GOODTIME's PCMAC HACKINTOSH BLOG

First annual NiceMac.com YouTube Video Contest

2007-03-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

First annual NiceMac.com YouTube Video Contest.

See details at:

http://nicemac.com/index.php?topic=144.0

Sincerely,

Goodtime
NiceMac Founder
http://NiceMac.com

Captain FTP

2007-02-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

I kept having problems with Transmit 2 & 3 locking up during a file transfer upload. Frustrated with Transmit and tired of fixing directories from the command line ftp, I decided to give Captain FTP a try. Works like a charm. I highly recommend it for OS X users. The interface is a little strange but the program works great.

gt

Apple iPhone has a Knockoff Called the Meizi M8

2007-02-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4548

I smell a lawsuit brewing. It's definitely a knockoff. The Cal, Calc, Phone, and Mail icons look very close. The rounded plastic edges look the same. The Meizu M8 should be called the ©iPhone for Copyright infringement Phone.

gt

Mactactic.com New website that gauges when to buy a new Mac / Lifecycle.

2007-02-13T12:34:00.000-08:00

http://Mactactic.com suggests to by a machine at the beginning or middle of its life cycle. While this may be a good value money wise, would it be better to buy a machine at the end of its life cycle because nearly all the kinks would be worked out by that time?

For instance the Mirror Door G4 and 604e processors at the end of their life cycle were really good buys for me. In my college years, I used to always buy machines at the end of their life cycle refurbished. Not to mention there were very few problems with these boxes.

What do you think?

gt

Intel to Introduce and Demonstrate an 80 Core CPU!

2007-02-12T17:32:00.001-08:00

Great. First we had the Megahertz race, now we are already in the Cores race. Let's see who can get to 1,024 Cores First.

Then they will probably say, Mmmm. This many cores is just not fast enough and it's way too hot, I think we need a platform change and incorporate a Venus Fly Trap CPU. We've been developing this secretly since the beginning of time. Now all we will need for power are a few bugs and water.

gt

Halo running on Hackintosh. Dell E207 Monitor, Don't get one! The E207 is not a good buy.

2007-02-11T19:34:00.000-08:00

I got Halo Combat Evolved running on my Hacktinosh. I plays pretty good. I moved my better monitor, the Dell 2100fp to my main workstation. I might return my E207 for a 2407wfp or a 2007wfp. I didn't know this but the E207 is based on TN technology. It does not have as wide of a viewing angle top to bottom. It's color reproduction is also not ad good as my 2100fp. I may even try to find another 2100fp. The E207 does seems to be sharper, but it almost seems too sharp. Photos and text sometimes looks blotchy. Kind of annoying when you get used to a good screen.

Dell does not really make this apparent about the Econo displays. It tells you what options that you're not gonna got like USB 2.0, Extra video outputs, Picture in Picture, but they don't say, "we are using less pleasing 6bit imaging technology." I am probably going to return this display and try out a different model. I am really happy with the 2100fp. It has a really solid base that doesn't shake at all. This E207 is flimsy too. This is what usually happens. The 1st models are rock solid and well engineered. Now is it less give you something about 100 dollars cheaper brand new and see if you miss all the shortcuts we took to make boo-coo money.

gt

update: I traded my Dell E207 for a 2407WFP. If you are getting a new monitor go for a 2007FP or 2407WFP or find a used 2001FP or 2405WFP. Cheers!

Runing JaS Semthex 10.4.8 OSx86

2007-02-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

I have been running the last JaS 10.4.8 DVD install for a few months now. It is great. I have any kernel panics. I am running Natit with a XFX GeForce 7300 Card with 2 Gigs of Ram, over a terabyte of hard disk space. I just love it. I built this Mac from Scratch last year and it still runs suberb.

Here are some of my notes for a month ago:

It the most unusual system that I ever put together.

This week, I made some improvements to DarthVader, my Intel Mac clone.

