They also have posted a customer concerns/compatibility page that is a must must read for Initio card owners. [11:45 PM update]

Linux on VPC Update: Apparently it is possible to run Linux on Virtual PC. Here's a mail I received from one of Connectix's software QA engineers:

" Mike,
Great site - I read it every day. Thanks for doing the Mac community a favor! Regarding Linux on Virtual PC:

I have tested this pretty extensively. I've had success with Red Hat/Intel 4.2 and 5.0 on Virtual PC 2.0. I got the CD from Cheap*Bytes (http://www.cheapbytes.com/) , and I have had success. It's a little slow if you're working with X, but for the straight text interface, it works fine.

Slackware 3.4 doesn't work.
FreeBSD 2.2.5 doesn't work.

If a build of Linux requires both a boot and a root disk (as Slackware and FreeBSD do), generally, Virtual PC won't work. Since Red Hat only needs a boot disk and the CD, it works fine.

Since Linux isn't a "beginner" system, be sure to follow the installation instructions. It's pretty easy to mess up a partition, requiring you to re-create the drive image. This includes setting up the swap partition (and setting it to type 82!) and the networking portion of the install.
Thanks,
Mike Sterling
Macintosh/Windows Quality Assurance Engineer
Connectix Corporation
http://www.connectix.com"

[3:30 PM update]

For info on PC emulators on the Mac, check out the new MacPC site at: http://home.earthlink.net/~lukes/macpc/home.html [3:30 PM update]

Linux on VPC Feedback: Jason Tibbetts responded to today's post asking for comments on installing Linux on the PC emulators. He writes:

" Mike:
I'm one of the unlucky ones who's tried to install Linux on VPC. Here are the specifics: RedHat Linux 4.2, Virtual PC 1.0, PM 7600/132 (and later /200). Before I finally gave up in November, I'd tried installing it at least 15 times, with various settings, but to no avail.

Like the person who asked, I was concerned about having to repartition the drive in order to get Linux to work. I never got that far, opting instead to partition the drive image created by VPC. Doing that was a snap, both on my internal drive and my Jaz. fdisk, the partitioning tool, had no problem working with the disk image. I even got most of the way through the installation process each time, too. But every time, no matter how many or how few packages I chose to install, a few (including important ones like RPM, RedHat's Package Manager) would always fail. Once the installation was completed (if it completed at all), I would have problems booting it the first time--lots of core dumps and things like that. In every case, the installation process took from 1 to 2 hours, and I had to continually monitor it to dismiss the "failure loading package" messages. I gave up.

Interestingly, a couple of months ago I installed it on my PC at work (which has a 5Gb drive and, as you can guess, had to be partitioned into three parts because of FAT32's 2Gb partition limitation). Installation was a snap, taking less than 15 minutes. One of our sysadmins swears that there's no easy way to install Linux on top of an emulated PC because it has to have direct access to low-level hardware functions. I don't really believe him, but I don't have the expertise to prove him wrong, either. I'd love to hear from someone who's managed to get it to work.
jason"

I wonder if anyone's tried the UMSDOS version that does not require partitioning the drive (but that does not avoid the hardware issue). In my experience years ago, I had to recompile the kernel for my sound card, scsi card, etc. on a real PC, so that may be a problem but I've not tried it (too many other projects going on). [12:00 PM update]

Techworks Layoff: James Allworth just sent news of a rumored layoff at TechWorks. It's rumored that Craig Fryar, their 3Dfx product manager and Mac gaming evangelist was hit, as well as a Mac support person.

To Craig and all those affected, we wish you the best of luck and will miss your efforts in the Mac Gaming community. I personally will be boycotting all Techworks products in protest. [9:30 AM Update]

Ultimate PowerBase Upgrade: John Protopapas sends a mini-review on the PowerForce 275/275 in his PowerBase 180. Note he's one of the lucky ones that is running the Adaptec 2940UW with the PowerForce card without problems. In some cases disabling wide negotiation on unused SCSI IDs has helped solve the compatibility problem, but it's not a universal cure. John writes:

" I though you might be interested in my experience with the PowerForce G3/275 in a PowerBase 180 with the Adaptec Card.

Summary of experience with the PowerLogix PowerForce G3/275 in a PowerBase 180

Configuration:

PowerComputing PowerBase 180
160M 60 ns per spec. EDO RAM (3 different vendors)
Adaptec 2940UW SCSI card/Power Domain 2.5/ ULTRA checked on
SCSI 1: Seagate ST34501 4.5GB external “Cheetah” - WIDE negotiation enabled
SCSI 0: IBM DORS-32160 2.1GB internal - Narrow negotiation
SCSI 7: Adaptec ID - WIDE negotiation enabled
All other SCSI ID’s, WIDE negotiation enabled.
IMS Twin Turbo M4 video card, 800x600@72HZ (Sony Multiscan 200SX), thousands of colors Adaptec card was in the middle PCI slot; the twin turbo was in the slot closest the motherboard; the last slot was empty.

