12 Jun
2009
12 Jun
'09
9:45 p.m.
So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store find of the week
is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB
Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB
plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. I
found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna
cable, but no interface. :-(
I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting
find. I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige
box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a
shelf when I'm not using it. Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC
Mac. I should try to fire that up.
Oh... I forgot to mention. This working machine was priced at $20,
about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back
then).
After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of
the personal
data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as
high as it goes for PPC)
-ethan
12 Jun
12 Jun
9:51 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Ethan Dicks<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store
find of the week
is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. ?It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB
Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB
plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. ?I
found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna
cable, but no interface. :-(
I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting
find. ?I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige
box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a
shelf when I'm not using it. ?Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC
Mac. ?I should try to fire that up.
Oh... I forgot to mention. ?This working machine was priced at $20,
about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back
then).
After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal
data out. ?I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as
high as it goes for PPC)
Ethan---
Awesome find!
Mark Davidson
9:52 p.m.
On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
After some poking around, it looks like the former
owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal
data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as
high as it goes for PPC)
10.5 supports PPC.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10:01 p.m.
On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old.
TTFN - Guy
After some poking around, it looks like the
former owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal
data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is
as
high as it goes for PPC)
10.5 supports PPC.
13 Jun
13 Jun
12:02 a.m.
On Jun 12, 2009, at 3:01 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I
believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on
Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines.
TTFN - Guy
On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old. After some poking around, it looks like the
former owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal
data out. I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4
is as
high as it goes for PPC)
10.5 supports PPC. 
12:06 a.m.
Yes, but
Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old.
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I
believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on
Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines.
12:15 a.m.
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:06 PM, Cameron Kaiser<spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself, but
as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway.
It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now.
Unless I'm mistaken, Leopard doesn't run on G3 macs at all, no matter
how slow they are. I thought it only supported G4 and G5. :D
Am I correct in my thinking?
Mark Davidson
Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine
that old.
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. ?I
believe the cutoff was 867MHz. ?And as was announced at WWDC on
Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines.
12:39 a.m.
On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:15 PM, Mark Davidson wrote:
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:06 PM, Cameron
Kaiser<spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself,
but
as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway.
It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now.
Unless I'm mistaken, Leopard doesn't run on G3 macs at all, no matter
how slow they are. I thought it only supported G4 and G5. :D
Am I correct in my thinking?
I don't remember. I was busy doing x86 stuff and didn't pay much
attention to the PPC machines. :-)
TTFN - Guy
Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine
that old.
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I
believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on
Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines.
1:14 a.m.
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a
machine that slow. _I
believe the cutoff was 867MHz. _And as was announced at WWDC on
Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines.
867MHz is indeed the cutoff. I kind of found it artificial myself, but
as I say, I don't use Leopard on PPC anyway.
It's a cold, windy, x86 Mac world now. 
5:42 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Kaiser" <spectre at floodgap.com>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 9:14 PM
Subject: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3)
Effectively, yes, because I don't believe Apple has ever released a G3
of that speed, part of the reason I believe the 867 number to be arbitrary
(it gives them a convenient way to exclude G3s from Leopard's constituency
without having to ban them by name). However, I am fairly certain that
there's nothing in Leopard that demands AltiVec, so if you fool the
Installer with OpenFirmware it will probably work. This thread
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=4be4aa41116f02bf359983d40387ab…
claims that swapping out the hard disks from a successful install lets it
run on a G3, but it crashes a lot. However, I wonder if that is more due
to
unexpected hardware being present/absent than a processor limitation.
Nevertheless, I'm sure its performance on a G3 would be charitably called
pedestrian. For the record, I believe Apple's fastest G3 was ~700MHz.
I think one of the reasons Apple didn't want users to run that version on
G3s is because Apple started using the GPU for fancy GUI stuff and didn't
want anybody to run the OS on PCI or early AGP graphics cards that did not
support it.
Some companies list minimum specs that will barely run the software, Apple
releases minimum specs to be able to run the software and be somewhat usable
at the same time (plus they like the money they get when people have to
upgrade).
6:40 a.m.
