And since you are not sitting in front of your computer to consume content, it does not matter what kind it is, as long as it can run iTUNES in order to serve content.  The speculation that the iTV device will allow one to connect an iSIGHT camera to it, is another powerful nail in the computer coffin.  This would allow you to use iCHAT to converse with family and friends in your living room, and not need to go to your computer.  "Bob Cringley" brings up these points, and a few others like the Apple "iPLASMA" tv, in his column, and I believe it is a powerful argument on the future direction of Apple.

Lets look into the future when products like fiber to the home give users 10Mbit connections, and speculate a little.  In this environment, streaming of video content becomes a viable option, and then what becomes of the computer.  With the ability to stream and watch content directly from the network on your iTV/iPLASMA/iLCD, the computer is bypassed.  This has powerful benefits for Apple and the content creators.  No content would be permanently stored on your computer, so no pesky problems with ripping off the DRM and sharing the files.  Lets further extend this and add in your music to the mix.  With this high speed connectivity, apple could "store" all your iTUNES library on "their" servers, and just send it to your iPOD as necessary.  You want the new Rush album, hook up your iPOD to the iTV, fire up the store and purchase it all from your couch.  The content is added to your "virtual library" at Apple, and sent to your connected ipod.  Add in a small bluetooth keyboard, and this becomes even easier, along with email and web surfing as well.  Once Apple adds true cellphone technology to the iPOD, then one could just buy the content directly on the device and either download it then, or wait untill later to get it at home when you connect to your dock.

I could go on further with this, but you get the point.  The traditional computer becomes less and less necessary for the majority of things one does in your "digital" life.  You still would need some sort of station to do typing intensive tasks, like writing a book or something else longer than a simple email, preparing a keynote or powerpoint presentation, etc.  This would probably be some sort of larger portable device, similar to a notebook computer today, that you could place on your desk when required, and taken out with you when you go.

Steve Jobs is known for being very foreward thinking, usually farther than the technology can currently provide, which is one of his biggest strengths.  He is a passionate visionary that has glimpsed the "post computer/PC" world, and is positioning Apple to be the center of it.

OK, the flaming may commence now .. ;)

Chef

Quote from: "RacerX"Windows wasn't able to run on EFI based systems that weren't specifically set up to support it. Apple thought that people killing their systems while attempting to hack them would be enough of a deterrent... but they weren't expecting that people would start collecting prize money for successfully hacking the system.

Apple has stated publically on many ocasions that they did not care if people ran windows.  They were not going to go out of their way to support it, but they certainly did not try very hard to stop it from happening.  Leaving out the legacy bios extensions in their EFI implementation was really just a small bump in the road, and not a true deterrent.

Chef

My problem with this unfortunate development is that i'm a "child" of the computer age. I don't want an iWorld full of "gadgets" (nextchef your opinin's pretty much what the guys at arstechnica foretold when the "switch"  :evil:  was announced) but a most perfected real computer. Back in the good old days i "believed"  :D  that Apple with its superior hardwaredesing would someday built such a machine but now no one's left to try.

Anyway i whined for some time, got me the last real PowerBook (17 inch  :D  ) and that'll do for a very long time since for my allday needs G4@1Ghz performs just fine. Perhaps i should be thankfull - the x86 switch healed me from beeing a fanboy and now i've got free resources to get the real great computers like the NeXT  :D

Quote from: "brams"..., iirc is there even a SPARC that can be used in portables...

Never heard of Tadpole http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/ i'd love to have one of those (ok the bullfrog is actually not a real notebook  :P  )

Quote from: "brams"..., where would they have got CPU's that mattered outside of Intel or AMD?

The ppc based chips for the new game consoles tell just one thing - if your'e paying for it, IBM will built it.

Quote from: "brams"...everything is is gone except SPARC...

That's fortunatly not true: Everything's pretty much arround except they all've gone embedded or elswere. IBM's still got the real POWER (to exspensive for me  :cry:  ) - MIPS (as in SGI long ago  :cry:  ) you'll have for e.g. in the PSP &c. Only ALPHA 's gone (thank you Intel  :evil:  ) and i expect PA-RISC is the very next to die since they're not used elswhere.

Quote from: "PowerPC"My problem with this unfortunate development is that i'm a "child" of the computer age. I don't want an iWorld full of "gadgets" (nextchef your opinin's pretty much what the guys at arstechnica foretold when the "switch"  :evil:  was announced) but a most perfected real computer. Back in the good old days i "believed"  :D  that Apple with its superior hardwaredesing would someday built such a machine but now no one's left to try.

Anyway i whined for some time, got me the last real PowerBook (17 inch  :D  ) and that'll do for a very long time since for my allday needs G4@1Ghz performs just fine. Perhaps i should be thankfull - the x86 switch healed me from beeing a fanboy and now i've got free resources to get the real great computers like the NeXT  :D

I still hold out hope that Apple may suprise everyone.  I am a big proponent of the whole tablet pc concep, and was really excited to see Apples patent filings in the area a few years ago.  I have even started using my newton again for note taking, because it is still the best executed example to be found.  The handwriting recognintion is still amazing even today.  The screen needs to be a little bigger, and color would be nice.  A higher resolution would not hurt also.  All these issues have been resolved in todays technology market.  My idea of the perfect tablet would be a device about 6inx9in or so, with a high res color screen/digitizer (since I tend to write sloppy and use fine tip pens) with wireless capability.  It does not have to be a full-blown  PC/notebook, but a more specialized device.  It could be used to take down notes, read email, surf the web, control your tv/iTV in the living room at home, and other general use stuff.  I cant take notes using a notebook, as I grew up using a pen and paper, not like todays kids.  Writing takes more time than just typing like a court stenographer, so you have to learn to collect your thoughts quickly and figure out what the person is trying to say, not just grab every word they say.  If i want that, I'd bring a digital recorder or stenographer.

This is an area that is ready for some real innovation, and apple is the company that normally fills that role, so I still hold out against hope that my prayers will be answered.

Chef

Quote from: "RacerX"As it stands, odds are that many of those people who bought Macs are not going to buy them again. They missed what makes Macs special, so they appeared to be little more than a luxury PC to most of them. Something to show off as a status symbol.

Sorry to break it to you, but for a long time buying a Mac has been exactly that,  a "status symbol".  Up untill OSX and some of the "i-apps", there really was not much you could do on a mac that you could not do on a Wintel machine.  Apps like iMOVIE and iDVD are just so damn easy to use for a normal person, which was something lacking on the pc side.

A Timex tells time as good as a Rolex, but it is certainly not as "cool" or as nice looking.

Chef

Quote from: "PowerPC"Never heard of Tadpole http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/ i'd love to have one of those (ok the bullfrog is actually not a real notebook  :P  )

Yeah I've heard of them, unfortunately I had something a bit more portable than that in mind.  I wasn't aware General Dynamics had bought Tadpole, they are the people that make tanks if my memory serves, the laptops certainly look tank like, In wonder if they share technologies, an armoured laptop, that would be cool.