System 8.1/Speed Doubler 8.1/ATM Deluxe/ColorSync 2.5/LibMotoSh/plus many others/Virt.Mem OFF/FWB HD Toolkit 2.06 drivers. Disc cache 7680K

PowerLogix 275 card runs stable @ 300/300/1M and 320/213/1M (all at a motherboard bus speed of 40Mhz)

This combo was an unhappy camper at mother board bus speeds other than 40 Mhz for CPU speeds greater than the rated 275Mhz! I couldn't run 1:1 backside cache ratios at any speed above 300Mhz. I have a gut feel that tweeking the motherboard speed beyond the design speed may be the Adaptec culprit. The people at MacGurus suggested that if I was able to run at 275/275/1M to declare victory -

MacBench 4.0 Benchmarks:

      Stock 180(256K L2)	300/300/1M	320/213/1M
CPU		278		1090		1099
FPU		349		 951		1005
DISC		449		 701		 729
Graphics	257		 524		 747

Bytemark

CPU		NA		9.05		9.64
FPU		NA		6.41		6.85

Note: Ran Sysoft Sandra Benchmarks on Virtual PC 2.O DOS with Windows 95 installed separately. The emulation looks better than a 90Mhz Pentium. The Virtual 2.0 Sandra benchmarks are about 2X better than Real PC 1.03. This upgrade makes PC emulation a viable alternative to a DOS card. .

Sandra Bench Marks:
	Referee 75Mhz Pentium	133Mhz	 VPC 2.0 Emul @320/213/1M
CPU		135 MIPS	247 MIPS	212 MIPS
FPU		 43 MIPS	 77 MIPS	 53 MIPS

John Protopapas may own the world's fastest PowerBase.

Orange PC card/Printing problems: David R. Klett ran into some printing problems with the Orange PC (Intel CPU) card but found a solution. I asked him to summarize the problem and solution for posting here to help others that may encounter the same problem:

" Problem: After upgrading several components of my system (including: upgrading OS to 8.1 and installing a PowerForce G3 250, Initio Miles UW SCSI adapter & Cheetah, MacTell Vision Pro 3D II), the OrangePC card (running Win95, ver. 2.1 OPC application) began to experience excruciatingly slow disk access and eventually began to hang,..especially during printing.

Solution: Change the Orange PC applications' printer settings to *disable* the 'Macintosh postscript printing on LPT2:' option and *enable* the 'print directly to port' options from within the Win95 printer dialog box. Although the disk access remains somewhat slower than before, it's at least usable and doesn't crash now.

Side Notes:
1) Removing 'objectsupportlib' had little or no effect on the problem.
2) The display speed under Win95 on the Orange PC card has improved *dramatically* (I'm fairly sure this is due to the Vision Pro 3D II).
3) The latest version of the Orange PC software (2.2) has much, much, better mouse emulation. It's almost as good as native 95 (which I grant you is still nowhere near Mac tactile response).
4) There are now beta drivers with 32 bit disk access for the OPC card which I will test and report back on.

P.S. Thanks AGAIN to Mike B. on www.xlr8yourmac.com for sage advice and expert council."

I often forget that during the printer setup in Win95 there is a option to print directly to the parallel port. On the subject of printing in OS 8.1, many MacOS users report G3 problems are fixed by removing the "LocalTalkPCI" extension.

Future Site Plans: Magnus Hellmén suggested I consider running a Hotline server for real-time chat, and shareware/freeware utilities and drivers. He even offered to help with maintaining it. I registered the client and server some time ago and am considering the idea.

The only downside would be I'd have to add another phone line and with the daily email support load I have precious little time at night (I work during the day) - but it's something I'd like to do in the future. A 56K connection may be enough bandwidth for chat anyway, until more affordable options are available.

One of the reasons I'd love to be able to work the site full time is to have real-time chat online. I'm also considering two new message boards, one for tech support questions only (to replace mail hopefully) and another for listing of Mac related items for-sale/wanted. Of course the much needed search engine is high on the list of things to do.

Fuse Video Capture Card: A reader who is beta testing a new video capture card called the Fuse sends the following teasers:

" The Fuse will list for $699. It will probably come with Premiere LE (nothing to scoff at due to the $200 upgrade to 5.0 when it ships!). The company is Aurora Design at http://www.auroradsgn.com. There's plenty of info there. I'll give you the basics though.

The card does great in my 8500/120, but faster CPUs and Disks let the Fuse reach its potential. As long as you have a fast drive (I have a reasonably fast SCSI-II drive, a Microp 3243AV) the Fuse rocks.

