Michiro Isobe (author of PPC Checker) just wrote to say that XLR8 (Interex) of Japan included it with their G3 cards in Japan, a blatant violation of the terms and conditions of the software agreement clearly noted on the download page and in the Readme file included with the download. I have called XLR8/Interex's corporate office, who said they were unaware of it and promised to speak with them to stop this practice. I came away from the conversation with less than a warm-fuzzy that it will be done promptly however. Michiro is very unhappy about this (as am I), as he had specifically stated in the readme file PPC Checker was not to be distributed by others. They could have simply included a note about the utility and the URL to obtain it, or at least asked for permission to include it in the product package.

The 3D Gaming News page has several interesting reports today including 3Dfx OpenGL support added to XPlane, an update to MacMame for 3D hardware acceleration (RAVE/3Dfx/OpenGL), tonight's web chat with Bob Archer of Microconversions, Hotline 1.5's release, an update on the freeware cross-platform game Parsec, Quake III, Carmageddon III and Diablo II info, Voodoo3 performance in Unreal and much more.

The latest update to the Rate Your G3 Card database has a report from Randall Markarian that he's running 464Mhz with this XLR8 400/200 card in a 9600/350.

"I bought this card after I had a great experience with a 466 zif upgrade for another machine. And I was concerned with the Mach 5 based logic board that I might have some problems anyway. But, I have been very impressed with the performance of the upgrade and I am currently running at 464/186 with no problems at all. It is a very fast card and I would highly recommend it. Especially with all of the dramatic price cuts on ALL G3 upgrades lately. Its Macbench 5 scores are around 1460. FP around 1570. "

As noted in my review of the XLR8/400 CPU card last fall, it was plug and play and my first choice as far as CPU card upgrades for the Mach 5 systems. Until something better or faster comes along, it's my pick as CPU Card for my Ultimate Mac Genesis machine.

Bungie has posted an update to Myth 1.2.1 on their downloads page.

PC Week has a report on NT Server 4.0 beating Linux handily in File server and Web server roles (2.5 and 3.7x faster respectively on a Quad Xeon PII 400 system). However since MS 'tuned' the NT machine there are questions about the tests...

Sonnet G3/Nubus Tip: The latest Sonnet Nubus G3 upgrade entry in the Owner Ratings database had a tip that might help others:

"Haven't really exercised it yet, but runs crisp and VM performance is good, too. Did find one thing that caused CONSTANT finder crashes- using the "Sounds" under the Appearance control panel on 8.5.1. Once I turned that off, problems (finder quits) have disappeared.
William Fragakis
(6100/60 with Sonnet G3/240 upgrade)"

Also in the new entries was the first report of a Sonnet 400MHz G3 upgrade for the 20th Anniversary Mac:

"This card is fast! Macbench tests consistently over 1400. Runs at 39 degrees C with fat back on. Although there were many freezes initially, downloading the driver from their site and replacing that which came included seems to have resolved all. Have experienced no incompatibilities to date with new driver. Easily keeps the TAM out of the museum for a couple years. Only complaint now is that nobody can see the cool anodized purple heat sink! 8-)
Larry Herrmann"

The Rate Your G3 Card database now has more than 1000 entries and growing daily. Overclocking reports are also included for iMac and Apple G3 systems.

The noon update is light due to assisting with a Windows PC failure.

More on OEM ZIPs In B&W G3s: Reply to the post in yesterday's news:

" Mike,
I'd like to thank you for putting that stuff on your web site about the OEM Zip drives. I agree ABSOLUTELY with what you say.

I've installed about 20 or so OEM 100MB Zip drives in the G3 Macs we have here, and in numerous G3 Macs that I have supplied and support for various clients on a consultancy basis.

I haven't had one single problem with any of them.
I really don't understand why Iomega are taking that position, their motives seem to be more political than anything else. There's certainly no technical basis whatsoever for what they're saying. Best Regards,
Bill Murray
Livingston, Scotland "

The particular ZIP in my B&W G3 at the moment originally came from a Micron refurbished PII/300 tower circa 1997. It's one of the 'cannon' models, with the eject spring so stiff it shoots the disk out of the drive about 6 inches. In the original PC Tower it would eject it completely off the desk, often landing in the wastebasket. I took that as a sign from above. As far as warranty, remember to check with the seller on any OEM drives you buy (at PC shows, etc.). Retail boxed ATAPI/IDE ZIPs have a 1 year warranty normally.

Adam Coleman noted a conflict with the latest Game Wizard driver and some 3dfx utilities:

" Hey,
The new Game Wizard b7 GLIDE driver has a nasty extensions conflict when run with 3D_2D swap extension AND GlideHack. Just thought you'd like to know...
--Adam Coleman "

The 3D_2D Swap extension is handy for switching back to the 2D video (finder) screen from the 3Dfx's game screen.

