Flyback Swap

[andy]

I do find it ironic that after years of Mac vs PC wars, the new Macs are a direct descendant of the original IBM PC.

[MRX37]

I find it even more ironic that Apple still shows their Mac vs PC commercials, implying that PC's are more complex and inefficent, etc etc etc. Yet, their newest Macs are just another PC. The only differences being proprietary hardware (Kinda like Dell or HP/Compaq) and a price that's twice as much as other PC's

Even better: OS/X had been secretly running on x86 hardware for several years before they switched their Macs over.

[dr.ido]

This is turning into the Mac thread.

Originally Posted by karmaman

Yeah, Rev A-D iMacs are slower than the old G3 Power Macs even though the Power Macs had slower CPU's, the bus was faster on the Power Mac. I really wish Apple hadn't been so proprietary, I want to get an old Power Mac 7100/80 (PPC) on my network but it needs some funky adapter to get online through ethernet... on the other hand, I can pick up an NIC for $5 at Fry's and pop it into any random old PC and it'll work.

I guess it's what makes Apple, Apple. Do you like their new stuff though? I think they're too occupied with the iPod/iPhone, they're not all about computers anymore like they used to be.

Actually the 7500 has a 50MHz bus where the Rev A-D iMacs have a 66MHz bus. The problem I had running OS X on the iMac was simply a lack of RAM. The Rev A-D iMacs have a RAM limit of 384MB, but getting there is difficult as they are very fussy about what SO-DIMMs will work. I could never find a combination of the SO-DIMMs I had that would give me more than 160MB. Even my 6100/66 managed 264MB with standard SIMMs (not that it would ever run OS X even with the 240MHz G3 card in it).

I found that while OS X will run with less it needs 512MB RAM to be comfortable. With 512MB of RAM and a 350MHz G3 card in the 7500 it ran OS X well enough to be a usable machine for most day to day applications, certainly better than a 350MHz Pentium II box trying to run Windows XP.

The ethernet connector on a 6100/7100/8100 is an AAUI connector. While finding an AAUI transceiver in the average computer store is almost impossible there are usually a few on ebay for around $10. The alternatives are to use a NUBUS ethernet card or hardwire a transceiver to the motherboard, but that's too much effort to save $10.

I've no interest in iPhones (I'd still use my old brick phone if I could, fancy phones do nothing for me) or iPods. I doubt I'll get to play with an Intel based Mac for a few years yet. I like getting my gear for nothing or almost nothing too much to buy new gear. This is a lot easier with PC stuff though. Pentium 4 class PCs are regularly dumped, but I doubt anyone will be throwing out their G5 or Intel Macs for a while yet.

[karmaman]

Hmm, well I remember reading somewhere that Power Mac G3's had a faster bus. There's 96MB of RAM in my iMac, nowhere near enough to use OS X, and the CD drive is extremely picky about what it will and won't read, I can't even install Linux on it so if I *ahem* acquire a copy of OS X the drive won't even read it (only reads original, pressed CD's). I put an ad on Craigslist offering $10 for a broken iMac, hoping I would get a better one (I have the Rev. A, I'd love a Rev. C/D or at least a B for the better graphics) that I could swap the FBT on, but no dice.

I run OSX86 on my main PC (sometimes), and it wouldn't run very smoothly until I put 1GB of RAM into my PC, I'm sure if my processor had SSE3 then 512MB would have been enough. When it comes to my favorite OS, nothing has beat Vista yet. I know Vista is supposed to be terrible, but it's working out great for me (on my 5-year-old PC). I did need a new graphics card and more RAM for it to run well, but that's not bad for a 2002 Pentium 4. I only had to spend about $90, I don't count the cost of Vista because I get it free (taking a Computer Networking class at my local college, that makes me count as a college student I can get Vista free). Feels as fast as XP, and I like the shiny Aero graphics, I can't stand Linux. Ubuntu (and it's variants), Fedora, PCLOS, Mandriva, I've tried and hate them all because it's all beta and it keeps breaking, just when everything is running nicely, an update comes along and breaks something, Linux is fun for messing around on spare PC's but I don't want it on my main machine. I can never get my ATI card running smoothly, and only PCLOS has been able to support dual monitors. PCLOS was the best of them all, but I don't like KDE.

