" HEWLETT-PACKARD ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF A DRIVER UPDATER FOR MAC OS 9 USERS!

HP is pleased to release a driver updater for the printers listed below:

- HP DeskWriter 600, 660, 680, 690 Series.
- HP DeskJet 850, 855, 870 Series.

The updater will make changes that upgrade existing v.9.4.0 & v.9.4.1 drivers to v.9.4.2 & v.9.4.3 respectively. You must currently have installed driver versions 9.4.0 or 9.4.1 for this updater to function properly.

The updater is only for Mac OS 9, and should not be used if you are currently running any version of MacOS other than Mac OS 9.

NOTE:
SUCCESSFUL INSTALLATION OF THE UPDATE IS CRITICALLY DEPENDANT ON CAREFULLY FOLLOWING THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS SUPPLIED WITH THE DRIVER UPDATER SOFTWARE.

IF THERE IS ANY QUESTION ABOUT WHICH VERSION OF THE DRIVER YOU ARE CURRENTLY USING OR IF THE DRIVER HAS BEEN MODIFIED BY OTHER SOFTWARE ON YOUR SYSTEM, HP HIGHLY RECOMMENDS DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING A FRESH COPY OF THE DRIVER FOR YOUR PRINTER BEFORE RUNNING THE UPDATER SOFTWARE. CURRENT DRIVERS ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE HP SUPPORT WEBSITE LISTED BELOW.

To download the updater and/or driver go to the HP Support Website at:
http://www.hp.com/cposupport/

OTHER HP INKJET PRINTER USERS
GOOD NEWS!!
Each of the following printers has been tested with Mac OS 9 and has been found to be compatible. Each printer was tested using the latest driver listed below. These drivers can be downloaded from HP's support website at: http://www.hp.com/cposupport/.

HP DeskWriter, HP DeskWriter C - driver ver. 6.0.4
HP DeskWriter 510c, 540c, 550c, 560c - driver ver. 6.0.4
HP DeskJet 810, 812, 830, 832, 880, 882, 895 - driver ver. 1.1
HP DeskJet 970 - driver ver. 2.0"

OS 9/Speech Recognition: OS 9 does not install Speech Recognition by default and does not work with previous versions of the extensions so a custom install with SR selected is required.

I installed OS 9 and now my USB PCI card doesn't work - This is a common complaint for owners on non-USB macs (macs without USB on the motherboard). The fix according to XLR8 (makers of a PCI USB card) and verified by seveal readers is to disable the OS 9 USB extensions and install Apple's 1.2 USB software (linked in the FAQ or at the Apple software updates page. Note that according to an Apple TIL - this doesn't work in all cases (the TIL says that the Apple 1.2 USB update is not compatible with OS 9 and they are investigating a fix). Odd - as several pre-B&W G3 owners reported the 1.2 drivers did work with OS 9.

DVD Feedback: A Powerbook G3 (bronze keyboard) wrote that OS 9 fixed the problem of mounting 'the Matrix' ISO format disc. I verified on my G4/450 AGP with the software player that the disk now mounts without the need for command key tricks.

Clean Installs Issue w/DVD Player: For machines with the software DVD player [iMac DV, G4/AGP system] you currently (as of late October 1999) can't do a clean install and have the player work. Here is Apple's comment on the problem noted in my Tuesday, Oct. 26, 1999 news:

"[Apple Reply:] You currently cannot do a clean install of Mac OS 9 and get the necessary software DVD files for your computer. You would need to install the Mac OS that came with the computer (8.6 in your case) and then install Mac OS 9 over this System Folder. An update to correct known issues with the soft DVD player will be coming soon and should be able to install over a clean Mac OS 9 System Folder if necessary.

If you still have difficulty, please post what version of the Apple DVD Player you are trying to open. Posting the text of an Apple System Profiler report could also be helpful.
Todd
Apple Support Discussions "

DVD Software Player Tip: For iMac DV and G4/AGP owners with audio sync problems, try playing the movie at the standard movie size. One common factor in the lip-sync problem reports seems to be playing the movie at full screen. I didn't see the problem here on the iMac DV or G4/AGP system with two movies played at the default movie window size.

OS 9/AppleTalk Feedback: I was flooded with mail from OS 9 users running Appletalk fine after the reader problem report below. Two suggestions seen so far was a clean OS install and a note to double check the ethernet cable or hub (try swapping cables and ports). Later I did received several mails from users that also had the same problem as outlined below.