More Networking Tips: More Reader feedback from the continuing thread in yesterday's news:

" In addition to disabling spanning-tree, tell him to try setting his hub or switch manually to half-duplex and manually to 100BaseT, and also to set his Asante control panel manually to make his NIC half-duplex as well (it's OK to leave the NIC auto-sensing for speed, however). The Asante cards are well-known for being finicky in this regard. These procedures worked for me with our Bay Networks switch and Asante 10/100 NICs.
- George Machen "

This was in reply to the reader post of problems with beige G3 builtin ethernet, which was solved by using a PCI Asante 10/100 card.

Another reader sent a note on a hub that works well:

"I'm using a B&W G3/300 and have a D-Link mod. #DSH-5 5-port 10/100 autosensing hub. Also on the network is an NT4 Server (w/service pack 4) and three NT4 workstations. I've never had any problems and the hub has LED lights that show 10 or 100 and they have always been on 100.
Todd F. "

OS 8.5 Modem Tip: (I've not had this problem personally)

" Mike,
Just got a new B/W 400 G3 at work (a nice replacement for my "aging" Quadra700). After spending the past couple of days fighting the internal modem disconnects with some of the tips from your pages and getting nowhere fast, I may have stumbled upon a solution. Using the supplied scripts, I was connecting at 50+K but disconnecting very frequently. I installed the Forcev90 scripts, and managed to achieve a fairly stable connection, always at 48K, but I was still getting disconnected regularly.

One thing that I'd noticed, and that was driving me a bit crazy, was that during dialing/logon there was an extended period where the remote access control panel reported "establishing protocol". Excuse me!? I started poking around in the control panel (remote access) a found the "options..." button. There it was, the third tab...Protocol. It was set to "automatic." I'm assuming that this default setting is what was causing the long delay in establishing a connection, as the OS was trying to determine whether to use ARAP or PPP. I switched it to PPP, reset the modem script to the original selection and connected at 50K. I remained online for the next 6 hours with no disconnects. As an added bonus, my downloads (as reported by MT-Newswatcher) jumped from 2.4-3.5KB/sec. using the Forcev90 script, to 4.3-4.6 using the new protocol setting and original script. I'm wondering if the difference in speed is due to protocol monitoring/testing even after the connection is established. (Still slower than the 50-90KB/sec MT-NW is reporting from supernews via @home, or the 350+KB/sec. I hit during the StarWar's trailer download using Netscape--25megs < 1 min.!) This "option" may be documented somewhere; in my B/W G3 excitement, I will admit to not reading everything in the Apple guide. This was also my first "taste" of 8.5.1. I've since installed it at home, but am not nearly as familiar with it as 8.1. The many new networking control panels take a bit of getting used to.

This may also explain why FreePPP works, as it would bypass the modem control panel (it does on the Quadra700, but that's running 7.6.1, so it's not much for comparison).
Fight the good fight,
Mike "

MPEG II Video Clips: In response to a QT 4 related reader comment in yesterday's news Peter sent a link to MPEG clips on the net:

" There are MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 clips ready for download af Heuris: http://www.heuris.com/MPEG/MPEG%20Clips/sample%20mpeg%20clips.html

If you should chose to contact the reader try to ask him to test QT4 with a MP3 file made with VBR (Variable Bit Rate). VBR are a common feature of MP3 files made with the Xing decoder. Rumors has it that QT4 does not support VBR MP3 files, but QT4 is also rumored to support streaming of MP3 files, so it would make lot of sense to support VBR since they are smaller than "normal" MP3 files.
Great site. Regards
Peter "

While on the subject of QT4, Wired has a story on Quicktime 4.0 Plays MP3, verifying the reader reports earlier this week.

CPU Sales O'Plenty: I was bombarded with pricing updates - here's a summary:

Other World Computing
Sonnet G3/250/512k Nubus (61/71/8100) - $335
Sonnet G3/300/512k PCI - $385
Sonnet G3/300mhz 1MB PCI - $475
Sonnet G3/333mhz 1MB PCI - $535
Sonnet G3/400mhz 1MB PCI - $665
Sonnet G3 Banker 250/512k/2:1 -$285.00
Sonnet G3 Banker 300/512k/2:1 - $385.00
Sonnet G3 Banker 300/1MB/2:1 - $485.00
Sonnet G3 Banker 400//1MB/2:1 -$775.00
Newer Tech for PCI DaughterCard PowerMacs
7MXP300/125 MaxPowr 300/512k/2:1 - $449
7MXP+300/200 MaxPowr 300/1MB/3:2 - $529
7MXP+366/183 MaxPowr 366/1MB/2:1 - $629
7MXP+400/200 MaxPowr 400/MB/2:1 - $719
(Normally free shipping for online orders)