QuoteThe ppc based chips for the new game consoles tell just one thing - if your'e paying for it, IBM will built it.

I think you should have said if you paying enough for it they'll build it.  The market for PS3 and XBOX II is much bigger than the Mac market, thus they can afford to fund the R&D of the CELL processors.

QuoteThat's fortunatly not true: Everything's pretty much arround except they all've gone embedded or elswere. IBM's still got the real POWER (to exspensive for me  :cry:  ) - MIPS (as in SGI long ago  :cry:  ) you'll have for e.g. in the PSP &c. Only ALPHA 's gone (thank you Intel  :evil:  ) and i expect PA-RISC is the very next to die since they're not used elswhere.

Yeah, well same thing happend to the Arm CPU, that was one of the first RISC CPU's on the market (in fact i think it was the first), I had an Acorn Archimedes that had an 8mhz Arm 2 back in 1988, and we English know all too well what happend to Acorn Computer (R.I.P) and today you find the once great Arm CPU's powering everything from PDA's, Firewire/ATA bridges and Cellphones.

My point is, sure loads of people are still making embedded CPU's, MIPS, NEC, Hitachi SuperH RISC engine etc.  But I'm talking about a general purpose CPU's like you find in laptops, workstations and servers.  I would imagine that most embeded CPU's are optimised for a particular function for example does a car engine management system need an FPU or SIMD unit.  Thus if you where to make a workstation using a SuperH for example, would it be any good?.

Quote from: "nextchef"

Quote from: "RacerX"As it stands, odds are that many of those people who bought Macs are not going to buy them again. They missed what makes Macs special, so they appeared to be little more than a luxury PC to most of them. Something to show off as a status symbol.

Sorry to break it to you, but for a long time buying a Mac has been exactly that,  a "status symbol".  Up untill OSX and some of the "i-apps", there really was not much you could do on a mac that you could not do on a Wintel machine.  Apps like iMOVIE and iDVD are just so damn easy to use for a normal person, which was something lacking on the pc side.

A Timex tells time as good as a Rolex, but it is certainly not as "cool" or as nice looking.

Chef

Macs just work, PC's are a pile of shit to use in comparision, I corrupted the BIOS (yes really I could not believe it too) of my PC 2 times whilst compressing a DV stream onto DVD using Pinnicle Studio 8.  Random times it would just restart for no apparent reason, No PC I have ever used is nearly as funtional to use as a Mac.  My Pismo can do it with a fraction of the processing power and that's 6 years old with a fraction of the ram the PC had.

I have a 12 year old Macintosh 840av with SpiggotPower AV and that does not crash when I play about with video on that, actually given enough time and if it where possible to get an 040 version of Quicktime that worked with the SPAV that did DV I'm quite confident the 840av would do a DVD, it might take it a couple of months to compress the DV stream, but I'm sure it would not crash, that to me it what makes Macs special, you can tell that they where made to use and thought out and executed properly.

BTW, have you ever used Windows 98?

Quote from: "brams"

Quote from: "nextchef"

Quote from: "RacerX"As it stands, odds are that many of those people who bought Macs are not going to buy them again. They missed what makes Macs special, so they appeared to be little more than a luxury PC to most of them. Something to show off as a status symbol.

Sorry to break it to you, but for a long time buying a Mac has been exactly that,  a "status symbol".  Up untill OSX and some of the "i-apps", there really was not much you could do on a mac that you could not do on a Wintel machine.  Apps like iMOVIE and iDVD are just so damn easy to use for a normal person, which was something lacking on the pc side.

A Timex tells time as good as a Rolex, but it is certainly not as "cool" or as nice looking.

Chef

Macs just work, PC's are a pile of shit to use in comparision, I corrupted the BIOS (yes really I could not believe it too) of my PC 2 times whilst compressing a DV stream onto DVD using Pinnicle Studio 8.  Random times it would just restart for no apparent reason, No PC I have ever used is nearly as funtional to use as a Mac.  My Pismo can do it with a fraction of the processing power and that's 6 years old with a fraction of the ram the PC had.

I have a 12 year old Macintosh 840av with SpiggotPower AV and that does not crash when I play about with video on that, actually given enough time and if it where possible to get an 040 version of Quicktime that worked with the SPAV that did DV I'm quite confident the 840av would do a DVD, it might take it a couple of months to compress the DV stream, but I'm sure it would not crash, that to me it what makes Macs special, you can tell that they where made to use and thought out and executed properly.

BTW, have you ever used Windows 98?

The fact that Apple controlled the hardware/software environment made it much easier to create a stable computing environment.  The "PC" crashing has more to do with windows than it does with the hardware, in my experience.  That is why re-installing windows can make a crash happy pc "well" again.

Unfortunately I have been forced to use Windows 98, and to support people who were as well.  That is why I started using linux allmost exclusively back in 1998 or so, whenever mandrake became popular.  It was not much more difficult to use gui wise, but it was rock solid stable.  My main machine at work ran it, and I ran Win95 in vmware in order to get access to the windows only corporate apps like act and groupwise mail.

You want a pc to work well, dump win9x and install w2k, or better yet install linux and not have to worry about it again ( or just buy a Mac :))

Chef

Quote from: "brams"Damn, you're right on every single count, however no matter how hard you try you could not lock out Windows, not unless you shipped OS X burned onto roms on the motherboard that is.

Actually that would lock Mac OS X onto the hardware, but not Windows off of it.

No, what they needed to do was something more nonstandard... something that would have required a hardware work around. That would have been enough of a deterrent to keep people from easily running Windows on their Macs.

And that is the main point... to keep them from easily doing it. If it wasn't easy, then they'd be more likely to stick with Mac OS X.

Quote from: "nextchef"Ok .. puttin on the flame retardent suit for this one ... everyone hold on...

OK, the flaming may commence now .. ;)

First, Apple doesn't make money on iTunes content... they make money on iPods. Second, Apple still makes much of their money on computer hardware which (at least was) a stable business.

Third... Apple isn't Microsoft.

The third point is important because you are projecting Microsoft thinking onto Apple.

Apple wants you to have the songs, Apple wants you to have the movies... Microsoft has been single-mindedly pushing for any version of "subscription" since 2000.  Remember, Microsoft is in the software business, and software shouldn't ever ware out... Apple is in the hardware business... hardware always needs replacing.

Absolutely Apple will do what they can to keep you using their hardware... but your content lock down theory shows that you've been living in the Microsoft world too long.

Microsoft couldn't get the software subscription stuff to fly (their first attempt was Office 2000 in Australia back in 2000-2001) and Napster is going to show the failure of it in the online music content arena.

Remember... Microsoft makes their money on software so they need you to need new software to make money. They would rather you just subscribe to them for the use of their software, so they wouldn't have to think up new ways to make the software better.

