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HTTP/2 200 allow: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=2592000,h3=":443"; ma=2592000 cache-control: public, max-age=600 content-type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:34:41 GMT etag: "d6be12acc4fff47f53d239267e9a85a2235eadee" last-modified: Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:40:41 GMT referrer-policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin server: git-pages (git-pages) server: pages-server strict-transport-security: max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains; preload via: 1.1 Caddy content-length: 99053 <![CDATA[Einar's blog - mac]]> https://einar.codeberg.page//tag-mac.html Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:40:38 +0100 <![CDATA[Emulating a G4 Mac on GNU/Linux]]> In this video, I show you how to emulate a G4 Mac on GNU/Linux by using QEMU.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/emulating-a-g4-mac-on-gnu.html https://einar.codeberg.page/emulating-a-g4-mac-on-gnu.html Mon, 16 Mar 2020 03:48:00 +0100 <![CDATA[The advantages of Linux seen from a Mac user's perspective]]>

Figure 1: Welcome to Ubuntu

Lately, many Mac users have been disappointed in the hardware and to a lesser degree also the software that Apple makes. It seems like Apple is focused mainly on iOS since their earnings mainly stem from it. Some of the core Mac users in creative industries that have used Macs since the 80s are now leaving or thinking about leaving since it seems like Apple no longer makes the best hardware for these use-cases. For video editors that need the ultimate in processing power, graphics processors, RAM and storage space, there hasn't been a good Mac since 2013. Therefore, some companies like Pixar that traditionally used Macs have been using System76 machines with Ubuntu for some years now.

For long time Mac users, Windows 10 doesn't necessarily look like a good alternative to macOS. Linux is the lesser known alternative, but it is in many ways more similar to macOS than Windows, although there are of course a lot of differences as well. Since I have gradually switched from Macs to Linux over the last few years, I thought it would make sense for me to share some of my thoughts about the main advantages of Linux seen from a Mac user's perspective.

Choose the hardware that best fits your needs

The main advantage of Linux is freedom of choice. Since Linux runs on a vast range of hardware from embedded devices to supercomputers, you can choose whatever hardware suits your needs when using Linux. With Macs, you have to live with the machines Apple make, or you can hack together a useable, but often not upgradable hackintosh solution that will usually be a hassle to maintain. Windows is also installable on lots of different computers, but Windows limits your choices in other ways. Read about desktop environments, the influence you have over software projects, the Unixy goodness and the choice of Linux distribution to understand what Windows lacks that Linux has.

With Linux, the easiest way to get good hardware support is to buy hardware with Linux preinstalled. However, building a desktop computer yourself from parts may give you more freedom of choice as to what to prioritise, and buying new or second-hand computers that originally came with Windows will give you many more models to choose from, but no customer support from the vendor. On most hardware, Linux just works, especially if you use one of the more newbie-friendly distributions (distros) like Ubuntu and derivatives (Mint, Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, KDE Neon, Elementary OS…), PCLinuxOS or Manjaro. To avoid buying hardware that is less than ideal on Linux, if you do not buy hardware with Linux preinstalled, you should do some research before buying. So, when it comes to hardware, you have more choice with Linux than with macOS.

Choose the core technologies you prefer

Unlike on macOS, where you have a couple of supported versions of the same operating system, on Linux, you have hundreds of Linux distributions (distros) to choose from. Some are tailored to special use cases like media production, security audits, servers without a GUI, education… while others are more general-purpose desktop distributions. Some come with long term support and stay on the same version numbers of software while delivering security updates for five (Ubuntu LTS) or ten years (CentOS, Red Hat, Ubuntu LTS if you pay for extended support), while others churn out new versions every 6 months (Ubuntu non-LTS, Fedora) or at other regular intervals. Some distros only have new releases when they are absolutely certain the next version is stable and ready for use (Debian, Makulu) and yet again others are continually rolling out updates after a short period of testing so that you never have to reinstall (Arch, PCLinuxOS, Solus, Manjaro). Some distros focus on a particular technology, while others focus on designing a pleasant user interface with tailor-made apps to suit the desktop environment.

The abundance of choice is sometimes portrayed as a problem by non-Linux users, but in reality, it means that no matter what sort of user you are, you will find a distro that suits your needs and wants. The many distro projects also contribute free and open source code to the wider free and open source software ecosystem which means that even if an app, a library, a command line tool or a desktop environment was made for one particular distro, it will often find its way to other distros if it becomes popular among users. With the GPL licences giving people the freedom to use and change the software at will, every good idea that comes along can be furthered by everyone else to fit their needs or tastes. This sharing is one of the core philosophies of free software and the GNU/Linux world.

