EARLIER FEATURES

FEATURES CONTENTS

LATER FEATURES

(Ed: When Ken sent me this article by e-mail he said I could guess what CD he was listening to when he wrote it. At last an explanation for the section headers used by Ken! To be fair though, this time they do seem to be connected to the topic under discussion. Quite clever)

Help Me Rhonda
I have said in the past that OS 9.1 is the final version that Apple allows to install on anything previous to the Beige G3. It turns out that it isn't. With the aid of a helper program the upgrades to 9.2.2 can be used after all.

OS9 Helper allows you to install 9.2.1 or 9.2.2 on "Old World" Macs that Apple has dropped support for and it works on the 7200-9600 Powermac series, as well as several others.

OS9 Helper is available as a free download with no support at:
http://www.os9forever.com/

I Get Around
To take it even further ......
Whilst Apple has limited its support for Mac OS X to those machines that originally came with a G3 or G4 processor, it's possible to install Mac OS X on some earlier machines, such as the 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500 and 9600, as well the clones that were based on one of these systems, with the helper XPostFacto.

XPostFacto is an open-source application which you may download and try for free from:
http://www.opendarwin.org/ projects/XPostFacto/

Little Deuce Coupe 
In the course of things a XLR8 G3 upgrade card came my way, (so 9.2.2 would have to have been installed anyway!). It needed software, (control panel & extension), and they were duly download & installed. All went to book and then a restart to enable new features was executed.

The XLR8 extension would load with the following:

On the Mac, if an item can't load at startup it shows:

It turns out that the 'little x' was the company logo adorning the extension. For a startup icon it could've been better!.

I Can Hear Music
In an earlier article dated 2nd June 2002 I talked about patching iTunes to work with OS8 and where to find the patch. A chap contacted me about it recently. It turns out that it has vanished as a download on the internet and various people have talked & pointed to it, but none have actually checked out if it's there. I found it lurking on a backup CD to sort out the chap in question and I'm hoping to find a home for it to be downloaded from. Since the first article I've found iTunes is ideal for using with streamed broadcasts from 'internet radio stations' that use MP3, such as the ones under the live365.com banner.

Wouldn't It Be Nice
According to reports, the C64 DTV, (direct to TV), games machine should hit these shores in April in the PAL version. In the meantime the NTSC version can be mail ordered from:
http://www.gadgetstuff.com

For those of you who haven't been following its progress, it's a standard one piece games beastie designed to be plugged into your TV, with 30 assorted games built in. There's a few other branded ping pong games items like this around. As I don't play games it was of minor interest to me at first.
BUT all is not what it seems ...
Attach a standard 6 pin DIN socket for a Commodore serial disk drive along with an off the shelf PC keyboard that even ASDA do for around £5 and you've got a C64.

I asked about GEOS on it and the reports were good.

Factor in a small LCD TV, (such as the one I won in a prize draw many years ago), along with a CMD FD-2000 that can use a simple power supply and some modern battery technology .........
C64 laptop!
;->

http://www.orrville.net/dtvhacking/ is where to find out more about where to put the needed connections & how.

Good Vibrations
Some of you may have noticed my liking for Video CDs. The best buy mail order source for them in the U.K. is http://www.dvddvdvcd.com/

The site has undergone a revamp and expansion recently and is currently offering free delivery.

Video Compact Discs, (VCDs), were tried in the west in the mid-90s, but didn't catch on.
(Remember the Phillips CDi player?)

Each disc holds about an hour of footage, so most films come on two discs.

If you've not got a DVD player yet, (they can also play VCDs), any Apple Mac with an internal CD drive is good enough to play VCDs using Quicktime Player or FREEVCD - Video CD Player. Just put the VCD in the CD ROM drive then launch FREEVCD.

(You also can play VCDs on a PC if properly equipped.)

VCDs are playable anywhere in the world, because VCDs have no region codes. DVDs have region codes to restrict importing cheaper from elsewhere in the world, or using gifts from long distance travellers.

Let's Go Away For A While 
As you'll have read in 8-Bit news, Commodore Scene, run by Mr Allan Bairstow, is having to take a break from its publishing run due to non computing events. While this is ongoing Alan is going to supply, FREE of charge, a newsletter (CS News) to all subscribers and interested parties throughout 2005.
e-mail allan.bairstow@btinternet.com for a FREE copy.

SLOOP JOHN B
I'm not sure when it happened but Macunlimited.net has withdrawn its free webspace access facilities.
The pages are still there but they're frozen in time with no way to update them.
Luckily not all my eggs are in one basket!