Today, after several weeks handling some of my most spam-laden email
accounts, Mail is finally starting to recognize a good percentage of
unwanted email messages a junk. It's too bad it's taking so long, but
it's really neat to see it at work.
Incredible b&w G3 deal
After reading Why Apple's Blue &
White G3 Is a Best Buy, Mark Therrien comments:
Hello. I recently switched from the Windows platform to Mac
OS X, picking up a brand new 1 GHz Titanium
PowerBook. I loved it immediately and soon began to tell friends
using PCs how much easier Mac OS X worked in comparison to XP or
Win 2k. In fact, I loved it so much that I couldn't resist the chance
to buy an older Mac from a friend who wanted to get rid of it. The
computer in question was a Power Mac G3 B&W
Rev. 2 450 MHz, 9 GB SCSI, CD-ROM, 128 MB RAM. He also threw
in the matching keyboard and mouse, a matching USB hub, a matching USB
floppy drive, and the matching 17" Apple Studio Display.
After reading that you found an ad for a B&W G3 with a 16"
Monitor for $350 and was astounded by that price, I just had to brag at
the price I got my G3 for: $200. I haven't been in the Mac world for
too long, but I think that qualified as a pretty good deal.
Definitely. You have a very generous friend.
It Was an OEM G4
After our dialog in Beige G3 a Very
Good Buy, Matt Olson emailed me:
It was as a matter of fact an OEM module, a Mercury OWC chip, if I'm
not mistaken. I already sold it to someone else on
eBay and although I offered no warranty of any kind I'm feeling a
little guilty...
I am a little disappointed in the firm that sold me the module. They
never bothered to mention the system bus incompatibility and presented
the chip as the ideal upgrade for a Beige G3 with a Rev. C ROM, which I
also bought (and am selling) in order to make the chip work. Live and
learn, I suppose.
Thanks again for your input. Maybe you could include that
incompatibility problem in one of your upgrade articles, if you haven't
already.
Good suggestion. I'm adding the following to the beige G3 profiles:
"When buying a G4 upgrade for the beige G3, make sure it is compatible
with this model's 66 MHz bus. Pulled G4s from Apple's "Yikes!" G4 and some OEM
G4s are specifically designed for a 100 MHz bus and will not work
properly in the beige G3."
The Upgrade Debate
Thomas J. Cook sent the following to Steve Watkins and me:
You guys argued the age old upgrade vs. newer computer in separate
articles yesterday (see The Complete
Mac Makeover: Updating an Older Power Mac or iMac for Under $500
and Why Apple's Blue & White G3 Is
a Best Buy), and I have to say you both presented very convincing
arguments, even though you may not have even realized that you were
debating . . . in fact maybe we should suggest this style for
the next presidential debates - you can only argue the pros of your
position, and you can't even hear your opponents answers
. . . just a thought.
Back to the topic - I have a basement full of PCI PPC and older Macs
(9 running more or less full time and another 11 in various states),
and Steve's suggestions for upgrading seemed like a great idea - until
I read Dan's article on the reasons why the B&W is so much better
than the beige G3, and
consequently so so much better than even an upgraded 6100, 7100, or 6400. And this is always my dilemma: Why
upgrade any of my machines when I can get an entire new machine with
similar processor capability (and usually better overall specs due to
faster bus, etc.) for a similar price?
Wouldn't Dan's G3/300 128/6/CD-ROM, $312 be faster overall than
Steve's upgraded $280 6100/G3-500 128/9? And, as Steve's points out,
the 6100 still lacks USB and FireWire and could never run
OS X?
The upgraded 7500/G3-400 512/9 or 36.7 gig at $336 has USB,
FireWire, and OS X, but how does it compare to Dan's G3/400,
256/9/CD-ROM, SCSI, $398?
And then there is the issue of the 10 Mbps Ethernet max on the
6100/7500 machines compared to the B&W's 100 Mbps standard.
