Winds of Change

written by Charles DeVore

from Mouse Tracks October 2000

There are some good ways out there to update PCI Macs other than accelerators. One of the ways is a PCI card that allows you to install IDE drives in your Mac rather than SCSI.

I have long been a fan of SCSI, but the price of SCSI versus IDE is not competitive. An 18 Gigabyte SCSI drive is around $500 and a 40 Gigabyte IDE/ATA drive is around $300 plus the PCI card for $100. Not only that, but prices seem to be dropping and hard drives seem to be getting bigger in the IDE/ATA world.

Having just installed one of these cards into a 8500, I can say the hardest part is getting the cable plugged into the drive around all the other cables. Be aware, the drive should not have anything on it, because you will need to format it using Apple's Drive formatter. The drive will show up in the window of the formatter as a SCSI drive on SCSI chain two.

8500 Sonnet
Speaking of the 8500, it now has a Sonnet 400 mHZ G-3 daughter card installed in it and a USB PCI card as well as a second monitor card. These machines are a pain to work on due to the fact that you need to remove the mother board to add RAM or remove the Cache DIMM. If you are thinking about installing a G3 card, be sure you remove the Cache DIMM. Apple's Cache DIMMs are not fast enough to keep up with the new cards and cause the machine to crash or hang on startup. There was a time when I thought three PCI slots were enough for anyone. That has changed with all the new ways of getting information into our Macs.

Do-it-yourself Upgrades
The following is list of things that you need to watch for as you upgrade your computer.
1. Wear a grounding strap to discharge static electricity.
2. Read a book or go to a web site on how to open the computer.
3. Plastic parts break easily, if you need to pry you're doing it wrong.
4. Do not expect a consultant to talk you though it on the phone.
5. Be sure to seat the cards all the way into the PCI or daughter card slots.
6. Be very careful not to bend pins on SCSI or IDE/ATA drives while inserting the cables. I have seen pins flatten and the drive made unusable due to this.
7. If you have added a new card or daughter card you need to reset the CUDA or PMU switch on the mother board. It is a small round red or grey button that zaps the PRAM. This makes the computer look at all the slots as it starts up, and make changes in settings.
8. If you have no idea what I've said in the first 7 steps, hire a pro to do the work.

Adding to a PCI Mac
Here are the kind of things you may think about adding to your existing PCI Mac.
1. Second monitor card. This is great for people who use Photoshop, or programs with lots of palettes. (around $150)
2. USB card for those who wish to take advantage of the cheap printers, flash card readers, and scanners. (around $50)
3. Serial 2 or 4 port card for those you have lots of serial devices. (around $250)
4. FireWire card for folks who want to import broadcast quality video directly to their hard drive. There are also FireWire hard drives, CD ROM burners, scanners, and printers are on the way. (around $150 and up)
5. SCSI card to allow more or different (wide) SCSI devices or to allow you to use existing SCSI devices on the the B&W G3 or Graphite G4s. These are good cards to add to the Beige G3 due to the poor SCSI hardware that came with those machines. ($80 to $500)

Upgrade Warnings
Warning to upgraders! The new installers for most Apple products use what we call self-mounting images. The biggest problem is that it looks like it's installing when actually it's mounting an image on your desktop. After the image is mounted, you double click on it as if it were a disk or folder and then launch the installer. Please, folks, the Read Me files are there for your benefit; please read them before you install. Failing to do so may cause you to reload your System or cause other items to stop working.

Upgrading Modems
Many people own Performa branded Macs with modems installed in them. This also goes for 63X, 62XX, 63XX, 64XX, 65XX Macintosh branded models. Some of these modems are getting pretty slow for today's standards.

In order to use a faster external modem, you must remove the internal modem which is installed in a slot on the motherboard. You will know which slot if you will follow the modem phone port and see it is connected to the modem card. The card is removed by pulling straight up. Yes, it is hard to get it out, but it will come out.

