I've realised that my 6100 is rubbish... :-(

If your VRAM isn't maxed out already, you might want to try that or find an AV/HPV video card if you don't mind losing the PDS slot.

If you need speed for apps, then try downgrading the OS to 7.6.1. The Nubus Powermacs fly under that OS. 8.1 has a few more features, and is a little slower than 7.6.1, but still faster than 9.

There's not going to be much you can do with the internet access. It is a 10baseT connection, so that is going to be a bottleneck. There is a good side to that, though, in that you can have several older Macs on a broadband connection without any of them hogging all the bandwith.

According to LEM, it might be possible to use 64 or 128mb SIMMS in the 6100, but they aren't officially supported, so if you try it, don't pay too much for them in case it doesn't work. Also, up to 1meg cache memory is supported, but from tests I have seen, cache memory in amounts over 512k sometimes have the opposite effect and slow the system down as the time needed to load and clear the cache and search through it for a hit becomes noticably greater at 1meg.

If you want to keep enjoying the use of your G3, for god sakes, don't use a new Mac! You will be blown away with the speed and you G3 will feel slow! Usually any 72 pin SIMMS should work.

I hate to say this, but its not surprising that you're finding the 6100 slow withi 40MB of RAM and OS 9.1. with 40 megs OS 9 would be using Virtual Memory a lot, which would slow the system down majorly. I find that the best OS to run on those sorts of systems is 8.1. Its still modern enough to run a lot of software, but it will be a LOT faster than 9.1. The only way to make 9.1 run quickly on there is to stuff it with RAM and get a G3 upgrade.

Also, you can improve your graphics output by installing a NuBus video card (if you can find the Nubus -> PDS adaptor) or installing an AV card, which has a monitor port and 2 megs of VRAM, allowing for 24 bit (millions) colour at 640x480, 800x600 and 832x624, and 16 bit (thousands) colour at 1024x768 and 1152x870.

I think you should downgrade the OS to either 7.6.1 or 8.1, whichever one you prefer. A nubus video card with the pds adapter would make the video improve. RAM makes everything improve if it's still slow, although I ran OS 9 off of 32mb RAM on my 4400 at one time without noticing any slowness at all.

If your VRAM isn't maxed out already, you might want to try that or find an AV/HPV video card if you don't mind losing the PDS slot.

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Is there a slot for Vram for the built-in video port then, as well as the option to use a card? Mactracker just says that it has no Vram, or 2 MB if an AV, but the memory in the AV model is presumably on the AV card.

Also, you can improve your graphics output by installing a NuBus video card (if you can find the Nubus -> PDS adaptor) or installing an AV card, which has a monitor port and 2 megs of VRAM, allowing for 24 bit (millions) colour at 640x480, 800x600 and 832x624, and 16 bit (thousands) colour at 1024x768 and 1152x870.

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Is either card better or are they both the same except the AV has extra ports as well as display? I was shocked to find it couldn't output a decent resolution - it really needs 1024x768 thousands of colours to be pleasant to use. They must have assumed everyone used really rubbish displays when these were new!

The only way to make 9.1 run quickly on there is to stuff it with RAM and get a G3 upgrade.

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Just out of interest, with a G3 card is it actually as fast as a real G3 Mac (with the same amount of Ram)? A G3 card, decent video card, 128/256 MB of memory and a front bezel could make it such a great machine again; such a shame these things are impossible to find :'(

If you want to keep enjoying the use of your G3, for god sakes, don't use a new Mac! You will be blown away with the speed and you G3 will feel slow!

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Yes, I definitely want to avoid using newer Macs! I haven't touched one since I got the G3, and it's a good thing I don't have ready access to any ie I would have to go to a shop or somewhere to see one. At the moment I really can't see how any Mac could be much nicer to use than my G3, it's just so smooth and fast - that's why I think G4s are pointless when G3s are so good! The 6100 really feels so different after using the G3, and I wouldn't want the G3 to feel slow.

1. The amount of VRAM for the onboard video is fixed, it cannot be upgraded. It uses system memory for VRAM, much like the integrated graphics subsystems on a lot of modern economy PCs.

2. If you can find one, you can get a Nubus video card that is a lot better than the PowerMac AV card. I imagine the Power Mac AV card will be easier to find though.

3. A G3 card will definately speed things up. However it will not make it as quick as a real Power Mac G3 as the rest of the system, the system bus, the RAM, the SCSI bus, etc, is still on a 6100. No G3 upgraded Mac can ever be as fast as a real, honest to God G3 of the same specifications.

I have a 7100/66 and in stock configuration it is slow as hell. You are lucky to get a few MB/sec from the SCSI built in, and without a PDS video card you are stuck with slow video using the slow built in RAM.

Even with a PDS video card , g3-250 and 128MB RAM I think its still too slow for OS 9 (which is what was loaded on it when I got it), mostly because of the lame SCSI bus.

If you install OS 7.6.1 on the same system it is much faster.

I find my 81/110 to be a much faster system overall.

Then the 6100 must have two cache slots. The boards in one of mine look very different from each other, so I thought one of them was VRAM.

One of those slots is a ROM SIMM slot, the other is a cache slot.

