The reader that asked for the Israel country code sent a clarification to his earlier request (he needs the modem modulation code for Israel, not the standard dial code).

Pioneer DVD 303S SCSI Drive Control Panel: A (partial) solution for the Pioneer 303S DVD SCSI drive problem I've had is disabling the Pioneer DVD ROM drive extension and using the (1997 dated) CLD Access Control panel at Pioneer's support page (the file is called Mac403.hqx). That solved the problems recognizing the drive/disc with the Wired4DVD player (the patched Apple Software player still does not see the drive however). I say partial fix as so far it will not play more than the FBI warning or first chapter of many DVD movies. I'm going to try a few other DVDs (so far none will allow playing later chapters via the scene selection menus). The movie 'Heat' seems to be playing fine so far (normal play, not trying to use any skip/advance chapters controls which seems to be the common problem).

As noted here previously, the Pioneer DVD drives seem to be the least recommended brand for the Mac, based on mixed owner reports and vendor comments. Perhaps an IDE model would be more compatible, but in a SCSI based Mac like this 9600/350, that's not an option as no PC IDE card I know currently supports IDE CDroms. (And Mac PCI IDE cards also make IDE devices appear as SCSI drives to the MacOS, based on my experience with the Turbomax card).

Ram Doubler 9 Performance Impact? A reader asked if anyone had tested Ram Doubler 9 vs Mac OS 9's Virtual Memory as far as applications performance impact. I also wonder if DVD audio is affected with it as it seems to be with OS 9's VM enabled (even Wired4DVD suggests disabled VM when playing DVDs). If you have compared the two, please contact me with results of tests in applications, games or benchmarks (timed tests with OS 9 VM vs RD 9).

Interview with Dan Phillips of Korg USA: Thad Brown sent Issue #52 of our Mac Audio column Bring in the Noise that includes an interview Dan Phillips of Korg USA. Check it out. The current issue and links to back issues are always at www.xlr8yourmac.com/audio/.

Report on FireWire Enclosure/Adapter for IDE Drives: Sean Mitchell sent a report and test results of using an External Firewire case (with Firewire/IDE adapter) with an IDE hard drive.

$207 28GB Barracuda HDs: Jim Downs sent a note that these fast IDE drives are available for $206.99 at Computers4Sure. These are OEM models I'm sure (bare drive only).

More Toshiba SM-1212 DVD Drive Reports: Another reader said the drive worked only when jumpered as a Slave in his Beige G3. (In reply to last week's similar report from a rev 1 Beige G3 owner):

"Mike -
It's getting to be old news but I just installed a Toshiba SM-1212 DVD drive in my Beige G3 Rev3 minitower and it works fine with the virgin Apple CD/DVD extension. I did verify that setting it to Master would hang the machine - and it did. Switching to slave cleared things up. Even using CD Speedtools with it set to master caused the machine to hang.

Now all I need is a nice V5 with DVD decoding and I'm all set!! Supplies are limited at BUY.COM for these things. I got mine for $84.99 with free shipping but they are now $89.99. It shipped in a TOSHIBA box and UPS tracking showed it came from Canada even though the return address said BUY.COM in California. Also, the drive is beige - not platinum.
Dan "

As I've said here before, when buying PC IDE DVD or CDR drives for use in a Mac, it might be worth buying it at a retail store to allow a return privilege in case there are issues in your particular Mac. The $10 or so savings might pale in comparison to return shipping, phone calls, and hassles trying to return a product to a large mail order outfit (if you even can). As I mentioned several weekends ago, Office Depot and Best Buy have these drives for $99.95 (Memorex retail box, with PC audio cable, screws and PC software DVD decoder). The same drive is also included in some Hival 6X DVD boxes as well.

Speaking of the Toshiba DVD drive, Sandy sent a 3rd update on his Beige G3/DVD setup with a very odd note regarding Virtual Memory and a comment the Rage128 VR TV out looks great with DVD:

"Hi Mike,
After further testing of my g3 233, over clocked to 304mhz. I have found one major issue and a fix for it. When I insert a cd into the dvd rom drive or even into my external scsi 2x2x6x cdrw the cd mounts fine on the desktop. But if you try to install a application or a game from a cd, I get a total freeze. But for programs which I already installed(ex. MYTH) it recognizes the cd when I launch the program and all is fine. I can run any other app from a cd, like movies, simpletext readme's, but not installers.