Something I'm interested in doing is using the iMac as my main PC, some people have done it with old 68k Macs and if you have patience it's not bad. The only thing holding me back is a good web browser for OS9, Internet Explorer can't properly display a lot of modern sites.

Well, this thread has gone completely off topic. I'm ordering the Flyback tomorrow from here: http://www.bluestar-online.com/6174Z...174z-1003g.htm

[karmaman]

I just ordered the Flyback, hopefully if I can find a better Rev A-D iMac it'll happen before the flyback arrives, otherwise I'll be putting it into my Rev. A

[andy]

I think you'll be able to use low density 256MB SO-DIMMs in a rev A imac. These are easy to spot because they have 8 RAM chips on each side instead of 4. My thinkpad requires these and won't work with the more common ones with 4 chips per side. That should get you to 512MB.

Speaking of Vista, not too long ago I tried installing it on a 400MHz PII and it worked. It needs 512MB to install, but it will run in 224. I maxed it out with 768 MB and it was usable. I even managed to install the XP drivers for the built in ATI Rage pro graphics. It wasn't noticeably worse than XP once I turned off all the fancy graphics. I suspect that it would run on a PI, but I don't have one to try it with.

[MRX37]

Eh, Vista is where I draw the line, at least for the time being.

It's too intrusive, too resource hogging unless you go through it and turn off all the needless eye candy, too expensive, and I'm starting to really distrust Microsoft's updates. (Never turned on automatic updates until it foced me to, and even then, I refuse to let it install anything. I update manually. Even then it sneaked something onto my PC from what I heard in the news...)

I'm going to stick with XP pro until M$ forces its obsolescence. After that, I may make the leap to a flavor of Linux.

[karmaman]

While we're on the subject of Operating Systems, is there a decent alternative to Internet Explorer on OS 9? The only modern browser seems to be iCab, and it's terrible. I would just use IE but a lot of websites don't render properly on it. I never really sat down and used the iMac too much, but I'm typing from it right now and it makes an OK computer! Definitely useable, I've got iTunes playing internet radio and I'm browsing the web from IE. One thing though, the screen regulation is pretty bad, as I scroll down web pages and scroll past bright/dark items, the screen bulges on the right as they scroll down. Will the new Flyback help?

[dr.ido]

The G3 Powermacs do have a 66MHz bus. The 7500 came out before the G3 and originally came with a 100MHz PPC 601, but the CPU is on a card and can easily be upgraded. I ran a Sonnet 350MHz G3 card in it and installed OS X using Xpostfacto. Sonnet now make a 1GHz G3 card that will run in it. They also make a 600MHz upgrade card for the Rev A-D iMacs. If you don't mind spending more money on the iMac than it's worth it's something to look at. With a 600MHz G3 and 512MB RAM it should run OS X (at least the earlier versions anyway) well.

I do like the classic Mac OS, but the lack of a relatively current web browser is a problem for day to day use. When I was using the 7500 more regularly I generally booted into OS X for any web based stuff. There is WaMCom which is a backport of Mozilla to the classic Mac OS. I haven't tried it myself yet and it hasn't been updated for ages, but it may be an option.

Poor regulation can also be caused by bad capacitors. There have usually been a least a couple of obviously bad capacitors in most of the LG monitors I have scrapped, but I haven't seen that many iMac chassis to know if they follow the same trend. The lack of ventilation in the iMac case may make the problem worse as heat kills capacitors.

If you see any that are bulging or leaking change them. The ones that look okay can also be bad, but you will need an ESR meter to check them. Some prefer to swap out all suspect capacitor as preventative maintenance.

I'm not looking forward to Vista, but it will probably be a long time before I have to deal with it. I run Windows 2000 on most of my PCs. I'm used to running my machines as lean as possible so I find XP be a bit sluggish in comparision and some of it's "features" too intrusive. I can't imagine that Vista will be better and it may be what eventually gets me to switch over to Linux.

I've lost some interest this stuff over past couple of years. The rabid tweaker in me is slowly dying. Gone are the days when spending hours perfecting every aspect of a system was fun and the end result was a joy to use. Wrestling with an XP installation has become an unpleasant chore where near enough is good enough. I guess this says less about operating systems than it does about me. I feel like I'm old and I miss the "good old days".