Never use anything with a G4 in it. You will start a thread like this, just replacing "6100" with "G3" and "G3" with "G4"

Never use anything with a G4 in it. You will start a thread like this, just replacing "6100" with "G3" and "G3" with "G4"

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I will make every effort to ensure that I never ever even see anything with a G4 inside it, let alone use one At the moment I really don't see how a Mac could be much better than this G3, it just feels so insanely fast! Moving from the 6100 over to the G3 feels like going on to a brand new Mac, even though the 6100 is only running 9.1 and the G3 has the latest and greatest. Really, I don't know if I've got some strange G3 that's super-fast whereas all of you have normal ones, from the way that a lot of you don't think that much of them but it really does feel like a brand new Mac to me! Just goes to show the importance of what you're used to I suppose...

Have any of you ever returned to an older Mac having got used to a newer one and found the older one to be a lot worse than you remembered?

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I think the problem is as you described. The 6100 was rubbish...

I remember bringing it home, setting it up (I bought a Performa 6116) and after playing around with it for a day or two, I put my Classic II side by side with my spankin' new 6100, and booted them simultaneously, to see "how fast" my new PPC was....

....weeeeell, the Classic II with a 68030 and OS 7.0.1 booted up about a second slower than the Performa 6116 with a PPC 601 and OS 7.5.1. So much for speed!

In its defense, I will say that the Performa 6116 allowed me to play Marathon in color (I had a PowerBook 5300--no c, no cs, a greyscale...there was a hack to run Marathon on it in greyscale) and I could play Dark Forces on it (if you turned off *every* extension except the CD player). I could not have done that on a Classic II...

So, while the previous author was correct, in general, about comparing old computers to newer ones....when you compare your new computer and prefer the old one, then the new one is rubbish!

Really, I don't know if I've got some strange G3 that's super-fast whereas all of you have normal ones, from the way that a lot of you don't think that much of them but it really does feel like a brand new Mac to me! Just goes to show the importance of what you're used to I suppose...

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I think very highly of them! Considering that i live in a place where Macs and Mac stuff are rarer than hens teeth, and OS X capable Macs are made of pure unobtanium, i think very highly of the ol' Beige G3s. I think it probably also has a lot to do with the fact that yours has always been looked after and has been heavily upgraded, where a lot of others' would probably be old and crusty, if you get my drift.

Somewhere at CyberExchange I have a 6100/66 with a NewerTech NuPowr G3/245 PDS card, the A/V PDS card, 72MB RAM and a 4GB hard disk. When I was using it the speed was similar to my iMac Rev B at the time or at least it felt like it. The upgrades made it a pretty nice machine.

After having my B/W G3/400 for a while, I'm sure it wouldn't compare as nicely, but at least it would fit underneath my LCD panel...

With the upgrades they are quite a competant machine...before my 8100 died it had an AV card, and 88MB of RAM, as well as the faster onboard SCSI bus, and it handled 9.1 beautifully. However i can imagine a 6100 with its integrated graphics, and low RAM like Macster's would have problems.

The 6100 is not rubbish, you just have to know what to expect from it. Consider that it is essentially an '040 Mac with a PPC 601 grafted to it, and you'll understand what it can do much more realistically.

For video cards, you have several choices. The first three require the use of a PDS right angle adapter or a PDS G3 accelerator.

1) Power Mac x100 AV PDS card. These have 2 MB of VRAM and composite & s-video input and output. They also have a 32-bit data path.

2) Power Mac 7100 "High Performance Video" card. These have 1 MB of VRAM on board and can accept four 256 kB SIMMs for expansion to 2 MB. They have a 64-bit data path.

3) Power Mac 8100 "High Perfomance Video" card. These have 2 MB of VRAM on board and can accept four 512 kB SIMMs for expansion to 4 MB. They have a 64-bit data path.

4) EXCEEDINGLY RARE 6100 NuBus adapter with 6 - 7" NuBus video card. Performance will probably be greatest in this configuration, but short NuBus video cards that are _better_ the on-board video may be hard to find. The 6100 cannot accept a full-length NuBus card.

5) PDS G3 or G4 upgrade with 1 MB L2 cache. This will give you the best performance because the 640 kB or so of VRAM/DRAM is completely cached in the 1 MB L2 cache of the G3, so screen draws are much faster and limited solely by the on-board speed of the video subsystem as opposed to all the bridge chips and system architecture between the video subsystem, CPU, and DRAM.

6) PDS G3 or G4 upgrade with any of the first three video cards. This will not enhance your graphics speed any, but overall system performance will be enhanced, and the G3 or G4 accelerator allows installation of a PDS video card without the use of a right angle adapter (in fact, the G3 or G4 serves that purpose).

I note the bandwidth of the data path on the PDS cards because the "HPV" card can technically move more data per cycle than the AV card. So if performance is very important to you, use the HPV card. If the AV features are important, use the AV card. I've got both, and I've never really noticed a difference. Mind you, none of these cards is "accelerated" in the traditional sense. They just provide a fairly massive frame buffer. Only the NuBus video cards offered 2D acceleration.