This was all with virtual memory off. The reason for VM being off is that I have no lip sync issues with it off. If I turn VM on I get dvd lip sync issues and about a 1 sec voice lag or OOS. But with virtual memory on, I can read all cd's too, but now i can install the apps/games off cds so I guess virtual memory and the os8.6 apple dvd/cd extension [used with] os9 has a few errors. But turning off VM and a one minute restart is just fine if I want to watch a dvd movie. Which by the way the movies look great with the vr card output by svideo to my 32" Sony TV.
Thanks for the help,
Sandy "

A reported here earlier, Sandy is using the hack for the Apple Software DVD player (see the FAQ's DVD topic area for a link to a DVD Hacks/Utility page).

Frontier's Smart Copy (Folder Sync): A reader replies to last week's comments no missing Speed Doubler's Smart Copy feature (not OS 9 compatible) with notes on Frontier:

"Hi Mike,
I read about the folks asking that Speed Doubler be updated so they could have the Smart Copy feature. Here's an option. Userland Frontier has a built in function called "file.reconcileFolder" that will synch folders. The script to do this is a one-liner:

"file.reconcileFolder (original, clone, copyFilter)"

where copyFilter allows you to exclude some types of files

The latest version of Frontier is a commercial product, but earlier versions (5.0.1 and 4.2.3) are free and run fine on current machines and OS.

Frontier is not really for the faint of heart, and is certainly more daunting than Speed Doubler's Smart Copy, but is more versatile and can be set up to automatically do the backup.

The free versions of Frontier can be found at:
linux2.userland.com/users/admin/archives/1997/userland/

One thing to note, if you want to use the 4.2.3 version on a newer (faster than 225MHz) machine make sure to grab the 4.1a app along with the 4.2.3a root. There was an obscure bug that would cause Frontier to freeze on startup on fast machines that is fixed in this release:

linux2.userland.com/users/admin/archives/1997/userland/frontier4.2.3a.sit.hqx
linux2.userland.com/users/admin/archives/1997/userland/frontier4.1a.sit.hqx

Cheers!
Steve Axthelm"

Reader Request: Modem Country Code for Israel? A reader with a Lombard PB G3 writes asking if anyone knows the modulation standard code for Israel:

"[The clarification:]
I need the code which instructs the modem to select the correct telecommunications modulation standard for use in the country in which it is being used, in this case Israel. I did not mean the international dial code for Israel which is not a modem specific thing, 972 is the code in which you have to dial up if you want to talk to somebody is in Israel and you are outside Israel.

[the original post:]
Hi Mike,
I'm looking for a bit of help and wonder if you or one of your readers can help me, I've had a look at all the common PowerBook sites and cannot find the answer I need.

I have a Hong Kong spec Lombard 400 PowerBook and was using it in Thailand for about 6 months without trouble, last week I came to Israel and now I've got bit of confusion regarding my modem configuration, in the apple extras folder there is a util for configuring the modem for different countries, most of the countries of the world in fact Singapore, England, Germany etc, I cannot find Israel, I know there is a hard way of doing it using the command AT*NCn where n is the country code, I know the old G3 PB (Wallstreet) code for Israel is 18 but my machine won't accept this number so I assume the code has changed for the Lombard.

I got the list of country code numbers of a Apple TIL (restricted issue) from a service source disk which is out of date by about 6 months, I want to know if there is the same list of numbers for the Lombard and if so what the number is for Israel.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Mich B. "

If anyone has the answer please contact me.

More Umax E100 Card Feedback: A reader that just built a dual 604e S900 system notes he can't get E100 networking to work at all under OS 9:

"Mike,
I recently used the Small Dog deal to build a dual processor S900. Primary card is a 604e/233 and the second processor is a 604e/200. Since the the primary card runs at 5x bus speed (= 46.6) the second processor being a 4x bus speed card really runs at 186 = 4 x 46.6. I have OS 9 installed and an E100 card with the latest firmware 1.3.2 from UMAX. I cannot get the E100 networking to work at all. The extensions that are supposed to load and give appropriate options in the AppleTalk and TCP/IP control panels are not available (don't appear as options). Minimal testing with the SCSI capability seems to indicate that things are working fine, but I have not yet attached a boot drive to the E100.