MacGurus
PowerForce G3 400MHz/1MB/200 ZIF - $629.99
PowerForce G3 466MHz/1MB/233 ZIF - $789.99
PF G3 CPU card 220MHz/512k/2:1 - $279.99
PF G3 CPU card 300MHz/1MB/2:1 - $469.99
PF G3 CPU card 400MHz/1MB/2:1 - $669.99
Newer Tech G3 300MHz/512k/150 - $439.99
Newer Tech G3 300MHz/1MBL2/200 : $529.99
Newer Tech G3 366MHz/1MBL2/183 : $639.99
Newer Tech G3 400MHz/1MBL2/200 : $749.99
XLR8 ZIF 300MHz 1MB L2 1.5:1 : $439.99
XLR8 ZIF 333MHz 1MB L2 2:1 : $489.99
XLR8 ZIF 366MHz 1MB L2 2:1 : $549.99
XLR8 ZIF 400MHz 1MB L2 2:1 : $699.99
XLR8 ZIF 466MHz 1MB L2 2.5:1 : $889.99
XLR8 CPU card 233MHz 512k L2 2:1 : $309.99
XLR8 CPU card 266MHz 512k L2 2:1 : $349.99
XLR8 CPU card 300MHz 512k L2 2.5:1 : $429.99
XLR8 CPU card 300MHz 1MB L2 1.5:1 : $549.99
XLR8 CPU card 333MHz 1MB L2 2:1 : $629.99
XLR8 CPU card 366MHz 1MB L2 3:2 : $729.99
XLR8 CPU card 400MHz 1MB L2 2:1 : $849.99
Free UPS Ground Shipping for Readers (Simply request the appropriate discount in the comments field at the bottom of our secure hardware order form!

Mactell
G3 PowerJOLT 266Mhz/512K/2:1 - $249.00
G3 PowerJOLT 333Mhz/1024K/1.5:1 - $529.00
G3 PowerJOLT 366Mhz/1024K/2:1 - $599.00
G3 PowerJOLT 400Mhz/1024K/2:1 - $699.00
PowerJolt G-MAX 280Mhz/1024K/2:1 - $499.00
PowerJolt G-MAX 320Mhz/1024K/2:1 - $649.00
G3 OverDrive 366Mhz/1024K/2:1 - $499.00
G3 OverDrive 400Mhz/1024K/2:1- $649.00
G3 OverDrive 466Mhz/1024K/2:1 -$799.00

To see how about 1000 owners of literally every brand of G3 Upgrade and system rated their cards - search the G3 CPU Upgrade Ratings database.

If you missed the update to yesteday's news post on the Mac DVD decoder board - the reader later replied he ordered direct from Wired Inc.

PC DVD Drives in B&W G3? Has anyone tried a PC/OEM DVD drive in a B&W G3 with the Apple Rage128 Mpeg card option? (Replacing the stock DVD drive with a OEM DVD drive.) If so please contact me.

If you missed any recent daily news a summary is below (details on the past 2 days, and links to the last week). For a blast from the past, read what was on the news page here exactly a year ago.

Other Net Computer News:

• Apple Makes the iMac 333 Official! (theiMac.com)
• CD-RW Update: Fantom Drives will ship Soon (theiMac.com)
• Anonymous Web Surfing? It's not easy to cover your tracks on the Web. Services that promise to deliver anonymity admit there are flaws, but insist underlying technologies are partly to blame. (Wired)
• Serving Linux to the Masses (Wired) Caldera is launching an easy-to-use Linux for the nontechnical masses. Experts say that it's a tasty appetizer, not a full meal. (Wired)
• A Search for the Higest Bidder You know what you're looking for. Will you find it once AltaVista finishes selling its most-requested search terms? (Wired)
• Intel Earnings Defy Expectations (Wired)

Wednesday's News Summary

• OEM ZIPs in B&W G3 - support/warranty issues
• Comments on ZIP 250 with 100MB disks
• New Mac DVD Decoder from Wired Inc ($215 SRP)
• G3 Networking Fix? (hub setting)
• Request for info on PC DVD drives
• OWC 9GB Ultra2 Cheetah Sale
• PPC Checker v1.1
• PowerLogix Online Store Sale
• Virtual PC 2.1.3
• 3Dfx forums PC/Mac Voodoo2 thread
• Networking Hubs/Switches for B&W G3
• Cut in B&W G3 CDROM Cable detailed info.
• ATI RagePro VR Capture/B&W G3 report
• More B&W G3 USB Oddities reported
• More on Quicktime 4 MP3 playback/info
• More on Removing OS X partition
• New Hi-Tech Theme for OS 8.5
• More Autosensing Networking Comments
• PBZone Lombard article
• G3 CPU Upgrade Ratings database updated
• Other Net News