The x100 Power Macs are severly limited by their 68k heritage. They have at most a 40 MHz data bus, and they have all sorts of bridge chips to adapt the PPC to the 68k I/O bus. Plus, they don't offer DMA of any sort, so all operations have to pass through the system bus and CPU to get to DRAM and back. At 30 MHz on a 6100/60, that can be pretty time consuming. On the other hand, adding an L2 cache (even if just 256 kB) can dramatically increase overall system performance. If you can't find a G3, you should try looking for some L2 cache. A single 256 kB L2 cache SIMM can be bought for about a buck from OWC right now.

I've personally used lots of x100 Power Macs from the barebones 6100/60 to the relatively high-end 8100/110. We used to set up LAN parties in a computer lab at my university to play Marathon, and the machines installed at the time were x100 Power Macs of all three flavors. I own two 6100s (60 & 66 MHz) and an 8100/80. The 6100/66 has a G3 (266 MHz), and the 8100 has a rare G4 (320 MHz or something). Both feel about the same speed until I rip a CD in iTunes. The 8100 puts the 6100 to bed. Without dinner. Also, it rocks for Marathon. (Which, honestly, is the whole reason I bought the G4 and the 8100.) I've got a 1 MB HPV card and an AV card that I have used in the 6100. Both allow me to play Marathon quite well with no noticable difference between them. The AV card has more features, so that is the card that has lasted. The 6100/60 has a DOS card, but that thing is pretty useless. The only redeeming value it has is the novelty of running DOS/Windows on your Mac. Otherwise, any old cheap 486 would be better. (Personally, I can't stand the 7100. It's a boring Mac in an ugly case with nothing to offer that can't be done better by either a 6100 or an 8100. Therefore, I don't have one in my collection.)

Avoid Virtual Memory and RAM Doubler like the plague. Using your hard drive for RAM or even just for swap space is the single most foolhardy thing you can do on a Mac of that vintage.

Run, don't walk, to the nearest 8.1 installer. System 7 of any variety on the x100 is asking for trouble (except, maybe 7.6.1). If you have enough RAM, 8.5 or 8.6 is ideal as they offer the best compromise of modern, PowerPC native code with minimal bloat. 9.1 is alright if you have at least 72 MB of RAM and don't expect to be doing much else. But, in my opinion, you are best served with 8.6 and at least 40 MB (preferably 72 MB) of RAM. Anything less than 8.5 runs significantly more 68k code which most be emulated on the PowerPC, and as numerous speed tests and benchmarks have shown, all the NuBus Power Macs are slower than Quadras when executing 68k code.

Peace,

Drew

Apple sucked in those days. They modded a lot of old 68k hardware to PPC when they should have designed fresh computers from the start. I always said they had a lot of spare parts leftover and created new computers based on their remaining inventory. The 5x00 and 6x00 models before the 5400 and 6360 are pretty good proof of this.

The 6100/66 has a G3 (266 MHz), and the 8100 has a rare G4 (320 MHz or something). Both feel about the same speed until I rip a CD in iTunes. The 8100 puts the 6100 to bed. Without dinner. Also, it rocks for Marathon. (Which, honestly, is the whole reason I bought the G4 and the 8100.)

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A G4 in a Nubus PowerMac? That's surely insane!

The 6100 is not rubbish, you just have to know what to expect from it.

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The main issue that makes it seem "rubbish" to me is that it cannot output any more than 800x600/256-colour in its stock state - I had just assumed that it would do something reasonable eg 1024x768/thousands of colours! Sadly getting a video card, G3 card, adapter etc would most likely be difficult or expensive, probably both Also my example is starting to look a little rubbish compared to the perfection of the G3, what with its yellowed front, missing bezel, and wrong label (says 66 but it's a 60).

I think it came to me with 256kb cache already inside - hopefully adding some more memory than the current 40 MB would deal with some of the slowness. OS 9.1 itself feels fine on 40 MB, it only feels slow once you've loaded in some apps (especially Photoshop, which I suppose the 6100 is not really intended for anyway!), so presumably the older OSes are only better with low Ram, given that it is slowing down when VM is being used (ie when apps are loaded) while it's fine with just the OS running? I tend to think of 9.1 as the PPC OS (and 7.6.1 as the 68k OS) and it's my favourite Classic OS, so I'd really prefer to stick with it. Hopefully I will be able to scavenge some 32 MB 72-pin sticks and see what they do for it, though with the abysmal screen resolution it'll still not be very nice to use :'(

One thing - to defrag the disk, which may or may not help performance, which version of Norton Utilities should I use? Just that I've heard that using the wrong version can cause big problems, so I don't want to just guess! Which version is right for OS7.6/HFS/68k, and which is right for OS9.1/HFS+/PPC?

A G4 in a Nubus PowerMac? That's surely insane!

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It's slow as crap as far as G4's go. There are G3's for the 6100 with a faster clock speed, so if you don't need Altivec, the fastest G3 upgrades are better.

I had the exact same 6100->G3 transition crisis you're having now, about 7 years ago.

The 6100 cannot accept a full-length NuBus card.

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Yes it can }

Cue sound of Dremel in background

Actually, you can just move the Hard drive to the CD place, if there is none, or boot off an external

Sorry that it seems like rubbish!

