I feel a need to brag

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

hehehehehe...

I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of myself. Either I've just made an awesome mod to my PowerMac 8500, or the power supply's going to spark, fizzle, and pop its way into the trash can!

Before my mod:
Power Mac 8500

160MB RAM
2 GB fast SCSI 7200RPM hard drive
120mhz PowerPC 603 processor

After my mod:

YOW! Power Mac 8500

272MB RAM
2x4.3 GB Ultra-Wide 7200RPM SCSI drives
2 GB Fast SCSI 7200RPM hdd
2.1 GB Ultra-Wide 7200RPM hdd
300mhz ViMage G3 accelerator
AHA-3940 Dual channel PCI SCSI
2 port USB card

Someone was kind enough to donate some equipment to me. Now my box runs like its a new machine! BTW, even though it's a Mac, there's no Mac OS running on this bad guy. It's Debian unstable all of the way!

:cool:

[sarah31]

bah i have a 12" power book which appears to be every bit as good as my desktop PCs. All this stuffed into a tiny little space. it runs OS X because with OS X i find that there is no need for linux onthat machine. I have cdrecord, mkisofs, cdda2wav, transcode, ncftp, ssh/scp, mysql, vlc (which is a million times better on OS X) , etc. Haven't had to buy one speck of commercial software.

I don't bother with x11, except for OOo, cuz it is weak compared to aqua. (IMHO).

Just thought i would try to be a killjoy a bit :P

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

bah, yourself, there's no kill joy to be had. :p

I wasn't talking about OS X. In fact, I like OS X. It's FreeBSD based, how could you not like that? I'm referring to the mess of a machine I could have had by running OS7.5-9.1 on it. If I had my way, I'd be running MacOS 7.1 on this machine, but the firmware doesn't support it.

I think that OS 7.1 was the best pre-OS X version of the Mac OS ever released, IMHO.

[sarah31]

yes 7.1 was great 9 was just plain bad.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

heh, heck if you want to get to dissing the MacOS, I think just about every version between 7.1 and 10.x was bad. With these exceptions:

8.1: It's the stable version of OS 8, and it is the most recent version that can run on some 040 machines. I've run it on Quadras, and on the LC 5xx series of machines.

8.6: It's a stable version of OS 8.6 it seems to have all of the hardware support that I need, and it crashes less than 9. Besides, my version of Speed Doubler won't run on OS 9, neither will the bulk of my software...

Also, as a side note: I ended up pulling the hard drives, so I'm back to a single 2GB drive. The power supply was acting flaky, and the heat from 3 7200RPM drives was starting to make the plastic innards of the 8500 a little soggy!!! :eek:

[argomajor]

Check out my PowerMac 7500 Mod.

Original Config:
100 MHz 601
16 MB RAM
1 GB SCSI2 Hard Drive
4X CDROM
MacOS 7.5.3
17" Apple Monitor

Current Config:
450 MHz G4 XLR8 Daughter Card
256 MB RAM
ATA 66 Sonnet PCI Card
30 GB Maxtor ATA 66 Hard Drive
3 GB SCSI2 Hard Drive
24X CDROM
ATI RADEON PCI Video Card w/32 MB VRAM
Dual FireWire/USB2 OrangeMicro PCI Card
24X External Firewire CDRW
External SCSI Zip Drive
YellowDog Linux 3.0
MacOS 9.1
19" ViewSonic Monitor

[retoon]

Im suprised. The last post seems like a bit of bulldonkey to me. I have an antiquated PowerMac 8100 workgroup server motherboard hanging on my wall, it doesn't have pci as its expansion slot. It uses NuBus, which was pretty decent as far as 32bit expansion was concerned, but not PCI. PCI is 33.3 mhz, NuBus was 10 or 20Mhz depending on which generation. Plus, this board only supported 72 pin simms, up to 64mb. Now, unless you managed to fit a new motherboard into it, I don't think its possible. I don't know about the original poster, but the poster with the Powermac 7500 must be fibing.

[argomajor]

You obviously don't know much about Mac hardware. The PowerMac 7500 along with the 8500 and 9500 were the first Macs with PCI (x3, 9500 had 6).

Here's confirmation:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/stats/powermac_7500_100.html

I wouldn't fib about my Mac. I proud of what I've turned my 8 year old Mac into.

[retoon]

Nope, don't know much about mac hardware. (PC Technician:cool:) . I made the first mistake of assuming. I assumed that the models were in chronilogical(sp) order.Oh well. I publicly announce myself a fool. (You may quote me on this one):p Sorry for accusing of you of lying.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by argomajor
You obviously don't know much about Mac hardware. The PowerMac 7500 along with the 8500 and 9500 were the first Macs with PCI (x3, 9500 had 6).

Here's confirmation:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/stats/powermac_7500_100.html

I wouldn't fib about my Mac. I proud of what I've turned my 8 year old Mac into.

Wow, I'm impressed. I'm happy that I got as far as I did with my 8500, seeing as I used mostly donated parts. Also, I found out that two Power Mac models had 6 PCI slots: The 9500, and it successor, the 9600. I have both an 8500 and an 8600. I love them both, but if you have the option, definitely get an 8600-- they're WAY easier to work on. I had to completely disassemble my 8500 to upgrade the RAM! :eek:

But to retoon:

It's an easy mistake to make about the Mac model numbers. They weren't in chronological order. I mean, who would have known that a Powerbook 1400 is actually newer than the 5300?

[retoon]

I am actually looking for a book on mac hardware specifications. Something that will give me detailed information about the history and current status of all Apple systems. Troubleshooting for example. I know a few basics, but I like knowing detail. If either of you have heard of the book "Upgrading and Repairing PCs 13/14th edition by Scott Mueller" You know what kind of detail I'm looking for, I mean text book, atleast ten pounds of raw materials.:p If you know where I could find one, please let me know. I would really prefer a book, theres nothing like sitting down and just reading about computers. :) Thanks in advanced!

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by retoon
I am actually looking for a book on mac hardware specifications. Something that will give me detailed information about the history and current status of all Apple systems. Troubleshooting for example. I know a few basics, but I like knowing detail. If either of you have heard of the book "Upgrading and Repairing PCs 13/14th edition by Scott Mueller" You know what kind of detail I'm looking for, I mean text book, atleast ten pounds of raw materials.:p If you know where I could find one, please let me know. I would really prefer a book, theres nothing like sitting down and just reading about computers. :) Thanks in advanced!

Sadly, there probably isn't one. I've tried looking all over, and I've been unable to find one myself. Ther problem is that Apple really didn't ever want you to take your Mac to anyone but an Apple approved repair shop, or send it back to Apple for repair. Also, I don't think they ever wanted anyone to really run any other OS on it other than Mac OS. Heck, most of the early m68k machines actually have ROMS in them that don't let anything but MacOS boot on them!\