I added a Dual Display GeForce 7300 GT PCIe card like the ones in the MacPro's. Using a Dual Head Natit.kext v.02 to get dual displays working. Also added an inexpensive Dell E207 20" widescreen display with attached speakers. The display is clear and crisp. But you get what you pay for. Pixels might be over sharp. Darth is using a hacked 10.4.8 v8.8.1 kernel made by Mifki. For me building Darth is a fun hobby and don't wish it upon anyone unless you like messing around with Kext's and other innards of OSX. Darth's goal was to create a cheap usable Mac-like system for running Photoshop and Apple's Developer Tools to build Universal Applications. DVDs on Darth play really nice, especially with the built in sound bar directly below the screen.

Damage List:

Case,Intel D915GUX Mobo, 80 GB HD,1 GB, 16xDVDR, 3Ghz P4HT 64bit $500
Two WD 250 GB SATA HDs $200
Dell 2407WFP Monitor with Sound Bar attached speakers $300 (Got a great dell on it).
1 GB Additional RAM, Generic (installed it later this week) $088
PCIe 7300 GT Dual Display DVI Video Card $100
External 100 GB WD USB/FW HD. Upgraded from free drive to 250GB $040
External 250 GB Drive USB/FW ROCK Mobile HD $100
Dell Keyboard and Mouse $030
Dell 17" Display from rummage sale $040 (just stopped using it, 24" is all I need right now).
2nd 100 BT PCI Card (internal is 1GB Ethernet used with my G4) $040
End PC Noise FAN $035
USB 2.0 WiFi Card from Previous system FREE (went back to LAN, Ethernet,) going to sell this on eBay.
USB 1.1/Firewire Card from recycled system FREE
Wacom Tablet.. used from old system FREE
Estimated total $1475.00

It runs as good as many G5's on the Market. It is by no means a speed demon like the latest and greatest Xeon Macs. The MoBo is already a year old. But I would consider it a good Mid Range system that currently suits my needs and it has 1 Terabyte of storage. I am going to evenutally add another 20" widescreen monitor and trash my CRT. So, I started around the Mac Mini price gradually worked my way up to the 20" iMac range. Most of the parts were bought on eBay. It's still much cheaper than the bottom of the line MacPro, but it did require more effort to put together and configure than any normal Mac user would consider attempting. Nevertheless, it was a great learning experience and I know more now about Macs and PCs than I ever did.

Pros: cheap, Dual Display, Supports QE,CI, and QE2D Extreme, runs Tiger 10.4.8. 64bit enabled. 6 USB 2.0 Ports, 4 USB 1.1 ports, 2 Firewire 800 Ports. RAM is Expandable to 4 GB. No viruses.
Cons: It's not a Mac, may not run 10.5. Do it yourself means fix it yourself. Getting very good at both.

If you ever wish to take on a project like this. I highly recommended joining http://insanelymac.com. Also, if you want to chat with my, I am often on IRC at: irc.macspeak.net with the username: gt. Common rooms that I am in: kernel and clonetool.

Clonetool is my pet programming project. For far it's made a few dollars. I hope to earn enough money with CT for either a Mac Mini or a MacBook to fully support cloning Hard disks of any Mac or Hackintosh user. Clonetool, a command line based cloning utility, was started to fill a need for Hackintosh users. They didn't have a simple way to clone their OSX boot drive and allow it to boot with little user intervention. Clonetool today has been downloaded worldwide, from over 80 countries, and supports PowerPC and Hackintosh users. 75% of my downloads are from Hackintosh users. 25% are PowerPC users. With my next version, I hope to get Intel Mac users and bring it to a 50/50 split between real Mac users and Hackintosh OSx86 users. Clonetool Hatchery will be released by Easter and will support all Macs including Intel Macs and Hackintoshes and of course be more Mac like with a GUI.

I have not done much promoting of Clonetool, but was amazed how many downloads it gets. Each week my tiny homepage gets about 5000 visitors and Clonetool gets about 125 downloads per week. There are other cloning tools out there, but many of them haven't been updated in a while. I am hoping to close the gap and keep developing it. Cloning Mac hard drives is also a departure from my previous programming endeavors which were Prepress based and did not have much life outside of the work I do at my full-time job.

