Sharing an Internet Connection

Heck of a score.   Sucks about the ProFormance III.  You can connect 3D glasses to it.  It's a fun video card, if a bit underpowered.

That thing where you connect the two machines together with an ethernet lead might work, if you can figure out how to do it - I seem to remember we had a dicussion over at 68k once where it was said that a Windows PC connected to the internet via WiFi could pass the connection across to a Mac in this way, so I assume it will work between two computers of any sort and using any sort of internet connection. However, I could never got it to work and just bought a wireless bridge instead, which is much better anyway.

+1 to olePigeon's comments. I have a couple of Proformance III cards, and for their day, they're great cards.

The 3D glasses required a little plug-in daughter card on the video card. Not every PIII card had the required daughter card.

You might check the fan/heat sink on the Proformance card. I've had a bit of trouble with overheating and fan failure, but if it's not outputting anything at all, it's probably dead. I would expect an overheating card to work at first, then develop artifacts, then freeze up.

Indeed, indeed, Macster. Sure, while i don't think i could live without internet access and the like, i still find myself yearning for the much simpler days of LC and Classics......ahhh....good childhood memories......
_________________
"I mean, how hard can it be?" - Jeremy Clarkson

The Infamous LCGuy - Now back with Amazing Working iMac Action™!

Such an awesome find! That's going to be quite a beast when you're done suping it up!

Where did you get that awesome 3D wireframe of the Chrysler building shown in your MiniCAD screenshot?

gocarlo said:

Such an awesome find! That's going to be quite a beast when you're done suping it up!

Where did you get that awesome 3D wireframe of the Chrysler building shown in your MiniCAD screenshot?

Click to expand...

it came with MiniCAD+ 3.1 as a sample file. There's also another which is a schematic for a circuit with a small spreadsheet parts list-- I sent both to someone with both Mastercam and AutoCAD and it turns out the wireframe model does not show up and yet the schematic opens just fine. I'm wondering why that is. I've since found a newer version of MiniCAD (7) and am going to try opening the file in that and exporting it to another DXF for testing purposes once more.

trag said:

+1 to olePigeon's comments. I have a couple of Proformance III cards, and for their day, they're great cards.

The 3D glasses required a little plug-in daughter card on the video card. Not every PIII card had the required daughter card.

You might check the fan/heat sink on the Proformance card. I've had a bit of trouble with overheating and fan failure, but if it's not outputting anything at all, it's probably dead. I would expect an overheating card to work at first, then develop artifacts, then freeze up.

Click to expand...

Not really a priority-- the Rage 128 is more or less the card I'm going to keep in the machine until a more viable alternative drops in my lap. the card is just deadski-- no video output whatsoever. fan also had a death rattle, replaced that, doesn't seem to have helped any. may try ovening it later on. but again, not a priority.

That's funny - your find is very similar to my main system from 1996 to 2004:

a) Power Tower 180 with an XLR8 Mach Speed G3 300MHz processor card running at 466MHz

B) 448 MB of memory

c) 18GB IBM Ultrastar 18ES (Ultra SCSI Fast) hanging off of an Advansys Ultra SCSI3 card

d) 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI video card

e) Plextor 32X SCSI CD-ROM drive

f) SyQuest SyJet SCSI 1.5 GB removable cartridge drive

g) USB PCI card

as well as the default (slow) SCSI and built-in video card.

Just now fired it up, to get this information - still working great. Kept adding to it until it was clear that I had to move on to a new(er) system.

What you want is an app for routing, tried netinforouter or whatever that app was? It's definitely not built into OS9, unfortunately - and there are/were very few inexpensive apps for the task.

a Windows PC would be easier to share the connection from, unfortunately.

It's not just a matter of plugging it in and working, with TCP/IP and OS9.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Agreed, Cory. Windows Internet Connection Sharing is VERY easy to set up, and works excellent with OS 9. When i use it, i have my network set up like this:

Dell: Computer with internet connection, direct connection to dialup modem, IP address 192.168.0.1
iMac: IP Address 192.168.0.2
Quadra 700: IP address 192.168.0.3
AMD K6: IP address 192.168.0.4

All computers are set up with the Dell's IP address (192.168.0.1) as the Router server address and DNS server address. Works fine.
_________________
"I mean, how hard can it be?" - Jeremy Clarkson

The Infamous LCGuy - Now back with Amazing Working iMac Action™!