I think one of the reasons Apple didn't want users
to run that version on
G3s is because Apple started using the GPU for fancy GUI stuff and didn't
want anybody to run the OS on PCI or early AGP graphics cards that did not
support it.
Well, if that were true, it would have been a simple couple lines of code to
block starting up if certain graphics hardware (I presume you mean Quartz
Extreme et al) weren't present. Apple hasn't really enforced QX on PPC
hardware, and I guess at this point they never will.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- 1-GHz Pentium-III + Java + XSLT == 1-MHz 6502. -- Craig Bruce --------------
6:32 p.m.
On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Teo Zenios wrote:
Some companies list minimum specs that will barely run
the software, Apple
releases minimum specs to be able to run the software and be somewhat usable
at the same time (plus they like the money they get when people have to
upgrade).
Some comapanies don't understand the difference between MINIMUM specs and
RECOMMENDED specs.
7:04 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Teo Zenios wrote:
For all the games I have seen ... recomended specs is two years down the road.
Some companies list minimum specs that will
barely run the software, Apple
releases minimum specs to be able to run the software and be somewhat usable
at the same time (plus they like the money they get when people have to
upgrade).
Some comapanies don't understand the difference between MINIMUM specs and
RECOMMENDED specs. 
7:30 p.m.
Guy Sotomayor wrote:
To be even more accurate, it does run on machines with clocks under
867MHz, but it refuses to install. To get around that you can change
the Open Firmware settings to lie about the CPU speed an fool the
installer - at least during the install:
http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html
Not sure if that will run on a G3 or not, but it will certainly work on
G4's under 867, but you can always try and see if it works. Well, maybe
"run" isn't the proper word... maybe walk, or crawl would be more
accurate, although on G4's of that speed, I understand that Leopard is
actually faster than Tiger (provided you've got enough RAM.)
Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old.
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. I
believe the cutoff was 867MHz. And as was announced at WWDC on
Monday, Snow Leopard doesn't support any of the PPC machines.
14 Jun
14 Jun
12:31 p.m.
2009/6/13 Guy Sotomayor <ggs at shiresoft.com>:
On Jun 12, 2009, at 3:01 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
You're close, but no cigar.
Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is
compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be
bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack.
Tiger (10.4) will run fine, if a little slowly, on a G3; my own B&W
runs it. Officially, though, it required a machine with a bootable
(i.e., not external USB or Firewire) DVD-ROM drive & built-in
Firewire. These requirements can be bypassed with an app called
XPostFacto.
Panther (10.3) requires a G3 or above and built-in USB. The USB
requirement can be bypassed with XPostFacto.
Jaguar requires any G3 or better. This requirement can be bypassed
with XPostFacto and it can be run on PPC604 machines, although it is
Not Quick. I've tried it. It is the last version of OS X to run on
pre-G3 Macs. Sadly it does not support SMP on pre-G3s, because a lot
of us would *love* to see it running on one of the late-model pre-G3
Macs, like a dual-processor PowerMac 9600 or a Daystar Genesis, one of
the licenced clones which could take quadruple PPC604 CPUs.
Jaguar was the first version of OS X I found polished and smooth
enough to be usable as the machine's primary OS, myself - and many
other would agree, I think.
10.1, 10.0 and the Public Beta could be coaxed onto many of the
late-generation, fast, fully-32-bit PCI-based PowerMacs, although
sometimes this required tweaks, such as making a 640MB partition,
copying the install CD onto it, then editing some of the installation
config files. BTDTGTTS.
However, they were really rather crude and clunky, if absolutely
beautiful to look at for their time.
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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On Jun 12, 2009, at 2:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
To be fully accurate, Leopard doesn't run on a machine that slow. ?I believe
the cutoff was 867MHz. ?And as was announced at WWDC on Monday, Snow Leopard
doesn't support any of the PPC machines. On Jun 12, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yes, but Leopard (10.5) doesn't run on a machine that old.
After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal
data out. ?I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as
high as it goes for PPC)
10.5 supports PPC.
2:39 p.m.
Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The
kernel is
compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be
bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack.
Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec
option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does
not have such a dependency; where did you see this?
Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :)
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- People are weird. -- Law & Order SVU ---------------------------------------
15 Jun
15 Jun
12:57 p.m.