Happy New Year,

Goodtime
http://art5dog.com

Mac OS X 10.5 and Blu-Ray or HD-DVD Macs from Apple!

2007-02-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

When 10.5. is released and it does support HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, it will immediately start selling computers with either a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. It would be crazy not to, plus including a Mac that supports either or both formats would boost sales.

If I want to watch HD-DVD movies, I need a HDCP compatible Video Card (my 7300 GT is does not that I know of), I do have a HDCP monitor, then I would need a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. After all that, my CPU might not be fast enough to play 1080p content, so then I would probably just get a brand new mac that already supports it and it would be much faster.

What's funny is video cards first got better because of Prepress and Graphic Design. Next Video Gamers needed better video cards, now HD computers need better video cards and Processors to keep up with HD-DVD decyption. Seems endless.

Computer manufacturers should have a Computer Club Membership. For $1000/yr. Apple could send you a new computer. A year later if you return that computer, Apple would send you another new one as long as you keep your membership in good standing. If you opt out of the Membership, then you would owe Apple the balance due on the $2500 machine ($1500) and could keep the computer which would probably be obsolete in another year because of some new technology. I would probably pay $1000/yr. if I was guaranteed a computer that would be up-to-date on both the hardware and software side. Think about it, we probably pay Cable this much and see don't get better service year after year for the same money.

GoDaddy.com

2007-02-09T03:38:00.000-08:00

I just loved that GoDaddy.com commercial. "Everybody wants to be in Marketing." I like the girl on their web banner Ads too. It's sexy and clean. Way to go GoDaddy! I am definitely going to get my next Domain name from GoDaddy.com. They are a cool internet company with a sense of humor that just happen to sell domain names and web services. Sweet!

gt

3D Graphics in a VM on Mac OS X Fusion? Yes!

2007-02-09T03:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF_CoXsXtk4

This is impressive to see 3D Graphics Acceleration on Mac OS X within a Windows Virtual Machine. This brings Mac gaming to a whole new level! I don't know if this will work on Hacktinoshes, but seeing it running on several Mac Book Pro's and MacPro's is really cool.

a 3D Graphics Environment in a Sandbox. Nice.

I just might have to purchase the latest version of VMware's Fusion this year and give it a whirl. My kids would love to play the Windows version of Star Wars lego I & II on a Mac instead of a PC. :)

Now it's time for Parallels to step it up because VMWare's Fusion now has a leg up on you guys. Parallels was headed out the gate first, but now Fusion is catching up and is passing Parallels. This is going to be some tough competition for both companies. This will be really good for the consumer. Speaking of competition, where is VirtualPC for the Mac? Looks like Microsoft killed another Mac product. Here is what Bill Gates is thinking to himself, "Oops, I did it again. I got lost in the game and screwed another product. At least we will still have Tiger, I mean Vista and Aqua, I mean Aero. I'm not that innocent." Great job M$, you poisoned another up an coming product. Smooth move.

Go Fusion Go! I hope Parallels stays in the game. :)

gt

Casual Games coming to AppleTV. Reminds me of my C-64/Atari days.

2007-02-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

Casual games is really not a bad idea for AppleTV. It would be like having access to Hotel games on your TV.

I could see having Nintendo games like Super Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong. Arcade classics and simple shoot 'em up games. Card games: Sudoku, Chess, Poker, Black Jack. Board games like: Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Monopoly and You Don't Know Jack. Atari classic games like Pole Position, Asteriods, Tank and Pong. And of course newly created games but keep them simple.

As long as the games are not terribly complicated, many of today's non-gamers might buy a few to keep around for parties and stuff.

This would be great for the casual gamer like what we had with the Atari 2600 back in 1978. Those games were simple, but very socially entertaining.