I always appreciate your articles on pushing my old Macs to their
limits, but each time I get ready to buy a G3 upgrade card (even on
eBay, where you can frequently find then for less than $100), I always
stop myself. I remember that these old machines are still humming along
nicely - and with just the G3 upgrade that still leaves them hamstrung
by their other limitations. When I add up all of the suggested
upgrades, that B&W G3 seems only about another $50 away.
Just my rambling thoughts. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Thanks for your thoughts. I wrote the four articles on the Power
Mac G3s and G4s on Monday, the same day I edited Watkin's article. The
merits and demerits of upgrades have always been debated and will
always be debated. At times I've gone one way; at other times, the
other way.
For instance, I paid nothing but income tax on my first Mac, a Mac Plus that I earned in an Apple
sales competition. A friend donated a second floppy. I spent about $300
on four 1 MB SIMMs, buying a pair at a time as funds allowed. I
bought a $400+ 40 MB hard drive, although there were cheaper ones on
the market. (The drive lasted about 8 years.) And I invested $200 in a
Brainstorm 16 MHz upgrade. Add in a printer cable, drivers, and some
software, and that came to about $1,000. But not all at once. And it's
still a nice computer to play with.
After a few years of use, I sold that for $750, picked up a Centris 610 for about $1,350, and began
upgrading it. Increase VRAM. Drop in another 4 MB or 8 MB of
RAM. Save up for a 270 MB hard drive. Work out a deal for a 56k modem.
Dream of a QuadDoubler, a CD-ROM drive, more memory, and a still bigger
hard drive.
Then SuperMac left the clone business, the last company to do so. For
$800 - about the cost of a QuadDoubler, big hard drive, and maxing out
RAM on the Centris - I could get a 180 MHz 604e powerhouse. I sold the
C-610 to one of my sons to help finance the purchase of a SuperMac J700. That machine's still in use
today.
It, too, was upgraded with memory, a G3/250 processor, more memory, an
IDE controller and hard drive, a better video card, a G3/333 processor,
an ixTV card, 10/100 ethernet, and eventually a stripped S900 - and with all the old leftover parts,
the J700 was rebuilt as a slower alternative to the S900. Another of my
sons uses the S900 these days.
There are always three options when upgrading - Is it more economical
to make a few upgrades? Am I better of with a new Mac? Or is there
something in between what I have and what's new that might be the best
investment?
I also look at expansion potential. The b&w G3 has phenomenal
expansion potential; a Power Mac 6100 has very little. I'd have a hard
time justifying a big hard drive, lots of memory, and a CPU upgrade all
at once - but a bit here, another bit there, and it sometimes fits the
budget better to upgrade a little at a time.
There is no right answer. There is only your right answer. In my last
job, I got to work with almost everything from the Mac Plus through the
Sawtooth G4s,
including about 40% of the PowerBooks. I had to know enough to help my
employer make the right decisions about new purchases and upgrades.
And, of course, I've been making the same choices with my own money for
over a decade.
It's always the value equation, and that's the whole reason we share
our expertise on older Macs. Without knowledge, it's hard to measure
value. we have steered some people away from some Road Apples. We have steered others
toward our Best Buys.
Best Version of Mac OS 9
Coming back to the Mac after a few years away, Brad Browne
wonders:
I'm a fan of your Low End Mac site, as I have a closet full of
legacy systems. I left the Mac world in 1998 when I was working as a
full-time network engineer and the Apple/NeXT/Rhapsody fiasco was at
its height. I had a 68K Performa
636 and didn't want to spend the cash on one of those
mid-generation PowerPCs. My mistake back then, But I came back Mac last
year.
My question is this:
Since I was out of the Mac World for all of OS 8 and 9, I have a
Cube I want to run as a
Mac OS 9.x machine. What are the differences between the different
version of 9, and what would you recommend for my Cube? I've got an MDD
Mac and TiBook for Jaguar, so this will be strictly an OS 9
machine.