It's even better if you have a TwinTurbo, RagePRO, or other fast video card (for real-time play through on the screen). There were some problems with Premiere giving up on capturing audio, possibly due to the overhead of using onboard SCSI. This is pretty minor considering that most users will be using a PCI SCSI card. I bought a Jaz Jet to avoid this problem, but I ran into the same kind of problems that Miles users have been having (QuickTime movies playing back improperly or at the wrong speed). I went back later and realized that somehow audio was being captured properly on the internal SCSI again...That's a good thing, I suppose!

If you don't have a fast video card (or even if you do), you can hook the Fuse up to an external NTSC monitor (read: TV) and see any QuickTime movie that has been encoded in Aurora's MJPEG codec at full speed, full screen. If you have the fast video card, the need for this is reduced. Still, viewing your video on an NTSC monitor is pretty much required for "proofing" your video.

The Fuse basically scales to whatever the capabilities of your machine are. I am running with one of the most modest arrangements that the Fuse will see (the only thing slower would be a 100 MHz 601 7500 or equivalent) and I'm still very impressed. I produced a 15 minute video involving several hours of source footage with just my Mac, the Fuse, and a bunch of slow disk arrays for storage. I captured at 2.5 MB/sec and rendered the final project at 3 MB/sec. This sounds low, but the quality at this data rate was still fantastic (the limiting factor in image quality was the creaky old 8mm Sony Handycam I used to shoot it).

Perhaps you or I could convince Aurora to send a demo unit? ;-) It's not an acceleration product per se, but it does accelerate your production of video projects... :-)"

If you inquire about the Fuse, be sure to mention you saw this at xlr8yourmac.com!

Budget G3 Cards Feedback: Jimbo writes that his Newer Tech 220/110 could be overclocked, but that it was not reliable at 275 Mhz as some others had reported:

" I finally go the Newer G3 220 for my 8500/150. Ran fine at 220, but had problems at 275/183. Freezes and such. BTW, if I set all the DIP switches down like you said, the machine wouldn't boot. I got a blinking ? [All down worked on many 604E cards-Mike]

After setting it to the 2 middle ones, I got 275. I settled on the third one down which gave me 267/178, with no problems."

So far the speed record for the budget G3 cards is held by the $499 PowerLogix PowerForce G3 220/110 with one reader reporting 300/150, which is higher than I achieved in my review.

Linux on VPC/RealPC?: Corey Winesett asked if I knew if anyone had tried running Linux on any of the PC emulators since he did not want to repartition his drive for MKLinux. Years ago I installed the version of Slackware Linux on a PC that did not require a repartition of the hard drive (UMSDOS?). I've heard rumors of running Linux under VPC, but if you have done this, please contact me with details.

There is only one more day to vote! Last night I added 4 more images to the T-Shirt Design Voting page. I know the page is getting a little heavy but I wanted to keep them all on one page to allow easier comparisons.

I'll be giving away at least 50 of the winning design in a contest on the site 1 year anniversary on April 17th. Winners will be notifed and sent their shirts as soon as they are printed. Thanks to all who voted so far! (Hint: just put the number of the design in the subject line).

Syjet Update: Greg Laughlin wrote to say that he's gotten a reply from Syquest on his issues posted in yesterday's news.

" Mike:

Thanks very much for posting my Syjet problem.
Surprise of surprises, I received the following from Syquest:

' We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. Do to an overwhelming response regarding the 3 gig deal promotion, it has taking slightly longer than the estimated 10 weeks to process an ship all of the additional cartridges. Yvonne is doing a great job at processing your request along with hundreds of others and we greatly appreciate your patience. We should have all of the promotional cartridges shipped soon and complete. I would recommend speaking with Yvonne Taylor who is the person assisting with this promotion.

You may reach her directly at (800) 245-2278 ext. 4137 She will be more than happy to confirming the status of your free cartridge. Once again we thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
SyQuest Technology'

Thanks again, and keep up the great work on your site!
Greg Laughlin"

New MacBuzz Polls: MacBuzz has two new polls :

Poll : Newton Is Dead, should Apple Sell It?
Forum : http://www.webflier.com/wfboards/newton/

Poll: Would You Buy Rhapsody Tomorrow if you Could?
Forum : http://www.webflier.com/wfboards/rhap/

Let MacBuzz and Apple know your opinion in the Poll and Forum at MacBuzz!

In order to raise money for a 9600 Mach 5 based test system for the site, I've sold the 8500 and still have the following items for sale as well:

• Twin Turbo M8 (8MB Vram) [like new - came with the PowerTower Pro]: $250

If you're interested in any of these items please contact me. I think the PowerTower Pro 1 MB cache, the 256K cache and Imagine 128 S2 8MB card are sold, but if not I'll post them again next week.

Site T-Shirt Artwork Contest: It's getting down to the wire now, but if you have a killer design you'd like to submit, please submit a sample. All input is welcome.

Need Help? Don't forget to check the FAQ, Performance Basics, Links, and Forums for solutions to your problems or answers to tech support questions. They have a lot of good info and are a great source of help.

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