That reminds me, I used to write shoot 'em up arcade style games for the C-64 using Gary Kitchen's Game Maker. One of my games is still on the internet called "Laser Eagle V2". V1 was never released, it was written in BASIC. V2 made it to the top twenty downloads on QuantumLink. The game can be played using a C-64 emulator.

The game was created 21 years ago. It's a home grown classic.

http://www.fragit.net/cbm/c64/games/eagleg.prg
http://www.fragit.net/cbm/c64/games/index.html

gt

PowerBook Pismo G3 for $ale

2007-02-08T14:25:00.001-08:00

Anyone want to buy a PowerBook Pismo G3 with a custom internal WiFi 802.11b card, 386 MB RAM? It does not have a battery but the power adapter still works. Runs good for general web stuff, slight bulge in keyboard from my Frankenstein WiFi card that came from an original AirPort Base station. I am thinking about selling it on eBay soon

Where's all the Mac viruses? Apple says there are 114,000 on the PC.

2007-02-07T19:17:00.001-08:00

Apple's website says there are 114,000 PC Viruses.

So far I can count the Mac OS X viruses on one of my hands.

Now, I am not saying that Mac viruses are not possible. In fact it would be easy to write one. It could be a phishing virus, a key stroke recorder, a virus that phones home and sends personal information without your knowledge, a malware virus that clicks on ads off screen, a virus that swaps out the kernel, takes over and all bets are off. Now most of these viruses would probably require the user to enter their password. One way to get the Mac victim to enter there password would be to modify a multi pkg installer as add in a custom package that inserts the virus. Put the hacked software up on a torrent site (make it a popular program like iLife) and you've got yourself a pool of users.

While Mac viruses are entirely possible. Mac hackers that I know are not malicious. They are more interested in figuring out what makes OS X tick from a curiousity level than from a destructive force level. Many PC hackers are interested in controlling a botnet and using their skills to make money. There is a big difference between the average Macintosh hacker and a PC hacker. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are PC hackers that work for the forces of good and not evil. I am just saying that I don't think there are many Mac hackers that try to hurt someone's computer or try to take a computer over. Plus, many IT departments are afraid of Macs, and I assume many Windows/PC only hackers are afraid of Macs as well. Market share is too low for most bad hackers to worry about Macs. I think that is why there are not many Mac viruses. Think different. Use the force, Luke.

gt

Apple to support HD-DVD and Blue-Ray in 10.5?

2007-02-04T10:43:00.001-08:00

I read rumors that Apple's DVD Player will sport a new interface and also support HD-DVD and Blue-Ray. Apple's website says that version 4.6 of DVD Player support High Definition video and with DV Studio Pro 4 it can play authored HD-DVDs. But can it play HD-DVDs now? Many sites say no.

I haven't found any concrete evidence from Apple about full support for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray, but I would think it needs to support these new standards before somebody else does like VLC.

Right now I would like to use the USB HD-DVD Player for the Xbox on my Mac, but without software its a little early to spend the 200 bucks for it.

gt

Home Brew Intel Mac Update:

2006-04-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I got Mac OS X 10.4.6 Intel to run 100% on my Home Brew Mac. Took some time getting the GMA900, USB Audio, and 1000-Base T Networking figured out, but was able to do it in one sitting.

So far I am batting 1000 (5 for 5) and got all these to work on my Hackintoshes:
10.4.1 Disk Image (only ran it on my Compaq Laptop.)
10.4.3 Install DVD (Compaq Laptop and Darth Vader)
10.4.4 Upgrade DV only
10.4.5 Upgrade DV only, plus 2 security updates
10.4.6 Updated 10.4.5 using a bootable patched System Restore 10.4.4/10.4.6 JaS DVD - DV only

Windows Virtual Machine on Mac OS X:

I've bought a pre-order copy of Parallel's. Beta3 works great on the Intel Mac. We tested it here a MacBook Pro and on Darth Vader. In many cases running Windows 2003 Server on Mac OS X using Parallels Workstation was twice as fast as a native 2.4 Dual Ghz PC, both the MacBook Pro and the PC had 2 GB RAM.

