The 3D Game News page has been updated with Frank's latest news feed. Check it out.

To clarify the info in my latest update to the TrueX CDROM review (Beige G3 update) - to boot from the drive you must have a CDROM that has the OS 8.5 or later Apple CD/DVD extension (v1.2.2). OS 8.5 CD boots fine but not an OS 8.1 CD. I just re-verified that OS 8.5 CD boots from my Beige G3 with the drive installed, but not a OS 8.1 CD. (However with the TurboMax card in the 9600/350 even the OS 8.5 CD will not boot in that combo.)

In the continuing thread of Ultra DMA IDE drives and data corruption, this Beige G3 owner reports his IBM drive also had the problem:

" Regarding my second IDE. It is an IBM DTTA 371010 and I had quite trouble with it. The solution was to use HDT 3.02 and slowing down the driver to Single-Word DMA (default was Multi-Word DMA and it gave data corruption though the disk was formatted fine). I think this could help some other reader too.
Alex Schneider"

[See the Memorial Weekend news for a table of DMA modes and rates.] As posted here last Thursday, according to FWB's page on the problem, they suggest "lower the Ultra DMA setting from Ultra DMA Mode 2 to Ultra DMA Mode 1 via the configure driver option. If the problem still persists, try Multi-Word DMA 2." (requires using FWB HDT 3.02 disk driver however). Data corruption in B&W G3's with the WD Expert drive has been a daily thread here since last Thursday and I've updated my B&W G3 Compat. page, FAQ and B&W G3 Slave drive article with this warning.

One reader suggested a very short cable helps but that's impossible in the Beige G3 case due to drive locations. (Maybe we now know why Apple doesn't 'support' slaves in the B&W G3 and ships it with a very short one drive cable). I saw no data corruption in tests with the DiamondMax Plus (7200 RPM 91000D8 model) at least with the SMI files I tested. As noted in the weekend news, one B&W G3/WD Expert owner thought his drive was immune until he saw my post and re-tested with larger (20MB) SMI files which did resulted in checksum errors (indicating data corruption). This is something that all Apple G3 owners with addon UltraDMA drives should verify in the setup as cable length and quality can also play a factor. UltraATA cables (shielded 80 conductors) may help in some cases. Interesting was the same WD Expert drive with long cable passed a SMI test in the B&W G3 when running off the TurboMax IDE card (it failed running off the primary onboard IDE channel.

I really like the design of this HiMac concept Powerbook. I found the link at this site (dvdesign) that lists many proto/concept mac designs.

Steve Magoun wrote that the audio dropout issues a reader reported earlier today are not the TurboMax's fault:

"I've run into similar problems with audio breakup during disk access. I had the problem when I moved from OS 8.1 to 8.5. I'm pretty sure it's not TurboMax-related....I had a pair of drives on the internal fast SCSI of my 7600 and still had the problem. It was most noticeable when playing Unreal....during the load process, the music would break up pretty badly when going to disk; I didn't have the problem w/ 8.1. Adding a TurboMax card (w/ faster drive) and a G3 upgrade actually helped alleviate the problem for me.
Steve"

Thad Brown of my Audio Column also wrote to defend the TurboMax card:

"RE: 7500 and audio playback (today's news). 7500s are notorious audio machines, many had serious PCI timing problems that showed up in highly clock sensitive areas like audio playback. cleaning out the PCI bus might help, but as a person who runs 16-32 tracks of full bandwidth 24 bit audio off of a TurboMax card, it ain't the card.I have a handful of non-audio apps and I probably have a few MP3s around somewhere (they hurt my ears). I'll try it with my box. [Thad's tests with the Promax card are linked on the SCSI/IDE features page-Mike] "

As noted here last week, a PowerCenter Pro/G3 Card owner reported enabling Virtual Memory solved an audio dropout problem he was having. Similar cases in the past with audio/video capture/playback with PCI SCSI Cards have been fixed by reducing the SCSI Card clock rate (Miles SmartSCSI util for Intio owners or disabling UltraSCSI mode for other brands). The audio stuttering on playback has been a common issue reported over the last year with PCI SCSI Cards like the Miles. I had hoped it would be resolved with QT 4.0 but apparently not.