Apple makes it's money on hardware, and hardware is always improving and older hardware is always waring out.

If you are going to attempt to get into the minds of corporations... make sure you really know the corporation first. They all have personalities, and those differ (greatly) from one corporation to the next.

Quote from: "nextchef"Apple has stated publically on many ocasions that they did not care if people ran windows.

No, they didn't.

Go back an read what they said... not what you think you heard, but what they actually said.

Apple said that they wouldn't stop people from trying to run Windows on their Macs.

And they haven't... they were just under the impression (fostered by what Intel told them) that a workaround would have been much harder than it turned out to be.

Quote from: "nextchef"Sorry to break it to you, but for a long time buying a Mac has been exactly that, a "status symbol". Up untill OSX and some of the "i-apps", there really was not much you could do on a mac that you could not do on a Wintel machine. Apps like iMOVIE and iDVD are just so damn easy to use for a normal person, which was something lacking on the pc side.

How would you know what a Mac could do?

Didn't you already tell us that you went PC way back when (wasn't it back in the era of the 486).

Prior to Windows 95/98 there wasn't much that a PC was able to do that a Mac could.

Macs were doing video editing long before Windows, Macs were doing 3D long before Windows... in fact, Macs could do everything long before Windows.

Do you even know when iMovie and iDVD were released?


Up until between 1998 and 2001 PCs weren't comparable to Timex in your analogy... they were more like sun dials. You could tell the time, but you had to do a lot of work to figure it out and it still wasn't that accurate.

The only difference is that most PCs worked at night... sun dials don't.


And there are still things that I can do on Mac OS 8.6 that you can't do on Windows systems today.

And since Windows NT 4.0, Windows has been going backwards in it's usability, not forwards.

And least we forget, the last version of Windows came out in 2001... Microsoft has been bailing water and plugging holes for most of the last 5 years. They didn't want to make Vista... they want their customers to subscribe so they can just collect revenue. Vista has been a half hearted corporate attempt at a new OS.

And further, Microsoft doesn't get computing. They are the singularly most uninnovative technology company in existence today.


Answer me this... what could you do with your PCs back between 1996 and 2001?

I had free video editing software back in 1998 that let me capture and edit video on my 1995 Mac which had built-in video (in and out, composite and s-video) support.

When did you capture and edit your first video on a PC? And what PC could you have captured and edited video on without additional hardware.

Including my SGI Indy, I own six systems (five of them Macs) that have the built-in ability to work with video... all of them are from before 1998.

And I'm able to do more than most PC people I know (which I'd be willing to bet include you) with my non-Windows systems... and I don't even own a computer from the 21st century!


You've spent way to much time with PCs... you've become PC complacent. Which, in turn, makes you Microsoft's wet dream. You believe every other alternative is no better than Microsoft's offerings, and that no other technology company would have motivations different from Microsoft's... so you'll (in the end) always go back to Microsoft.

Basically... why fight it. You really should just keep using a PC. :shock:

Quote from: "RacerX"And further, Microsoft doesn't get computing. They are the singularly most uninnovative technology company in existence today.

Which really is crap considering just how much god damn money they have to throw at problems, just shows the throwing money at something does not guarantee quality.  Maybe Steve Balmers technnology leadership skills are not up to the same standard as his "Developer" motivational techniques.

Quote from: "RacerX"Answer me this... what could you do with your PCs back between 1996 and 2001?

Ctrl-Alt-Del and reset every time you get a BSOD

In all honesty I always tried to stay well clear of PC's, I recall I had an Amiga A500 at the time (about 1986) and I saw the game Pole Position on a PC, it was a complete and utter joke compared to just any other computer at the time playing the same game, in fact I think my friend had an Atari 800 which blew the PC out of the water in terms of graphics.  Pole Position on the PC could only display 4 colours  on screen at the same time, and they where from a fixed pallet, thus if you wanted green trees you got a purple sky, or if you wanted a blue sky you got red trees, total and utter crap.  I can't recall I ever saw a computer with worse graphics than that PC other than say a Sinclair/Timex ZX80/81

Macs came into my life in 1995 or 96, I'd wanted one for years, (since about the IIci) but they where mega expensive here in the UK and I could not afford one, but when it was obvious Acorn Computer where going the way of the dinosaur then I had no choice but to get a Mac, thus I became the proud owner of a Performa 5200/75.

Quote from: "RacerX"I had free video editing software back in 1998 that let me capture and edit video on my 1995 Mac which had built-in video (in and out, composite and s-video) support.

video capturing with a mac
do you know MacVision (Koala Technologies) 1985
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue60/188_1_REVIEWS_MacVision_For_Apple_Macintosh.php

i still have the hardware and the software for a macintosh 512k



it was (is) wonderfull

Quote from: "applefreak"

Quote from: "RacerX"I had free video editing software back in 1998 that let me capture and edit video on my 1995 Mac which had built-in video (in and out, composite and s-video) support.

video capturing with a mac
do you know MacVision (Koala Technologies) 1985
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue60/188_1_REVIEWS_MacVision_For_Apple_Macintosh.php

i still have the hardware and the software for a macintosh 512k



it was (is) wonderfull

The only problem with bringing up earlier examples than what I did was that I didn't have personal experience with them... I, personally, didn't do any video stuff before 1998.

I have a NuBus video capture card from 1991 and the Quadra 840av was from around 1993 as I recall, so there are plenty of examples... just none that I was personally taking advantage of (I was doing mathematics back then... not graphics/video types of things).

Quote from: "RacerX"First, Apple doesn't make money on iTunes content... they make money on iPods. Second, Apple still makes much of their money on computer hardware which (at least was) a stable business.

Apple makes money off of every song it sells.  Apples cut is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%, with the record industry getting the rest.  Now the distribution aparatus takes a good chunk of that 30%, but it does not take all of it.  It is a way to sell iPODS, and I am happy that you agree with me on that point at least.

Quote from: "RacerX"Third... Apple isn't Microsoft.
The third point is important because you are projecting Microsoft thinking onto Apple.
Apple wants you to have the songs, Apple wants you to have the movies...

I do not have to project "microsoft" thinking onto apple, you did that all by yourself.  Your hatred of everything microsoft has tainted your view of the world.  You can not honestly say that Apple does not want to be the dominant player, the "defacto standard" for getting content.  I am sorry you do not see it, but they have locked down the content.  The only portable device I can play anything bought off of the itunes store on is an Apple device.  I can not put it on my creative nomad, or a sandisk, or anything else.  That is complete content lockdown.  It is ironic that the microsoft based online music stores content is less restrictive.  As long as my device supports "plays for sure", the manufacturer does not matter.  I can not speak to how the new Zune player may change this, as I do not know enough about it.

Quote from: "RacerX"Apple makes it's money on hardware, and hardware is always improving and older hardware is always waring out.