2009/6/14 Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>:
This has been discussed at very considerable length on the LEM
UnsupportedOSX list and it appears to be quite definite; for more
info, I'd suggest asking there.. It does not necessarily imply that
the kernel uses AltiVec, although I don't find that massively
implausible; for instance, the Linux kernel uses MMX and SSE to
accelerate software RAID functions. All it implies, AFAICS, is that as
it loads the kernel checks that it's on a G4-class or better CPU and
aborts if it's not.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
Leopard (10.5)
requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is
compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be
bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack.
Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec
option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does
not have such a dependency; where did you see this?
Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :)
1:15 p.m.
Leopard (10.5) requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The
kernel is
compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be
bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack.
Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec
option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does
not have such a dependency; where did you see this?
Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :)
1:59 p.m.
2009/6/15 Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>:
This has been discussed at very considerable length on the LEM
UnsupportedOSX list and it appears to be quite definite; for more
info, I'd suggest asking there.. It does not necessarily imply that
the kernel uses AltiVec, although I don't find that massively
implausible; for instance, the Linux kernel uses MMX and SSE to
accelerate software RAID functions. All it implies, AFAICS, is that as
it loads the kernel checks that it's on a G4-class or better CPU and
aborts if it's not.
I think we're talking two different things here. I have it on reasonably
good authority that Leopard will boot on a G3, *if* you install it
on a supported machine and swap drives, *or* you fudge OpenFirmware and
fool the Installer. I read your post to say that even that configuration
won't boot on a G3. Did I misunderstand?
If there is an AltiVec dependency in the kernel, then I would imagine that
the kernel either would crash outright on a G3, or certain things would
break. OTOH, certain things do break under Leopard on a G3, so maybe there's
some AltiVec code there after all, just not in the bootstrap.
Well, I might be wrong, but I've not heard of this. I've certainly not
even tried with either of my G3s. I have heard people managing to coax
it into life on G3s *with a G4 upgrade chip* but that is rather
different. (Indeed, I've just bought such an upgrade chip to try to
turn my old B&W into a Tiger Server.)
http://www.lowendmac.com/mail/0807mb/0711.html#43
And then again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su8zWpFOkAM
Leopard (10.5)
requires a /G4/ of at least 867MHz. The kernel is
compiled against a G4 and will not boot on a G3. The check can be
bypassed with an app called LeopardAssist or an OpenFirmware hack.
Compiling against a G4 implies there is AltiVec (without a non-AltiVec
option) code in the kernel. To my knowledge the Leopard kernel does
not have such a dependency; where did you see this?
Not that I advise bothering with Leopard on a G3, mind you :) From the comments to that vid:
(note that if you
want to to this with your own Beige G3 you will need
a G4 upgrade CPU for it, as Leopard was compiled by Apple without G3
support to try and cut off these awesome old machines and make Leopard
an impossibility on them)
I only have hearsay & circumstantial evidence, but all I've read and
got from Googling is that you need a G4 chip. AGP graphics and things
can be worked around using extra drivers and things - which is /far/
too much work for me - but that the G4 spec. can't be.
I'd be quite happy to be proved wrong on this one, though.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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12 Jun
12 Jun
10:01 p.m.
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Dave McGuire<mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
?10.5 supports PPC.
_Really_?!? I thought they dropped it. Maybe it's only G5? (I have,
now, more than one G3, but nothing as new as a G4).
*rummaging*
Got it... it's 10.6 that they drop all PPC support.
Ah, well... and I just got a line on an old Mac G4 Cube in town. I
guess I could go get it and run 10.5 on it. That would be current
for a few more months.
-ethan
10:09 p.m.
On Jun 12, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
My two machines are running 10.4...no compelling reason to move to
10.5, and the horror stories from the early 10.5.x releases were
pretty scary.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10.5 supports
PPC.
_Really_?!? I thought they dropped it. Maybe it's only G5? (I have,
now, more than one G3, but nothing as new as a G4).
*rummaging*
Got it... it's 10.6 that they drop all PPC support.
Ah, well... and I just got a line on an old Mac G4 Cube in town. I
guess I could go get it and run 10.5 on it. That would be current
for a few more months.
10:16 p.m.