I did an X-bench test with my 10.4.6 seems faster than 10.4.5 on my Intel Mac; can't tell a difference on my work G5.

OSX86, HowTo- GMA900 graphics working on 10.4.6 Intel Mac

2006-04-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

How to get GMA900 working on 10.4.6 with QE and CI:

From your working Intel Mac 10.4.5 kext copy this file AppleIntel915.kext to your Desktop:

Control-Click on AppleIntel915.kext -> Show Package Contents -> Contents -> open "Info.plist" (open using Text Edit or Property List Editor) Property List Editor comes with Xcode/Developer Tools.

Under IODVDBundlename change "AppleIntel915DVDDriver" to "AppleIntelGMA950VADriver"
Under IOGLBundleName change "AppleIntel915GLDriver" to "AppleIntelGMA950GLDriver"

Under IOCFPlugInTypes/ACCF0000-0000-0000-0000-000a2789904e change "AppleIntel915GA.plugin" to "AppleIntelGMA950GA.plugin"

Move these Kext's from System/Library/Extensions to your trash [select them in Finder and Cmd-Delete] (Authenicate using your Admin Password):

AppleIntel915GLDriver.bundle
AppleIntel915GA.plugin
AppleIntelGMA950.kext

Now copy the modified "AppleIntel915.kext" back to your system from Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app using this command:

sudo cp -R ~/Desktop/AppleIntel915.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

Type Admin Password.

Reboot. If all went well, you'll something like this under System Profiler:

Intel GMA 900:

Chipset Model: GMA 900
Type: Display
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 64 MB of shared system memory
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x2582
Revision ID: 0x0004
Displays:
Display:
Status: No display connected
DELL 2001FP:
Resolution: 1600 x 1200 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported

Enjoy having your GMA 900 Video working. DVD will now Launch. Quartz Extreme and Core Image are now fully functional.

Sincerely,

Goodtime
Todd's Tech Podcast
Keyword: toddcast @ iTunes
http://art5dog.com/techcast

Todd's Tech Podcast [Toddcast Techcast]

2006-04-01T18:42:00.001-08:00

Todd's Tech Podcast [Toddcast Techcast]

RSS Feed: http://art5dog.com/Podcasts/thetoddcast/podcast.xml

Episode 2: http://art5dog.com/Podcasts/thetoddcast/ToddsTechPodcast_Episode2.mp3

1. Front Row and Dangers of PowerPC and Hackintosh Hacks
2. Centerstage 0.5, brief intro of the open source Media Center app. http://centerstageproject.com
3. AlchemyTV DVR. PCI Card and Software (mixed) Review.
4. No Mac Home Theater is complete without a ATI RF Remote Wonder Plus Remote! Rave Review! :)
5. Bonus "Fully Automated" poem written by Todd back in 1989.

Thank you and have a good night.

gt

First Baptist - Basketball Champs

2006-03-13T06:09:00.000-08:00

My church league Basketball team won the tournament last Thursday.

With 8 seconds left in the game, I was fouled. Our team called time out to go over defense after the free throws. The score at that time was 63-60. We were up by three. I swished my first free throw and missed the second. Before the buzzer, the other team drove the ball down the court and made a three point shot.

Final Score 64-63. The game winning free throw was my only shot of the entire game.

gt

Homemade AirPort 802.11 Card

2006-03-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

My latest hack of the day was taking a dead Airport base station and turning it into an internal Airport Card for my Pismo PowerBook.

Apple's first Base Station (Non-Airport Extreme) has a Lucent Technologies WaveLan IEEE 802.11 PC Card inside it.

This Card can work as a PC Card in a PC Notebook and with third party drivers on a Mac PC Card slot.

It also can double as a Native Airport card when connected to an Airport slot and it uses Apple's Native drivers.

The only problem is the WaveLan is 1 inch longer than an Airport card. It is also too thick for my Pismo. I got out my putty knife (in this case a flat head screw driver) and took apart all the plastic and metal that surrounds the card. This resulted in a paper thin Airport card that I was able to fit into the Pismo.