You're totally right about it being rubbish, sorta. A 6100 is a terrible machine for doing the job of a BW G3. A BW G3 can't run System 7.5, though, nor does it have that nice low-slung shape.

I'd love to have an upgraded 6100 running 7.5.5, if I needed a desktop computer. With a 4MB HPV card from an 8100 you could drive a decent-size LCD.

The 6100 holds as much RAM as you care to buy for it on eBay, up to 256MB. With a G3 card and a fast hard disk, 7.5 or 7.6 would be super-snappy fast. Toss a CD-R in and you've got nearly as capable a System 7 machine as anyone, in an adorable VCR-shaped case.

If I wanted to run MacOS 9, I'd upgrade that BW G3 or an AGP G4, not a 6100. If I wanted to run PowerPC System 7, I'd totally consider a 6100 to be in the running. As another august poster has said, it's all about the expectations.

If I wanted to run PowerPC System 7, I'd totally consider a 6100 to be in the running.

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For the prices of beige machines these days, if you want a system 7 machine, then a PCI Powermac will be much better than a 6100. A 7x00 machine will run 7-9 and be a lot faster and more expandable and can run OS X. A 6100 can't.

A 7x00 machine will run 7-9 and be a lot faster and more expandable and can run OS X. A 6100 can't.

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Although given the availability of G3s these days, you wouldn't really get any pre-G3 machine for OS X, given that it will most likely be very slow (except perhaps on some of the last ones eg 9600) and you can only go up to Jaguar anyway. The only reason I would install OS X on one, if I had one, would be that it would be interesting getting it to work and seeing it run! For actually using

in an adorable VCR-shaped case.

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Agreed, the 6100 does have a nice case design, and can be fitted somewhere where one of the later PPCs probably wouldn't fit. Though it looks ugly with yellowing and without the CD bezel, which contributes to my feeling of rubbishness!

I had the exact same 6100->G3 transition crisis you're having now, about 7 years ago.

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I suppose in another 7 years time I'll be having the G3 to G5/Intel transition crisis that some of you seem to be having now...

Although given the availability of G3s these days, you wouldn't really get any pre-G3 machine for OS X, given that it will most likely be very slow (except perhaps on some of the last ones eg 9600) and you can only go up to Jaguar anyway.

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My 7500 is running Tiger.

You've presumably got a G3 upgrade card then? What's the performance like? What sort of video card do you have in there, as I would expect that would need to be upgraded too for reasonable OS X performance.

I only have a G3 250, so it's really not a very good Tiger machine, but it does work. I use my G4 for OS X apps. One day I'll get a G4 upgrade and maybe Leopard will even work.

I used to run a pair of 64 meg simms in my 6100 with no trouble *unless* I tried to use them at the same time with a Sonnet G3 accelerator. The two just would not work for more than about 60 seconds with out hanging. Dropping to a pair of 16 meg simms it would run fine, or running the 64 meg simms without the G3 upgrade ran fine. YMMV.

Check inside your 6100 to see if you have the PDS 90-degree adapter already. If you do have the adapter, or can get one elsewhere, I have a couple of the AV cards lying about, I'd be happy to part with one for $5 plus shipping?

I have to agree though, a PCI-based beige PowerMac gives a better user experience. But the 6100 had a great looking case, with bays for just one hard drive, one floppy drive, and one CD drive -minimalism that wasn't really bested until the iMac, IMHO.

Check inside your 6100 to see if you have the PDS 90-degree adapter already. If you do have the adapter, or can get one elsewhere, I have a couple of the AV cards lying about, I'd be happy to part with one for $5 plus shipping?

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I don't think there is anything at all in there at the moment, no adapter or anything like that. It may have had a card installed at some point though, as there is a gap on the back where the card would come out, which would presumably be covered up otherwise. It does have the wrong top cover (says 66 when it's a 60), so I suppose it could have been an AV or DOS machine and since lost its card, there's no way of knowing. Thanks for the offer, but even if I did have an adapter I doubt it would be worth the cost of shipping the card over here, given that it would still be slow and ugly (no bezel) :'(

I have to agree though, a PCI-based beige PowerMac gives a better user experience.

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Just out of interest, when did the in-built display output get any good (ie capable of producing something useable like 1024x768 and more than 256-colour, or even 800x600 with more than 256-colour)? Did the first PCI machines have it or did it take a while for this to appear? Are the first PCI machines also noticeably faster than the Nubus PPCs, or do you again have to go quite a way forward to get decent performance? Not that I'm thinking of looking for one or anything, I'm just curious as I don't have any experience of anything between the 6100 and the G3.

I don't think the onboard video on any beige was ever that great, except for the G3. Anyone who is serious about using a beige PCI Powermac eventually puts a video card in one of the slots.

As for performance differences, the beige PCI Macs cover a large range from 601 based to G3 based. Something like a 7200/75 probably won't be noticable over a 7100/80 but a 7600/200 or G3/266 would be.

x2xx - avoid

The motherboard video on x100s is "vampire video" - it uses system RAM rather than separate (and faster) VRAM. A meg of cache is supposed to speed things up nicely, but 1MB cache for that model is as rare as rocking horse spoor, and pricey when it does turn up. Neatly enough, many of the G3 upgrades have a meg of cache on them ...