OS 9/Appletalk Problem: Check your network cabling and hubs (try swapping cables or ports). Mixed reports of problems, most users report all OK.:

"Hi Mike;
Installed MacOS 9, appears to be working well with one major major caveat. Appletalk will not load, period. I installed OS 9 on to a partition, and therefore started up with my other partition (8.6) to make sure Appletalk still worked there, it did. I am on a 3 computer network with a cable modem also hooked in to my hub, I print via Appletalk from my Yosemite G3 (the one I am running OS 9 on) to my LC 520 with a Laserwriter 300 hooked up via serial.

Symptoms: The control strip is missing the Appletalk control strip even though it is installed correctly. The chooser reports simply that "Appletalk cannot be opened" when I try to turn it on there. The Appletalk control panel reports (on closing the control panel and saving changes to my config) that "An error occured attempting to use Ethernet, Make sure your network connections are correct". And finally the network browser gives me the following when I launch it: "The NSL plugin "DNS plugin" could not be loaded"; it will continue to run because "one other plug in is available", but the only thing that appears in there is that silly useless apple.com bookmark.

This is driving me nuts! Again 8.6 works fine with Appletalk, I even did a file search and made sure that every file with the word "appletalk" in it's name was installed in both system folders in case something got deleted during the OS 9 install.
Any suggestions?? Love the site as always....
Cheers
Matt Currey "

If you have a suggestion or solution please contact me.

More OS9/Jackhammer Feedback: This 8500 owner notes his experience with the OS 9 update and his Jackhammer PCI SCSI card:

"Mike,
The JackHammer SCSI card works fine on my 8500 with Mac OS 9 (although I don't use their HammerTime extension).

After I first installed OS 9 it wouldn't recognize one of the partitions on my drive, which is formatted with HDT 3.x, and offered me the chance to reformat it. I declined and then ran HDT to reinstall the driver and then ran the new Disk First Aid which reported/fixed a master volume (?) error.

After that the combo of 8500 + JackHammer + Wide drive + OS 9 drive is working fine for me.
Regards,
Steve Evans"

OS 9/Tunnelbuilder Problems:

"Mike,
just a note to let other telecommuters know of an issue with http://www.nts.com 's tunnelbuilder product and Mac OS9. With the new features in TCP/IP of OS9 there is a conflict which will render tunnlebuilder useless. Tunnelbuilder is used to connect to company servers and gain access behind the firewall, it uses a encryption method like VPN. NTS says a patch is in the works but my Mac is now useless since I cannot access my companies sites.
Keith Griffin
Senior QA Engineer
shockwave.com"

OS 9/Epson 600 Tips:

"To Epson 600 users:

I found that I was able to get best performance with the 900 driver's monitor for background having used the 700 Epson Monitor before (the 600 has very poor background printing).

The 600 seemed to use it w/o trouble (I've since gone to a USB laser printer, Lexmark E310 which is great 8ppm 600x1200 dpi $369).
Greg "

(Prev. report follows)

"Hello Mike.
I've a G3 300 B&W and therefore I'm using an usb to parallel adapter for my Epson Stylus color 600. From the beginning I bought this machine starting with Mac OS 8.5. Now I'm using Mac OS 9 and have no problems what so ever. The only thing is that I can't use the utility, status monitor, for looking how much ink is left in the cardridge. I contacted Epson about this issue and they said that it was not supprted by the usb to prarallel adapter, too bad.
The only problem I had was almost the complete lack of multitasking the epson printermonitor had. The moment the print job was in the background it would stop printing or otherwise very slow. So I thought I try the other usb printer drivers for the 640 660, 700 and 740. When choosing a printer in the chooser the only one worked was the 600 chooser extension. But when I started printing I saw that I had another epson printer monitor, version 2.00 E from the stylus 660 6.0 bE. Now the printing jobs are much better handled, in mac os 9. I don't know what you exactly mean with powerprint, I don't have it/ know it?? But no problems with crashing print jobs and the like.
Greetings, Walter from the Netherlands."

I asked him what brand of USB/Parallel printer adapter he's using. PowerPrint is the original Mac/PC printer adapter and software package that was reported to have problems in OS 9.

Another Epson 600 printer owner wrote that deleting the Apple Print monitor solves his problems after each OS update:

"I had print monitor problems with my Epson 600 starting with OS 8.0. The problem I discovered was a conflict with the two print monitors (Epson's and Apple's) in the same system folder. I trashed the Apple printmonitor and have'nt had any problem since. The only problem for a while was when I upgraded the system OS ( ie from 8.0 to 8.1 to 8.5), the installer would put the Apple printmonitor back in. Each time I would trash the Apple printmonitor and be trouble free.
Richard Cooper"

OS 9 USB Printer Tip: Paul Killen sent a note that having the printer off at boot seems to solve some USB printer problems (turn the printer on after booting the OS).

