PowerMac 7600 & fool questions

[HavingFun]

PowerMac 7600/120 OS 8.6 64mb

My background is pretty much Amiga->Win->Linux, so it's fun to finally get to play with a Mac GUI. It's different.

The fool questions:

- How do you uninstall apps? Do you really just delete the directory & alias?

- Why is it so slow when plugged into broadband? I know it's obsolete and no good for the web now - I'm just curious what the bottleneck is. You can count the kilobytes load.

- How should I copy files? I mean I can do it, just not with any grace. How am I supposed to do it in this one-button world?

- So these are buffered 3.3v DIMMs? Meaning nothing in my piles of x86 crape in the closet will fit & I should just stop looking?

- I guess it doesn't like the monitor I've given it. Runs 1024x768 800x600 640x480 just fine, but it come out of sleep mode into 1152x864 and no options. Is that fixable?

- Is anything fixable? You really can't get "under the hood" for configurations on these, can you?

- It should remember my mouse speed setting across boots, right? That's got to be a glitch.

Otherwise it runs fine. I've been all through the OS and hardware as far as I can dig. Definitely a different approach. With hindsight I still would have been happier with Wintel back then, but now I can see why people got so attached to their Macs.

The difference is kinda like the x86 stuff gave you scaffolding to build your experience around, while Apple gave you a cabin to reside in. Either works, but that difference is why nobody ever got attached to any Wintel. Very neat machine.

 

[jodelli]

PowerMac 7600/120 OS 8.6 64mb

My background is pretty much Amiga->Win->Linux, so it's fun to finally get to play with a Mac GUI. It's different.

The fool questions:

- How do you uninstall apps? Do you really just delete the directory & alias?

Delete the folder, and if you want delete any related files that show up elsewhere in 'Find' under 'File'.

- Why is it so slow when plugged into broadband? I know it's obsolete and no good for the web now - I'm just curious what the bottleneck is. You can count the kilobytes load.

10BASE T. 'nuff said.

- How should I copy files? I mean I can do it, just not with any grace. How am I supposed to do it in this one-button world?

You can hold the button down for other options to pop up, as well as keyboard shortcuts, some of which will be pictured along side of commands in the Menus.

- So these are buffered 3.3v DIMMs? Meaning nothing in my piles of x86 crape in the closet will fit & I should just stop looking?

Some chips were interchangeable with Slot 1 P IIIs, AFAIK.

- I guess it doesn't like the monitor I've given it. Runs 1024x768 800x600 640x480 just fine, but it come out of sleep mode into 1152x864 and no options. Is that fixable?

Depends on the PCI card. On board video is limited.

- Is anything fixable? You really can't get "under the hood" for configurations on these, can you?

- It should remember my mouse speed setting across boots, right? That's got to be a glitch.

Otherwise it runs fine. I've been all through the OS and hardware as far as I can dig. Definitely a different approach. With hindsight I still would have been happier with Wintel back then, but now I can see why people got so attached to their Macs.

The difference is kinda like the x86 stuff gave you scaffolding to build your experience around, while Apple gave you a cabin to reside in. Either works, but that difference is why nobody ever got attached to any Wintel. Very neat machine.

 

[RacerX]

- How do you uninstall apps? Do you really just delete the directory & alias?

Yes. Generally speaking, applications (even back in the Mac OS 8/9 days) weren't supposed to embed themselves within your system.​

- Why is it so slow when plugged into broadband? I know it's obsolete and no good for the web now - I'm just curious what the bottleneck is. You can count the kilobytes load.

Lets count the number of problems you'd be facing with your system...

• Processor speed... while a 120 MHz 604 is a nice processor, it doesn't hold a candle to most of today's systems, and today's web is design for today's systems.
• System memory... 64 MB is not a lot of memory.
• Allocated memory... you most likely are running your apps at the default amount of allocated memory, and sure, things are going to run slow. Pages these days are large and require room for assembly and rendering. without that room... you'll have a log jam.

- How should I copy files? I mean I can do it, just not with any grace. How am I supposed to do it in this one-button world?

Copy or move? Moving is drag-n-drop. Everything is drag-n-drop in the Mac world. Most applications let you drag-n-drop between them. Copy is known as Duplicate (keyboard short cut: cmd-d).​

- I guess it doesn't like the monitor I've given it. Runs 1024x768 800x600 640x480 just fine, but it come out of sleep mode into 1152x864 and no options. Is that fixable?

Are you using the onboard video? How much video memory do you have? That system shipped with 2 MB of VRAM and maxed out at 4 MB. Personally, I generally use video cards rather than the onboard video... but then again, I use my older system for video capture and need the full 4 MB for that process.