Tuesday's News Summary

• More comments on Networking Hubs
• Removing OS X on Partitioned Install
• Updated MacAudio column on new cards/software
• 3D Gaming News page updated
• Vimage Lowers prices
• PC Excel 97 huge Easter Egg
• Review of Fujitsu 10K RPM drives
• More info on OpenGL/3dfx support
• More comments on B&W G3 IDE cable hole
• Working RagePro VR Capture in B&W G3 report
• Sony fails in court to stop PC Playstation Emulator
• More Slow G3 Networking reports
• VideoShop 4.5/B&W G3 Video Capture incompat.
• Other Computer news

For other recent site news/features links, see the Sidebar to the right and the Recent Site Features page.

If you own a G3/300 or faster Mac, make you get our PPC Checker utility that will report if your CPU is copper or aluminum based.

Considering a G3 Upgrade? Check the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. The database is being updated daily for new reports. Also make sure you ask your dealer about any issues with current builds of some models (ie PF G3) as I have gotten several reports of issues with certain mac models in the last few months (Mach 5, PowerBase, 7300). I urge any owners that have had problems to report this via the Survey Form. Always give the most weight to recent owner reports (dated in the listing).

-Show All Topics-

B&W G3 Related:

-MagicScan G3 Updater
(912K G3/Scanner Fix)
OpenGl Drivers
FireWire 2.0
[File Download]
OEM B&W Ultra2 SCSI
[File Download]
Miles/MilesU2 Updates
ATTO ExpressPCI 1.3.4
(U2 & UW cards)
Rage128 Update 1.0 (485K bin)
or Binhex (660K)
ATTO ExpressPro-Tools [2.1.1]
3940UW v4.1b1 ROM
(Get the 4.0 control below as well)
2940UW v4.1 ROM &
2940UW Control 4.0
Formac PowerRaid Updates
[get hqx version]
Jackammer v1.4 Update
VirtualGameStation 1.1
Plaintalk Enabler
[For B&W/iMac]
Fuse Drivers

Other G3 Models:
-Umax MagicScan v4 (912K)
(G3/Scanner Fix)
OrangeMicro 930U Beta
PPC Checker
Int. Modem Scripts
Apple Modem Update
[File Download]
PB G3 Modem 1.0.2
G3 Modem Update (V.90/56Flex)
See VersionTracker's G3 page for others...

G3 CPU Cards:
Vimage PB1400/2400
Vimage G3/240
(Vimage Update Info)
MacTell G3 Cntl
XLR8 Cache Cntl v1.3 [628KB]
PowerLogix SW
 -Cache Cntl 1.5.1
 -Speedmeter 1.3
 -GuardBit 1.0b2
  (Retrospect fix)
MAXpowr G3 1.3.7
XLR8 Cache Cntl 1.2

Misc/General:
Virtual PC 2.1.3
OrangeMicro 930U Beta
MP850 v1.01 update (2.8MB)
ATI OpenGl Drvrs
Office98 GUID Patch
NAV 5.03
April 99 NAV Defs
Fuse v1.8
Java Runtime 2.1.1
Drive Setup 1.7.2
USB Overdrive
Mac Mesa OpenGL
USB Drivers
Blue Label Update 1
Mouseworks 5.20 (1.5M)
Inspire 3D 1.0C (7.2MB)
NavCom Cache Cntl 1.3
Logitech MouseWare USB
Yamaha CRW4416 ROM v1.0f
(See Mac Update Utility page)
Apple Displays Software 1.7.1
GV V.90 Flex Preferred Script
IE 4.5 Plug-in Updater
Farallon NIC Update
Lightwave 5.6D GL Update
(7.9MB Download)
MacTell Vision3D Pro/Lite 5.4.0
(ROM update also)

Formac GA 5.4.0
(Graphics Card Driver)
Stuffit Expander 5.1

Games Related:
Unreal 2.20 B3
MacMame(emulator)
3Dfx Checker Util
Descent 3Dfx 1.14
FutureCop 101A
MP850 Glide Drivers
CVGS v1.2
T.Raider2 Update

OS 8.5 Related
Check VersionTracker
for other updates.

See also Apple's Software Updates

Apple TIL Updates

Check here for cool Sherlock Plugins