Microsoft makes its money on software, and software practices also improve over time.  Be it from bugs needing to be patched, or new features needing to be added, software products evolve just as hardware does.  Microsoft pitched the subscription idea, but the market was unwilling to accept it at this time.  In my experience, subscription based systems put more pressure on the company to be constantly improving the product, not to just stand still.  When you are paying a monthly or yearly "maintenance contract" on a piece of software, you want and demand to see changes and improvements for that money.  If you buy a product for a one time price, you would expect to get some bug fixes for a while, and would like to see new features and improvements added, but the expectations are much less.

Quote from: "RacerX"nextchef wrote:
Apple has stated publically on many ocasions that they did not care if people ran windows.

No, they didn't.

Go back an read what they said... not what you think you heard, but what they actually said.

Fine, If you want to start splitting hairs about it.  Tacit indifferance to it is basically approval of it in my book.  Show me a quote where they emphatically stated that they did not want people to run windows on their macs, not "we would prefer that they not ..." type of language.

Quote from: "RacerX"[You've spent way to much time with PCs... you've become PC complacent. Which, in turn, makes you Microsoft's wet dream. You believe every other alternative is no better than Microsoft's offerings, and that no other technology company would have motivations different from Microsoft's... so you'll (in the end) always go back to Microsoft.

Now you are committing the same mistake you were accusing me of by using terms incorrectly, and putting words in my mouth as well.   I am typing this message on a dell machine running Kubuntu, so yes I am using a "PC" (which means personal computer, just in case you were confused ;))  Saying PC does not necessarily mean windows, which Is why I used Wintel to mean an x86 based machine running a version of Microsoft Windows.  If you are using a mac, compaq, dell, c64, TI99/4a, //e, you are using a PC.

I am no microsoft apologist, and I am also no mac zealot either.  I am an equal opportunity offender, and do not hold anything back when It comes to my opinions.  I see the merits and problems with each, and use them accordingly for what they are best at.  I bought a mac mini for my wife to use on her desk because it fit the need.  It was small, relatively speedy, and easy to use for her, with the minimum amount of support by me required.  I was capturing and editing video on my PII system back in 1999, using an iomega Buzz.   I built that system myself, picked the best parts I could afford at the time, and set it up so it worked well.  Now it may have been easier on a mac at the time, but as I said before, I could not afford a Mac.  Income and prices have come to a point where I can now, so I did.  I will probably buy an iTV for my living room at some point, if it ends up working as well as everyone expects.

I have always appreciated what Apple has done for the computer industry as a whole, and sure hope they can do more in the future than just sell consumer devices and other peoples content.

Quote from: "RacerX"Basically... why fight it. You really should just keep using a PC. :shock:

And you just continue to use your mac, and confirm the typical stereotype of a "mac zealot/bigot". :shock:

Quote from: "brams"But I'm talking about a general purpose CPU's...

Just read that - man that sounds amazing  :D  give me money and i buy one (or two  :lol:  ) http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061019-8034.html

Quote from: "nextchef"
And you just continue to use your mac, and confirm the typical stereotype of a "mac zealot/bigot". :shock:

and we hit the inevitable rock bottom on the topic of "Rhapsody 5.6 what's the difference"  :roll: . Yes that is all I have to say on the subject of windows vs mac vs os x vs whatever.

Quote from: "Nightengale"

Quote from: "nextchef"
And you just continue to use your mac, and confirm the typical stereotype of a "mac zealot/bigot". :shock:

and we hit the inevitable rock bottom on the topic of "Rhapsody 5.6 what's the difference"  :roll: . Yes that is all I have to say on the subject of windows vs mac vs os x vs whatever.

Everyone has had a chance to follow this if they wanted to.  I leave it up to all of you to come up with your own conclusions concerning this.

I will say nothing more on this matter.

Chef

Quote from: "nextchef"Apple makes money off of every song it sells.  Apples cut is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%, with the record industry getting the rest.  Now the distribution aparatus takes a good chunk of that 30%, but it does not take all of it.  It is a way to sell iPODS, and I am happy that you agree with me on that point at least.

Interesting numbers... care to back them up.

See, the numbers I was given was that Apple's take is between 5% to 10%... and that iTunes music store operates at a loss. The point of the music store is to sell iPods.

Quote from: ""I do not have to project "microsoft" thinking onto apple, you did that all by yourself.  Your hatred of everything microsoft has tainted your view of the world.  You can not honestly say that Apple does not want to be the dominant player, the "defacto standard" for getting content.  I am sorry you do not see it, but they have locked down the content.  The only portable device I can play anything bought off of the itunes store on is an Apple device.  I can not put it on my creative nomad, or a sandisk, or anything else.  That is complete content lockdown.  It is ironic that the microsoft based online music stores content is less restrictive.  As long as my device supports "plays for sure", the manufacturer does not matter.  I can not speak to how the new Zune player may change this, as I do not know enough about it.

First, if I have a hatred of Microsoft, it is well founded.

Second, Apple has always been about getting people hooked on what they can supply... that is the point of Mac OS X on Macs.

As for lockdown... all the music I've ever bought from iTunes is in MP3 format. Wasn't too locked from what I can see... specially as Apple has had articles on how to convert your music to play on other people's players.

No, what they did was make it so that it wasn't easy... if something isn't easy, then most people won't take the trouble.

Again, just like Windows on Macs... they didn't want it easy, so most people wouldn't take the trouble.

Quote from: nextchefMicrosoft makes its money on software, and software practices also improve over time.  Be it from bugs needing to be patched, or new features needing to be added, software products evolve just as hardware does.  Microsoft pitched the subscription idea, but the market was unwilling to accept it at this time.

Why did Microsoft want to go with "subscriptions"?

You're a big PC guy... you should know, right?

Office 97 was a run away hit... everyone loved it, it did just about anything that anyone could want from an office suite, Microsoft made tons of money on it. Add to that the fact that it just about killed off all competing office products and Microsoft thought they were in great shape.

They released Office 2000, now in complete control of the market, and expected the same results as when they released Office 97.

... Did I say same? I meant they expected better results.

After the first few months of Office 2000 being on the market, the sales figures were a shock to Microsoft. People weren't buying. So they started searching for their competition (which they must have overlooked).

What was slowing Office 2000 sales? Office 97

Yes, Office 97 was such a great product that people had no reason to upgrade.

Two strategies were put forward because of this... subscriptions (which they are still trying and will continue to try) and file formats.

File formats have been a successful strategy for Microsoft for quite some time. For example, the web... Microsoft wanted control so they attempted to put forward MS-HTML. Or how about Java... they didn't want Java to let other platforms have a foot hold so they introduced Visual J++. Or what about MPEG4... within days of it's ratification Microsoft started distributing Windows only versions of the codec. We shouldn't leave out XML... they don't use W3C compliant XML, they use their own special proprietary version.

