Installing a USB Card
From Ed McDonald
Hi Mr. Moore,
I recently read your article on installing USB card on your old Mac.
I have a 8500 PowerMac which I love and I installed a USB card. I read
that my OS 9.0 had the necessary software to use USB. it installed
correctly, but I hooked up my compact card reader with drivers and it
doesn't work.
In your article you gave the link to Apple's support page to
download 1.4.1 drivers. I looked there and all over Apple's Web page
and could not find any software to download. It looks like they don't
want to have anything to do with USB. What does one do when they cannot
get the necessary software to use the card? Also I have no idea where
to look on my computer to see what is going on with USB when it is
installed. Any information that you can give me would be greatly
appreciated. I am stuck as there isn't any good info on this on the
web. Thanking you in advance,
Sincerely
Ed McDonald
Hi Ed,
You can find the USB 1.4.1 drivers here:
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/
English-North_American/Macintosh/USB_Updates/
That should fix you up. I found that the card worked
fine with the drivers that came with OS 9.1, but I had to update OS 9.0
in order to get them to work.
Charles
Curmudgeonry
From David Wollner
I have noticed that the old line Mac power users who grew up with
Windows or Macs tend not to like OS X. I have heard many of the
reasons why they don't like it. I have never met any of them who are
old enough to really be a curmudgeon. I started with mainframes and
tended towards Unix as a better way of doing things. When desktop
machines came around, I waited until the Mac, because it was a better
way of handling the desktop. As you can guess, I really like Mac
OS X, because it's a melding of how I want to work with my
machines.
You're right that Aqua is just another veneer over Unix. I've used
several of them for many years. I'm not sure why Apple didn't decide to
integrate with X11, but then again, I'm not sure I care. It works on
the desktop, and that's the part I need. Underneath the hood, there's
all the power of Unix, and that's the other part I need. Your
complaints seem to relate to the interaction between them.
Why can't you just drag a System Folder onto a Mac OS X machine
and have it boot? It actually works just fine. I'm not sure why you
feel it has disappeared, other than we are in a transition period
between Mac Classic and Mac OS X.
I agree that consulting a system's administrator is an unrealistic
expectation for most of the people using Macs. I also know that I get
phone calls from friends and family asking me to solve those sorts of
problems. Amazingly enough, most of these are able to be fixed from the
Mac environment in similar ways to Mac OS 9! I haven't had to use
the command line to fix problems with Mac OS X, unless it's in one
of my Unix tools which isn't a part of the standard Mac
environment.
I admit that I like network security and multiple user capability. I
also like the machine informing me that I'm doing something which will
change its operation - and verifying that I'm the person who should be
doing this! It's like the "Are you sure" dialog box when you first
empty the Trash. Beyond that, I never log into my machine. It just
starts up into my account, and I don't worry about it. It's not a
pervasive change to the system, just an addition of a capability which
I'm very thankful for and will be especially thankful when the next
Macintosh worm hits!
Then again, I used to work for a company which put Mac System 6 onto
Unix workstations. I also tried A/UX 1.0 and NetBSD. Neither of those
was the right solution. Mac OS X is a step in the right
direction.
Curmudgeons don't whine, they grump. If you listen to a curmudgeon,
you'll find they really know what they're talking about from both sides
of the aisle!
David Wollner
Thanks for the interesting observations, David. I just
turned 50. Does that qualify me as a curmudgeon? ;-)
Charles
Subject: ESD: The Shocking Truth
From: Ryan J. Stern
I know it's been a few years since your article on Low End Mac about
the Apple training video ESD: The Shocking
Truth, but I was wondering if you could point me to a source that
might still have a copy of this video. I think that the information
from this tape could really help my staff learn about ESD.
Any information would be greatly appreciated!
Ryan.
Hi Ryan,
My son borrowed the tape from the service department
of the Mac reseller he was working for at the time. I was an Apple tape
used for training tech support personnel.
I imagine that the only possible source of the tape
would be Apple.
Charles
Re: Browsers.alt
From Victor Panlilio in response to Browsers.alt
Hi Charles,
I have, on my primary home machine (an AGP G4/400)
- Netscape 4.78 (which I use most)
- Netscape 6.1
- Mozilla 0.9.4
- iCab 2.5.3
- Opera 5.0 Beta 3
- Internet Explorer 5 (I don't use it, the related extensions are
disabled)
and one you didn't mention, though I know you also have it:
for when I'm really impatient and just want text fastest
(even over a cable modem). The 68K version even runs fine on my ancient
Duo 230.
Victor
Hi Victor,
Yes indeed. I am a heavy user of WannaBe, which is a
lifesaver for those of us on slow dialup connections.
However, WannaBe is really in a different class than the full-featured
browsers.
Charles
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