Welp, that 400W supply turned out to have a busted cap in it. good thing I popped the cover off before dropping it in-- it worked, but I had to be sure. and then I was greeted to blown nougat all over the top of a cheapo teapo! so pending repair, that's one PSU off my list. Anyone familiar with these things have any recommendations for a supply that would be just right?

pathw said:

That's funny - your find is very similar to my main system from 1996 to 2004:

a) Power Tower 180 with an XLR8 Mach Speed G3 300MHz processor card running at 466MHz

B) 448 MB of memory

c) 18GB IBM Ultrastar 18ES (Ultra SCSI Fast) hanging off of an Advansys Ultra SCSI3 card

d) 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI video card

e) Plextor 32X SCSI CD-ROM drive

f) SyQuest SyJet SCSI 1.5 GB removable cartridge drive

g) USB PCI card

as well as the default (slow) SCSI and built-in video card.

Just now fired it up, to get this information - still working great. Kept adding to it until it was clear that I had to move on to a new(er) system.

Click to expand...

What was the transfer speed on your Advansys card, do you remember? the 2930B I'm rocking has a max of 25MB/s nominal, and the internal SCSI is rated for 20 nominal.

I had a Seagate Cheetah 18GB hooked to it for a bit, and although I loved that it was much quieter, it ended up giving up the ghost for some odd reason. and it was a drive I knew to be perfectly good, too!

so now I'm wondering if a SCSI card like that can do something such as kill a drive. Other drives have been plugged into it since then and it hasn't had any problems.

also... 466MHz? I know people overclocked these things, I didn't know that much was possible on a lowly 300. makes me wonder if I can up this thing to 500MHz relatively easy. would probably be unstable, but I'd be willing to do it. ...not that I need the speed, it's chugging along pretty quickly as it is now.

Just found this on LEM:

http://www.lowendmac.com/practical/03/0429.html

Hope that helps.
_________________
PPC Macs:

• Power Macintosh G4
  
• B&W Power Macintosh G4
  
• Power Macintosh 6500/225

> also... 466MHz?

I'm a little vague as to the details ... been a long time since I did this ... but I believe that there are dip switches for setting the processor speed (as a multiplier of the bus speed?). In any case, it is a manual process to set this and then check whether the system is stable or not. I was lucky it would appear, but it has been running at 466MHz for a long time. There are actually two "knobs" - you also need to set the Backside Cache speed (but this can be set in the MACh Speed Control panel). I have it set to the lowest setting (154.6MHz in this case - a ratio of 1:3) currently, and I know that setting this too high for this processor clock speed will cause problems.  I also have "Speculative Processing" disabled, as this also caused problems back in the day.

I'll have to look around to see if I can find the specs on the Advansys card. I can also run a drive performance benchmark, if that is of interest to you. The Advansys card was not a high end purchase - but it is definitely faster than the internal SCSI.

pathw said:

> also... 466MHz?

I'm a little vague as to the details ... been a long time since I did this ... but I believe that there are dip switches for setting the processor speed (as a multiplier of the bus speed?). In any case, it is a manual process to set this and then check whether the system is stable or not. I was lucky it would appear, but it has been running at 466MHz for a long time. There are actually two "knobs" - you also need to set the Backside Cache speed (but this can be set in the MACh Speed Control panel). I have it set to the lowest setting (154.6MHz in this case - a ratio of 1:3) currently, and I know that setting this too high for this processor clock speed will cause problems.  I also have "Speculative Processing" disabled, as this also caused problems back in the day.

I'll have to look around to see if I can find the specs on the Advansys card. I can also run a drive performance benchmark, if that is of interest to you. The Advansys card was not a high end purchase - but it is definitely faster than the internal SCSI.

Click to expand...

That'd be cool.