I don't think the onboard video on any beige was ever that great, except for the G3. Anyone who is serious about using a beige PCI Powermac eventually puts a video card in one of the slots.

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I could probably agree with that for the most part, but for the record, the 6500/5500 used the same ATI Rage II/IIc/II+ video that the rev A G3s used. It's pretty slick. The only drawback is the 2 MB VRAM limitation on those models.

The 7600/8600 had decent 2D graphics with up to 4 MB VRAM, but they weren't screamers by any means.

Peace,

Drew

If you don't like it, you can send it to me. }

Lol, I probably would if you were closer! Now that I've got the G3 and used 9.2.2/10.4.10 on there, the 6100/60 ends up just irritating me with its slowness and terrible video output :'( I used to love it too, when it was my most powerful Mac and I wasn't trying to use it with a decent screen that shows up its limitations.

Check inside your 6100 to see if you have the PDS 90-degree adapter already. If you do have the adapter, or can get one elsewhere, I have a couple of the AV cards lying about, I'd be happy to part with one for $5 plus shipping?

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I don't think there is anything at all in there at the moment, no adapter or anything like that.

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Well, the G3 upgrade cards also act as AV card adapters...

You are trying to play Wagner with a baroque orchestra mate. Of course a 1994 Mac is going to look like rubbish if you put it on a higher-res screen than it was designed for. And run like rubbish if you thrash it with system 9. If you don't get the same peculiar joy from running system 7.5 at 640x480 on a 14 inch that most of us do then maybe you should reassess your hobby of collectin' old Macs. Learn to love Bach!

By the way, my main machine from 2000 - 2002 was a 6100 and it served me well... Respect its limitations!

I too have spent many hours with the 6100 and I truly feel it is a great computer for what it does!

Well said, guys. The thing is this: Your 6100 is a terriffic machine. Brilliant. However, your G3 is better, which is giving you the perception that the 6100 is crap, even though it isn't.

If you don't get the same peculiar joy from running system 7.5 at 640x480 on a 14 inch that most of us do then maybe you should reassess your hobby of collectin' old Macs.

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That's more the sort of thing I associate with something like an LC though - on a PowerMac that kind of thing just seems wrong! The 6100 gives neither the vintage fun that you might get from an old 68k PowerBook running OS 7.6 on a tiny screen, nor the 9/X performance that you might expect from a PPC.

I think possibly I'm more excited about Macs as a platform rather than just vintage ones per se, which is why I liked the 6100 when it was my best Mac and the only one that I could run OS 9 and all the PPC stuff on, but it's all G3 now as it's like a new Mac except that it can do all the old stuff as well as the new, which more recent Macs of course can't. I just don't find the older ones so enjoyable to use now I've experienced a G3 Mac, and not only are Macs like the 6100 slow etc, but the LC II that I'm keeping (I've promised the other one to a 68ker who's coming soon to take that and my old Mac monitor) seems to have stopped working! I'm half-tempted just to keep the PowerBooks and get rid of the rest, as they either don't work or are horribly slow/bad video outputs - another advantage of the G3 is that it generally works, while the older ones seem to all be dying now :'(

There seems to be loads of capacitor gunge under the LC's network card, which I presume is the problem (there's no battery in it but there never was and it used to work fine without one) - it started up with a chime a couple of times when I tried it and got to a happy Mac or a grey screen, and now it doesn't even chime, it just spins up the fan, reads the hard drive for a second or two and then sits there seemingly stuck. Also one time when it got to a grey screen or something (I can't remember whether it produced any video that time or not) it somehow jammed one of my Studio Displays ie it wouldn't turn off even after the Mac was turned off (the screen was dark but the backlight on) and I had to pull the plug out, and then I got weird patterns on the screen the next couple of times I switched it on - it seems OK now but if there's risk of that LC wrecking one of those screens then it's straight in the bin!

The thing is this: Your 6100 is a terriffic machine. Brilliant. However, your G3 is better, which is giving you the perception that the 6100 is crap, even though it isn't.

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Yes, the way that a newer Mac can completely change your perception of another one is what interested me. Though I think it's debateable whether the 6100 is actually any good or not - perhaps when it was brand new it was better than the PCs of the day, I don't really know.

It is somewhat difficult to judge a machine without looking at the period in time it was sold and knowing what the competition looked like at the time.

The 6100 was the 1st and low end of the 6100/7100/8100 line. Besides the small form factor I don't see a real use for a slow 601 powered hard to expand 6100. A 8100 would be a much better choice in my opinion, faster, more RAM, more room for expansion. The 601 chip in the 6100 is too slow to run emulated 68k code faster then a real 68k, and too slow to run later generations fo Mac OS that do run PPC code (unless you stuff a g3 in there and even then the SCSI speed slows the whole thing to a crawl).

It is somewhat difficult to judge a machine without looking at the period in time it was sold and knowing what the competition looked like at the time.