I have one 8600 using an ATI Rage 128 video card (with 16 MB of VRAM) for it's main monitor and the onboard video (with 4 MB of VRAM) for the second. That system is running Rhapsody and I mainly use that second display for Blue Box (a classic-like environment using Mac OS 8.6). On my other 8600 I'm using two ixMicro Twin Turbo based cards (both with 8 MB of VRAM) and the onboard video (4 MB of VRAM) is strictly for video capture.​

- Is anything fixable? You really can't get "under the hood" for configurations on these, can you?

Sure. But should you... No.

You are just learning this system, why modify what you don't know yet. I would suggest learning how everything works first, then (when you know how things are supposed to work) you can start doing other things to the system.

The reason for not playing under the hood of a new (to you) car is that you don't know it yet. If it runs on diesel and you put unleaded in the tank, how do you think it would run? If you put antifreeze in the oil tank, how do you think it would run?

Same thing with a new platform. And even more so for those who consider themselves experts at computers. Experts of other platforms are like bulls in a china shop on platforms they don't know yet. If you want to learn, resist the urge to break things for a little while. ​

- It should remember my mouse speed setting across boots, right? That's got to be a glitch.

Sounds like the battery is dead.​

 

[HavingFun]

Thanks, guys.

Yes, the battery is well dead. I didn't figure mouse settings would be stored in PRAM.

The list over here includes Sleep settings too, so I'll have to check that after battery replacement.
http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/pram.html

Provisionally, I'm going to guess Sleep mode should work correctly with on-board video & its default 2mb, and blame the battery and/or monitor.

Agreed with the 'hands off' warning as good general advice. That aside, I want to play with this thing. More to the point I want to look around, not change anything.

I've actually spent my evenings last week getting it cleaned up back to default. I think I've opened all the GUI panels, and discovered all that's available to the regular user. Hence the remaining curiosity about how one digs deeper.

And I've run out of things to do with it now. It was nice to finally see the Holistic Sofa screensaver, and I'll have to treat the box to a new battery and a copy of Myst, but otherwise it's on its way to becoming a display unit in the corner.

 

[RacerX]

I've actually spent my evenings last week getting it cleaned up back to default. I think I've opened all the GUI panels, and discovered all that's available to the regular user. Hence the remaining curiosity about how one digs deeper.

There are a few tools for getting in deeper than the standard GUI... ResEdit being the app Apple provides for such things.

In addition to a great PDF guide that Apple once supplied, I have a number of books that cover the types of modifications one can do to different things (generally for between System 6 to Mac OS 9.2.2). But even with all that documentation you can still run the risk of lobotomizing your system.

Frankly, the best starting point would be to run out to a used bookstore and find a Mac OS 8.6 book.

Some books I have handy on my bookshelf...

• The Mac OS 8.6 Book by Mark R. Bell
• Mac OS 8.5 Black Book by Mark R. Bell & Debrah D. Suggs
• ResEdit Complete by Peter Alley & Carolyn Strange
• ResEdit Reference Apple Development Documentation
• MacsBug Reference and Debugging Guide Apple Development Documentation

 

[HavingFun]

There we go. ResEdit 2.1 Reference 1995. Thanks.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/pdf/ResEditReference.pdf

I'm in a fairly small town - the little bookstores with piles of obsolete in the back shelves evaporated by the 90s, & the library has a throw-out policy. Add eBay to the mix and you don't see much that's ten years old anymore. It's strange. Beige-era Mac is as scarce around here as early 80s kit.

I'm keeping an eye out for the couple of mac-heads I used to know. I expect they'll have closets much like mine, plus of course memories.

 

[Mac SK]

Go to a town with a good thrift store and look for books and other Mac stuff,
Happy Hunting.

 

[dmr727]

Web browsing on the Mac has always been slower than equivalent PCs for some reason - especially back then. You're never going to have a real good browsing experience on that thing. But I will reiterate what RacerX said - allocate as much memory to the browser as you can. That'll help more than anything else.

 

[HavingFun]

Thanks.

I don't intend to use this machine for any serious browsing; this is simple curiosity about a platform I never got to use at the time.

I'll be keeping an eye out for DIMMs that fit though. That's very likely the first bottleneck.

Kinda kicking myself now for tossing out the rest of the haul. I got this Mac along with a herd of obsolete some years ago as a "take everything" deal that included a couple of nice 17" Apple monitors I wanted. There was a 6100, a Quadra, an LC, a stand-alone CD drive, a large collection of odd network adaptors, and I think the Quadra used a CD caddy.

I don't think it exists, but was there ever a keyboard adaptor for AT to ADB? The old keyboard works fine, I'm just too used to the split ergo ones, and putting the raised tabs on the D & K instead of the F & J really throws me.

 

[Mac SK]

Apple made a split egro keyboard. Had one once,theres some out there somewhere.