My two machines are running 10.4...no compelling
reason to move to
10.5, and the horror stories from the early 10.5.x releases were
pretty scary.
I have no plans to put any of my PPC machines on 10.5. I do have a token
Intel box running 10.5, but as I say, it runs so little of my routine
software that it essentially functions as a test system only.
I'm thinking of rolling my own future security updates for 10.4 based on
the 10.5 advisories and what I can hack.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. -- Winston Churchill ---
13 Jun
13 Jun
2:33 a.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this
is an interesting
find. I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige
box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a
shelf when I'm not using it. Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC
Mac. I should try to fire that up.
Uhh, the PPC binary on the StarCraft CD is for Classic; and Blizzard
recommends AGAINST using it on OS X.
They have a native PowerPC Mac OS X installer and binary.
You need the OS X installer from their site to install the game.
There's two installers; one is a CD-based install, and one is a full
Internet download (read below)
Also, if you want to run the game without the CD (and never have to
worry about needing the CD for anything whatsoever, ever again),
register a Battle.net (website, not in-game) account, register your
CD-Key, and then download the game from there (Note that when you
enter your CD-Key into the site, it'll register that key to you, and
generate a new-style CD-Key that is 26 alphanumeric characters long,
not the original 13 numeric digits. If you download the game from
there, you use the new 26-character key. If you install from the CD,
use the classic 13-digit CD-Key on your case)
Email me off-list if you need some clarification, or get stuck, or
something.
If you get some time, and feel like setting up a VPN, I'm up for a game.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iEYEARECAAYFAkozD+YACgkQF9H43UytGibf7wCaA/v+fL/zzELuXEeh3/oVoLVB
RGsAn3PH+LWbA9umZGunUiz/q0I5PkWP
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11:11 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 17:45 -0400, Ethan Dicks wrote:
So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store
find of the week
is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB
Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB
plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. I
found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna
cable, but no interface. :-(
IIRC it's just a Prism II card. You can still buy them *new* from
Proxim as the ORiNOCO Classic Gold. Why? Because a shitload of stuff
out there still uses Prism II cards and WEP as part of embedded systems.
Gordon
4:24 p.m.
On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Gordon JC Pearce<gordonjcp at gjcp.net> wrote:
On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 17:45 -0400, Ethan Dicks wrote:
There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then. The place for the
card to plug in is a small laptopish rectangular socket, about 4mm x
20mm. There's card rails that would align a PCMCIA-sized card to mate
with the motherboard along its long edge, but unlike an Apple Airport
base station, no PCMCIA socket or anything close to resembling it.
I do have ORiNOCO cards - most are Dell 1150s, but I have one or two others.
Ah, well... it's still a cool machine for tethered use.
-ethan
no Airport/WiFi interface. ?I
found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna
cable, but no interface. :-(
IIRC it's just a Prism II card. ?You can still buy them *new* from
Proxim as the ORiNOCO Classic Gold. ?Why? ?Because a shitload of stuff
out there still uses Prism II cards and WEP as part of embedded systems.
4:50 p.m.
There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then.
The place for the
card to plug in is a small laptopish rectangular socket, about 4mm x
20mm. There's card rails that would align a PCMCIA-sized card to mate
with the motherboard along its long edge, but unlike an Apple Airport
base station, no PCMCIA socket or anything close to resembling it.
I suspect this is what's biting you:
"The AirPort Card Adapter is required to install an AirPort Card into any
AirPort-ready, G3-based, slot-load iMac. This adapter was included with
AirPort cards made during the same period as these computers."
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2367
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. -------
5:30 p.m.
On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 09:50 -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Wonder if that's like the PCI cards that accept PCMCIA wifi cards?
Gordon
There must be
a mounting frame I'm missing, then. The place for the
card to plug in is a small laptopish rectangular socket, about 4mm x
20mm. There's card rails that would align a PCMCIA-sized card to mate
with the motherboard along its long edge, but unlike an Apple Airport
base station, no PCMCIA socket or anything close to resembling it.
I suspect this is what's biting you:
"The AirPort Card Adapter is required to install an AirPort Card into any
AirPort-ready, G3-based, slot-load iMac. This adapter was included with
AirPort cards made during the same period as these computers."