Font Tip: A reader that reported very slow IE quits sent an update that removing some of his fonts solved the problem. He commented that he had seen several posts of similar stories on the web.

OS 9/USB Card/Game Sprockets Solutions: Here's a catch-all email that notes issues with a PCI USB card and Game Sprockets under OS 9:

"I think I have found some other problems with OS9:

The USB drivers that come with OS9 do not recognize my Belkin PCI USB card. Reverting to Apple's USB Adapter Card support 1.2 resolved this issue. Basically, this amounts to replacing the OS9 extensions

USB Device Extension 1.3.5
USB Software Locator 1.3.5

with

USB Device Extension 1.2
USB Support 1.2

[This was reported here recenly with XLR8 USB PCI Cards as well]

Other issues I noticed were consistent crashes when accessing Inputsprockets configuration dialogs with games Unreal (224b7). To fix this problem I reverted to the Gamesprockets 1.5 software where I replaced

InputSprocket Extension 1.7.2 (OS 9)
with
InputSprocket USB 1.4
InputSprocketLib 1.4
InputSprocket Keyboard 1.4
USBHIDUniversalModule 1.0.1

Just to note, I let the other Inputsprockets from OS9 stay where they were:

DrawSprocketLib 1.7.2
SoundSprocketLib 1.7.1
SoundSprocket Filter 1.7.1
NetSprocketLib 1.7.1

I also let stay from OS 9:

HID Library 1.3.5

which I think is a library used by USB.

For reference, this system is a G3 upgraded Powercenter 150 running 390 Mhz.
Joe Borzellino "

OS 9 Virtual Memory Tests: The main page yesterday had a note blaming slow OS 9 performance on Virtual Memory. A reader ran some tests in Quake 2 and Q3test to see what effect VM had on his PB G3:

"Howdy again.
The notion that VM on OS 9 is slowing things down piqued my interest enough to try out some Q3T and Q2 benchmarks on my PowerBook G3. I also recall a tip back in the '030 and '040 days to set VM to a power of 2 (8, 16, 32, and so on) for maximum performance. My results are below:

PowerBook G3 Series 300 MHz (RageLTPro 4MB), 192 MB RAM Fresh install of MacOS 9, Quake 2 1.0.1, Q3T 1.0.8

Q2 and Q3 settings follow the XLR8YourMac guidelines [FPS Database entry page notes-Mike] (except for Q3, texture size turned down to lowest setting). Q2 = demo1.dm2, Q3 = q3demo1 [I put the scores in tables for easier comparison viewing-Mike]

OS 9 Quake2 Tests (frames per second)
Resolution	VM OFF (192MB RAM)	VM On (at 193MB)	VM On (at 256MB)
640x480	16.5	16.1	16.1
320x240	29.0	28.7	29.2

OS 9 Q3test108 Tests (frames per second)
Resolution	VM OFF (192MB RAM)	VM On (at 193MB)	VM On (at 256MB)
640x480	15.6	15.4	15.4
320x240	21.7	21.7	21.8

It appears that VM does indeed cause a bit of a performance hit (at least for Q2/Q3), but turning up VM to a setting that's a power of 2 does help a bit. Better yet, keep VM off. The strangely high Q2 @ 320x240 w/ VM @ 256 MB was repeatable, don't quite understand why it's faster than no VM.

Also, John Carmack has updated his .plan file with information on future Q3 releases and made several comments on 3D hardware and ATI drivers on the current shipping Apple products: http://finger.planetquake.com/plan.asp?userid=johnc&id=13276
- Colin Anderson"

OS 9 and Game Sprockets: I think the main page news mentioned potential issues with game sprockets in OS 9, but this reader sent some additional compatibility info:

"Under Mac OS 9, the Quake 1 app refuses to allow me to configure my mouse. When I click the "Configure" button which used to bring up the InputSprocket mouse settings panel, Quake claims that I do not have enough memory. I have 96M physical RAM.

I tried regressing to the old separate-file InputSprockets (the new ones, as you may know, are a single library file) and even turning VM off but Quake still thinks there is insufficient memory. I think it's a Quake failure, not a Sprockets problem.

Quake 1 is still a lot of fun. I really hope that we'll get a point release for 9 compatibility.
Wayne"

I'm not sure we'll ever see a Quake 1 update (I wish they'd fix the code issues that prevent glide mode with the Voodoo3's).

I welcome your comments and experiences/bug reports/fixes regarding OS 9.0. Please list your specific Mac model, 3rd party extensions/software and installed hardware (PCI Cards, etc.).