UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Powered By Google Custom Search Vintage Radio and TV Service Data

Go Back   UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum > Specific Vintage Equipment > Vintage Computers

Notices

Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 2nd Aug 2017, 8:25 am   #21
MrBungle
Dekatron
 
MrBungle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 3,687
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

The heating upside shouldn't be shrugged off. I had an 8 processor Sun 1000E SPARCserver and associated disk arrays as a desktop for about 6 months in 1999 after the company I worked for chucked it in a skip. It ha cost around £250k a few years before and was worth nothing. That kept the house nice and warm.

Then the electricity bill arrived. £250 more than expected! Straight on eBay, which just about paid off the electricity bill! That's depreciation for you.
MrBungle is offline  
Old 3rd Aug 2017, 3:36 pm   #22
SteveCG
Nonode
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Herefordshire, UK.
Posts: 2,495
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

Of course if you wish to minimise your energy Bill increase then save your serious computing for the Wintertime - all that waste heat will offset your central heating !

Seriously though, I've used G3 and G4 machines with older Fedora Linux (Fedora 8 to about Fedora 13 I think) releases for Mac with not many more problems than any other releases. I've used OS X 10.0,10.1,10.2,10.3,10.4 and 10.5 on G4s - great fun.

I think you will be using PC133 memory in your machine. Just be aware that some memory stick architectures do not work with Mac - so I'd advise double checking compatibility should the need arise.
SteveCG is offline  
Old 4th Aug 2017, 5:53 pm   #23
Mach One
Heptode
 
Mach One's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 610
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

Well, the USB 2.0 card (exactly like the one described in the picture on OldTechFan96's original post) arrived and I fitted it in seconds this afternoon. As was originally intimated, it does not seem to improve the speed of the transfer process by a lot, but I think that it is faster. As it took me around 50 minutes to copy across almost 1.4GB of files the other day, even a saving of tens of minutes for this kind of volume of files is worth it - I think...
Mach One is offline  
Old 4th Aug 2017, 7:11 pm   #24
MrBungle
Dekatron
 
MrBungle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 3,687
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

Tens of minutes is a good improvement.

I'm not sure I have the patience though. I've got used to the insane IO performance of things in the last 5-10 years. To copy that off my MacBook Pro onto a Lexar USB stick would take around 10 seconds!!
MrBungle is offline  
Old 5th Aug 2017, 6:39 am   #25
Mach One
Heptode
 
Mach One's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 610
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

Oh, it's the satisfaction and "woo" factor of finally having one of these machines as you said earlier. It's also nice to be using a machine that, although it is not fast, it's a whole lot more useable than the two much younger Windows laptops that we have sitting in retirement around the house (Vista and 7) which I hate to get rid of as they still "work." I've now managed to "subcontract" my mp3 archiving on to my lythe HP Windows 10 machine very succesfully which just leaves the occasional ID3 titling and image manipulation and scanning still to the fun and joy of the elderly Mac.
Mach One is offline  
Old 5th Aug 2017, 10:35 am   #26
paulsherwin
Moderator
 
paulsherwin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,786
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

It may actually be faster to copy the files across your LAN.

Remember that you can put a Linux distro on the old laptops and configure the interface to look very like OS9 or OSX if that's what you like. Getting rid of Vista in particular will make a huge difference to usability. You can run a 32 bit version in 1GB or even 512MB at a pinch.
paulsherwin is online now  
Old 28th Aug 2017, 9:05 am   #27
Mach One
Heptode
 
Mach One's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 610
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
It may actually be faster to copy the files across your LAN.
Holding that thought, Paul, because I like the idea but I wonder if it's another thread and it's something that I would need help with...

I have to admit to having been disappointed with the speed that this new card produces. So I decided to actually do some measurements. Using a Kingston DTSE9 G2 16GB USB 3.0 stick which I had to hand containing 4 files totalling 102.4MBs the time taken with each connection was:

(1) The original USB 1.0 port - 120 seconds.

(2) The newly acquired card - 150 seconds (!)

(3) The extra card which I had thought was actually slow - 9 seconds (!!!)

(4) This extra card connected through my Anker 7-port USB hub - 9 seconds

So, I was wrong with this extra card that came with the machine. I already knew that it whizzed along with my two external Mac OS formatted drives but assumed that they just liked working with "their own kind," as it were.

As you can see, I am rather surprised! Also surprised that the new card appears to be only USB 1.0 (and a bit less, too...)
Mach One is offline  
Old 28th Aug 2017, 10:24 am   #28
paulsherwin
Moderator
 
paulsherwin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,786
Default Re: "Vintage" PowerMac G4/800 (2002)

That is certainly odd. All USB2 interfaces are required to support USB1.1 as part of the standard, and will use that if they can't negotiate USB2 properly. I suspect that the driver software doesn't support USB2 for that chipset.

The card itself is very unlikely to be restricted to USB1.1 if it has been made in the last decade, though nothing is impossible.
paulsherwin is online now  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 3:53 pm.


All information and advice on this forum is subject to the WARNING AND DISCLAIMER located at https://www.vintage-radio.net/rules.html.
Failure to heed this warning may result in death or serious injury to yourself and/or others.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright ©2002 - 2023, Paul Stenning.