Sonnet Technologies sent word of a price reduction on their PCI Mac G3 Upgrades:

"Crescendo G3 for PCI Power Macs
New prices are as follows:

Crescendo G3 250/512K $249.95 Crescendo G3 333/1M $549.95
These cards are compatible with the following Macintosh models:

- Power Mac 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8515, 8600, 9500, 9515, 9600
- Workgroup Server 7350, 8550, 9650 - Power Computing PowerCenter,
  PowerCenter Pro, PowerTower, PowerTower Pro, PowerWave, PowerCurve
- UMAX J700/S900
- DayStar Genesis 360, 400, 528, 600, 720, 800, 900, 932"

Gene Shekhtman just wrote that he saw the Kenwood TrueX CDROM drive at CompUSA for $99 after $30 mail-in rebate.

Macs Only has a review of Contour design's New Unitrap Mouse mentioned on their front page.

Gene Shekhtman just wrote that he saw the Kenwood TrueX CDROM drive at CompUSA for $99 after $30 mail-in rebate.

Macs Only has a review of Contour design's New Unitrap Mouse mentioned on their front page.

Apple's 450Mhz speed bump has finally arrived. The Apple Store now lists 450MHz B&W G3s. Base price of the 450MHz model with 12GB IDE drive and 64MB RAM is $2519.00 (no DVD, No ZIP). You can now add a 2nd Rage128 card as well for an additional $150. Along with the speed bump the new low end is now 350MHz, with the 400Mhz model being the midrange system. A reader sent a note that a 32x CDROM is now standard instead of the previous 24x (also noted by a dealer a few weeks back), however the Apple Store does not specifically list the CDROM speed rating.

I've gotten several reports of reader problems with 128MB FPM DIMMS, even those from quality name brand vendors. If you're having problems with a Mac with 128MB DIMMs installed, try removing them or possibly using only those DIMMs (not interleaved may help as well). 128MB or larger SDRAM DIMMs are not a problem with the Apple G3 systems.

Speaking of PC100 DIMMs, I read an article this weekend that reported some 66MHz SDRAM DIMMs may be remarked or sold as PC100 DIMMs but I suspect with all major production of PC100 DIMMs now this is very rare. I always suggest buy your RAM from a quality vendor (preferably one that specializes in Mac products).

Although many readers have reported using PC100 DIMMs in beige G3s, one reader wrote with a very odd story that adding PC100 RAM to his beige G3 (doubling the amount of RAM), almost tripled the times to save a MYOB file. He reported tests involved opening MYOB, making a minor change and then saving the file. Repeated tests with and without the PC100 RAM showed that the save times were almost 3x longer with the additional PC100 RAM installed. His system had VM off, OS 8.5.1. I find it hard to believe that PC100 RAM had anything to do with it but would like to see him retest with other RAM installed to see if the effect was common regardless of RAM type.

This reader sent a note about audio playback and the TurboMax card. [The update above indicates it may not be the TurboMax's fault] I don't have any MP3 files or apps and have not tested video/audio playback but note that Promax only specs the TurboMax for video playback with Apple G3 systems (I suspect due to their improved PCI/Memory controller and/or faster Bus/CPU perhaps)

" Mike,
I haven't seen this on your site, but this is interesting- I recently got a TurboMax IDE card and the WD 18 GB Expert drive. I have a 7500 g220/110 @ 292/145, 192Mb RAM, MC Voodoo 2, Rage Pro (All PCI slots filled :(

What I noticed is that with any audio (quicktime/midi/MP3), the sound stutters if accessing the HD. This NEVER happened on the built in Fast SCSI bus. It can be as simple as launching a control panel. I love the speed, but it seems that there is not enough bandwidth on the PCI bus. Sorry to say that the built in SCSI with narrow HD is more "stable"

Anybody else with the same problem?
p.s. Try to play an MP3 on your hd (MacAMP) and launch another program-no problem with built in SCSI, major pauses with the TurboMax/WD drive.... "

This could also be the result of PCI cards sharing the bus (one interesting test would be to disable the ATI extensions and see if that helped). If anyone else has tested this please contact me. Some audio issues with QT4 were also solved by the latest update and/or adding more RAM to the player application. The WD Expert drive I used in the TurboMax review is now running in a PC (after the disappointing data errors seen in the B&W G3) so I can't test with that drive anymore. Also note that due to the nature of the MacOS' multitasking, some apps will not play audio in the background (note that web page audio will stop if you switch applications for instance).