One draw back, DHCP did not work with the homemade Airport card. However, DCHP with Manual Address works fine.

Creating your Own Intel Mac (Part I)

2006-03-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

After purchasing about a dozen Macintoshes in my lifetime. Within the past few years, I wanted to build a PC. Since Apple's let the Cat out of the bag, I decided to build an Intel Mac instead (same parts, just a different OS.) Let me remind you that running Tiger OSx86 for Intel is not presently legal. Apple does not allow its OS to run on non-Apple Hardware. This is sort of a shame because why else would you want to switch to Intel? Lots of Intel Parts are much cheaper on the street than Apple's proprietary PowerPC Hardware. I really encourage Apple to release a legal verson of its OS to run on Hardware other than Apple's. Why? Let me give you a history of my OS Purchases:

System 7.0
System 7.5
System 8.0/8.1
System 8.5
System 8.6
System 9.04/9.2.1/9.2.2
System X 10.0 Beta
System X 10.0 Retail
System X 10.1
System X 10.2 Jaguar
System X 10.3 Panther
System X 10.4 Tiger PowerPC

That is about $1,600.00 just in Mac OS Purchases by one person. Granted, I spent more than that on Hardware. However, I am really tired of buying a new Box every 3 years. I would like to buy a box that is more upgradable like a PC and buy a processor and/or new motherboard every 6 years. These days you can buy a brand new PC Motherboard for around 100 bucks. Try buying an old Mac Motherboard and it will cost around 750.00 to 1000.00. Why should we keep replacing the entire Box? It is much more economical to replace only the OS every 12-18 months. Avid Mac home users can't afford to keep buying a 2000-3000 computer and take out a used "car loan" for a new Mac. I would rather buy a $130 OS, a $500 PC, and replace and upgrade parts on a much more affordable basis.

If Apple would sell the OS Separately, it would still make millions if not billions on the OS alone. It could still sell its expensive well designed boxes to Apple followers and let the geeks who are willing to tinker with their PCs build their own Macs. Also lets look at it this way, The PC that I just built only runs the Mac OS. I did not buy a copy of Windoze for it and will not run Windoze on it. Macs could actually gain a percent or two in Market share by offering a Build your own Mac starter kit (aka the Microsoft Windows Killer kit.)

Apple would even save money by selling a "Build your own Mac starter kit" This would include:
1 G5 Case
1 Intel Motherboard with built in DVI-D, GMA 950 Graphics, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, SATA, Firewire 400/800, USB 2.0
1 Power Supply
1 GIG RAM (expandable to 4 GB)
1 160 GB SATA Harddrive
1 DVD-RW or CD-RW/DVD ROM Drive.
1 Install it yourself Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 Intel DVD with TPM and Copyprotection removed.
1 (worry about piracy?) Include a serial number and internet activation code for Mac Starter Kit users.

The Motherboard and the powersupply would be installed and mounted in the case. The rest would be up to the User to install and configure.

On top of this Apple could either charge an AppleCare fee for support or use a free third party Public Support User Group like OSX86project.org

Cloning Mac OS X Tiger x86 Laptop Harddrive

2006-02-20T03:54:00.000-08:00

Requirements: NetRestore for Panther 2.0 or Tiger 3.x. A PowerPC Mac with Firewire, A Mini FW Enclosure, Mini ATA Drive from PC Laptop, Mini ATA Drive to clone.

Using NetRestore, I was able to make a disk Image of my Intel Mac Tiger OS. Then copy it to another Mini ATA Drive and I was able to boot my laptop off the drive.