Their latest target was PDF. Why did Adobe want to stop Microsoft from using PDF with Office 2007... because Microsoft had planned on modifying the standard to be Windows only.

And you as a PC user must recall that the bundled versions of the media player in Windows XP would do really bad encoding of MP3 and had poor MP3 playback in an attempt to get everyone to use WMA.

With Office, Microsoft has been working to make each new version's formats incompatible with the previous versions... there by forcing old Office hold outs to upgrade.

Surely you know about these things... right?

Quote from: "nextchef"When you are paying a monthly or yearly "maintenance contract" on a piece of software, you want and demand to see changes and improvements for that money.  If you buy a product for a one time price, you would expect to get some bug fixes for a while, and would like to see new features and improvements added, but the expectations are much less.

Microsoft slipped the subscriptions in on you guys already... They realized that this whole security problem is actually just what they needed to get people to pay them constantly. They noticed that antivirus companies were making money off security problems... that were actually Microsoft's handy work. Microsoft felt that they should be profiting from their bad software design, not these other companies.

Quote from: "nextchef"Fine, If you want to start splitting hairs about it.  Tacit indifferance to it is basically approval of it in my book.  Show me a quote where they emphatically stated that they did not want people to run windows on their macs, not "we would prefer that they not ..." type of language.

I've told you what you need to know... what you believe, that is totally your own problem.

Quote from: "nextchef"If you are using a mac, compaq, dell, c64, TI99/4a, //e, you are using a PC.

If I'm using a NeXT, Sun or SGI am I using a PC too?

What is your definition of a PC? What is the "boundary" of that definition and what is outside that boundary?

Quote from: "nextchef"And you just continue to use your mac, and confirm the typical stereotype of a "mac zealot/bigot".

Awww... sounds like it may be getting a little toasty in that flame retardent suit of yours. :wink:

Quote from: "nextchef"Everyone has had a chance to follow this if they wanted to. I leave it up to all of you to come up with your own conclusions concerning this.

I will say nothing more on this matter.

This reminds me of some saying that just seems to be escaping me right now... something about heat and kitchens... I don't know :wink:

But you are right, you put everything you had of value into this.. which is the best we could have hoped for from you.

I am very nice and cool in my suit, thank you.  Especially since there are very few "flames" to wory about in here.  And since you have asked me to back up my statments, I feel obliged to respond.

Quote from: "RacerX"

Quote from: "nextchef"Apple makes money off of every song it sells.  Apples cut is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%, with the record industry getting the rest.  Now the distribution aparatus takes a good chunk of that 30%, but it does not take all of it.  It is a way to sell iPODS, and I am happy that you agree with me on that point at least.

Interesting numbers... care to back them up.

Well... since you asked so nicely...

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/14/APPLE.TMP&type=tech

And quite a few more ... Google is your friend :)

Quote from: "RacerX"See, the numbers I was given was that Apple's take is between 5% to 10%... and that iTunes music store operates at a loss. The point of the music store is to sell iPods.

Obviously the store may have not made money in the beginning, but once those startup costs were absorbed, and the sales hit a critical number, that has turned around.  As I do not know where you got your numbers, I can not comment on what you were told, only give you the info you requested.  

Quote from: "RacerX"Why did Microsoft want to go with "subscriptions"?

You're a big PC guy... you should know, right?

There you go with the"PC" thing again.  So am I not a big PC guy because I am typing this response on a Mac?  I assume you typed your respons on a Mac (which is still a PC), so I guess you are a big PC guy too.

Quote from: "RacerX"Office 97 was a run away hit... everyone loved it, it did just about anything that anyone could want from an office suite, Microsoft made tons of money on it. Add to that the fact that it just about killed off all competing office products and Microsoft thought they were in great shape.

They released Office 2000, now in complete control of the market, and expected the same results as when they released Office 97.

... Did I say same? I meant they expected better results.

After the first few months of Office 2000 being on the market, the sales figures were a shock to Microsoft. People weren't buying. So they started searching for their competition (which they must have overlooked).

What was slowing Office 2000 sales? Office 97

Yes, Office 97 was such a great product that people had no reason to upgrade.

Two strategies were put forward because of this... subscriptions (which they are still trying and will continue to try) and file formats.

File formats have been a successful strategy for Microsoft for quite some time. For example, the web... Microsoft wanted control so they attempted to put forward MS-HTML. Or how about Java... they didn't want Java to let other platforms have a foot hold so they introduced Visual J++. Or what about MPEG4... within days of it's ratification Microsoft started distributing Windows only versions of the codec. We shouldn't leave out XML... they don't use W3C compliant XML, they use their own special proprietary version.

Their latest target was PDF. Why did Adobe want to stop Microsoft from using PDF with Office 2007... because Microsoft had planned on modifying the standard to be Windows only.

You seem to know a lot more about Microsoft than I do, so you really must be the big PC guy around here.

Quote from: "RacerX"And you as a PC user must recall that the bundled versions of the media player in Windows XP would do really bad encoding of MP3 and had poor MP3 playback in an attempt to get everyone to use WMA.
With Office, Microsoft has been working to make each new version's formats incompatible with the previous versions... there by forcing old Office hold outs to upgrade.

Surely you know about these things... right?

I do not use XP or office, so once again you know more about microsoft than me. Grip and lame create my mp3's just fine, and OpenOffice takes care of my "office" document needs quite well.

Quote from: "RacerX"Microsoft slipped the subscriptions in on you guys already... They realized that this whole security problem is actually just what they needed to get people to pay them constantly. They noticed that antivirus companies were making money off security problems... that were actually Microsoft's handy work. Microsoft felt that they should be profiting from their bad software design, not these other companies.

Once again, you must be confusing me with someone running WinXP.  The only windows machines I have are running w2k with firefox, and my free AVG antivirus has no subscriptions or cost at all.

Quote from: "RacerX"

Quote from: "nextchef"Fine, If you want to start splitting hairs about it.  Tacit indifferance to it is basically approval of it in my book.  Show me a quote where they emphatically stated that they did not want people to run windows on their macs, not "we would prefer that they not ..." type of language.

I've told you what you need to know... what you believe, that is totally your own problem.

What I believe doesnt really matter here, it is what you can provide to back up your statments that does.

Quote from: "RacerX"

Quote from: "nextchef"If you are using a mac, compaq, dell, c64, TI99/4a, //e, you are using a PC.

If I'm using a NeXT, Sun or SGI am I using a PC too?

Now you are just being silly ;).  Those are all workstation class machines, and not what I would consider PC's, unless you are referring to the SGI Visual Workstations, which kind of stradle the line.

Quote from: "RacerX"

Quote from: "nextchef"And you just continue to use your mac, and confirm the typical stereotype of a "mac zealot".

Awww... sounds like it may be getting a little toasty in that flame retardent suit of yours.