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Just out of interest then, for comparison, did the PCs of the day also max out at 640x480 with a decent colour depth or 800x600 at only 256 colours? Though of course upgrading an old PC with a better graphics card would be extremely easy, whereas parts like graphic cards for old Macs seem very hard to find in comparison, seemingly monopolised by greedy eBay sellers that want more than the entire Mac is worth for them

It is somewhat difficult to judge a machine without looking at the period in time it was sold and knowing what the competition looked like at the time.

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Just out of interest then, for comparison, did the PCs of the day also max out at 640x480 with a decent colour depth or 800x600 at only 256 colours? Though of course upgrading an old PC with a better graphics card would be extremely easy, whereas parts like graphic cards for old Macs seem very hard to find in comparison, seemingly monopolised by greedy eBay sellers that want more than the entire Mac is worth for them

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March 1994 was when the 6100 was released. I know 1MB VLB video cards were standard starting in 1993 for the PC, 2MB should have been the norm in 94-95 when the 6100 was sold (some expandible to 4MB). 1024x768 at a decent color depth was not that hard to do on the PC when the 6100 was new. I don't know what the PDS video cards were priced for the 6100 back then, but I would guess a 2MB one would be more expensive then a 4MB PC card.

1024x768 at a good bit depth (16- or 24-bits) was easily achieved on Macs of the same vintage. The mid range and high end Macs shipped with AV or HPV cards giving pretty good bit depths and VRAM between 1 MB and 4 MB.

Put into perspective that the 6100 was the low end (as has been stated already), so it's not terribly surprising, shocking, or even unexpected that the 6100 would only carry 640 kB of "VRAM" (okay, it's DRAM, but whatever).

Peace,

Drew

It seems no one here has recommended MKLinux or Linux/PPC for Nubus?

http://nubus-pmac.sourceforge.net/

2.4 kernel

You can also put Yellow Dog Linux 3.x and later?, on a 7100 or even a 6100, but you need an mklinux bootloader and follow instructions carefully.

Linux is designed to increase the performance of older hardware. Unless you have specialized cards, I wouldn't even consider Mac OS 7 or 8. :b&w:

Linux is designed to increase the performance of older hardware. Unless you have specialized cards, I wouldn't even consider Mac OS 7 or 8. :b&w:

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Bollocks. There is no way at all you're going to get the speed and usability of System 7 with Linux + X11 on hardware of this vintage. Linux isn't designed to increase the performance of older hardware. It's not really designed for anything in particular, except for flexibility/configurability (and with a preference for server tasks). The only thing that makes it suitable for older hardware is that you can strip it right down.

Bollocks. There is no way at all you're going to get the speed and usability of System 7 with Linux + X11 on hardware of this vintage. Linux isn't designed to increase the performance of older hardware. It's not really designed for anything in particular, except for flexibility/configurability (and with a preference for server tasks). The only thing that makes it suitable for older hardware is that you can strip it right down.

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You will get great performance with Linux on old Mac hardware if you use the right software. I run Linux on an old PowerMac that I use as a server, and it runs circles around any classic Mac OS. Classic Mac OS makes for a lousy server of any kind.

There's another advantage to running Linux on old Mac hardware that you neglect to mention. Linux allows you to do things on an old Mac that just can't be done in Classic Mac OS. So Linux will actually give your old Mac hardware more functionality. Linux is also a thousand times more stable than Classic Mac OS.

I will agree however that Linux is dog slow on 68K Macs. *BSD is a much better choice for 68K Macs. Linux is a much better choice for older PPC hardware -- particularly older PCI-based PowerMacs.

Let me give you a personal example of how I use Linux on an old 7300/200 with 112MB of RAM.

I installed Debian 4.0 on the 7300 so that I could run it as an Apache webserver. Since it was running 24/7 as a webserver, I figured that I could just add a second ethernet card (nic) and use it as a router/firewall as well. So I did. I added a second ethernet card and installed Shorewall. I then had a 7300 that was acting as a webserver and a router, so I packed up my cheap little hardware router and stored it in the closet because I no longer needed it -- it was redundant.

I then realized that my 7300 was under utilized so I began looking for other things for it to do. I installed bind9 so that I could use the 7300 as a DNS server too. Now when I connect to other machines on my LAN, I don't have to remember IP addresses. I can just connect to each machine by its hostname.

My 7300 was still under utilized though. So I looked for more things for it to do. I don't like manually configuring network settings on my LAN machines, so I installed Open-dhcpd3. Now my 7300 is acting as a DHCP server as well. So I no longer have to screw around with entering network settings on any of the machines connected to my LAN. And it's very easy to configure DHCPd to give each machine the same IP address every single time. So I'm using DHCP to assign static IP addresses. It works very nice.

My 7300 was still under utilized though. So I looked for even more things for it to do. I installed ntpd so that my 7300 could be a time server. Now all of the computers on my LAN have synchronized clocks. Very cool. Using the networktime control panel, even my System 7 68K Macs set their clocks from the 7300.

I installed Squid on the 7300 too. So my 7300 also does double duty as a web cache for the machines on my LAN. It works quite well.

If I threw a larger hard drive in the 7300, I could run it as a file server too. But the paltry 2GB hard drive that's in it right now just wouldn't cut it as a file server. But still, for all of the things that my little 7300 does do, it does them with nary a hiccup.

