Can I hook into either of these cards with just a VGA monitor? I don't have a Mac monitor.

simbin wrote:

Can I hook into either of these cards with just a VGA monitor? I don't have a Mac monitor.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370658209221

that one is a BIT overpriced. I got mine for $10 but mine doesn't have the resolution support that one does.

luckybob wrote:

simbin wrote:

Can I hook into either of these cards with just a VGA monitor? I don't have a Mac monitor.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370658209221

that one is a BIT overpriced. I got mine for $10 but mine doesn't have the resolution support that one does.

Interesting.. of course a Radeon 7000 is about the same price. That adapter would be handy if I had lots of Macs, which could end up happening. heh

No need for any adapters, the iXMicro card has a VGA port on it.

Also, those adapters with the DIP switches are really for the old Macs that couldn't auto-detect resolutions. For the newer PPC ones, all you need is a simple DB15->HD15 adapter/cable, or wire your own.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

For the PCI Radeon 7000, you can flash a PC card with the Mac ROM, that's probably the cheapest route. To make a long story shor […]
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For the PCI Radeon 7000, you can flash a PC card with the Mac ROM, that's probably the cheapest route. To make a long story short, get a 32MB ATi OEM card... you need one that looks like this. Fortunately they're fairly common. There's also a variant with DVI, which you can use if you want DVI, but those cards are harder to find than the VGA-only ones. The reason you want an ATi OEM card is because they can be directly flashed with the Mac ROM, while most third-party cards either require additional steps or don't work at all.

I can't remember where I downloaded the ROM from... if you can't find it, lemme know and I'll send you a copy along with the flashing tools and such.

As for the OrangePC card, yeah, you basically hook it up like you would a Voodoo card. Of course you'll need the software and such to go with it, which seems to still be available here.

Being an old dick again Sly That card was installed down at the bottom and the card I was looking at was immediately installed above it.

And that card looks absolutely nothing like a Voodoo1 either. Hell, that card doesn't even have a VGA passthrough port on it.

Red low-profile Radeons works as well and have 64MB RAM which is also recognized by the BIOS. I've been using one of those. Just still can't get the Radeon 9200 to work (the original Mac Edition).

Are there any interesting exclusive games from that era that are worth playing?
Or ports of other titles that are different on the mac?

There sure are and the difference is worth seeing.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

No need for any adapters, the iXMicro card has a VGA port on it.

Thanks, I wasn't sure which one to plugin to.. since they both have the same-sized VGA-looking plug.

I'm still probably going to hunt down a Radeon 7000 and flash it like you suggested.

Are you gonna try using retro bright on it?

cdoublejj wrote:

Are you gonna try using retro bright on it?

Or make my own variant yeah. Will make sure everything is in good working order first of course.

OK added uh-nudder pic at the top. VGA from the iXMicro card is working (didn't the first time).

Can I tell inside Mac OS what CPU I got? I'm such a Mac Newbie!!

I'm thinking I should probably look at maxing my RAM out and get a Radeon 7000 card like previously mentioned.. before I try upgrading the OS or anything.

What do you all think?

UPDATE: System Profiler says I have a "PowerPC 604e at 300 MHz"

Under the Apple logo menu in the top left corner, there's an option called "Apple System Profiler." That'll tell you most everything about the machine.

Edit: I just noticed that it's got OS 8.1... I'd definitely recommend upgrading that, at very least to 8.6, but better yet OS9. There were a whole lot of improvements in the newer versions.

You can actually run 9.2.2 on those things if you first install 9.1 and then use OS9 Helper to bypass the compatibility checks. You'll especially want to do that if you get a Radeon, since the latest ATi drivers require 9.2.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Under the Apple logo menu in the top left corner, there's an option called "Apple System Profiler." That'll tell you most everything about the machine.

I JUST found it! 😀

turns out I got the "PowerPC 604e at 300 MHz"

waves hand.. This is not the G3 you are looking for!

Is there a way to tell if I'm on IDE or SCSI w/o opening it up?

Could I install 9.2.1 w/o having to bypass any compatibility checks? I think I might have that somewhere. Oops, I didn't see that link you sent.. hmm guess I have to find an older version first.