Although the many possible choices may be intimidating for a new user, starting out with a user friendly distribution with good hardware support and a pleasant desktop environment will give you all of the benefits of the wider Linux ecosystem, while keeping things easy to manage. If you or your company then over time learn that there are particular tools available in another distro, or maybe you prefer another desktop environment or other core technologies, then it is usually easy to change from on distro to another. The hardest part is to switch from Mac OS X to Linux. Once on a Linux distro, there are very few lock-ins, so it is usually easy to change distro. Some do this so often that they are considered "distro hoppers".

Choose the desktop environment you like

On macOS and Windows, you either have to use the graphical user interface your operating system (OS) delivers or use another OS. On Linux, most distributions (distros) have lots of desktop environments and window managers (lower weight and simpler desktop environments) to choose from. If you like the core technologies of a distro, but dislike its desktop environment (DE), then you can install another DE instead. Some distros come with only one desktop environment by default (elementaryOS with the Pantheon DE). Other distros ship more than one desktop environment that the user can choose at install time (Antergos, Debian, Arch…) while others have different editions with different DEs (Manjaro, Linux Mint). Yet again other distros come with one official desktop environment, such as Ubuntu (with Unity), but with official and/or unofficial community projects, flavours or respins that deliver other desktop environments like Lubuntu (with LXDE), Xubuntu (with XFCE), Ubuntu MATE (with MATE), Ubuntu Gnome (with Gnome), Kubuntu (With KDE), Ubuntu Budgie (with Budgie).

Even where only one desktop environment is available in a distro, other desktop environments and window managers are usually available in the software repositories, and it is trivial to install your favourite. This also means that if a family shares a desktop computer, the mother might like to use KDE, the father might prefer Unity, the oldest daughter might like LXQt while the youngest son enjoys Joe's Window Manager. These different desktop environments and window managers will happily live on the same system and with multiple users logging into their favourite. It is also possible to use Gnu/Linux without a user interface at all and just log into the command line interface. Most servers (whether on real hardware or in virtual machines) are setup this way.

Use familiar Unix command line tools

Just like macOS and the BSDs, Linux has its roots in Unix. Unix had multi-user environments, networkability and stability as some of its strengths. The Linux kernel itself was originally made by Linus Torvalds to make a usable Unix system out of a desktop PC, even if it is now used on a vast range of devices and hardware architectures. Many of the command line tools used in Mac OS X are the same or have the same name as the GNU utilities used in Linux. That is why Linux distros are also called GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux. This means that if you used Unix back in the day, or if you have become familiar with the Mac OS X terminal, most of that knowledge is usable on Linux as well. So, for macOS power users, the Linux terminal will be a cosy and familiar place.

Linux is the natural choice when operating system does not matter

Sometimes, the operating system does not matter at all, and the choice is more down to economics and practicalities. In these cases Linux is a natural choice as it runs well on lots of different hardware, can be used cheaply, gives you better security than Windows during the supported lifespan of your distro while giving you maximum flexibility. This is the case when you use software that is running in "the cloud", such as Microsoft's Office 365, Google Docs, Visma Enterprise… The trend is that many programs that used to be native to Windows or macOS, but did not ship a Linux version is now available in the cloud through any browser. This means that some software that in the past was unavailable to Linux users (or at least only available through the use of Wine or a virtual machine that ran Windows) is now available. If you prefer to continue to use MS Office even after trying LibreOffice, Calligra and WPS Office, then you can use Office 365 in the cloud. Or you could continue using Office 365 while gradually checking out and getting used to the alternatives. For some users, this takes care of their "I would use Linux if only X was available" problem.

You could argue that when using web based software, then ChromeOS might be the natural choice, but the advantage of using a better Linux distro than ChromeOS (ChromeOS is actually based on Gentoo Linux with a custom made desktop environment and Chrome) is that in addition to the cloud services and web apps, you can also run desktop software and if you are a developer or sysadmin, you have access to the terminal. A Linux distro gives you everything ChromeOS does and runs just as great on the same type of low end hardware that ChromeOS runs on, but gives you a lot more flexibility and freedom of choice. ChromeOS also has the disadvantage of being tied into the Google ecosystem, which means that you have no privacy, as Google's business model is to learn as much about you as possible and use this information to give you targeted ads. You can run the same webapps on any Linux distro as on ChromeOS, but block ads and spyware if you like.