Quote from: "nextchef"Everyone has had a chance to follow this if they wanted to. I leave it up to all of you to come up with your own conclusions concerning this.

I will say nothing more on this matter.

This reminds me of some saying that just seems to be escaping me right now... something about heat and kitchens... I don't know :wink:

Sounds like I hit a little too close to home for you.  I took out the big bad "b word", as it may not have really been called for.  Do you feel better now?  Mabey it is you who should step out of the kitchen before you get "Toasted"

Quote from: "RacerX"But you are right, you put everything you had of value into this.. which is the best we could have hoped for from you.

Everything?? Not really.  I was expecting more of a challenge from the way you came out of the gate, but you just faded away before the third turn.  Too bad really, as i was enjoying the lively debate.  If you would like to get back to discussing the facts, and quit accusing me of being some sort of  "Microsoftite", you would find that we probably agree on a lot of things, especially where Microsoft is concerned.

I keep on forgetting that saying about battles, wits, and the unarmed until it is just too late.  Will have to work on that I guess.

Chef

Sadly you have taken all this way to personally to continue. I love a good debate, there great platforms to make points, but you aren't up for it... at least not emotionally at this point.

Sorry.

Quote from: "nextchef"I keep on forgetting that saying about battles, wits, and the unarmed until it is just too late.  Will have to work on that I guess.

Yeah, well you'll have to work out your personal problems on your own time... I don't have time to spend helping the witless. :wink:

Quote from: "RacerX"Sadly you have taken all this way to personally to continue. I love a good debate, there great platforms to make points, but you aren't up for it... at least not emotionally at this point.

Sorry.

Quote from: "nextchef"I keep on forgetting that saying about battles, wits, and the unarmed until it is just too late.  Will have to work on that I guess.

Yeah, well you'll have to work out your personal problems on your own time... I don't have time to spend helping the witless. :wink:

There you go, much better.  I knew if I through up an easy softball like that, you would hit it right out of the park.  

Now would you like to come back and play some more, or should we just call it a day and move on to something more interesting, like where I can find a NeXT ADB keyboard and mouse for my slab project.  Or if the Cards are going to win the series or not .. Go Cards!!!!!

Chef

Well, I'll tell you what it is guys, if I ever come to the States and end up drunk in a bar, I know who to call if I want to get involved in 3 way pissing contest ;-)

Quote from: "brams"Well, I'll tell you what it is guys, if I ever come to the States and end up drunk in a bar, I know who to call if I want to get involved in 3 way pissing contest ;-)

Well, I have been know to argue/debate just for the fun of it, even if I do not happen to believe the position.  In my family that is just the way we we were all raised.  It sure makes holidays a blast, especially when mixed with a little alcohol. ;)  A lot of times it does not even matter which side I am on.  It is all about the fun/challenge in it.

And let me know if you ever make it to the midwest, I will have the beer all ready. :)

Chef

?!?!?!?!? WTF did I miss something with Wallstreets?

Look at the price!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120042438239&sspagename=ADME%3AL%3ARTQ%3AUK%3A1&rd=1

Really strange how some things evolve...

I didn't expect a discussion going these ways in here like that. Will have to overthink something.

J

Quote from: "brams"?!?!?!?!? WTF did I miss something with Wallstreets?

Look at the price!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120042438239&sspagename=ADME%3AL%3ARTQ%3AUK%3A1&rd=1

I guess more people are figuring out what a nice laptop it really is.  The more I mess around with the two I have, the more and more I like it.  Will have to consider upgrading it to some sort of G4 processor, and getting a bigger drive so can get OSX on it.

Chef

OK so I bagged this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/apple-powerbook-g3-512mb-30gb-ibook-g3-g4-g5_W0QQitemZ270043708418QQihZ017QQcategoryZ4606QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

What do you all reckon?, seller says it's a 266 but maybe a 300, he says it's not a 233.  It's a bit expensive but at least it looks complete and I can play with Rhapsody on it.

Quote from: "brams"OK so I bagged this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/apple-powerbook-g3-512mb-30gb-ibook-g3-g4-g5_W0QQitemZ270043708418QQihZ017QQcategoryZ4606QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

What do you all reckon?, seller says it's a 266 but maybe a 300, he says it's not a 233.  It's a bit expensive but at least it looks complete and I can play with Rhapsody on it.

Original packaging and everything, nice.  You got the mpeg-dvd processor card, as well as a bunch of other accessories.  Hope the laptop itself is not beat up too bad, otherwise it looks like a nice addition to your collection.

Chef

RacerX

Please can you tell me, is a Firewire card & Wi-Fi card supported by Rhapsody 5.6 if so which ones?

I already have an Orinoco Gold which I use with my Message Pad 2100, but would prefer a 802.11g if possible, I will probably also dual boot it with Mac OS 8.1 or 8.5.1 I bet wireless G does not work under anything less than OS X?

Thanks
brams

Looks like you got a nice system... and more reasonably priced than the last one you posted.

As for your questions...

Firewire... no. This OS came pre installed on Blue & White G3s and never had Firewire support.

USB (even though you didn't ask)... pretty much no. Rhapsody 5.3-5.6 will see a single USB port (on Macs with them built in) and only works for connecting a USB keyboard and mouse.

Wireless... no. As Apple would put it: "This is a server OS." Which was their basic answer to any one wanting more features supported than was already there.

SCSI... absolutely. And your new PowerBook has SCSI built in.

DVD-ROM drive... questionable (and no for DVD play back). With the Lombards, the DVD-ROM drives are totally not supported (beyond not working for installation, you won't even have the ability to read CDs with the drive). With the Wallstreets, you'll need to jump through some hoops to install Rhapsody 5.3-5.6 on them with their DVD-ROM drives. The procedure is outlined on this page (http://www.stepwise.com/MacOSXServer/HardwareSupport/PowerBookG3.html).

Argh!! it's a 233 Wallstreet, so a brain transplant is in order me thinks, so Mr Dave Wegener is gonna be receiving an order for a G4/500 pretty sharpish.  Thankfully it is a Walllstreet with 4mb RageLT Pro and not a Mainstreet with 2mb Rage II LT graphics and no scaling ability.  It's not such a big deal as it would have got a G4 in it if it was 300, I could have just sold the 300 on for a bit a cash back, dammit!!

I did want to use 8.1 as well as Rhapsody, will that work with a G4 or does it need a G3, 8.6 is supposed to be the first G4 OS but does that mean it supports AltiVec or mean that anything before 8.6 won't work at all.

I suppose I could get a 500 G3 but there is not much differnce in price and I'll probably stick Panther on it, it's gonna be a systems that I play with rather than use for anything productive so it'll be getting new OS'es loaded all the time as I get bored with one thing then the next.