Here's what I did to get the clone/backup of OSX86:

On my Panther PowerPC Mac:
1. Took apart a mini FW Drive.
2. Hookup up a bad mini FW Drive that had a partition that was still readable with OSX86.
3. Made Disk Image using NetRestore_Helper.
4. Put the good mini FW Drive back into the FW Drive.
5. Restored the OSX86 disc image. Removed the ATA Drive from the FW Enclosure.
On my Intel laptop:
6. Inserted the ATA drive back into the internal slot on my laptop.
7. Boot disc not readable (no target partition was found.)
8. Boot of Tiger OSX86 CD.
9. Select the a boot partition from the drive.
10. Reboot and Bingo; running of the cloned drive.

It seems like alot of steps, but it was actually pretty simple.

gt

Mac OS X86 Tiger - MacOSx86 - OSx86 10.4.3

2006-02-08T19:16:00.000-08:00

Running Mac OSx86 Tiger 10.4.3 on a Compaq Presario X1000.

1600x1200 to a DELL LCD Screen through VGA
SSE2 Processor, Pentium M 1.5 Ghz 400 Front Side Bus
Firewire, Ethernet, and USB works.
PC Card, Bluetooth and WiFi does not work.

Runs 10.4.1 and 10.4.3 DTK flawlessly.

Also have a QuickSilver G4 and a G3 Pizmo and have owned about a dozen Macs in the past.
I can't say that running 10.4.3 on a PC will stop me from buying a new Mac, but it is sure nice having a Home PC with no Viruses to worry about. Safari also runs super slick on a PC.

I wish Apple would release a Geek box and license the OS to tailor to the Linux and Build your own PC (Mac) crowd.

GT

PearPC, it's slow but stable and runs MacOS X PPC on x86

2006-01-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

When I was searching for MacOSx86, I came across PearPC. I tried it in the past and failed. After doing some more reading on it recently, I decided to make it a weekend project to see if it could actually boot and install Mac OS X PPC.

I found a simple installer from Praxis that installs PearPC, OpenVPN, a compressed 3 GB disk image, and a sample PearPC config file. The instructions were to tell the config file were your CD drive is and boot Mac OS X from the CD. I first started with MacOS X 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2. All of them would boot until it could not found the root device saying "still waiting for root devices." At this point the CD drive would stop. I then tried 10.3 and it would not see the CD.

One last attempt, I copied a disk image of the CD using Toast and renamed the .toast extension to .iso. Updated the path in the Config and got Panther PPC to boot and install from the .iso image. It took about an hour to install. The mouse is fairly responsive. Applications such as Safari and Mail bounce about a dozen times in the dock.

What works:
using OpenVPN software and configuring the internet file sharing in Windows, WiFi works. Can log into other Macs from the PearPC Emulator.
Command line utilities work.
Safari and Mail work.
Fullscreen native res on my PC with 16 bit or 32 color.
Right Click ADB Mouse Driver hack works in PearPC .04pre and .04
Quicktime movies play, but no Sound.
Disk Utility works.

What doesn't work:
CD/DVD Burner, trying to access these drives using nativecdrom config and patches for Mac OS X from Patchburn.de, will crash PearPC.
drutil bulkerase quick also crashes PPC
iTunes, really buggy and can crash PearPC.
No Sound Support

I am currently reinstalling Panther on a 20GB disk image on my PC. My next weekend project is going to see how Photoshop CS 2 and Illustrator CS 2 run. Also still looking to install a hack of MacOSx86 native install, but from what I have read, I need a second Firewire hard-drive to dual boot MacOSx86 and Windows XP. It seems that a new disk Partition will not work, but I still have to test it.

Todd

PatchBurn Awesome SuperDrive Tool

2005-12-21T17:24:00.000-08:00

As you know, Apple wants to you to buy new Mac to use it's built in DVD Burning Software for iTunes, iDVD 5, and Burn from the Finder.

5 years ago, I bought a new QuickSilver PowerMac G4 with a 2x DVD Burner. It is a genuine SuperDrive. This year, I swapped out the 2x with an Pioneer 16x DVD Burner. It the same make and model that comes with the G5's under Tiger.

Under Tiger, the drive was seen as an Apple SuperDrive. But due to some incompatiblities with my ACARD 6890M Raid (see Previous Blog), I was force to downgrade back the the Black Cat OS, Panther. Under Panther, the same drive was "unsupported."

