Mac mini Displaying Some Web Images in Grayscale,
not Color
From Joe Williams:
Dear Dan Knight,
Hello again!
I have an Intel 1.66 GHZ Mac
mini that I bought new in 2006. I splurged and got 2 GB of
RAM, and all seemed well. The mini was a little powerhouse, and, except
for some initial Adobe CS2 on an Intel box issues, I was able to do
graphic design work perfectly well. All was right with the world until
I saw a 21.6" LCD monitor for sale at a price I couldn't pass up. I
ordered it and quickly swapped out the massive 19" CRT "hotbox" for the
sleek, cool, flat-panel goodness of my new toy. The 1650 x 1180 image
looked terrific, and I was happy until I checked out Photoshop CS3 and
iPhoto. The display was displaying my RGB images as gray. I noticed as
I was surfing around the Internet, some images on web pages would also
appear in gray while others would show up in color. Is this a problem
with the vampire video card? Have I bitten off more monitor than the
mini can chew?
Both the old and new monitor have analog VGA connectors. The old CRT
displayed my colors in color.
If this is a mini issue, I'm thinking of upgrading the video card on
my G4 Gigabit
Ethernet machine. It runs the Adobe CS2 suite perfectly well, and,
with the 1.6 GHz processor upgrade I put in it, it's a rock solid
machine. What do you think?
Low End Mac is the first site I look at every day! Keep up the good
work!
Thank you!
- Joe Williams from Philly
Joe,
I've never heard of such a thing, nor am I able to
find such a problem using Google. I'll post this in the mailbag in
hopes a reader will have an answer.
Dan
Dear Dan,
Thanks for getting back to me.
I may have narrowed down what the problem is since I wrote you
yesterday. I hooked the new monitor up to my G4, and, despite some
slight jerkiness, it worked fine. I had it hooked into a VGA port on an
old PCI video card I had scavenged from an older computer. I booted the
G4 into 10.4.11, and it displayed at normal (even at 1650 x 1050). I
think the culprit may be the VGA/DVI adapter on the Mac mini. I had
caught some vague mentions of the adapter on some posts, and it seems
to make sense. I'm going to try a different adapter when I get home
from work. I'll let you know how I make out. You might want to hold off
running this on LEM until I give it a whirl. That way you can get the
whole story.
Thanks.
-Joe
PowerBook Duo 230 Won't Boot
From Reuel Baptista:
Hi Dan,
I picked up a Powerbook 230
from a friend the other day.
When the laptop is connected to the power pack, there is a clicking
noise coming from the speaker until the on button is pressed. Also, the
positive terminal of the battery was filled with gunk, however, I
cleaned it out. Also, the positive terminal inside the battery bay is
very fragile.
The battery is charging. I left it for 1 hour, and voltage increased
from 0.8 to 5V, but no boot up. No hard drive sounds or anything.
You have any suggestions/thoughts etc.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Reuel
PS. I look on your site for help (which is really good), however, I
had no luck :-(
Reuel,
Thanks for writing, although I may not be much help. I
have no hands-on experience with any PowerBook Duo model.
After a little Google research, it looks like the most
likely cause of your problem is the power manager. To reset it on your
PowerBook Duo, hold the power button in for 30-45 seconds. This should
reset the power manager and the system clock, which will now think it's
1904. If that doesn't work, Apple
suggests "removing all power sources and letting the computer sit
for 10 minutes. (Disconnect the AC adapter, remove the battery and the
internal backup battery.) This forces the PowerBook Duo to reload the
Power Manager code from the system software."
Your computer is over 15 years old, so the battery is
probably worn out even if it does report 5V of power. Still, I would
expect the 230 to run with the power adapter even with a dead battery
or no battery. If you do get it running with the battery, I suggest you
use Battery
Amnesia to help restore some life to that old battery.
My final guess is that the PRAM battery is dead; on
some Macs, a dead PRAM battery means the computer will not boot. The
PRAM battery can usually be recharged - just leave the power adapter
plugged in for a day or so. If you have to replace the PRAM battery,
the best deals I can find are US$14 from
Wholesale Batteries US and US$15.20 from
BestLaptopBattery.com.
For the best support, I suggest you join DuoList, an
email list run by the Macintosh Guy of Portland for those using
PowerBook Duo models and the PowerBook 2400.
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your e-mail. I tried leaving the machine to charge
overnight. When I woke up, I was greeting with a lovely burning smell.
On further inspection of the logic board, I found that a part of it
near the battery bay was blackened and the chips nearby were very hot.