Welcome back. Although Steve Jobs held a funeral for it, Mac
OS 9 remains a great operating system. I only switched from it to
using OS X full-time two months ago. Just as there are people
using System 6 and 7 today, I suspect we'll have people using Mac
OS 9 five years from now.
Mac OS 9 represents the culmination of nearly two decades of operating
system evolution. From the early days of the Macintosh project in the
early 1980s until last summer, Apple kept tweaking it. Sometimes making
it more efficient. Almost always making it more friendly. Sometimes
making it a bit less stable, then putting the stability back with the
next revision.
In my experience, I can't say that any version of OS 9 is clearly
better than any other. I can't see any reason not to recommend 9.2.2,
the final version of the classic Mac OS.
Best Portable?
After reading my thoughts on the best Power Macs, Brian asks:
I enjoyed your article but have a question...
What would you say is the equivalent "best buy in a portable?
I don't know yet. I've been debating doing a series on that in the
next week or two. I'm never quite sure what my conclusions will be
until I've finished writing.
Three Slots or Four?
Continuing the discussion from Four PCI Slots, Al
Shep writes:
I did not mean to offend. I only wanted to note that some took issue
when Apple said the machine had 4 PCI slots when one was dedicated to
video.
You might also note that a SCSI PCI card was a very common build to
order option, since the Blue and White did not have onboard SCSI. This
left only 2 PCI slots open.
Your point that upgrading the video is much more efficient with the
Blue and White is quite valid, but I would argue that upgrading the
video is not as common as you might think. Many Mac users do not view a
gaming video card as essential or even recognize the importance of a
fast video card, especially since Photoshop acceleration is no longer
selling point for video cards.
No offense taken. I tend to write a quickly and briefly as possible
so I can get close to caught up on email (I'm currently a day
behind).
I guess I'm kind of simple. If there are four PCI slots inside the box,
that's the way I call 'em. Nobody questioned whether the Mac II had six slots or the IIcx had three. Yes, each one really
needed a video card to be much good, but you there was no debating how
many NuBus slots were inside the computer.
It would have been disingenuous of Apple to call the Mac IIci a four slot machine, although if
you added the processor direct slot, it was a four slot computer.
Either way, with onboard video, those three slots provided more
expansion options than three slots did on the IIcx.
It is disingenuous of Apple to claim some Macs have 5 USB ports when
two of them are on the keyboard - and one must be occupied by the
keyboard's USB cable in order for those two to function. It is also
disingenuous of Apple to say the more recent G4 Power Macs
have five slots without additional qualification, since one of the
slots (the AGP slot) is not compatible with the others. (Yes, it's
equally misleading when PC vendors do it, and I realize Apple is only
following their lead.)
Until I actually used a beige G3, confronted its limitations
(especially in OS X), and saw the real world solutions, I would
have considered three PCI slots plenty for almost any user. To get good
OS X performance, which was an important consideration in this
series of articles, you really want an Ultra66 drive controller and a
better video card. The remaining slot could hold a USB/FireWire card,
and 802.11g wireless networking cards, a 10/100 ethernet card, or
something else - but that's the only slot left.
A blue & white G3 would not be so limited. It starts with very good
video, very good Ultra33 drive support, FireWire and USB on the
motherboard, 10/100 ethernet, and three empty PCI slots. As has
generally been true of Power Macs, there are more empty slots than
almost any user will ever need on the b&w G3 and the G4s that
followed it.
In its day, that was true of the PCI Power Macs and beige G3 as well,
but the video demands of OS X make it increasingly likely that
users will want better video and will drop in a PCI video card. Today's
hard drives also seem quite sluggish on a 16.7 MBps system bus -
another important factor with an operating system where virtual memory
cannot be disabled - making a good IDE controller another good
addition.
And suddenly the beige G3 isn't any less expensive than the blue &
white, which offers pretty good performance in comparison without the
expense of two or three PCI cards.