With the right software (MacDNS, IPNetRouter, Vicom Internet Gateway, others), you can do all those things in the Mac OS.

Peace,

Drew

Linux is probably the worst choice for a Nubus PPC Mac, if Mac OS doesn't do what you need then junk the system and move on.

Given that the only choices are Mac OS or Linux, then yeah, I'd have to say that Linux is probably the worst joice by virtue of it being a worse choice than the Mac OS and not having any other choices that are worse than Linux. ;-) That's not to say that it doesn't have it's own value.

Nevertheless, I think it makes more sense to run an operating system designed for the hardware. The Mac is niche enough as it is, and PowerPC Linux is even more niche. Now tack on a NuBus kernel and all the associated add-ons that are needed to get a NuBus PowerMac fully supported... It just sounds like trouble to me. I don't mean to discredit the fantastic work and effort put forth by the Linux crowd for NuBus Macs (or Macs in general), though. I can't deny that it is amazing work, and I support their efforts in the moral and emotional sense if not in the financial sense. But still... It seems that unless there is some very specific reason to run Linux on your Mac (curiosity, free software, modern compilers, etc), you're probably better off just running Mac OS on your Mac. Especially when you have a pretty good library of Mac software...

Peace,

Drew

With the right software (MacDNS, IPNetRouter, Vicom Internet Gateway, others), you can do all those things in the Mac OS.
Peace,

Drew

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With the right software? There are no decent http server packages for Classic Mac OS. The ones that do exist are slow and crippled. MacDNS, for all intents and purposes, is pretty much useless. Have you ever used Linux on a Mac?

Linux is probably the worst choice for a Nubus PPC Mac, if Mac OS doesn't do what you need then junk the system and move on.

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I've never used Linux on a Nubus PPC Mac, so I can't speak to that.

Nevertheless, I think it makes more sense to run an operating system designed for the hardware. The Mac is niche enough as it is, and PowerPC Linux is even more niche.

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Let's not lose our objectivity here. Linux is a great operating system. And I find it appalling that you would suggest that a person should just give up on their old hardware because their antiquated operating system can't quite cut the mustard any longer. If Linux can do what Mac OS can't, than Linux is the better choice.

Let's not forget that these machines are tools. If Linux is what is required to get the job done, then Linux is what you must use. Even if it requires a little bit of extra effort from the onset. Besides, Linux runs smooth as silk once you do get it up and running. At least, that has been my experience.

You can find a P2/P3 K6 equipped X86 system on freecycle any given week (or ask for one) and it would be better for linux (and much easier to add cards to) then any Nubus PPC Mac would be.

Economically speaking if you need Linux you should get a better system for it for free.

Quite frankly if it wasn't for Nubus based video editing cards that need PPC I probably would not have a Nubus equipped PPC system at all. PCI and later PPC machines are just faster, have less issues, and cheaper to equip.

Nevertheless, I think it makes more sense to run an operating system designed for the hardware. The Mac is niche enough as it is, and PowerPC Linux is even more niche.

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Let's not lose our objectivity here.

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Indeed! Perhaps you should follow your own advice. If you reread what I posted, you'll see that I personally think that if the Mac OS can do the job as well as Linux, then you should stick to the Mac OS. I did not say that you should _never_ run Linux (in fact, I gave a couple examples of why you would want to).

And as long as we're talking about objectivity, then please don't think you are being too objective by saying you'll get much more performance out of a 6100 web server running Apache versus MacHTTP, WebStar, or AppleShare IP because you are still using extremely low-end hardware. You might get a few more pages served, but in the big scheme of things, if you are really looking to optimize performance, you won't be using a 6100. :-/

Finally, you should know your audience. Being a new member, you probably don't know me well. Yes, I do run Linux on Macs. I have run MkLinux on a PowerBook 5300 (that was interesting but kind of pointless), YDL 2.x on a PowerTower Pro & beige G3, Mandrake on a Wallstreet and a Pismo, Ubuntu on an iMac, and I'm currently thinking about putting Debian on a 2400c. I also run Kubuntu on a Comcrap laptop, and I'm contemplating Aurora Linux on a couple of Sun boxen in my collection. So next time, maybe you should think before you jump to the attack...

Peace,

Drew

Touche! BTW, I always think.

to awnser that question of yours if a 6100 with a G3 card is as fast as a real G3

the awnser is kind off

mine has a newertech 210 mhz G3 pds card

the moment the extension is loaded the machine flies and its slightly below the speed and feel of a rev A imac G3

to me then

Pee-air -

I never said anything about running anything as a server. It would take a 6100 about a week of uptime to make to make the purchase of a faster, quieter system that could use IDE HDs and quite simply do more stuff the obvious choice, for wattage reasons. IMO anyone running a 6100 as a Linux server should trade it for a IIci and run BSD.

I use my 6100 (or did, when I had a monitor that worked) for running Rebirth 2 (a classic software synthesiser and drum machine with very modest resource requirements) and various other music related applications. The Mac's audio output has a very appealing lo-fi quality to it, as does most Macs of this vintage. That's one of the reasons I like mine so much.