I'm now in posession of the drive and adapter, and another older known working 9.1GB SCA drive from my spares.

looks like I may have gotten the wrong adapter? MacOS won't see either drive as either the only drive in a chain (with the adaptec card) or in the middle of an existing chain with other terminating devices and a proper free ID number.

the adapter was, as I later found out, one without onboard termination; but that doesn't mean a whole lot. I should still be able to see it if it's in the middle of a chain, right?

it's been a long time since I've messed with SCSI stuff on this scale; is this something I should make a new thread about to look for insight into?

Oh well. Thanks anyway for the replies. Previously I've used an XP machine to share the connection but it's not actually mine so I was hoping to set it up on my own equipment. The only PC I own is some old Win '98 machine that can connect to the internet but I'll be buggered if I can get it to share the connection. I think it needs the original windows CD or something.

UPDATE!

Turns out one of my old boxes of junk upstairs in the closet housed an old Atto card I got way back for free in the trash-- an ExpressPCI UL2D. From what I've read, they're decent cards. I've had this since 2008, running in a Precision workstation 420 for farting around. so I hooked up my 18-gig boot drive thinking I had nothing to lose but try.

Sure it took a little more time before the system was able to get to the happy mac, but...

it still works. and it booted. that's the awesome.



it's missing some LEDs due to being manhandled for all these years, and a small corner of a RAM chip is missing, but not enough to get past the package walls.

I have it installed in the topmost slot of the second Bandit chip with just the single drive with 68 to 50pin adapter and the backplane cable from my Dell PowerEdge 2300, and it's been nothing but awesome so far-- both channels work, too. that's even more awesome!

What's not awesome is I did in fact need a terminating adapter, something I overlooked as thinking I had-- nope. needs the unused data pins terminated too.

so, no quiet mac clone yet... soon.  Wish I knew where that sonnet SATA card went off to.

What machine are you on? I've found that OS 9 is usually faster at some things than OSX on the same machine, but somehow, the added weight of OS X brings it significantly more stability. My iMac here, just as an example, has an uptime of 73 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes, under Mac OS X 10.4.8

I don't expect OS 9 to last more than 5 days without really needing a reboot, although I'm sure it's technically capable of lasting longer. Even System 7 and OS 8.1 feel more "robust" for some reason. (they're also faster on hardware that can run them, than OS9 is. )
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Actually for me the stability isn't even as much of an issue as I thought it would be. I'm one of those weird people who turns their computers off when they've finished with them, so I'm only worried about programs crashing and bringing the system down. So far, none have done that. I always found that OS8.1 was crashing all the time, but that's probably just because I was running it on a lousy performa.

This is only a 400mhz graphite G4 tower by the way. With hardly any memory in it - yet it runs beautifully. Just one example: it runs the Amiga emulator MacUAE pretty much as fast as my Core Duo machine runs e-UAE. Possibly faster. Except there are no sodding OS9 drivers for my Logitech joystick.

IPNetRouter or Vicom Internet Gateway are your frients. They will allow you to share your internet connection with any computer on the network architecture of your choosing. They will also allow you to employ "ganging." Say you need some extra bandwidth and you've got a few modems and a few telephone lines. As more bandwidth is required, the software will make more internet connections. Internet Gateway does this, but I'm not sure if IPNetRouter will.

Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!

Computer speed is a very subjective thing, a G4/400 would be painfully slow to me because of the photos and video I've been working with, but if I were doing purely word processing or other "office" tasks, it would be overkill - even with OS X.

Reliability with OS 9 isn't a big issue if you restart often I suppose, but there have been issues, mostly with Internet apps, that cause it to be a big issue, even if I restart once every five hours. I'll probably try it again over the summer though, since I don't plan on needing Internet apps on that machine.

IPNetRouter must have been what I was thinking of earlier - when I said "netinforouter" - Though, aren't both of those apps commercial apps?
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

I know people with "crazy fast" PCs that feel slow to me... compared to my G3/500 with 512mb of ram, even my G3/450 with 256mb of ram is faster than some people's Semprons at like 3GHz with like 512mb of ram or whatever.

I've found that one of the reasons Macintosh hardware lasts longer is that for a long time, Macintosh Software has actually been lighter than its Windows counterparts - the fact that we don't have to worry much about malware, or for the most part, maintenance, seems to have a huge effect on the overall speed of the system.