RacerX, is it possible to have Rhapsody & OS X on the same system?, I know you can have Rhapsody and OS 8 or 9 but unsure about X

Cheers
brams

Quote from: "brams"RacerX, is it possible to have Rhapsody & OS X on the same system?, I know you can have Rhapsody and OS 8 or 9 but unsure about X

Well, the problem is that both Mac OS X and Rhapsody have odd requirements as to where on a drive they can exist on a Wallstreet.

I'd suggest using two drives... one for Mac OS X and one for Rhapsody. Switching drives may be something of a pain, but most likely less trouble than attempting to run both on the same drive. It takes me a couple minutes to change drives on a Wallstreet (and I could cut that time in half if each drive was already in a carriage).

Beyond that, I can't offer much in the way of experience... I've never set any of my systems up to boot from multiple operating systems (other than my iMac which can boot both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, though I haven't run 9 on it in a few years). Even my ThinkPad has one OS per hard drive (and I switch drives to run either Rhapsody or OPENSTEP... takes about 30 seconds to do the switch).

Quote from: "brams"Argh!! it's a 233 Wallstreet, so a brain transplant is in order me thinks, so Mr Dave Wegener is gonna be receiving an order for a G4/500 pretty sharpish. Thankfully it is a Walllstreet with 4mb RageLT Pro and not a Mainstreet with 2mb Rage II LT graphics and no scaling ability. It's not such a big deal as it would have got a G4 in it if it was 300, I could have just sold the 300 on for a bit a cash back, dammit!!

I did want to use 8.1 as well as Rhapsody, will that work with a G4 or does it need a G3, 8.6 is supposed to be the first G4 OS but does that mean it supports AltiVec or mean that anything before 8.6 won't work at all.

I wouldn't lose your original G3 daughter card for your Wallstreet if I was you (and in fact, I've kept an old G3 daughter card for my Wallstreet which has a G4/500 in it).

First, I'm not sure that Rhapsody is going to be very happy with a G4 (or G3) replacement card in your Wallstreet. These cards aren't stock equipment, and usually require additional software to enable the cards to work correctly... software which doesn't exist for Rhapsody.

Additionally, Mac OS X may refuse to install on a Wallstreet with a replacement card. Having the original card for the installation (or reinstallation if needed) and then switching to the replacement card afterwards is the safest thing to do.

And in some cases switching between Mac OS X and Mac OS 8/9 requires special software as well with replacement cards.

It is just better to be safe than sorry... keep your original Wallstreet daughter card.


As for running in Mac OS 8.1... you could do it, but I'd keep in mind that pretty much anything that would work with Altivec was also Carbon. And you need 8.6 for Carbon apps to function.

The only reason I'll put 8.1 on a system rather than 8.6 is memory... 8.1 uses around 8 to 12 MB of memory for the system were as 8.6 uses between 16 to 24 MB of memory. If you are running your Wallstreet at a memory level where that makes a difference, you are never going to get either Mac OS X or Rhapsody on that system. If you have 48 Mb of RAM or more, Mac OS 8.1 starts to lose any advantages it might have had over 8.6.

Similarly, almost anything that could run in Mac OS 9.x can be run in 8.6... and 8.6 requires far less memory (Mac OS 9 starts out around 32 MB and jumps beyond 64 MB by the time you get to 9.2.x) and is much more stable than any version of 9.x.x.

I only run 8.1 on a single system (my Quadra 950), the rest of my pre-Mac OS X and pre-Rhapsody) systems are running Mac OS 8.6 (four systems not including Blue Box on two of my Rhapsody systems).

I have all of these classic Mac operating systems, and have been supporting them with clients for years... believe me, I use the best of what I have for my own systems (and that is not always the newest or what originally shipped on my systems).

Quote from: "RacerX"I wouldn't lose your original G3 daughter card for your Wallstreet if I was you (and in fact, I've kept an old G3 daughter card for my Wallstreet which has a G4/500 in it).

First, I'm not sure that Rhapsody is going to be very happy with a G4 (or G3) replacement card in your Wallstreet. These cards aren't stock equipment, and usually require additional software to enable the cards to work correctly... software which doesn't exist for Rhapsody.

Additionally, Mac OS X may refuse to install on a Wallstreet with a replacement card. Having the original card for the installation (or reinstallation if needed) and then switching to the replacement card afterwards is the safest thing to do.

Good point you mention here, I'll keep the 233 just in case, however my Mum was playing with it the other and remarked how well built it was but why had a I bought another slow old piece of junk.  Thus if even my Mum thinks it's slow then it's a sorry state of affairs :-(

Not sure about a few things here, not too bothered if I can't run OS X on it to be honest, Rhapsody 5.6 is why I bought it.  I'll also have a play to satisfy curiosity NetBSD & Yellow Dog and Unbuntu Linux.

Unlike some/all of the other CPU boards for Wallstreets, Wegener uses the original Apple CPU board and puts on a new CPU.  iirc only Newertech, Powerlogix & Sonnet did them for Wallstreet and they all used they're own PCB's, iirc the Bondi iMac and Lombard & Pismo where the first machines whereby the roms where on the CPU board and CPU upgrade companies could no longer use they're own PCB's.  From that I assume the Wallstreet had the rom on the logicboard  not the CPU daugherboard.

Wegener also claims that you don't need any SW under OS X or 8/9 to enable cache, from that I assume Open Firmware inits the cache.  Also the MPC 7410 is pin and bus compatilble with the MPC 750, so I'm guessing here all they do is take of the old MPC 750, put on the 7410 and change the multiplier from 4.5 to 7.5 and thats it.

There is a cache enabler for Rhapsody 5.1, will that not work under 5.6?

What make of WS G4 upgrade do you have, G4 is the logical choice as only Wegener seem to make them now, and the G4 costs less than a 500 G3.

http://www.wegenermedia.com/wllstg4.htm

They give you a rebate in against your old card if you send it in.

QuoteAs for running in Mac OS 8.1... you could do it, but I'd keep in mind that pretty much anything that would work with Altivec was also Carbon. And you need 8.6 for Carbon apps to function.

The only reason I'll put 8.1 on a system rather than 8.6 is memory... 8.1 uses around 8 to 12 MB of memory for the system were as 8.6 uses between 16 to 24 MB of memory. If you are running your Wallstreet at a memory level where that makes a difference, you are never going to get either Mac OS X or Rhapsody on that system. If you have 48 Mb of RAM or more, Mac OS 8.1 starts to lose any advantages it might have had over 8.6.

Similarly, almost anything that could run in Mac OS 9.x can be run in 8.6... and 8.6 requires far less memory (Mac OS 9 starts out around 32 MB and jumps beyond 64 MB by the time you get to 9.2.x) and is much more stable than any version of 9.x.x.

So it's just the carbon side of the equation then, I guess 8.1 will just see it as a G3 then, I don't use or need anything under OS 8 or 9 that uses Altivec, in fact it's mainly just to play a few old games like Riven and Myst, so I figured using 8.1 would be easier as I have it and I don't know what I did with my 8.5 and 8.6 disks, as I recall 8.1 was my fave OS anyway, ran very stable on my 7300 which was overclocked an all sorts of stuff.