Also, UMAX is keeping its links for Supermac support up. The current link is: http://www.supermac.com/supermac/index.html
Joe"

I've never heard of running MP with cpus of two different speeds but with Umax's special separate card approach (requires using their CPU card when using the 2nd slot) apparently it is possible. MP performance in the Mac OS has been disappointing in my experience due to the fact most applications are not MP aware. My Quad 180mhz Genesis was 25% slower in (MP aware) After Effects 3.1 tests than a G3/300 card in the same system. In apps that are not MP aware (the vast majority of Mac OS applications), a MP card is a tad slower than a single cpu of the same speed due to MP overhead. Sadly, OS 8.6 and later is not compatible with Quad CPU cards so I could not use it with the Genesis MP720 card. OS X will have a SMP kernel that should really improve MP performance over past OS versions. BeOS and Linux do take better advantage of MP systems.

Speaking of the E100 card, George Cole of Powerlogix sent word they are working on a fix for the E100 firmware bug that affects networking compatibility with some G3 upgrade cards according to a report on my Umax E100 compatibility page.

Reader Review Databases Updated: The Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated Sunday afternoon. Included on the Mac Game/Video Card Performance entry page is a new procedure on how to test framerates in Unreal Tournament (full version) and there are several new entries using this uniform new testing procedure.

Ryan Tanaka wrote he's posted a page of MWSF 2000 show pictures that focuses more on the crowd and atmosphere than the products. If you missed it, I posted several pages of show photos that included products and even a nice photo of Steve Jobs.

For a blast from the past see what was on the front page news here one year ago.

Other Net News:

• Mac OS X Update: Quartz & Aqua (Ars Technica)

Friday's News Summary

• Another Toshiba 6X DVD/Beige G3 Report (more in FAQ DVD section)
• E100 Ethernet/G3 Upgrade Issues? (See Umax E100 compat. page)
• Still Hope For SpeedDoubler 9?
• How Do I... (see FAQ How-To articles section)
• HP 4M Tips page for G3/G4 Macs
• More info on USB Microscopes
• F/A 18 Korea GL Beta Update, how to test FPS in UT at Game News page
• AMPradio 1.5 released
• Still More Cachedoubler Compatibility Reports
• GV Fax Update Installer Warning
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.
• Other Net News

Thursday's News Summary

• Fix for my Kodak DC280/iMac DV USB Errors
• G4/HP 4M Solutions (Thanks Readers!):
• Gates Resigns as CEO
• Mac USB Microscope Info (Scalar Scopes Web Site)
• Reader Request: G4/HP 4M Printer Feedback Wanted
• Cries for Speed Doubler 9
• iTools Update
• Kodak DC-280 Firmware Update
• More AIWA USB Tape/USB PCI Card Reports
• FireNet - TCP/IP over Firewire?
• Umax E100 NIC/SCSI Card and Turbomax Issues
• PowerLogic Comments on Dynamic Pwr Mgmt
• 3dfx Glide Still Alive (Developer comments at MWSF)
• OWC Selling Games
• More CacheDoubler Compatibility Issues
• Distant Suns updated for Seti@home
• Today's Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

Wednesday's News Summary

• Mac Quake3 Point Release (Beta) Patch
• 'Free DSL' May Not Be
• More PF G4/350 Feedback
• Powerlogix MW Expo sale reminder
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade Reviews Exceed 3000 reports!
• PF G4/350 owner reports using Sonnet control software
• PF G4/350 Virtual PC 3.0 problems
• Apple store has $15 G4 Plaintalk Mic kit available
• More AIWA USB Tape Drive/PCI USB Card Reports
• Umax Cache Doubler Compatibility Notes
• More on Beige G3/Toshiba 6X DVD Drive
• PCI Cards and Low Power Mode
• Game News page updated w/Rainbow Six Mod Report/ Free GL Tron Game info and tip for brightness (gamma) settings
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated
• RC5 Altivec boost reports
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

Tuesday's News Summary

• More L2G3 Upgrade Feedback
• $49 OEM Matrox Mystique cards/vram upgrades
• AIWA USB Tape Drive/Macally PCI USB Card Report
• Game News page updated w/Mac Rainbow Six mod & Activision Mac Quake3 Arena support info.
• AGP Rage128 Pro Cards available at Apple store
• Lucent 11Mbps Wireless PCMCIA Card Report
• Mac USB microscope and e.light mfr. URLs
• HiVal (Toshiba) 6x DVD Drive Report (CVGS Compatible?)
• MBDF Virus Report
• Maxtor Drive Free Photoshop LE Offer
• iDisk Tips/Issues page created.
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

For links to older news pages see the Archives page.

The recent features page has a lists reviews/articles you may have missed.

For a guide to finding answers to questions - see my Site Guide page.

Considering a CPU Upgrade? Check the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. Readers post new entries daily and the database is updated several times a week. The current database has more than 2,800 reports and growing.

-Freq Asked Questions