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2367
8:44 p.m.
On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Gordon JC Pearce<gordonjcp at gjcp.net> wrote:
On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 09:50 -0700, Cameron Kaiser
wrote:
> > There must be a mounting frame I'm missing, then...
>
> I suspect this is what's biting you:
>
> ? "The AirPort Card Adapter is required to install an AirPort Card into any
> ? ?AirPort-ready, G3-based, slot-load iMac. This adapter was included with
> ? ?AirPort cards made during the same period as these computers."
> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2367
Yeah. I found that page, too.
Wonder if that's like the PCI cards that accept
PCMCIA wifi cards?
Perhaps, but there's enough pins on that SMT connector that it could
be a passive frame.
It clearly easily slides in a card from the top, so I suspect it
exists because of how little clearance there is in the bottom of an
iMac and how small that service opening is.
-ethan
10:31 p.m.
You made me stop by my goodwill store on the way home today. I found
a practically new USB zip drive with a disk in it for $5. Should work
great on the amiga.
That's it. I'm addicted. I'll have to stop at every one I see now.
brian
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Ethan Dicks<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
So to turn a bit more on-topic, my big thrift store
find of the week
is a 400MHz Ruby iMac. ?It looks loaded with OS 10.4.2 on a 10GB
Quantum drive, a Matsushita CD-ROM, 576MB of RAM (the original 64MB
plus an add-on 512MB PC-133 DIMM), and no Airport/WiFi interface. ?I
found the spot for it - a pair of mounting brackets and an antenna
cable, but no interface. :-(
I don't have a lot of PowerMac hardware, so this is an interesting
find. ?I do have the guts of a Blue&White tower stuffed into a beige
box, but this little guy is much easier to move around and store on a
shelf when I'm not using it. ?Somewhere, I have Starcraft for the PPC
Mac. ?I should try to fire that up.
Oh... I forgot to mention. ?This working machine was priced at $20,
about 2% of what it cost new (but it had a keyboard and mouse back
then).
After some poking around, it looks like the former owner upgraded it
from OS9 and used AOL, but did at least clean most of the personal
data out. ?I should drop a larger hard drive in there and do a fresh
install of 10.4 (since I never really used 8 or 9 much, and 10.4 is as
high as it goes for PPC)
-ethan
10:52 p.m.
On Jun 13, 2009, at 6:31 PM, Brian Lanning wrote:
You made me stop by my goodwill store on the way home
today. I found
a practically new USB zip drive with a disk in it for $5. Should work
great on the amiga.
That's it. I'm addicted. I'll have to stop at every one I see now.
Thrift stores rock. I scored a NEC PC-8201 a few years ago, and
I've gotten a few nice HP calculators, and countless good technical
books. That might sound pretty thin, but classic computers are quite
rare in Florida...I still make regular rounds of the thrift stores. :)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
14 Jun
14 Jun
1:43 a.m.
On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Dave McGuire<mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
?Thrift stores rock. ?I scored a NEC PC-8201 a few
years ago, and I've
gotten a few nice HP calculators, and countless good technical books. ?That
might sound pretty thin, but classic computers are quite rare in Florida...I
still make regular rounds of the thrift stores. :)
I forgot about technical books. They had a huge book selection there.
I'll have to peruse that next time I go.
I can't remember where Port Charlotte is. But the next time you're in
Orlando, you have to go to SkyCraft. It's on Fairbanks next to I-4.
It's the building with the UFO on the roof. I haven't been to Orlando
in years, so I hope it's still there. But I wish I had a similar
store close to me in chicago.
For those of you not familiar, it's a surplus electronics store. Most
of us would spend hours there. They buy up large surplus stocks of
various electronic components and test equipment. LED displays, ICs,
transistors, capacitors, stepper motors... everything. They had
complete boards you could cannibalize, and also working controller
boards of all kids. They also had a large selection of oscilloscopes
there, and a collection of 19" racks outside. I haven't been there in
15 years. Next time I visit family, I'll have to stop there.
brian
3:21 a.m.
On Jun 13, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Brian Lanning wrote:
Yes. I've found some wonderful antique books at thrift stores,
and a few modern ones.