I think it is safe to say it is well and truly fried.
Regards,
Reuel
Reuel,
I am sorry for your loss. :-(
Dan
The Ticking DuoDock
From Steffen Barabasch:
Hi there,
Re: Vintage Macs Everywhere and Fletch's DuoDock:
The tick is not the motor but the PSU, and it's called the Click of
Death (not to be confused with the Zip-drive one...) since it means the
PSU won't fire up. Chances are that you only need to replace one
particular capacitor, but I tried that in the past and it didn't work
back then. I have another DuoDock II that has become non-functional
after a while due to the problem (first rule seems to be: never unplug
a DuoDock, it went kaput after I plugged it off during a holiday), so
it seems I get another chance at trying to revive a DuoDock PSU...
In short: The Duo and its Dock is a cute machine, but terribly
flawed in way too many aspects.
Just found this page with details:
http://www.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/~cleary/computers/duo.html
Take care,
Steffen
Steffen,
Thanks for the information and the link. I wasn't
familiar with this problem.
I've forwarded your email.
Dan
TPM and Intel Macs
From William R. Walsh:
Hi Dan!
I know it seems like I write into Low End Mac quite often. I hope
you don't mind that.
I saw an article on the LEM RSS feed today about the TPM (trusted
platform module) and Snow Leopard, and it brought to mind an article
I'd recently read on the very subject of the TPM device that is present
present in some Intel Macs. The article, written by Amit Singh, is
here:
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter10/tpm/
I would suggest that anyone interested in the subject read the
article, as it offers a reasonable explanation of what is going on.
There's also some "how" with example programs and code.
But that's not the primary point of my letter. In the link above,
Mr. Singh clearly states that most if not all of the current Intel
Macintosh lineup (at the time the article was written, October 2006) do
not have TPM in place. Nor is the firmware "aware" of the TPM device.
Apple seemingly does not include a driver for the OS to make use of it,
either.
The lack of TPM hardware in some Intel-based Macs means that those
systems would have no way to work with the kind of method that Ed
Booher suggested Apple might use with the Snow Leopard release to block
those who want to run Mac OS X on conventional PC hardware.
I don't think that Apple would do that to their customers. And the
OSx86 community (which has some very capable behind it) probably won't
be out of luck just yet.
William
William,
Thanks for the information. Apple has managed to avoid
heavy-handed protectionist tactics on the Mac platform, outside of
protecting its ROM code and things like that. I don't anticipate Apple
implementing the kind of paranoid authorization and authentication
schemes Microsoft is known for, and it's nice to know that many Intel
Macs don't even include TPM.
Dan
Snow Leopard and Trusted Computing
From Jack Beckman:
Hi Dan,
One big flaw in Ed B's reasoning about TPM and Snow Leopard - few
Macs have a TPM installed. Yes, I'm talking about Intel Macs. I have
the latest MacBook Pro - no TPM. My Mac Pro - no TPM. Apple seemed to
drop the chip almost immediately. My first generation MacBook Pro has
the chip, but I think that's the only Intel Mac I have that does.
You can read all about it - and find the command to see if you have
a TPM installed at Trusted Computing for Mac OS X.
Jack
Vintage Mac Desktop Patterns
From Dan Gayhart:
Hi Dan,
The other day I had an urge to switch my desktop wallpaper - and
take a walk down memory lane. I wanted to use the original Mac
OS 7 Desktop Patterns, but after throughly scouring the Internet -
I came up empty-handed. It was shocking to think that no one had ever
uploaded these vintage desktop patterns!
I knew it would be a bit time-consuming (well, a couple of hours
really), but I was determined get these patterns. I downloaded Mac OS
7.5.3 free at Apple, installed Classic on my PowerBook G4. Using
Tomeviewer, I extracted the Desktop Patterns Control Panel, and copied
each Desktop Pattern, one-by-one, into jpeg files.
I know I'm probably not the only one who will want to re-live this
bit of Mac OS history - I've created a page here
with all of these desktop patterns for everyone to enjoy! I thought it
might be of interest to the lowendmac.com community!
Regards,
Dan Gayhart
Dan,
What a blast from the past! I especially like the one
with the colored rubber bands.
Dan
Where to Sell an Old Mac
From Trevor Howard:
LEM Mailbag,
The time has come and space/financial reasons have dictated I need
to sell my beloved old Power Mac G5 Dual 2 GHz (Late
2005), she has been a faithful friend, but I just don't have a use
for her or the space for her anymore I'm afraid :( So I made
the painful decision: I should give her to a new home where a Mac
enthusiast can give her the attention and purpose she needs!