In addition to cloud services, there are also more traditional scenarios where the operating system does not matter, like for instance when a developer uses her laptop just as a terminal to gain access to the server where all the code is hosted and the software is built or a system administrator just needs a machine with SSH to monitor all his virtual servers in the cloud or machines at different locations. Many of the more technical, newer Mac users that came to Mac OS X in the early 2000s was enticed by the Unix underpinnings and the Aqua interface on top and the shiny hardware, but have recently found macOS to be gradually more locked down and less Unixy while the hardware have become less good (for instance with keyboards that makes your fingers hurt like on the new MacBook and MacBook Pros). At the same time as Macs have become less enticing, Linux distributions have become more user friendly and Linux desktop environments have become more polished. Combined with great hardware now on offer, many of these users now embrace ultrabooks with Linux preinstalled. Dell has specifically targeted developers in its line of Developer Edition computers with Ubuntu and this bet seems to be paying off for them. System76 and Entroware also have a great offering of high end laptops and desktops for pro users and are selling even more Linux machines than Dell.

Open standards without lock-in

Most programs you run on a Linux system use open standards for organising and saving documents. This means that if you want to switch from one photo library program to another one, you probably do not need to spend a lot of time exporting pictures or rearranging folders or anything like that. Just install the new software and start using it. The same applies to other categories of software like music players, word processors, spreadsheet programs, presentation software… Some programs like the GIMP or OpenShot use their own document formats, but they usually also open and export all the open standard formats in addition to a few well known non-open standard formats.

The use of open formats give you more freedom of choice. If you dislike the direction a program is going in, then you may switch to another program without any hassle. This is much harder if you are using programs with proprietary document formats (like MS Office), or where the content is stored inside a database you have to import or export from (like iPhoto). Once you have transitioned from the lock-in of the non-open formats to the open formats, you can continue to use these documents with whatever software you like for years to come, but if you stay with the non-open formats, those have a tendency to change every now and then, not because there is a need for change, but because Microsoft, Apple and others like to make it impossible for people with an older version of their software to open documents made in newer versions, and thus force people to pay once more for the same programs in a new version.

With more and more countries and regions switching to open standard formats like Open Document Format on their official websites, the future of these formats are much more guaranteed than the proprietary, ever-changing, non-open formats of Microsoft Office and others. Even if you use MS Office, iWork or Google Docs, you probably have to exchange documents with people that do not use the same programs as you, and the use of open standard document formats guarantees a higher rate of success, since most programs imports and exports them.

Economic advantages

Depending on what you use your computer(s) for, the use of Linux instead of Windows or macOS may save you some money. Most distros include a lot of free and open source software both preinstalled or in their software repositories. Much of this software can handle tasks you might have had to buy software to do on a Mac or Windows PC just fine. Most free and open source software is initially free of cost, but if you use the software, you are encouraged to contribute back either monetarily or by helping develop the software further through coding, design, translations or documentation or by simply spreading the word about it. This means that you can evaluate software without buying it, and when you decide which software you will continue using, you are free to postpone contributing back until you have the money, knowledge or time to do so. You are also in a position where you can influence the direction of a project by taking part in it.

Even if you primarily use paid for software (whether open source or closed source) and are a decent person contributing to your distro of choice, you may end up saving some money by getting hardware that is more future-proof or suited to your needs than what a Mac might deliver. With Apple going in the direction of non-upgradable hardware with built in forced obsolesensce and a focus on thinness over functionality, especially users which need high-end GPUs, CPUs, lots of storage and RAM or writers depending on good keyboards, will probably be better off economically by buying more upgradable hardware from other vendors. And you can choose the hardware you want, not the hardware Apple thinks you should want.

Macs have traditionally been more expensive, but you used to get a longer life-span out of the machines than their PC counterparts, but now, they are more expensive, but with the same standard PC parts as other X86 PCs, but with less future-proof designs. A high end laptop from Entroware, System76 or Dell beats a MacBook Pro both on price, raw performance, customisability and longevity, and thus delivers lower cost of ownership per year. Apple is also notorious for charging a lot for built to order options, even if these options are the only way to future proof a machine that is not user upgradable. If you use Linux, you can choose whatever hardware you like, and many vendors cater for both high end, mid-range and low end use cases.

If you do not need high-end hardware, the choice in low-end hardware for reasonable prices for Linux use is much greater than on macOS. Older Macs that no longer get security updates to their installed Mac OS X version and that are unable to be upgraded to later versions of Mac OS X can run many Linux distros just fine. (I used to run Ubuntu side by side with Snow Leopard on my late 2006 white MacBook.) For really low-end needs like thin clients, any used netbook, desktop or laptop from the last ten years will work fine. Just use a lightweight Linux distro like Lubuntu, Peppermint OS, Puppy Linux or AntiX. Even PowerPC Macs are still usable with Linux. And for digital signs, media centres, routers, firewalls, DNS servers and other low power needs, a Raspberry Pi or Intel Compute Stick works well. I use a Raspberry Pi3 with LibreElec for my entertainment system. It cost less than half of an Apple TV and does everything the Apple TV does and more.