After removing the card you need to remove the round plug from the modem port on the back of the machine. This is a small round plastic cover that will reveal a standard modem port. Please note! Be sure to cover the area the modem card blocked with tape or a cut out from a floppy label placed over the hole. This prevents (real) bugs from getting in and directs the air flow to the right parts in the computer.

Note: before installing another modem be sure to remove any of the modem software that was on your computer. This means all fax software must be removed. Failure to do this may result in your new modem not working or telling you the port is busy.

Apple's New G4 Cube
To buy a Cube or not to buy a Cube. Who wants one, who needs one? So far the only reason to buy a Cube, in my opinion, is if you're short on desk space and long on money. $1799 is a lot of loot to put out for a machine that has a small footprint.

There are no PCI slots so forget the internal add-ons. That leaves memory slots as the only internal upgrade to do here. FireWire, Ethernet 10 BaseT, USB, Apple's special monitor port and a VGA port are hidden under the Cube. So adding devices to your machine will be through one of those four ports.

Now if you feel you're never going to need a CD-RW or a Zip drive or printer, your desk will remain pretty clean. However, most people will start adding clutter right away and will lose the Cube effect pretty quickly. My current advice is buy the standard G4 tower, stick it under your desk and leave the way open for expansion in the future.

Rumor has it that the Cube, like the PowerBook, will be a "send it back to Apple or swap the parts yourself" for any expansion. Dealers will not get any money from Apple for working on the Cube. Be sure to ask, and if they say "Oh yes we will!," have that put in writing.

New Monitor, New Mac
Got a old machine? Want a new Apple monitor? Buy a new machine! That's right, if you want one of the new monitors Apple now sells, you will need a new Mac to run it. The cable for these new monitors provides not only the video signal but the power to the monitor itself. Apple says it has no plans to build an adapter that would allow the monitor to work on older machines. Several third party vendors think they can build one but it's going to be a while till they have a working prototype and an assembly line geared up to get product out. This reminds me of the fancy port on the back of the 6100 machines. You needed a adapter to plug a standard monitor into it. Just when you think Apple has finally seen the mass production light, they introduce an "Apple only" handicap for monitor sales.

New Keyboards
Apple not only handicaps the monitor market for Macs with their special cable but now we get word that the special keys on the new keyboard will only work with the brand new machines. Apple announced that they would have a software fix out for this with System 10.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has released a keyboard for both PC and Mac that is getting really good reviews. The software for the Mac is on their web site, but the keyboard works well right out of the box. MS Natural Keyboard Elite is the product to look for. You can check out reviews of this product on the web site (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/ sep00/090700.html#S10302)

VST Firewire 250 Zip
My B&W G3 now has a VST FireWire 250 Zip Drive attached to it. The drive works well. Just don't expect any great speeds out of it. Remember you can give it a FireWire case and it will still operate at the slow read and write speeds Zips operate at. This applies to all sorts of devices, most of which are converted IDE/ATA drives placed in a case with a adapter plugged into it. It will still be a year before native FireWire devices become the norm.

3rd Party Warranty Warning
For those of you with third party extended warranties comes this warning. Trying to get service using this type of warranty is like going to the dentist. I call an 800 number and talk to a operator. They try to figure out where I should send my item. Then they give me a number and an Authorization Code to give to the vendor they are sending me to.

I call the vendor and they say they haven't gotten the fax from the warranty people yet. Four more calls that day gets me nowhere. Call the next day, still no fax. Call the warranty people back, talk to a different operator. Get a different number for a different vendor. Call this vendor, no fax yet, they tell me to call back the next day. I call back the next day and they take my information and tell me that they will send a box UPS to pick up the product. Three days later the box arrives full of packing material with instructions on how to pack my item and what to include with the item.

Give the box to the UPS guy the next day. 10 days later it gets delivered to Edison NJ. The reason I know this is you can track it on the internet if you know the tracking code. (http://www.ups.com/tracking/ tracking.html). So now it's a waiting game to see what happens next.

So just remember to ask (if you buy a third party warranty) where the work will be performed. Oh, and ask for that in writing. 'Cause I've been without my digital camera over two weeks at this point.

You can reach me at charles@cdevsol.com.

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