However, due to reforms at
eBay which basically arent so fair for the seller (especially in
the neighborhood of seller protection against buyer fraud), I do not
really want to sell it there, which leaves me with a pretty big
problem, where do I exactly sell it?
There's a place I used to offload some old PCs, but they'll only
give me about $200 for my beloved old G5, and I know its worth a little
more than that!
So in my dilemma I thought I'd go to what I feel is the best place
to ask. So anyone out there, Help?
-Trevor H
Trevor,
Let me introduce you to the LEM Swap List, which we've
been running since Sept. 2000. It's not an auction site; it's a way for
buyers and sellers to connect, and it has a pretty good track record.
We require sellers to include their real name and location (city and
state), and if they have an eBay rating, their eBay ID as well. We ask
that buyers provide the same to sellers as they negotiate the purchase,
and also that phone number be exchanged.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. We also run
the
Swap Feedback list where users can share their experiences, both
good and bad. There are a few warnings there, so you might want to look
before dealing with a potential buyer.
BTW, Mac2Sell
estimates the value of your dual 2 GHz G5 at about $780, which is
ballpart for a private sale. Dealers are typically selling them used
with a 90 day warranty for around $1,100.
Dan
Mac Mysteries
From Fletch, continuing the conversation from Vintage Macs Everywhere:
There are many mysteries surrounding the Power Mac G3
models, both the beige variety and the Blue & White. I think we've
covered most of them, but we keep learning more even a decade after
their release.
It reminds me of the beige G3's Revision A/B/C ROM DIMM issue. Found
out the hard way that Sonnet's Tempo Trio would force me to actually
downgrade to Rev B. I got a custom-flashed copy of the DIMM from a
friend, not an Apple OEM, that's what made that machine
experimental.
If I hadn't found the G4 Gigabit, I would've had a real dilemma on
my hands, as I would've been trying to figure out if it was worth
$40-50 to find out if these machines were indeed Rev. 2. Also I
would've been trying to find a way to take the cleanest machine, which
was the one without a Zip drive, and put one of the three other
machines' Zip drives into it.
I've never had my hands on a PowerBook Duo, but
between the Duo list and our readership, someone is bound to have an
answer for you.
Before I emailed you I did a couple of casual searches for
"powerbook duo" and "won't dock" or some variation and turned up
nothing. After a quick scan of the archives for the Duo list at
themacintoshguy.com, I figured out what should've been obvious to me:
it's called the "tick of death", like Iomega's "click of death". Duyh.
Now I'm going to find out if I have any really good friends with
soldering skills, I have to replace a capcitor in the power supply.
Thanks again.
Fletch
Fletch,
Some of the best resources for older Macs are email
lists, including dozens that we launched and several run by the
Macintosh Guy of Portland. Good luck with the repair.
Dan
iTunes for Linux
From Timothy Sipples:
In his recent letter, Dan
Finegan criticizes Linux for its lack of iTunes.
Actually, there are at least three ways to run iTunes on Linux for a
Mac (or something very much like it):
- Run iTunes for Windows in a virtual machine. The free
virtualization solutions for Linux include QEMU, VMware Player, and
VirtualBox, among others. I can confirm that at least QEMU supports PowerPC Macs and is
actively maintained, unlike Microsoft's VirtualPC.
- Run iTunes for Windows under Wine or its commercial cousin, Crossover
Linux. This is probably exclusively for Intel Macs, but Wine provides
enough Windows API compatibility to support iTunes.
- Run an alternative to iTunes that supports iPods, notably Banshee. Banshee is
currently capable of syncing your music collection with any iPod model
except the touch and the iPhone. The only big function missing in
Banshee is support for the
iTunes Store and its DRM. But you can shop at Amazon's on-line
music store (for example) and get the same music without nasty
DRM.
Timothy Sipples
Timothy,
Thanks for the information. I can't imagine running an
x86 emulator with Windows on a PowerPC Mac too old to run Tiger. As far
as Wine goes, it requires a 2006 or newer Mac, and we don't see any
reason to abandon the Mac OS for Linux on such modern hardware.
Being able to buy music and videos from the iTunes
Store is an important feature in iTunes, as is the ability to deal with
software for the iPhone and iPod touch. While Banshee may have the same
basic capabilities as iTunes, not working with music we've already
purchsed from the iTunes Store doesn't make it an option for many of
us.