Naturally, my P3/933 was also faster than the specific other PC I'm referring to, but I don't have malware protection on my own machines, nor do I usually install games or much other than the minimum set of apps I need to get by - which seems to have a big difference in Windows. (Whereas I've got every other app in the land installed on my iMac - and not a single one of them have slowed the system down.

So... it may or may not be som ething inherent in the design of either system - I happen to think it is, just that Mac OS X sucks ever-so-slightly less than Windows, at least in my experience.

I know a lot of really smart people who keep their systems clean, and their Windows boxes could very well be faster than the other one I'm thinking of.

I might be able to go on - but shouldn't.

BTW, does Vista have any improvements in overall stability/reliability and speed, as far as how long an install lasts?
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Yes, the issue of installing applications slowing down the system is an interesting one. I remember seeing a report recently where they'd tested the difference in boot time after installing popular Windows applications, as well as some of the additional core components like DirectX, .Net runtime etc, and it showed that each one added to the boot time slightly, some much more so than others. Obviously things like Norton AntiVirus increased the boot time by a lot, as they're actually loading stuff on bootup (that's why I don't use any realtime virus/malware protection, as it just bogs down your system and you don't really need it if you know how to avoid that kind of stuff anyway), but it's interesting that programs which don't load anything on startup also seem to have an (albeit minor) impact. I guess it's just because they make the Registry larger, and that is loaded on startup. My PC (see below for specs) actually takes about 70 seconds to boot now (from power button to full desktop), which is about the same as 10.4.9 on the G3 (only 70 seconds to boot a cutting-edge machine on an 8.5 year old free computer...truly awesome ), although it used to take only about 40 seconds so I think it just needs a reinstall as the Windows installation is 2.5 years old now. Certainly fresh installations do boot very quickly, so I think a large Registry is probably the problem - I do have a lot of applications and games installed. OS X not having a Registry-like system probably helps with boot time.

As for Vista, it is meant to be faster, at least if you have a modern system (on a system near the minimum specs it will be slower because it's heavier). This is because it's the first major reworking of Windows NT since version 4.0, so is now optimised for the computers of today eg the memory management is designed for PCs with 1 GB Ram, as opposed to 16 MB. For example, you'll have seen people complaining how large a proportion of their Ram is being used when they start Vista up, but actually this reflects how it now exploits all of your Ram by doing things like loading frequently-used programs into it (SuperFetch). If the Ram is then needed by a program, Vista will release some of it. USB keys can also be used as SuperFetch space (ReadyBoost), which is meant to make things faster.

It's more stable as far as that drivers are no longer meant to be able to crash the system (most serious crashes on previous versions were caused by drivers, or bad hardware) - a lot of drivers (I know graphics drivers, often a big problem, definitely have) have been moved into userspace from kernelspace, so they simply reload if they crash. Apart from that, XP was pretty stable so there wasn't a lot of room for improvement.

It still has the Registry though, so I assume the same issue of large Registries will still exist.

I haven't installed it outside of a virtual machine yet though, so will give you my impressions once I have it up and running, if anyone's interested.
_________________
Main system: custom C2D 2.66GHz tower/4GB RAM/2600XT 512 MB/500GB HD/XP Pro x86+Vista Business x64
Main Mac: Beige G3 minitower (Sonnet G4 500MHz/640 MB DVD/USB/Radeon 32 MB/OS 9.2.2+10.4.11)

I am actually interested in what you end up thinking about Vista when yyou get it running outside of a VM. I haven't seen the final Vista, or vista outside of a VM yet, but my Vista-capable PCs are old, and I don't want to try bootcamp on the iMac again - at least not until Leopard is released. (though, I suppose AppleCare will cover it if I have another disaster with bootcamp.)
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

How many of us thought the same thing about XP when it was new, and now it's like the defacto standard, at least for systems I use.

As far as the language censor goes - I wouldn't mess with it much, the only thing I'll want to make sure is that it doesn't go filtering out the names of any Panasonic subsidiaries that make optical drives for Apple.

/me shakes his fist at UJ-815.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

And by the way, thank you to Drew for mentioning IPNetRouter, which appears to be exactly what I need.