To be honest from my side of things, I didn't see any massive improvements from 8.1 onwards, but maybe I forget as it is a long time ago now.

Quote from: "brams"Unlike some/all of the other CPU boards for Wallstreets, Wegener uses the original Apple CPU board and puts on a new CPU.  iirc only Newertech, Powerlogix & Sonnet did them for Wallstreet and they all used they're own PCB's, iirc the Bondi iMac and Lombard & Pismo where the first machines whereby the roms where on the CPU board and CPU upgrade companies could no longer use they're own PCB's.  From that I assume the Wallstreet had the rom on the logicboard  not the CPU daugherboard.

With the Sonnet G4 upgrade you had to transfer the ROM from your original daughter card to their daughter card.

Quote from: "brams"Wegener also claims that you don't need any SW under OS X or 8/9 to enable cache, from that I assume Open Firmware inits the cache.  Also the MPC 7410 is pin and bus compatilble with the MPC 750, so I'm guessing here all they do is take of the old MPC 750, put on the 7410 and change the multiplier from 4.5 to 7.5 and thats it.

If you don't need additional software, then it would be because they are using the original cache on the original daughter board... which also means that it has to be as the same ratio at the original daughter board that they are using.

Quote from: "brams"There is a cache enabler for Rhapsody 5.1, will that not work under 5.6?

No... that cache enabler was designed for helping 5.1 recognize a G3 at all. The G3 based Macs came out after development of 5.1, so when 5.1 sees a G3 it thinks it is a 603e (which was what the G3 was based on). The enabler was designed for getting it passed that short coming.

Rhapsody 5.6 was designed around the G3 and G4... it knows what those processors are, so it doesn't need patching for Apple hardware. But just like Mac OS 8/9/X based systems using third party upgrades, Rhapsody would need help understanding how the third party hardware works... Which is why you generally don't want to run Rhapsody on upgrades.

I ran Rhapsody on an 8500 with a G3/300 upgrade and it was not that great... and no where near as fast as my 8600/300 (using the original 604e/300).

Quote from: "brams"however my Mum was playing with it the other and remarked how well built it was but why had a I bought another slow old piece of junk.  Thus if even my Mum thinks it's slow then it's a sorry state of affairs

A G3 at 233 MHz with 512k of L2 is usually a pretty fast system... for older operating systems. If it seems that slow to you guys, then odds are that you have a G3/233 with no cache (those were pretty slow systems even when they were released).

I don't know what you'll be doing in Rhapsody, but I do graphic design and web design on my systems. I did a lot of work on my site using my ThinkPad (Pentium at 133 MHz with 256k of L2, 80 MB of RAM), which was okay. I did a lot more using a 7500 (PowerPC 604e at 210 MHz with 256k of L2, 512 MB of RAM), including quite a bit of page layout. And with my 8600, I don't have any issues doing most anything (including Flash and Quicktime authoring in Blue Box).

If you have the 233 with L2 cache, then all you'd need is more memory (and apps) to do just about anything in Rhapsody. The 233 without cache may drag a little... though I can't imagine it being that slow compared to a 604e at 210 MHz.

At any rate, if what you are saying about this upgrade is true, then you most likely wouldn't have any issues anyways.

Quote from: "brams"What make of WS G4 upgrade do you have, G4 is the logical choice as only Wegener seem to make them now, and the G4 costs less than a 500 G3.

I have a Sonnet... I don't recall Wegener selling G4 upgrades for Wallstreets back when I bought mine (Fall of 2002). But that was where I got my expansion bay hard drive kit in the spring of 2003.

This system serves me quite well... along with the G4/500 upgrade, it has 512 MB of RAM, a 40 GB (internal) hard drive and a 20 GB (expansion bay) hard drive, CDRW (expansion bay) and USB 2.0 (PCMCIA slot). I still spend a majority of my time on this system... though my Lombard 400 is starting to get more of my attention (mainly because it only has math stuff on it so I won't be distracted).

Quote from: "RacerX"A G3 at 233 MHz with 512k of L2 is usually a pretty fast system... for older operating systems. If it seems that slow to you guys, then odds are that you have a G3/233 with no cache (those were pretty slow systems even when they were released).

I checked the Apple System Profiler and it says it's a 233/512 PPC G3, however my Mum says it's slow because she uses a dual 800 Mac G4 and so shes comparing it to that.

Quote from: "RacerX"I don't know what you'll be doing in Rhapsody

Asking you questions ;-) and filling in the blanks between NeXT and Apple, I've played with Mac OS X Server 1 very quickly once, but I'd like to spend time and see what makes it tick.

Quote from: "RacerX"If you have the 233 with L2 cache, then all you'd need is more memory (and apps) to do just about anything in Rhapsody. The 233 without cache may drag a little... though I can't imagine it being that slow compared to a 604e at 210 MHz.

Machine has already for 512mb in it so it's maxed out.

Just a note in between:

I'm also interested in the development of NeXTstep, Openstep, Rhapsody and Mac OS X Server. I just managed to install Rhapsody DR 1 on my old 8500, made some screenshots and transfered them to my G5, next ToDo on my list is DR 2, then the several NeXTsteps. The OS X Server screenshots have been made some days ago on my G3 beige Desktop. I'm close to fill up my little OS project on BlackMac.ch.

Next week Copland waits to be installed =)

J

just to remember

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJd-yikkyvY

:lol:

OK now it's been a while but I've got this Wallstreet (PDQ, which is like brand new) up and running, I've re-read most of this thread and can report that it runs Rhapsody 5.6 fine, it installs it fine onto the internal 30gb HD even with the 500mhz G4 installed.  It won't install onto the Xcaret bay 80gb HD, the installer in OS 9 when booted of the CD sees it and allows me to select it but when it reboots OS X server 1.2 off the CD I get a message saying the target volume cannot be found.

Tiger installs OK on the Excaret (along with the required helper volume either on the internal or bay HD)  thus proving that indeed the bay module is bootable (which MCE said it would be).  Tiger runs surprisingly well on this machine.

I'm trying to get Rhapsody & Tiger to live together, but installing Rhapsody kills tiger, in fact it renders the machine unbootable except into OS 9.  I've tried to keep all volumes withing the 8gb limit but as far as I can tell that seems to be inaccurate as the boot volume only needs to be within the 8gb limit (OS 9 is on a 4gb partition) and I used 24gb  for Tiger and it works fine, as it did with Rhapsody.

I'm also interested in getting Ubuntu onto the machine but I'd prefer Rhapsody and Tiger first.

Does anybody have any idea why they don't play well together?

Regards
Mick Bramley

I would like to buy or find this Mac OS X server 1.2v3! I am willing to pay a fee to get it, or even a license fee.

Thank you.