Dan
VHS to DVD
From Chris Kilner:
Like Jim Haudenshield, my Dazzle had some sound sync issues (due to
bad VHS signals) back in the OS 9 days that I solved with a
Canopus ADVC-300 with its built-in Time Base Correction. The file-size
issue is a non-starter; you can't get away from the fact that DV files
are ~12 GB/hour, but to watch a show, it doesn't need to be saved to
the hard drive (and B TV can also save it in smaller formats).
More recently, with a good VCR and OS X, the Dazzle works just fine
. . . my kids even use it as a pseudo-iSight with an ancient
analog Video8 camcorder. In order of quality and ease of use, the
Canopus is tops, the MiniDV analog pass-thru is second, and the Dazzle
is last . . . mostly due to the so-so quality of the
analog-to-DV compared to the others.
While the TV Box can be a solution for those with a separate
monitor, it won't work for iMac, eMac, iBook, PowerBook, MacBook, or
MacBook Pro users that don't have a VGA-in port (but do have FireWire
ports). It also won't work for those with DVI or ADC monitors (without
an added converter).
For conversions to DVD, I use VCR > ADVC > Mac for tape I want
to edit and VCR > ADVC > Lite-On DVD Recorder for tape I don't
want to edit. With a firmware update on the Lite-On, nearly all DVD
players can play the recorded DVDs (some older DVD players can't play
any recordable disc).
Chris Kilner
Chris,
Thanks for the additional info!
Dan
Dithered Images
From Jay Hilgenberg:
I found your piece on
dithering interesting. Back many years (around 1989) when
stochastic printing was supposed to be the answer to high
resolution printing, I experimented with dithering. I had taken a color
image, changed its size to final printed size, changed its resolution
to 600 dpi, then dithered each of the CMYK channels in Photoshop. The
image was put into Quark and output to film using a Linotronic at the
time. Each plate imaged at 2400 dpi; the image appeared as 600 dpi.
When printed we had achieved a color image with no halftone dots and
very high detail. If I am not mistaken, this is what stochastic was
supposed to be. Stochastic printing was used for a short time by
National Geographic magazine and some other high end projects,
and even some annual reports. This type of printing also eliminated any
possibility of morié patterns forming.
The only problem with doing this was that the images had to be at
its final size. Manufactures of the RIPS were trying to incorporate the
algorythms to do this on the fly so you could just send a color
separated file to the imagesetter.
Try this and see what I am talking about. With 4 color images
dithered on top of each other.
It is interesting, because you can print high quality color images
with small file sizes.
Image size without dithering 12.7 MB
Image size with dithering 9.5 MB
I don't know if anyone still is using this method or not, but back
then it was cool.
I tried this using Hyperdither, and of course it works the same. The
image does have more detail than Photoshop would offer, but it is a
bigger workflow.
Interesting article,
Jay Hilgenberg
Jay,
Thanks for writing. I used to work in publishing, and
I remember the buzz about stochastic printing. I guess the big
difference between dithering and stochastic is that stochastic places
dots randomly while dithering places them specifically. In the end,
especially at high resolution, the results should be similar.
Dan
Power Mac G4 with FW800 that Boots OS 9?
From Jim Miller:
Hello.
I want to offer you some better information about the various models
of Power Mac G4 with brightly reflective drive doors. Although three
models with this appearance were made by Apple, only two were
advertised as "Mirror Drive Door" models. Here are the details of the
three models listed chronologically as they were sold by Apple:
- "Power Mac G4 Mirror Drive Door" with 2 FireWire 400 ports, can
boot to OS 9
- "Power Mac G4 FireWire 800" with 2 FireWire 400 ports and 1
FireWire 800 port, cannot boot to OS 9
- "Power Mac G4 Mirror Drive Door" (reissued) with 2 FireWire 800
ports, can boot to OS 9
This last model, the final Power Mac G4, was produced in response to
many pro users who complained about no OS 9 boot in the FireWire
800 model. It was the last Power Mac G4, the only Power Mac G4 with 2
FireWire ports, and the only Mac with FireWire 800 that can boot to
OS 9.
Jim Miller (worked for Apple during those years and still own a
Power Mac G4 Mirror Drive Door with 2 FireWire 800 ports)
Jim,
Thanks for writing. I've just double-checked with
Apple's website and everything else Google could find, and every
resource out there says the June 2003 "reissue" of the MDD Power Mac G4
has two FireWire 400 ports. None of them say anything at all about
FireWire 800 ports.
Dan
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.