Basically bootcamp killed the EFI and the hard disc on my iMac. They had to replace the logic board and the hard disc. I was without it forlike 2 weeks in February. I didn't mention it too loudly at 68kMLA though, for fear of some kind of repercussion.

It was covered under applecare because it was definitely a hardware problem, it wouldn't even boot OSX or from the install/restore/hardwaretest DVD. Unfortunately, a bit of data was lost in that event.

Ahwell, it's better now.

Oh, I love corporate networking by the way - I wish I had enough machines/time/space to set up a nice little activedirectory domain. I had one going once, but the high school decided they didn't like students repurposing their machines. "oops!"

here at NAU we've actually got our XP machines and macs authenticating over ldap to dana, our student unix server which runs like, Solaris 8 or 9 I think. (forgot the exact version.)

I think we have remote home directories on that server too. It's an okay setup, a bit less organized than I wish it would be, but when you've got heterogeneous networks, that tends to happen I suppose.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

It's possible to run OS9 without crashing, and for me it's not OS9 itself that causes the crash, it's OS9 that allows crashes caused by badly written Internet apps - word processors and most "multimedia" apps (music players, final cut pro) and "pro" apps (photoshop, bryce/poser, indesign2, pagemaker6.5, dreamweaver/flashMX) do just fine.

It's one of the reasons I'm considering OS9 on my Pismo as the "work" machine, as well as to keep pictures on and rip cds while I'm not at my iMac.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

re: imac/bootcamp: I don't know if it was a hardware fault or what, but yeah, applecare covered it, luckily. My parents would've had a pretty big fit if they found out I had ruined the iMac by deciding to play with Windows on it.

By that reasoning, I'm not too keen on trying it out again, if I want XP, I'll just put it on one of the surplusDells. []
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

My big complaint is about the change in the overall attitude, it has become commonplace on the 68kMLA to use pretty foul language, and with people like wackymacs, it's not uncommon to be outrightly rude to people, or indirectly (or directly!) put them down.

It's things like that that made me start to reconsider whether or not I feel like the 68kMLA is a community I want to stay a member of.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

A lot of people have had a bit of a disliking for Wackymacs for awhile, he can be extremely rude at times, and I suppose that's why some people... return the favor, so to speak.

I've been reading the AF thread - it's a really frustrating thread, especially because I can see some of the "old MLAer vs. new MLAer" tensions coming out, which shows me that some of our newer members feel contempt for the older members, who think they are somehow more committed to 68k macintoshes than the newer members.

What I've noticed is that in some cases - it's true. When a member like Unknown_K posts, it's almost always regarding an actual 68k mac, and he's been there almost as long as I have.

However, when one of the "newer" members posts, I notice a lot of ppc, and 'help me with my mac mini 'and the like. Not the greastest ever, I think.

It's okay once in awhile, but when it's the only thing some people ever post - it gets really frustrating really fast.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Oh - and I am thinking of stealing one of my friend's DVDrom drives and putting Vista on the SurplusDells. One of 'em's a PIII/933 with 512mb of ram, and a 20 gig hard drive, perfect fit for a "baseline" system, I suppose.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Gentlemen (and Mesdames, if any is listening)

We, including HG-T himself as OP, are doing a bonzer job of making this thread lurch from one to the other topic raised in the first post.

Is there a majority for splitting off the consideration of Stability of operating systems from Browser sharing?

de
_________________
(60x) 13DT + 3PB + PTPro; (G3) 7DT/MT; (G4) 3T + PB. System 8.1 to OS 10.5.8

At the risk of sounding like some pretentious, enlightened guru who’s above it all, I find there is quite a lot of humour in the silly little absurdities that people get involved in if you care to look for it. A guy at my old high school used to get beaten up all the time, and whenever he did he’d burst into uncontrollable laughter. It wasn’t out of bravado, it was out of genuine amusement at how patently ridiculous it was that he was being beaten to a pulp just for being different. Nowadays whenever people are rude, whenever they get into petty disagreements, or even whenever they outright insult me, I always think of Dave pinned to the ground by six kids on the school oval, laughing his head off and then all I can do is laugh at how silly we all can be. The moral of the story? Even if people some people occasionally act like twits on the forum, it won’t bother you unless you let it. There are people who act like twits everywhere in life. I can tell you it doesn’t bother me in the slightest; in fact it probably just makes me appreciate the nice people more. Apologies if that sounded like a load of pretentious twaddle – you’re all free to get angry and annoyed by those people if you’d prefer that.