Thrift stores
rock. I scored a NEC PC-8201 a few years ago, and
I've
gotten a few nice HP calculators, and countless good technical
books. That
might sound pretty thin, but classic computers are quite rare in
Florida...I
still make regular rounds of the thrift stores. :)
I forgot about technical books. They had a huge book selection there.
I'll have to peruse that next time I go. I can't remember where Port Charlotte is. But the
next time you're in
Orlando, you have to go to SkyCraft. It's on Fairbanks next to I-4.
It's the building with the UFO on the roof. I haven't been to Orlando
in years, so I hope it's still there. But I wish I had a similar
store close to me in chicago.
Oh yes, I was there about a month ago, it's definitely still
there. :) It's about 2.5hrs from me. Port Charlotte is just south
of Sarasota, on the Gulf coast. Figure two hours south of Tampa.
For those of you not familiar, it's a surplus
electronics store. Most
of us would spend hours there. They buy up large surplus stocks of
various electronic components and test equipment. LED displays, ICs,
transistors, capacitors, stepper motors... everything. They had
complete boards you could cannibalize, and also working controller
boards of all kids. They also had a large selection of oscilloscopes
there, and a collection of 19" racks outside. I haven't been there in
15 years. Next time I visit family, I'll have to stop there.
It's a fun place, but their prices are up in the stratosphere.
They do have, however, just about the best selection of LEDs that I
have ever seen. It is a must-visit for anyone heading to the Orlando
area.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
4:51 a.m.
New subject: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3))
I love thrift stores :).
Not _exactly_ vintage (but contains vintage tech) -- recently picked up
two TI-83+ calculators for a grand total of $2 from the Salvation Army.
Considering that TI _still sells_ this model for about $80 (TI's profit
margins on these must be HUGE), not a bad haul. I gave them to my dad
who teaches math at a community college -- he has lots of students who
will be able to make use of them. (And for those who don't know, these
contain a Z80 CPU.)
For those of you in the Seattle area, RE-PC (in both Seattle and
Tukwila) are fun to browse from time to time, and they generally hold
onto "vintage" computer stuff rather than just scrapping it. Since I
started browsing their stores about two years ago, I've picked up a
number of cool old machines (nothing too rare, but a lot of good 8-bit
stuff, old dumb terminals, and a few things useful on my larger machines
like 9-track drives.)
If you're in the area, drop by and you might find something...
My favorite find, though, was at Boeing surplus just before they shut
down -- found a working HP-67 calculator w/AC adapter for $5. I don't
usually get that lucky :). The card reader even works after all these
years...
- Josh
Dave McGuire wrote:
Yes. I've found some wonderful antique books at thrift stores, and
a few modern ones.
I found an interesting book at RE-PC -- it's a copy of
Microsoft Press's
first book, which was almost immediately recalled. It's the "MS-DOS
Encyclopedia," which was a compendium of history (up to DOS 3.2!) and
MS-DOS documentation. Unfortunately, the book wasn't properly reviewed
before release and as a result actually contained information that
wasn't meant to be made public. So it was pulled from the shelves. A
good writeup is here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2004/06/14/155341.aspx. An
interesting find for a buck :).
And as far as computer-related books go, if you're in Portland, OR and
have a few bucks to spend, Powell's Technical Bookstore is wonderful, if
a bit pricey for some of their stuff... they have an interesting
selection of books for many engineering professions, and they tend to
keep interesting old books in stock as well. Picked up a copy of "IBM
1620 Programming For Science and Mathematics" from 1963 the last time I
was there...
- Josh
2:09 p.m.
New subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3))
On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 21:51 -0700, Josh Dersch wrote:
Not _exactly_ vintage (but contains vintage tech) --
recently picked up
two TI-83+ calculators for a grand total of $2 from the Salvation Army.
I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a car
boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I
didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the week.
It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on,
with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the
middle of each one.
I'm a bit annoyed I didn't get it there and then, but I was carrying a
huge (and heavy) bag of books.
Gordon
2:13 p.m.
New subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3))
On Jun 14, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on
a stall at a
car
boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I
didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the
week.
It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on,
with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the
middle of each one.
This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41.
What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover
like the ones available for most mobile phones?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
5:13 p.m.
New subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3))
On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 10:13 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Jun 14, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
It's possible that the functions on the buttons are "non-standard" - I
should at least have taken a photo :-/ It looked like it was very much
part of the device, not something that would come off easily, and it had
"proper" HP labelling on the back.
Gordon
I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased
HP41 on a stall at a
car
boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I
didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the
week.
It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on,
with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the
middle of each one.
This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41.
What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover
like the ones available for most mobile phones?
5:38 p.m.
New subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3))
On Jun 14, 2009, at 1:13 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
It's possible that the functions on the buttons are "non-standard" - I
should at least have taken a photo :-/ It looked like it was very
much
part of the device, not something that would come off easily, and
it had
"proper" HP labelling on the back.
Hmm, very interesting indeed. I wonder what that was.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on
a stall at a
car
boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so
although I
didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the
week.
It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-
on,
with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the
middle of each one.
This description matches the expansion slots on a standard HP-41.
What's with the rubber case, I wonder? Some sort of protective cover
like the ones available for most mobile phones? 
6:21 p.m.
New subject: One for Tony or other HP fetishists I suspect - was Re: Thrift
On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 21:51 -0700, Josh Dersch wrote:
Those are standard HP41 module connectors, for ROMs, peripherals, etc.
Was there a module with it? Was there somethign that looked like the HP41
card reader that fitted o nthe top end and plugged into one of the ports?
The combination of 'rubber encased 41' and 'army surplus' makes be think
of something called a Zencrypt. This was, I am told, a simple encryption
system that ran on an HP41 (ruggedised, hence the rubber) that was
considered by the militaty at one point. The software, IIRC, was
developed by Znegrange (as in ZenROM, ZEPROM, etc) and may have only
existed as EPROMs in an EPROM box (the card-reader like thing I mentioned).
AFAIK, apart from the casing, it's a normal 41. Maybe with a key overlay.
No, I don't have one, and have never seen one.
Wlodek might well know more...
-tony
Not _exactly_ vintage (but contains vintage tech)
-- recently picked up
two TI-83+ calculators for a grand total of $2 from the Salvation Army.
I spotted what looked like an odd rubber-cased HP41 on a stall at a car
boot sale. The guy also runs a small army surplus shop so although I
didn't get it there I might ask him about it if I go in during the week.
It had four openings at the back about the size of a matchbox end-on,
with brown flexiprint circuit stuff folded over plastic tabs in the
middle of each one. 
15 Jun
15 Jun
7:59 p.m.
New subject: Thrift Store Finds (was: Re: Latest thrift store find - Ruby iMac (400MHz G3))
From: Josh Dersch
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 9:51 PM
I love thrift stores :).
[snip]
For those of you in the Seattle area, RE-PC (in both
Seattle and
Tukwila) are fun to browse from time to time, and they generally hold
onto "vintage" computer stuff rather than just scrapping it. Since I
started browsing their stores about two years ago, I've picked up a
number of cool old machines (nothing too rare, but a lot of good 8-bit
stuff, old dumb terminals, and a few things useful on my larger machines
like 9-track drives.)
If you're in the area, drop by and you might find
something...
The Seattle store is about 6 blocks from the PDPplanet collection. We've
used them as a resource over the years for things like KVMs, odd cables,
etc.
However, the last time I was over there (about 6 weeks ago), all of the
interesting stuff was gone, and there was only old PC ordure on the tables.
It used to be that you could find interesting Macs for sale, but there was
nary a one in the store.
My favorite find, though, was at Boeing surplus just
before they shut
down -- found a working HP-67 calculator w/AC adapter for $5. I don't
usually get that lucky :). The card reader even works after all these
years...
I wish I'd had the room in my car for, and the guts to explain to my wife
about, the HP 9000/8xx server (roughly an 870, but one of the later models
with an <alpha><digit><digit> designation) that had disks, Ethernet,
tape
drives, etc. etc. usw. ktl., for only $75. A $50K+ machine (as I know from
spec'ing them for Cisco in another life) for $75.
Damn.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
http://www.pdpplanet.org/
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
brianlanning＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
derschjo＠mail.msu.edu -
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ggs＠shiresoft.com -
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