Sven Negrassus has posted a series of benchmarks and real world tests showing that in many cases OS 8.6 is slower than previous versions. This echoes many reader comments here since OS 8.6's release. Even MP performance seems to have taken a hit even though it was supposed to be improved. One report says increased finder cpu cycle time may be one reason why.

The Flyman sent a link to a site with lots of (PC) Water Cooled CPUs. Last week the 3D Game News page had a note on a mineral oil cooled PC system if I remember correctly. Don't try this at home folks. ;-)

Frank Sottile sent a note about an article on Rifts Between MS and IBM that mentions MS quintupled the licensing fee for Windows after IBM refused to drop 'a rival operating system'.

After a reader sent a note concerned over a comment on Quantum Atlas III/Viking II AV drives not being recommended for mission critical data storage I wrote my contact at Quantum. I've posted a page with Quantum's complete explanation.

Ian Skopan sent a note that Star Division (www.stardivision.com), the company that offers a trimmed (less bloat) office suite for many platforms seems to have pulled a page they had on a possible Mac version:

" Hi Mike.
..I have a quiet disturbing piece of news today. I have heard six months ago about an Office Suite from a german company Star Division (http://www.stardivision.com). Their suite is a desktop Swiss knife containing word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, images manipulation, webdesign, programming, and so on, and so on... But I think you must have heard about it in the past. Oh I forgot. AND IT'S FREE.

They have version of this software for Windows, OS/2, Linux, Solaris, Java, etc, but not the Mac yet. They do have a page regarding the Mac development of the Mac version. Well at least they did till I checked this morning. Nada on the Mac. Best of all, they are releasing version 5.1 for all the above platforms, but still no word about the Mac. I fear they have stopped Macintosh development. Why ??? I don't know yet. I sent them an email for an explanation. I suggested that maybe a massive number of Mac enthusiasts' emails could revive the project - if in fact terminated. I will keep you informed if I get any news from them. I'll forward their response.
Ian "

If you don't check every day's daily news (updated several times a day normally) you might miss something valuable. Check the summary list below for highlights of the last two days news and the archives page for older new page links. For a blast from the past, read what was on the news page here exactly a year ago.

Other Net News:

• Part I: Do You Trust The Cook? (MacOpinion)
• Part II: So, Who DO You Trust? (MacOpinion)
• USB From A To Z (ZD/net)

Memorial Weekend News Summary

• Review of the Kenwood 52X TrueX CDROM drive w/Beige G3 Minitower tests
• TurboMax/9600/Truex CD - can't boot
• CarrierZIF running 450/225/60Mhz bus in my 9600/350
• 3D Game News updated
• Formac Permedia3 chip based graphics card comments
• Discussion on Newer Tech PB 1400 G3 upgrades and VM/Ramdoubler
• More data corruption stories on WD Expert drive in B&W G3
• Table of IDE DMA Modes and max transfer rates per spec
• Reader report on ATTO U2 card and 3 U2 SCSI 18GB cheetahs
• Comments on MW article on hackers to blame for failures
• More on Yamaha 4416S CDR problem waking from sleep
• Comment on Cable lengths and WD Expert data corruption
• IDE ORB owner comments on disk changes in B&W G3
• TurboMax review updated for U2 Cheetah comparisons
• Frequently Asked Questions Updated
• Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
• Other Net News

Friday's News Summary

• Clarification on 'X' partnumber (non-std) Motorola ZIFs and CarrierZIF
• WD Expert 18GB IDE drive verified data errors in B&W G3
• TurboMax fixes WD Expert/B&W G3 problem
• DiamondMax Plus drive has no data errors in B&W G3
• X series Moto PCI/Mem controller still used in B&W G3
• Norton Utils 4.04 update released
• reader review of the WD Expert, my B&W Info, B&W G3 Compatibility and B&W G3 Slave drive article, and TurboMax IDE Controller review updated with warnings on WD Expert drive/B&W G3 corruption
• CPU rumors - 10X G3 due summer, G4 Delayed??
• QT4 Beta 24 update
• Yamaha 4416S CDR waking from sleep issue
• VT MP850 driver update promised soon
• OWC Site special on 366MHz ZIFs
• Reader comments on latest MW CPU review article
• Speed Doubler/OS 8.6 comments (uninstall/reinstall/QT version issues)
• 3D Game News updated
• G3 CPU Upgrade Ratings database updated
• Other Net 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, you might want to 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).