Hi Krow,
> Wow, it's nice to see someone has done their homework first ! Kudos > Thank you. I am not a computer novice. I work mostly on PC's (That other platform). Old computers are my hobby. I have a collection that starts with my original N* Advantage (CP/M system), goes through several PC compatibles and includes some "home computers" like the C-64 and Tandy CoCo. I also have a non-working Apple //e and an Atari 800. But mostly I work on setting up PC's for business uses like databases, spreadsheets and desktop publishing. (This last use is well suited to the Mac and I am excited about seeing what I can setup. I used an SE several years ago with Aldus PageMaker and a LW PS printer when I worked for a printer.) > Welcome to the world of die-hard PowerComputing owners. As mentioned > you found a nice Mac clone for a great price. I bought my PTPro 250 > new in 9/97 for $2700.00 and it's still kicking but today sitting next > to my B&W G3. It's still a decent production machine. > Yes, I can see it is well built. Better than any other box I have around here. I liked the Gateway I still have, the AST Research Cupid was nice, and I like the IBM laptops. This PTP is on par with them. Nice work. > Get more RAM, minimum 128MB for OS 9xx and any apps you may want to > run. > I picked up 256 of new Ram today. I may have more coming in a buch of stuff I got in a "box lot" on eBay. > Get an OS 9.1 install CD and use the helper app OS9forever to get to > OS 9.2.2 for your USB/FireWire needs. The 2 updates after OS 9.1 can > be downloaded from Apple. > Careful of the iMac install CD's, some will only work on iMacs and > they are the cheaper ones on Epay. I have an iMac OS 9.1 install CD > that is grey colored and will work, watch for those. > This is hard for me. I'm still not clear on what OS cd will work. I will try to pay close attention in the next few days to what is available on eBay. So many of the listings are not clear. Perhaps I will buy from a reseller who has the knowledge I need to get the right thing. I did see one listing that said "grey" but I can't remember if it was the 9.1 disk. > Pre-OS x software is getting cheap, I would'nt keep any of the > original stuff on the HDD because of conflicts like you have found. > It's best to eliminate the previous owners mistakes and a freshly > fomatted drive is better to start with. You can add another 50pin SCSI > drive easily also and keep the original drive and try to eliminate the > problem later. > I hear you. Can't I just keep the hard drive and re-install from the current installations? Or, will it require installation from a factory supplied disk? I'm thinking of the ClarisWorks program I have on this thing. Maybe you're right and I should just get some newer versions and skip trying to save these progs. > Email me directly and I may have an old drive I can give you for > shipping cost along with some 8 or 16MB RAM chips. On one condition... > you promise not to throw it away. Give it away if you get bored with > it but don't throw it in the trash like the previous owner. That is > clone abuse and frowned upon ;-) > That is VERY kind of you to offer. I may take you up on it. But I am going to wait about two weeks for the stuff I got off eBay to arrive (sending MO's tomorrow, holiday, etc.). I may have what I need already. And yes, I agree. That was abuse. At least they left it on the ground instead of chucking it into the dumpster! > You can eliminate the FWB problem easily using an older Apple CD > extension, no need for any 3rd party CD -ROM tools. The Hard drive is > not an "official' Apple unit either so 3rd party drive software is > needed usually to format the drive. I can help with that also. > Not sure why this is. Is it not the practice of drive manufacturers to provide drivers in the Mac world? If it doesn't come from Apple it doesn't work without a third party extension? The "older Apple CD extension" can be used in the OS 9? Will that mean a slower disk? I clearly need to do more research on this. I want to add another Hard drive, a ZIP100, and a CD-R. What will I need with OS 9? > > 1. Buy new disk that can be used to backup the existing hard disk. > > Good idea, external SCSI HDD's and Zip drives can be had cheap. > The SCSI drives I have seen on eBay seem to cheapest as internal. But I am confused about whether any of these will work on the PTP without special thrid party software. I don't know why this is such a mental block for me. Maybe because I am so used to plugging in an IDE/ATAPI drive on my PC's and they are automatically recognized. Back in the old DOS days you had to make sure the drive matched the interface and that the driver was either built in to the OS or added in a config.sys file. I guess it's similar to this in Mac. I always heard that in Mac you just plug it in and you go to work. I kind of thought that was mostly marketing hype. Of course I realize I'm dealing with an outdated system. Maybe back in 1997 it was just as it was reported. As long as you bought an Apple drive all you had to do was plug it in and go. > > > > 2. Back up the current system hard disk. > > Personally I would'nt bother, all the apps on it are old and cheap or > free to replace. > You're right. I'll change my approach here and just install a new HD with the new OS 9.1. > > 4. Buy an upgrade CD for OS 8.6 or OS 9.1 > > OS 8.6 is decent but basically OS 9xx will be needed for USB and > FireWire. There's much more current software for OS 9xx than OS 8xx. > If you need an install CD you may as well get OS 9.1. Don't get any of > the OS 9.2 CD's as they won't work, you'll need OS 9.1 specifically to > go to OS 9.2.2. > Well, actually I don't really care if I have FW or not. All my peripherals are USB right now (Camera, Flash Disk, Printers). But if I decide to play with AV I might want to go with FW. We'll see. > > > > 5. Buy a PCI USB and FW adapter card > > Check out Xlr8yourmac.com for it's drive compatibility database for > the right card(s) to get. > > Will do. Thanks. > > 6. Hookup to Internet Router through the Ethernet RJ45 connector > > Usually just plug it in and set the OS to ethernet connection and your good. > Unfortunately, it has not worked that easy for me. May be that this system is just messed up for TCP/IP. I hope to play around with it more this week. I DL'd a mac ping utility in hopes it would help. This box has no indicator lights for the Ethernet ports and no built-in ping. More on this later. > > > > 7. Commence exploring the Low-End-Mac world > > > LEM is the best ! > Certainly in the running. I'm having a blast! > > > Does 8.6 or 9.1 come with a web Browser? > > Yes, but stick to the WamCom build of Mozilla. Mozilla upgrades for OS > 9 browser stopped but there is an independant build called WamCom > which is a good browser. > Ah, good. I use Firefox on my MS systems and have used Mozilla on Linux. I dabbled with Opera several years ago also. Glad to hear there are options other than MSIE. > > You are doing well so far Sean, Good Luck...... > > -- > Ron > Thank you Ron, you've been a big help. Sean -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. 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