Linux is, of course, useless for this, as the applications don't exist, certainly none that will run on olde hardware. It's an adequate server OS, obviously, but for any kind of desktop system, with a GUI, on a 6100 - which is what I was thinking of -, you'd have to be very seriously dogmatic to recommend MkLinux over System 7.

The 6100 is rubbish as Apple shipped most base configurations without the AV Card.. But it's small, compact and can take a lot of upgrades.

Install 8.1 if you're not going to add a G3 card, and 9.1 if you'll be addign a G3 card.

The most important upgrade is RAM, the second is an HPV/AV card. The AV card or the 8100 HPV card is the best, it can be upgraded to 4MB of RAM.

If you don't have the right angle mounting bracket and board, get a G3 accelerator which performs the same function as the board.

You'll still need to find a frame. You can use the frame from a 610/6100 DOS Card, but you'll need to remove one of the studs on the horizontal plane as it interferes with the AV Card.

SCSI drives can be hard to find, but with a SCSI>IDE Adaptor from Acard, you can use any IDE hard drive even beyond 128 GB.

The 6100 can take as much RAM as the 8100. 256MB+8MB on board.

That's almost twice as much as the 7100 because it uses the same controller as the 8100.

Check out this link for an extensive review of the upgrades for a 6100.

http://www.kan.org/6100/

Here's another site in Japanesewith a museum quality fully upgraded 6100. Good pictures even if you can't read the Japanese.

You can't add USB but you can use many devices that you'd need USB devices for: Memory cards can be read with a SCSI card reader, USB printers can be attached to a network host (either a PC running Ghostscript, which shows up as a LaserWriter in the chooser, or another Mac running USB printer sharing, or a printer sharing device, which is built into some models of network routers). Similarly USB hard drives can be connected through a network host (another computer or a Linksys router with StorageLink).

Network drives will also work.

added a G3 card os 9 is stil rubbish

The SCSI bus of the 6100 is slow, a G3 cannot help that.

Well, if you had a bunch of 6100 machines, you could do what this guy did: That's interesting. Of course, you'd have to surrender to your inner geek. ;D

Here's three guys that did something similar. Of course, they used a 7100 and three 6100's. Still cool though, IMHO. [] ]'>

Here's a link to the 6100 upgrade guide

For the prices of beige machines these days, if you want a system 7 machine, then a PCI Powermac will be much better than a 6100. A 7x00 machine will run 7-9 and be a lot faster and more expandable and can run OS X. A 6100 can't.

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I moved from NuBus PPC to PCI PPC. I gave them up, moved back to Nubus and Beige G3 PCI.

It's so difficult to find RAM (and expensive too) for PCI Power Macs. For what the RAM costs, I bought a used G3 PCI Power Mac that uses ultra cheap SDRAM (PC66, PC100 or PC133), then I purchased some 7100 NuBus PPCs for about $20, including an ultraclean machine that came from Genentech's clean room for general office work. The 72-pin Nubus SIMMs were also cheap and readily available

I need Mac Classic to run MS Office 98. No sense in sending more money to Microsoft to upgrade our perfectly working (and legit) Office 98 software.

I agree with the others - you are looking at the 6100 through the prism of modern computing and that isn't fair.

And you keep harping on the fact that your 6100 is missing a bezel. Find one for it! It will feel better and so will you.

Yes, the video is a weak spot - but an AV card will give you those higher resolutions you crave and allow you to output to TV and digitize video.

My 6100 was a huge leap forward for me - at the time I was using an old LCIII. And in one step I could run regular Mac software, PowerPC Mac software, and PC software on the Dos card.

Maccess - thanks for that Japanese site - wow that person has done some killer mods on their 6100!

If I was a mac user around the time the 6100 came out I probably would have purchased a new discontinued 950, 800, or 840av instead. The only thing the PPC had going for it when it was new was a kick butt FPU, which most people didn't need at the time. Remember that all the software that was out was 68K anyway, would take a long time for PPC native code to come out and take advantage of the PPC chip, and by that time PCI Macs would be out anyway (cheaper too I think).

I suppose in another 7 years time I'll be having the G3 to G5/Intel transition crisis that some of you seem to be having now...

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What crisis? I never had a crisis...

While we are on the topic of 6100s mine now has nestled in the PDS slot a G4/300 and a HPV card. It runs 9.1 quite sweetly actually - I hooked a 9GB Seagate Cheetah to it and stick 128MB RAM in. It'd make a decent retro-Photoshop machine I think, maybe with a nice lumpy SCSI scanner?

Yeh anyway, the 6100 was slow, had severely limited expansion, and suffered everything the 610 and 475/Q650 did (double-hard-boots because the PRAM battery wasn't working etc). I really think the entire 601 powered field, save for the 7500 because it was CPU upgradable, were dogs. Many of the early 603 machines were too. Apple took the PPC too early. They should have hung around and used 060s for a while then jumped to PPC with the 604 and 603/200 and upwards. They also should have gone with PCI and Open Firmware from the get-go. Anyone who used Sun machines at the time knew just how useful that was.

mine now has nestled in the PDS slot a G4/300 and a HPV card.

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Can I be your friend? Those G4 cards for Nubus Powermacs are really hard to find these days.

Sure you can... but I'm not gonna give it to you