Is there a way to tell if I'm on IDE or SCSI w/o opening it up?

Old Macs = SCSI. There are a couple exceptions, but they aren't models you'd commonly run across. You can, however, get PCI IDE (or even SATA) cards for fairly cheap if you don't want to deal with SCSI hard drives.

Could I install 9.2.1 w/o having to bypass any compatibility checks?

No. A 9.2 disc won't work at all. You have to first install 9.1 (either directly or using 9.0.4 and then installing the 9.1 update), and then use OS9 Helper to enable the 9.2 updates to install. It's not as complicated as it sounds, and 9.0.4 and 9.1 can be had from various places if you do a bit of searching.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Old Macs = SCSI. There are a couple exceptions, but they aren't models you'd commonly run across. You can, however, get PCI IDE (or even SATA) cards for fairly cheap if you don't want to deal with SCSI hard drives.

That's what I was hoping. I have a pair of 9GB SCSI drives I pulled out of an IBM server, which may be larger than what this system currently has.

I think I saw it posted somewhere as having a 4GB drive.

Only thing now is to figure out if they're compatible, or do I need an adapter, etc.

Those drives are probably wide SCSI, though, either 68 pin or 80 pin SCA... the Macs use 50 pin 'narrow' SCSI. That doesn't mean you're completely out of luck, you can get adapters, or PCI wide SCSI cards (I use Adaptec 2940U2B cards in mine), but by the time you invest in that sort of stuff, you've pretty well equaled the cost of a PCI IDE card.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Those drives are probably wide SCSI, though, either 68 pin or 80 pin SCA... the Macs use 50 pin 'narrow' SCSI. That doesn't mean you're completely out of luck, you can get adapters, or PCI wide SCSI cards (I use Adaptec 2940U2B cards in mine), but by the time you invest in that sort of stuff, you've pretty well equaled the cost of a PCI IDE card.

Yeah, IBM 9.1GB WU2 LVD SCSI 68PIN HARD DRIVE PN: 25L1951.. to be exact. And like a dumb dumb, I just got rid of a Adaptec SCSI and Promise IDE controller.. not to mention a Voodoo2 (tear runs down face).

It's like you always need something after you get rid of it!!

The SCSI and IDE cards you got rid of probably wouldn't have done you any good anyway. As with the video card, the disk controllers need Mac ROMs on them... and most such cards can't be flashed to work.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

The SCSI and IDE cards you got rid of probably wouldn't have done you any good anyway. As with the video card, the disk controllers need Mac ROMs on them... and most such cards can't be flashed to work.

Thanks for making me feel better. 😀

I have uh-nudder Mac Newb question..

I booted up the OS 9 disc and the same desktop icons I had on the 8.1 hdd are there.. I see two "Macintosh HD" icons.. first one has all the installed files.. second one is empty 4GB..

Do I have two drives or partitions? I'm not really sure how to tell.. I just want to wipe it all clean and start from scratch. I think I read somewhere about resizing large partitions because of a bug that would trash data / cause boot issues when the OS got outside a certain size on the disk.

UPDATE: I found Disk First Aid on the CD

It looks like I have 2 (4GB) SCSI drives.. ID 0 and ID 4 (both on BUS 0)
or maybe it's 2 partitions -- the guy said he upgraded the memory to 8MB, maybe he meant GB or I misunderstood. People call HDD memory around here lulz.

I think I got it Perform Clean Installation.. tic toc, fingers crossed :p

Hard drives show up as icons on the desktop. If you have more than one drive, or more than one partition, then you'd have an icon on the desktop for each drive or partition. If you put in a CD, a CD icon will show up, and so forth.

The thing with the old Mac OS is, the desktop icons are linked with drives rather than profiles, and they will show on the desktop whenever the drive is mounted. So if you have icons on your desktop with the internal hard drive, the same icons will still show up on the desktop if you boot from another drive (like a CD, or another hard drive). Likewise, if you had an external USB drive or whatever, which had its own desktop icons, those icons would show up when you plug in the drive and disappear when you unplug the drive. And if you took that drive and plugged it into a different Mac, those same icons would appear on the desktop of that machine.

It's a little strange to get used to, but it makes sense if you think about it.