 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Forums - Computer music & technology
Subject: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Original Message Date: 01-Mar-08 @ 10:01 PM - How did people do anything with mac OS9?
bloody hell... got that old G4 finaly, sadly it's not a later AGP version, but that OS9.1 is... well... wierd
downloaded the bootrom file from mac website to update, the mac says it is an IE file... several hourts later after investigating how mac os9 does filetypes, yes it IS associated with STUFFIT, and still it cant be unarchived.. lol..
anyways, tried to put osx on it, no dice "this machine is not compatible)
bunged in 1/2 gig of old pc100 ram, and straight away OSX is setting up
it only had 64mb of ram!!!... lol
oh well, should have a TIGER machine in a few hours, this'll be fun
downloaded the bootrom file from mac website to update, the mac says it is an IE file... several hourts later after investigating how mac os9 does filetypes, yes it IS associated with STUFFIT, and still it cant be unarchived.. lol..
anyways, tried to put osx on it, no dice "this machine is not compatible)
bunged in 1/2 gig of old pc100 ram, and straight away OSX is setting up
it only had 64mb of ram!!!... lol
oh well, should have a TIGER machine in a few hours, this'll be fun
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 11/16 03-Mar-08 @ 03:39 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
lol sounds a bit flat today on speakers, did it on some cheap sony hifi cans which had a minijack plugto go in the mac audio out
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 12/16 05-Mar-08 @ 02:56 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
ok guys, Milan.. sell out you say? (jokingly I know, but..)
yes i'd have said that back a few years ago, but like I said, Mac's now are just Intel machines like our own PC's... the reason I am thinking it's time to switch is cos of 2 things
1. mac's now piss on ibm machines, we'd have to build a machine on a specialist server board to compete.
2. what we used to mock apple owners for... that they couldnt get under the hood and do anything, whereas we could change parts, upgrade processors etc
well you could always upgrade the processor and ram in G4's and G3's, but I still think pc's at that time offered more bang for buck even with a fiddle cheap mac upgrade, but with the Intel Mac's it's worth upgrading and you CAN upgrade mac processors yourself!
Although not documented by mac for the public, they released a service manual for 'approved mac personel', which included instructions for removing and replacing... the cpu's!
Anandtech tried a processor upgrade way back, and it worked!.. they chucked in 2 pre-release Clovertown processors and got 8 cores!!!.. tested 100% fine
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6
So, while accessing the processors on a mac pro isnt easy like a pc, you can in theory buy a s/h low end mac quad and bump it up to a top of the range 8 core by just adding a couple of quad XEON chips!!.. Do you realise the saving this'll mean? and of course you can boot xp or vista on a mac pro... there's plenty of people out there running mac pro's with 4 boot OS's!... Leopard, Linux, XP and Vista!!!
also the XEON chips have a faster fsb speed than core2duo, so even a basic dual-core XEON is faster than the exact same clocked core2duo chip.. eg, in theory and old mac pro twin at 2.66 should beat a new imac at the same speed, and the IMAC'S cost like 1400 quid for the 24"... mac pro twins are out there quite cheap, and I'm assuming it's possible you can replace the dual core XEON to a quad perhaps to get a piss cheap quad core, although so far I didnt find anything on this
anyways, the point is we now have pretty much almost the same tweaking ability on mac pro's that we have on IBM pc's except it's a much more exclusive club in that few regular mac owners have the balls to do this cos it invalidates warranty of course... the other slight downside is Fully Buffered ram costs a bit more, but there's a solution to that also - Anandtech again showed this long before 3rd party ram appeared, and cheap ram can be found now on any pc-parts site
As we noted in our initial Mac Pro article, Apple's memory upgrades are pretty expensive and other than a fancy heatsink, they are standard DDR2 FB-DIMMs. We wondered if we could buy third party memory from companies like Crucial or Kinston, with much better prices, and use it in the Mac Pro. We got 512MB, 1GB and 2GB FB-DIMM modules from Crucial with standard heatspreaders and tried them in the Mac Pro. Thankfully the memory worked just fine, however we did have concerns about cooling. Apple clearly outfitted its FB-DIMM modules with a very large heatsink for a reason and it wasn't for bragging rights.