[matt_s78mn]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

With a 600MHz G3 and 512MB RAM it should run OS X (at least the earlier versions anyway) well.

You'd be suprised as to how well OS X runs on older hardware. I use a G3 "Pismo" Powerbook (400Mhz, 384MB RAM) and a G4 Tower "AGP Video" (450MHZ, 768MB RAM) and the current version of OS X (10.4.10) runs great.

Originally Posted by dr.ido

I do like the classic Mac OS, but the lack of a relatively current web browser is a problem for day to day use. When I was using the 7500 more regularly I generally booted into OS X for any web based stuff. There is WaMCom which is a backport of Mozilla to the classic Mac OS. I haven't tried it myself yet and it hasn't been updated for ages, but it may be an option.

I've use iCab on older systems, and it does have its quirks and issues, but at least it's still being updated. The backport of Mozilla sounds interesting, i'll have to check that out.

[andy]

There's even a G4 upgrade for the original imac. Back when I used to fix and sell these for good money I one of the imacs I worked on had one of these installed. I'm not sure who made it.

I'm also mostly using Windows 2000 still. It does everything I want to do, so I see no reason to switch. The only machine I use XP on is a PC I use for a file server and for A/V playback on my TV. Remote desktop (which is not in 2000) is nice so I can manage the server side of things from my main PC, or even over the internet when I'm on vacation. Some A/V stuff like Netflix streaming video requires XP (although it could work with 2000 if they wanted it to).

XP before SP2 is almost as fast as 2000, but SP 2 really adds a lot of extra stuff. I was playing with an old P166 thinkpad and I found that XP with no service packs was slow, but usable. After installing SP2 it was at 100% CPU load all the time and it took forever to bring up menus and open new windows.

You can turn off automatic updates in XP SP2 (and even Vista). If you don't like the constant reminders to turn on automatic updates in XP, you can disable the security center in computer management. All it really does it display idiot reminders. I've had a PC running like this on the internet 24/7 for years with no problems. I do a virus and spyware scan every so often and it has never found anything. Of course, you have to remember to check for updates.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by andy

You can turn off automatic updates in XP SP2 (and even Vista). If you don't like the constant reminders to turn on automatic updates in XP, you can disable the security center in computer management. All it really does it display idiot reminders. I've had a PC running like this on the internet 24/7 for years with no problems. I do a virus and spyware scan every so often and it has never found anything. Of course, you have to remember to check for updates.

If I turn off Automatic updates, I get errors when trying to manually update. Windows Update bitches at me saying I need to have automatic updates on.

Never used to be that way. Like I said, I do not like where Microsoft is heading.

[andy]

Originally Posted by MRX37

If I turn off Automatic updates, I get errors when trying to manually update. Windows Update bitches at me saying I need to have automatic updates on.

Never used to be that way. Like I said, I do not like where Microsoft is heading.

That's strange, manual updates should always work. I have seen it get screwed up so that going to windows update results in an error, but that's not the way it's supposed to work. There are various causes and cures for different manual update problems. In the worst case, reinstalling windows will always fix it.

[MRX37]

Um, it's the same way on all three of my XP machines, each uses a different version/service pack...

(I should probably apologize for helping this topic get so off track. I hope the moderators, whoever they may be, aren't too upset.)

[dr.ido]

I was suprised how well OS X ran on my 7500, but my experience is limited to 10.2.8 so I added the parenthesis. 10.3 was incredibly unstable on the 7500, but to be fair OS X was never intended to run on it.

I used a couple of old Thinkpads as my day to day machines for 18 months. I had no internet connection at home from December 2005 to June 2007 year, so my faster desktops were only used for gaming and video. My 560X (233MHz MMX, 96MB RAM) was starting to choke on some larger image heavy websites and the 800x600 display was cramped on some layouts. The 600X (500MHz P3, 320MB RAM) still does everything I need a laptop to do. I gave a 2GHz P4m Acer laptop that I repaired to a friend, the faster CPU wasn't worth tolerating the uncomfortable keyboard/touch pad.