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Moore's Mailbag

Short Takes 9/23/99

Charles W Moore - 1999.09.23

Short Takes, Sept. 23, 1999

Cinema Display DFP – DFI Confusion Correction

Several readers wrote correcting the Short Take we ran last week about Apple Cinema Display support for DFP graphics cards.

From J.D. Mankovsky:

Your website refers to the Apple Cinema Display. A couple of “errors” that need to be corrected:

  1. The Digital Connector is called a DVI connector Digital Visual Interface (DVI) 24-pin connector with Transition Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS), not a DFP connector.
  2. The new 450 and 500 MHz G4s do not include a “dual” DVI + analog video card.

We will only ship the Cinema Display + G4 (450 or 500) “bundle” (October 1st is when we start taking orders) with the dual Analog + DVI video card.

Sincerely,
JD Mankovsky
Senior Systems Engineer
Apple Business Group

From Iain Bradbury:

This email relates to the Cinema Display’s compatibility with DFP equipped graphics cards as discussed on both MacFixIt and Low End Mac.

The Xclaim 3D Plus is DFP (Digital Flat Panel – 20-pin), but the new Rage 128 products in the Sawtooth are DVI (Digital Visual Interface – 24-pin).

The Cinema Display requires the following:

  • Power Mac G4 computer with AGP 2X expansion slot and built-in USB
  • Digital Visual Interface (DVI) 24-pin connector with Transition Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS) (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58437 – since removed by Apple)

ATI DVI equipped graphics cards are backward-compatible with DFP monitors, but DFP equipped graphics cards will not support DVI monitors.

I hope this was helpful.

From Elizabeth Garcia:

In regards to your recent article Apple’s 22″ LCD Cinema Display Support not Limited to Sawtooth G4s, the display, in fact, uses a DVI connector.

See Apple’s spec page at <http://www.apple.com/displays/acd22/specs.html>.

DFP panels will work on the graphics card included with the 450 & 500 MHz G4s (as defined by the DVI spec) with a simple adapter, but I would like to know if there are any other PCI graphics cards which have a DVI connector on them.

Why Doesn’t iBook Have a Sound-In Port?

According to a report by MacWelt’s Sebastian Hirsch and MacWeek’s Matthew Rothenberg, Apple Vice President of Product Marketing Phil Schiller told MacWelt magazine at Paris Apple Expo that Apple decided to omit the microphone port from the iBook “to cut costs since microphones do not yet play a major role in portable computers.”

iBook users who want or need sound-in capability will be obliged to use third-party USB peripherals – at least for now. Schiller also hinted to MacWelt that future revisions of the iBook might have a microphone port.

CD-R/RW Expansion Bay Drive for Wall Street PowerBooks

Japan Apple Watch reports that PowerYu is developing a CD-R/RW expansion bay device for the PowerBook G3 Series I and II (Wall Street).

Some photos of the prototype CD-R/RW drive may be viewed here and here (no longer online).

JAW says that a Matsushita UJDA310L(ATAPI) drive is used with 4x write and 20x read speed. The drive is expected to ship in Japan around the end of October.

The new drive will be produced by Taxan, which is cooperating with PowerYu on the device’s development. Taxan is a manufacturing subsidiary of Kaga Electronics, a specialist trading company dealing in the supply of electronic parts and devices.

Lombard SCSI Disk Mode Problems Discussed

MacFixIt is running a forum thread (no longer online) on problems some PowerBook G3 Lombard users are experiencing in attempting to connect their Lombards to other Macs in SCSI Disk Mode. Apparently, in some cases the PowerBook’s volume refuses to mount on the other Mac’s Finder.

How to Beat the High Price of WallStreet Internal Modems

The PowerBook Zone says that owners of some early WallStreet PowerBooks that shipped without internal modems can simply buy one of the internal modems made for the Blue & White PowerMac G3s, strip off the metal cage on the modem, and install the modem in their WallStreet. This modem can be had for $89 at some outlets, which makes it a cheap 56k modem solution, and both of your PC Card slots remain free. Using this modem could save you more than $100 compared to the price of the standard WallStreet modem module.

Trackpad Clicking Not Default-Enabled On iBook

Apple has posted a TIL article (#58446) about the iBook’s trackpad clicking not being enabled by default. The article includes instructions for newbies on how to activate trackpad clicking.

Moore’s Mailbag

From Reg Lee:

One note to add – my pet peeve about iCab. More often than not it does not allow using the space bar or other keys for scrolling or paging up and down. I constantly create new windows when I surf, especially when reading the news, and having to click inside each one before I can scroll is a bothersome extra step. iCab’s Cmd-Shift-click (open link in a new window behind the current window) would be a truly great feature which no other browser has if not for this problem.

From Danny:

You keep saying The PowerBook Guy is “expecting a batch of 250 MHz” daughter cards. Wouldn’t that be the used ones which people traded in on the 292’s he sold last month??? Please keep it real, sponsor or no!

To the best of my knowledge, the 250’s he will be selling are new, but I wouldn’t state categorically that your surmise is mistaken. I’m sure the 292s weren’t trade-ins, and I don’t think he got his good reputation by pulling shady deals. These end-of-lines tend to be sold in batches.

Charles

From Peter Tamas:

So…

Ever heard of an upgrade that would forget about the ROMs and just set up the machine as a CHRP box (i.e. run LinuxPPC) and then run Mac OS in an emulation shell for the necessary Mac applications but spends most of its time as a screaming Linux notebook?

No. Have you?

I’m intrigued.

Charles

Any idea who I could poke to see if such a beast exists anywhere on anybody’s maybe list? I’ll contact the usual suspects.