We had no problems running all of our benchmarks with the standard Crucial FB-DIMMs; however, if we ran a memory stress test for even just a short period of time the modules quickly reported correctable ECC errors. Apple's original modules did not generate any ECC errors, so it looks like the additional cooling is necessary under the most extreme situations.
In response to the issues, companies like Crucial have released revised FB-DIMMs that meet Apple's thermal specifications. We have yet to receive any for review but we're assuming that they will work fine given that Crucial guarantees proper operation in a Mac Pro. So although regular FB-DIMMs that work in other Intel 5000X based motherboards will work in the Mac Pro, we would suggest selecting modules that meet Apple's thermal specifications in order to be on the safe side.
anyways as i'm sure you know you can go to any pc retailer now and buy 3rd party 'official' mac pro ram WAY cheaper than from MAC... which is important cos from what i've been reading, with the 4 and 8 core macs you need a stick of ram idealy for each cpu so each has it's own stick otherwise with just 2 dimms in an 8core you reduce the memory buss width by half
apparently it is even possible to upgrade an old mac pro twin (perhaps a dual 2.66 standard) to a quad core, and there's one guy out there who published a document with pictures showing you how to upgrade the super-cheap mac mini to a core2duo! so you get an imac for like 50 quid on top of the mac mini price.. i already have a mate running garageband on a mac mini and its enuff for him to write songs for his publisher and he works with signed artists regularly
here's more stuff:
Upgrade a quad core to an 8 core cheaply
Upgrade a mac MINI to a core2duo!
anyways, this is all new to me, so no doubt there's tons more out there on this subject..
yes i'd have said that back a few years ago, but like I said, Mac's now are just Intel machines like our own PC's... the reason I am thinking it's time to switch is cos of 2 things
1. mac's now piss on ibm machines, we'd have to build a machine on a specialist server board to compete.
2. what we used to mock apple owners for... that they couldnt get under the hood and do anything, whereas we could change parts, upgrade processors etc
well you could always upgrade the processor and ram in G4's and G3's, but I still think pc's at that time offered more bang for buck even with a fiddle cheap mac upgrade, but with the Intel Mac's it's worth upgrading and you CAN upgrade mac processors yourself!
Although not documented by mac for the public, they released a service manual for 'approved mac personel', which included instructions for removing and replacing... the cpu's!
Anandtech tried a processor upgrade way back, and it worked!.. they chucked in 2 pre-release Clovertown processors and got 8 cores!!!.. tested 100% fine
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6
So, while accessing the processors on a mac pro isnt easy like a pc, you can in theory buy a s/h low end mac quad and bump it up to a top of the range 8 core by just adding a couple of quad XEON chips!!.. Do you realise the saving this'll mean? and of course you can boot xp or vista on a mac pro... there's plenty of people out there running mac pro's with 4 boot OS's!... Leopard, Linux, XP and Vista!!!
also the XEON chips have a faster fsb speed than core2duo, so even a basic dual-core XEON is faster than the exact same clocked core2duo chip.. eg, in theory and old mac pro twin at 2.66 should beat a new imac at the same speed, and the IMAC'S cost like 1400 quid for the 24"... mac pro twins are out there quite cheap, and I'm assuming it's possible you can replace the dual core XEON to a quad perhaps to get a piss cheap quad core, although so far I didnt find anything on this
anyways, the point is we now have pretty much almost the same tweaking ability on mac pro's that we have on IBM pc's except it's a much more exclusive club in that few regular mac owners have the balls to do this cos it invalidates warranty of course... the other slight downside is Fully Buffered ram costs a bit more, but there's a solution to that also - Anandtech again showed this long before 3rd party ram appeared, and cheap ram can be found now on any pc-parts site
As we noted in our initial Mac Pro article, Apple's memory upgrades are pretty expensive and other than a fancy heatsink, they are standard DDR2 FB-DIMMs. We wondered if we could buy third party memory from companies like Crucial or Kinston, with much better prices, and use it in the Mac Pro. We got 512MB, 1GB and 2GB FB-DIMM modules from Crucial with standard heatspreaders and tried them in the Mac Pro. Thankfully the memory worked just fine, however we did have concerns about cooling. Apple clearly outfitted its FB-DIMM modules with a very large heatsink for a reason and it wasn't for bragging rights.