It first I was bummed and didn't know what to do. I even tried taking the DVD Kernel Extensions from Tiger and moving them to Panther. Not a good idea and it does not work because the device information for both Panther and Tiger is stored somewhere else. Plus this will ruin the driver for Panther and the DVD drive not work at all.

PATCHBURN to the RESCUE.

I found a cool utility called, PatchBurn. It works great and it will take most unsupported DVD Burners at trick Jaguar, Panther or Tiger into thinking your Drive is a genuine SuperDrive.

http://www.patchburn.de/

PatchBurn is a tool to patch existing CD/DVD-drivers (under Mac-OS X 10.2.x) or to generate and install new device profiles (under Mac-OS 10.3.x and later). It allows many, otherwise unsupported burners to be used directly with Mac-OS X, iTunes and DiscBurner.

http://www.patchburn.de/download.html

It's a great tool. 5 stars *****
I immediately sent the auther 5 euros after it saved my 16x DVD SuperDrive $80 eBay investment.

gt

Switch home System Back to Panther - ACARD Hardware Issue

2005-12-17T17:25:00.000-08:00

After about a week of troubleshooting an SATA PCI Hardware RAID Controller on my QuickSilver G4, I switched my Mac back to Panther.

THE BEACH BALL OF DEATH:
With a ACARD SATA 6890M PCI RAID and two 250GB SATA Drives in either Mirror, Striped or Normal modes installed and during a long file copy (200MB - 2GB), Tiger and the SATA would hold up all applications. The copy would eventually finish and the system would return to normal, but the experience was painful holding up every 200MBs for about 30 seconds. Safari, Finder, and Photoshop would become non functional even while no CPU Activity was taking place. The Beach ball of Death! I tried 4 different Mac OS X Drivers for the SATA Controller and swapped all 16 possible combinations of the 4 PCI Slots. Removed old legacy Hardware, etc. Did 3 firmware updates to the SATA Controller. Still no dice. Man, I felt like I was troubleshooting a PC running Mac OS 9 (impossible, it's just an analogy). This type of troubleshooting will become more common when Mac's switch to Intel with more unsupported hardware options.

BLACK CAT SAVES THE DAY:
A friend of mine was having trouble installing Panther on his Graphite G4. I told him that I had an extra 80 GB ATA Drive, and I would give it to him with his Panther discs pre-installed. While I had his system running on my QuickSilver, I noticed better response time with my SATA Drives and less latency holdups! Only the Finder would experience some latency. All the other Apps would still function was they should on a BSD UNIX Based Multitasking/Multiprocessor system. Next, I installed a fresh copy of Panther on my own SATA RAID and updated to the latest ACARD 1.5.6 drivers, and WOW it worked even better. 1000 times better than with Tiger. I then tried a Fresh copy of Tiger on a separate partition and tried upgrading using the same 1.5.6 drivere The Latency came right back. And it didn't matter if I used the default Mac OS X Drivers or ACARD latest incarnation. Looks like the ACARD SATA PCI Card is not currently compatible with Tiger 10.4.3 on a QuickSilver Dual Ghz G4 with 1.5GB RAM.

THE BATTLE IS OVER, BUT THE SAGA CONTINUES:
Oh well, I am glad I got this hardware working and plus its bootable with Panther. (BTW, Tiger would never boot from the the SATA RAID, only PANTHER would boot correctly.)

I have a 500 GB Partition for my System, Apps, Music and some Video. I have another 300 GB Partition running on Apple's internal ATA. Both Partitions are stripped over 2 drives each; one via ACARD's SATA PCI Hardware, the other is Apple's Software RAID from the Motherboard's internal ATA. But the speed is awesome. Feels like I'm on a G5. It's nice having 800 GB of internal storage space.

The 16x DVDRW is working flawlessly too. Still burning lots of weekly podcasts with it for the morning commute.

Happy Holidays,

Goodtime