As for Wackymacs – I think he is a mostly amicable person who can be frustrating and abrasive at times. In other words, he is a human being. If any of you know someone who has all the amicability without the irritability, I want to meet them!!

I suppose I can understand the eventual decline of interest in 68k Macs and whatnot, but what I've noticed is that... that really is not the case, there are many people becoming more interested in them.

It's not just the offtopic posts, in fact, I almost don't care about offtopic posts - it's the fact that the general attitude has become more rude. Sure, everybody there is just human - but does that mean we all have the right to be continuously rude to our fellow human beings?

And as Unknown_K mentioned on that AF thread, more than one respectable member has been driven away by some of the younger members.

I'll admit, we have had a few crazies, but what I've discovered is that those crazies are very sane, normal people, just that they react a bit different to the Internet because they don't necessarily understand that somebody online has no real consequence in their real life.

And for me, that's what it comes down to. After being a member of the 68kMLA community for 5 years, the most important thing I've gotten out of it is that it's important to balance my real life with my time sitting in front of the computer.

And that's the big thing that makes me wonder about whether or not I'll return to the 68kMLA, because I know very well that I can fully enjoy my 68k macs on my own, or at both IRC channels, so all is good in my life.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

I just had another look at that thread to see if there's any updates (as before they were saying that the site would be back online today or yesterday) and a huge amount of real nastiness has now appeared I always thought the 68kmla was a lovely little community too, but underneath there's actually all this hatred of each other - I always felt we all got on well, I don't know why some of the others have to have such problems getting on with one another
_________________
Main system: custom C2D 2.66GHz tower/4GB RAM/2600XT 512 MB/500GB HD/XP Pro x86+Vista Business x64
Main Mac: Beige G3 minitower (Sonnet G4 500MHz/640 MB DVD/USB/Radeon 32 MB/OS 9.2.2+10.4.11)

Ooooo, I just had an idea! If we can't agree on whether or not PPC Macs should be allowed in the 68kMLA, or whether 68k Macs should be allowed in a PPCMLA, what about this...

Instead of re-forming the 68kMLA, we start a totally new organization! We start the LEMLA! The Low End Macintosh Liberation Army! I personally think that this would be a really neat thing to try.

When the 68kMLA was begun, practically nobody would dare call anything besides the first run PPCs and some "Road Apples" low end. However, in a day and age when practically any Mac with onboard SCSI is considered low end, wouldn't it be wise to change focus a bit? While a 68k or PPC CPU was the cutoff in the original 68kMLA, the times have changed. I would think that a LEMLA would be for discussion of any Macs with onboard SCSI, running OS 9 or below. Since anything running the Classic Mac OS is in the same boat that all 68ks were in when the 68kMLA started, wouldn't it be a good idea to reflect that change?

I will be the first to say that I would join the LEMLA without question if it would be able to unite the old 68k die-hards and the newer generation of PPC people. I realize that this would be a radical change, but it might be for the better.

Who's with me?
_________________
PPC Macs:

• Power Macintosh G4
  
• B&W Power Macintosh G4
  
• Power Macintosh 6500/225

Did you think no-one from the forum was capable of getting angry, just because we don't normally see it? A couple of people getting into a hissy fit because they're having withdrawal symptoms doesn't really mean anything.

The forum has been down for a month, and firstly people are starting ridiculous rumours (i.e. 'Tom Levens is actually a sludge monster from the planet Zybotrox, he's been recalled to his home planet, that's why the forums are down blah blah blah'). Next people start getting frustrated at how long it's taking to get back up, so they take their frustration out on anything and anyone. Then everyone starts mourning the end of the world because people are starting to get frustrated, the forum is not what it used to be, it'll never be the same again etc. etc.

The forums will come back on eventually, and then all will be back to normal. If it's not, I'm reasonably certain the sky won't fall in. So I wouldn't worry about it all too much.