We had no problems running all of our benchmarks with the standard Crucial FB-DIMMs; however, if we ran a memory stress test for even just a short period of time the modules quickly reported correctable ECC errors. Apple's original modules did not generate any ECC errors, so it looks like the additional cooling is necessary under the most extreme situations.
In response to the issues, companies like Crucial have released revised FB-DIMMs that meet Apple's thermal specifications. We have yet to receive any for review but we're assuming that they will work fine given that Crucial guarantees proper operation in a Mac Pro. So although regular FB-DIMMs that work in other Intel 5000X based motherboards will work in the Mac Pro, we would suggest selecting modules that meet Apple's thermal specifications in order to be on the safe side.
anyways as i'm sure you know you can go to any pc retailer now and buy 3rd party 'official' mac pro ram WAY cheaper than from MAC... which is important cos from what i've been reading, with the 4 and 8 core macs you need a stick of ram idealy for each cpu so each has it's own stick otherwise with just 2 dimms in an 8core you reduce the memory buss width by half
apparently it is even possible to upgrade an old mac pro twin (perhaps a dual 2.66 standard) to a quad core, and there's one guy out there who published a document with pictures showing you how to upgrade the super-cheap mac mini to a core2duo! so you get an imac for like 50 quid on top of the mac mini price.. i already have a mate running garageband on a mac mini and its enuff for him to write songs for his publisher and he works with signed artists regularly
here's more stuff:
Upgrade a quad core to an 8 core cheaply
Upgrade a mac MINI to a core2duo!
anyways, this is all new to me, so no doubt there's tons more out there on this subject..
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 13/16 05-Mar-08 @ 03:59 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Just to add, my thoughts are that perhaps it's time to move up to something that can deliver any amount of power required, is upgradable (and that'll get cheaper as XEON cpu's go down in price)
pc's cant compete on price with the mac's basicaly whereas before they always were way cheaper for the same power, and now it's 100% proved that a mac pro lesser config is bumpable to a top of the range 8 core such as would be used by academic institutions.
isnt it time therefore to move on up? especialy as you can run XP/VISTA anytime you like.
The other thing is, I am convinced that PC components have dropped in quality in the last few years due to a switch to more and more china manufacturing (which usualy means setup/tooling issues)
I just feel that pc parts are becoming less reliable, I've had more parts failures in the last year than the previous 10 years put together
Vista is getting so many complaints about it's performance which drags your pc down in speed and it's terrible security which invades every aspect of the OS and can't be switched off.
XP is super streamlined and reliable but cant support much ram, Also afaik you cant run more than 2 cores on XP PRO anyways can you? so it's either VISTA with hardly any hardware support and it's clunky or you gotta use a copy of Windows Server, so therefore our only option to compete with Mac pro is to build a windows server costing tons or run Vista and something like 2 . (and it'll make as much noise as a small Lear Jet unless you then spend tons more to quieten the bastard down)
otherwise, intel just introduced the Dual Socket Extreme which allows 2 quad core in a desktop with 'Skulltrail' - but the QX9775 XEON processors are like £887.38 GBP each!!! just for the fucking chips alone which must run on LGA-771 socket & Intel's 5000 chipset to support (same socket AND chipset as mac pro!) - then apparently you need a 1000-1600 watt PS too! - here's some USA prices also:
The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 is available now at an MSRP of $1,499 each. Estimated street pricing for the Intel Desktop Board D5400XS is $649. Each Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 offers 12MB of L2 cache, a 1600 MHz system bus and four cores running at 3.2 GHz.
so basicaly you're looking at 1600 GBP for just 2 cpu's to try and build a competitor to a mac pro 8 core 3.2!!.. well an 8-core 2.8 is 1700 quid to buy off the peg - there's just NO competition. Mac pro's now are WAY cheaper than the same PC home build.
anyways, the only downside i can see in terms of future proofing is that sooner or later they'll get to 8 cores with unbuffered Dimms which is the only downside of 8 cores right now. But regardless of that still an 8 core mac pro'll do anything you want and for years to come. In fact you could never have to upgrade it unless there is some major shift in digital recording protocol, but let's face it, despite the fact you can buy pretty much any soundcard today and it'll do 14/192, still in 15 years most people still work at 44.1 16 bit... nothing's changed on that side for 15 years, simply the s/w has got clunkier and requires more power with more powerful plugins.