But more important than the number of PCI cards is how necessary they
are. In retrospect, the beige G3 would have been far more flexible and
viable as an OS X platform with four slots - and coming up with
enough reasons to fill three slots in the b&w G3 would be a
challenge to most of us. It's not only faster (bus, CPU speed, IDE,
etc.), it's also more flexible, which is why I call it a best buy.
The Anti-G4 Firmware Update
After reading about the b&w G3 and its upgrade potential, Doug
Arnott asks:
Hey Dan. Long time listener, first time caller with a quick
question.
In you article you briefly mention processor upgrades for the Blue
& Whites. Wasn't there a Apple Firmware update that, among other
things, prevented you from upgrading the processor? I remember a huge
furor about it at the time, mostly due to the fact that Apple didn't
bother to mention that their update would hamstring the machine's
future upgrade options.
Am I imagining things here?
No, you are not imaging things. The b&w G3 was originally
capable of supporting a G4 processor, although none were shipping when
the computer was first released. In May 1999, Apple released a firware
update (ROM Version 1.1) for the b&w G3 that explicitly disabled
support for the G4 processor, a preemptive move to prevent the upgrade
industry from offering G4 upgrades.
It didn't work. It did and perhaps still does prevent b&w G3 owners
from installing and using Apple branded G4 modules from the "Yikes!"
G4, but all of the upgrade makers found a workaround to Apple's ROM
block. Apple ended up with egg on their face, and you can read my take
on the whole mess in Why the G4
Uproar?
More on USB Bandwidth
Andrew Prosnik
USB 1.x bandwidth is actually crappier than you're aware of. I can't
find any direct links since the stupid USB website changed their FAQ,
but...
USB 1.x (I don't know about 2.0) allows one device to only ever have
8 Mbps total bandwidth out of the 12 Mbps. So from 1.5 MBps (12 Mbps)
theoretical bandwidth you instantly drop to 1.0 MBps (8 Mbps)
theoretical usable bandwidth. That's why they refer to 900 KBps
as a real-world transfer rate.
They used to make it easy and just tell you that in the FAQ but the
only thing I have that can somewhat back up my claim now is:
<http://www.usb.org/developers/whitepapers/bwpaper2.pdf>
In the introduction:
"The 12Mb/s full speed (FS) bandwidth of USB allows the creation of
very exciting low to medium speed devices. USB is intended for devices
in the 8Mb/s and below range. USB also provides a lower cost, reduced
feature mode of operation for low speed devices. This mode uses an
1/8th speed clock resulting in a 1.5Mb/s low speed (LS) bandwidth."
If I cared enough, I would post on the USB forum and see if someone
could confirm my assertion. However, I'm about 90% sure I'm right in my
recollection that one USB device can only use 8 Mbps max, theoretical,
out of the total 12 Mbps. And then again I don't know how USB devices
contend for bandwidth . . . is it the same as ethernet
broadcasting or does the USB controller/hub tell each device when to
send data? Maybe that's the case and the reason why we're magically
losing 4 Mbps for some unknown reason.
Anyway, more fuel for the fire. I have no idea about USB 2.0's
per-device bandwidth allocation or any of the overhead involved
there.
I love having an informed readership, because sometimes the teacher
gets to become the student. (Okay, I'm always learning, but that should
be true of all teachers.) I was not aware of the inner workings of USB.
This explains why very few USB 1.1 benchmarks have ever passed the 800
kbps level.
From the head-to-head comparisons I've seen with FireWire and USB 2.0,
although FireWire is "only" rated at 400 Mbps and USB 2.0 should be
faster at a maximum of 480 Mbps, the FireWire drives almost always win
the benchmark tests. I suspect this is because FireWire is related to
SCSI and uses smarter peripherals, but I'm far from an expert on
connectivity.
Thanks for the education.
Well, that wraps it up for this week. It's almost 3:30 in the
afternoon, and I haven't had lunch yet. We'll get to more emails over
the weekend and post another mailbag on Monday.
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