the only other downside i can think of for some users is the reliability of mac pro to sequence external midi gear... I need to check that out for recorded/noted bugs cos i do still own alot of outboard - the other issue is you need to buy a new audio i/o in most cases.
anyways, any comments Milan? you can still run Logic 5 on it by booting to XP, but Logic 8 is a huge jump in power, You'd love it I'm sure. - mebbe i'm talking rot, but i quite like the idea of getting into mac's on the same level as pc's under the hood... it's something us PC people have ignored for a while now.
whadya think?
pc's cant compete on price with the mac's basicaly whereas before they always were way cheaper for the same power, and now it's 100% proved that a mac pro lesser config is bumpable to a top of the range 8 core such as would be used by academic institutions.
isnt it time therefore to move on up? especialy as you can run XP/VISTA anytime you like.
The other thing is, I am convinced that PC components have dropped in quality in the last few years due to a switch to more and more china manufacturing (which usualy means setup/tooling issues)
I just feel that pc parts are becoming less reliable, I've had more parts failures in the last year than the previous 10 years put together
Vista is getting so many complaints about it's performance which drags your pc down in speed and it's terrible security which invades every aspect of the OS and can't be switched off.
XP is super streamlined and reliable but cant support much ram, Also afaik you cant run more than 2 cores on XP PRO anyways can you? so it's either VISTA with hardly any hardware support and it's clunky or you gotta use a copy of Windows Server, so therefore our only option to compete with Mac pro is to build a windows server costing tons or run Vista and something like 2 . (and it'll make as much noise as a small Lear Jet unless you then spend tons more to quieten the bastard down)
otherwise, intel just introduced the Dual Socket Extreme which allows 2 quad core in a desktop with 'Skulltrail' - but the QX9775 XEON processors are like £887.38 GBP each!!! just for the fucking chips alone which must run on LGA-771 socket & Intel's 5000 chipset to support (same socket AND chipset as mac pro!) - then apparently you need a 1000-1600 watt PS too! - here's some USA prices also:
The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 is available now at an MSRP of $1,499 each. Estimated street pricing for the Intel Desktop Board D5400XS is $649. Each Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 offers 12MB of L2 cache, a 1600 MHz system bus and four cores running at 3.2 GHz.
so basicaly you're looking at 1600 GBP for just 2 cpu's to try and build a competitor to a mac pro 8 core 3.2!!.. well an 8-core 2.8 is 1700 quid to buy off the peg - there's just NO competition. Mac pro's now are WAY cheaper than the same PC home build.
anyways, the only downside i can see in terms of future proofing is that sooner or later they'll get to 8 cores with unbuffered Dimms which is the only downside of 8 cores right now. But regardless of that still an 8 core mac pro'll do anything you want and for years to come. In fact you could never have to upgrade it unless there is some major shift in digital recording protocol, but let's face it, despite the fact you can buy pretty much any soundcard today and it'll do 14/192, still in 15 years most people still work at 44.1 16 bit... nothing's changed on that side for 15 years, simply the s/w has got clunkier and requires more power with more powerful plugins.
the only other downside i can think of for some users is the reliability of mac pro to sequence external midi gear... I need to check that out for recorded/noted bugs cos i do still own alot of outboard - the other issue is you need to buy a new audio i/o in most cases.
anyways, any comments Milan? you can still run Logic 5 on it by booting to XP, but Logic 8 is a huge jump in power, You'd love it I'm sure. - mebbe i'm talking rot, but i quite like the idea of getting into mac's on the same level as pc's under the hood... it's something us PC people have ignored for a while now.
whadya think?
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 14/16 06-Mar-08 @ 11:33 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
But have you checked where does apple gets its hardware parts from? Is their quality really that superior compared to a "normal" ASUS motherboard, or good Twinmos RAM ? I mean I can imagine that the parts used in Mac-s are just made in the same factory, with the same quality control, etc... just the labelling is different.
Of course, with a "brand" computer you still have the advantage of a hardware system that is meant to work well together (even more importantly: all those parts were verified together) but... aren't you about to change the processors with a dirty hack to make them run on a different clock speed? Not to mention if ppl will start to go for this "unofficial upgrade path" then how long will it be until Apple figures out what to change in the OS to make these machines unusable....
Dunno, obviously I am really biased when it comes to apple an their products,
not that I would be a real fan of Microsoft either, but... at least they didn't bought out Emagic and terminated the PC branch of their product line. 
Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
If you really WANT logic then go for it, I'd do that myself if there wansn't any other multiplatform alternatives (at least for the stuff I do). But fortunately there is.
Of course, with a "brand" computer you still have the advantage of a hardware system that is meant to work well together (even more importantly: all those parts were verified together) but... aren't you about to change the processors with a dirty hack to make them run on a different clock speed? Not to mention if ppl will start to go for this "unofficial upgrade path" then how long will it be until Apple figures out what to change in the OS to make these machines unusable....
Dunno, obviously I am really biased when it comes to apple an their products,
not that I would be a real fan of Microsoft either, but... at least they didn't bought out Emagic and terminated the PC branch of their product line. Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
If you really WANT logic then go for it, I'd do that myself if there wansn't any other multiplatform alternatives (at least for the stuff I do). But fortunately there is.
Message 15/16 06-Mar-08 @ 04:37 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
quote
Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
well for one, a pc 8 core just cant be built to even come close in price to a mac 8 core
2. why should mac cripple socket 771's? - "they didnt" is the bottom line - i kinda guess this is like people saying "Well no you can't build an 8 core affordably, but if you get a quite affordable quad dell server you can bung in another cpu and get 8 for cheap"
something like that - I mean you dont have to tweak these things if you dont want to, but the point is, as a pc person I kind assumed mac's had to be binned once they got old, but it's not true and with these mac pro's it's even less true cos these are common or garden xeon chips of which there are tons out there, so anyways at least if you buy an older/lesser quad core, you at least have the option in a few years when it's out of warranty to rip it open and bung in 2 3.2ghz xeons for blistering power (mac still offer a single cpu/quad mac pro purchase option but I don't think they'll keep that for too long)
and you can boot windows so you can run anything on it - it's basicaly kinda like an intel server with an affordable board but it just doesnt have a BIOS that's all - It also runs almost near as dammit quiet (which also has to be factored into a PC build price and thats another 130-150 quid to get a PC 'as-quiet' with enuff power to run at least 4 FullyBuffered dimms, drives and cpu's)
I spose what I liked about PC's was the ability to nearly always extend their life by easy cheap upgrades to cpu and ram (or just change the board/cpu ram and get an instant upgrade - with Mac pro's we can do that at least.
also tbh I'd like to get more into Adobe After-fx and an 8core would certainly make rendering of short 'learning & tutorial' sessions lightning fast, and you'd most lilkely always get preview anyways with the ability to add so much ram (up to 32gb!) although the heat being dissipated with that much FB Dimms might obviate the requirement for central heating where you live, lol - but with say a realistic 8gb (1gb per core) you're laughing anyways at 60 quid for a 2gb stick!!!
it's alot of power man and quiet and it'll run all your OS's, you can boot Sonar in XP or Vista, or Logic 5 on XP even, or an older cubase version for PC etc.
native fx are now really encroaching on card systems like UAD or even PT TDM for power, and i mean seriously encroaching to the point with these mac pro's that I wouldnt like to have shares in Digidesign or UA now, native processing is getting just ludicrously powerful.
what I'm really interested to know is, can you add a quad core to an old mac pro twin cos that would be a phenomenal upgrade if you found a cheap s/h twin pro.. xeon chips are cheap.. i cant find a motherboard map for mac pro twin tho so far to see what it's got on the board
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 16/16 06-Mar-08 @ 06:57 PM Edit: 06-Mar-08 | 06:58 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Jesus K... it'll take me a day to read this whole thread!
I know what you mean tho. i used Logic 8 on a friends Macbook Pro the other day and rather liked it. The thing is, i've done so little music in the last two years that i cant really justify spending a cent on gear. And for what little i did, Logic 5 did me fine... anyway, i should also post a loop or two. and read the rest of this thread sometimes
I know what you mean tho. i used Logic 8 on a friends Macbook Pro the other day and rather liked it. The thing is, i've done so little music in the last two years that i cant really justify spending a cent on gear. And for what little i did, Logic 5 did me fine... anyway, i should also post a loop or two. and read the rest of this thread sometimes
Pages: 1 2
There are 16 total messages for this topic
Reply to Thread
You need to register/login to use the forum.
Click here to Signup or Login !
[you'll be brought right back to this point after signing up]
Back to Forum