Free and open source software gives you influence

With Apple, what you get is what you get. You can choose to postpone to upgrade, but at some point in time, you will no longer get security updates and you need to move on. Many long time Mac users have been bitten by Final Cut or Mac OS X updates that went against their wishes. Sometimes, Apple discontinue software either to replace it with something else that is worse (iPhoto) or not at all (ClarisWorks/AppleWorks, HyperCard, FrontRow). If these programs were open source projects, the code would be available and the users that relied on them could influence what features were implemented and what features were removed. In worst case scenario, they could fork the projects.

If you are dependent on a particular free and open source software, you might want to participate in the project. You can do this by donating money, report bugs and missing features, make translations or take part in the coding of the software. When you do that, you also get the power to influence the direction of the project together with other users. This means that if you need the software to work in a certain way, you can make that happen through participation. Often one user with good ideas can have tremendous influence on a project if she engages with the community in a friendly way. Most projects consists of users of the software, and more often than not, there are many people which want the software to fulfil the same needs. Most projects welcome constructive feedback that will help them towards being more useful for more people.

If the project nevertheless goes ahead in another direction than you wish, if the software is free and open source software, then you have the right to fork it. Forking software means that you make a new project based on the source code of the other project, and develop it further in the direction you and your like-minded would like it to go. It is a huge undertaking to fork a large project, but sometimes the fork becomes more popular than the parent project if enough people are onboard. A famous example of such a fork was when OpenOffice forked into LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. LibreOffice became the more popular fork and is now the standard office suite on many Linux distros as well as hugely popular on Mac and Windows as it has better compatibility with foreign file formats and many more features than OpenOffice.

This might all sound a bit theoretical. Most people are not programmers and do not have the knowledge or time to fork software projects. However, if you work for a firm that relies heavily on a particular software project, knowing that the source code for the program is available and that the licence allows you to fork means that you could put an in-house developer or an external contractor to work if you find that the project is moving in a direction that is bad for your business. This ability empowers users to make of the software what they want. It also ensures that open source projects do not become like the proprietary software makers that first and foremost think about how they can sell you more software as often as possible with new versions with change for the sake of change (often to the detriment of functionality) and new document formats that are incompatible with the old in an attempt to force people to update to be compatible with the rest of the world. Free and open source software is there for their users, not for the sake of a company, a project or a foundation.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/advantages-of-linux-mac-user.html https://einar.codeberg.page/advantages-of-linux-mac-user.html Tue, 31 Jan 2017 13:00:00 +0100 <![CDATA[MacOS 9 in QEMU on GNU/Linux]]> This is a video where I show how you can run Mac OS 9 in QEMU on GNU/Linux. I followed the documentation on the Arch Wiki and on the QEMU website to get things going.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/macos-9-in-qemu-on-gnu-linux.html https://einar.codeberg.page/macos-9-in-qemu-on-gnu-linux.html Thu, 24 Nov 2016 21:23:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Fun with the iBook Clamshell G3 300MHz]]> I made some videos in 2016 about fun things you can do with an iBook Clamshell G3 300MHz like switch out the hard drive with a CF-card, max the RAM and install Debian 7 on it. I orginally posted these videos to vid.me and later when they disappeared moved on to LBRY and Odyssee. Since I have room to spare on my website and this is a place I have control over myself, I thought I'd post them here now.

In the first video, I show how you can install Debian 7 on the iBook. In the second video I show you how I maxed the RAM and exchanged the ancient and clicking hard drive in my Blueberry iBook with a CF-card and CF-to ATA board. In the third video, I show how the iBook runs after the upgrades from the second video.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/fun-with-the-ibook-clamshell-g3-300mhz.html https://einar.codeberg.page/fun-with-the-ibook-clamshell-g3-300mhz.html Fri, 05 Aug 2016 14:12:00 +0200 <![CDATA[How to use an Apple remote with KODI on Ubuntu on an Intel NUC]]> I use an Intel NUC i5 as my desktop computer. With Ubuntu 16.04 and KODI (formerly XBMC) it also doubles as a home theatre PC. To make this media centre really usable, I was plannig to use an infrared remote to control KODI. It’s much more practical when sitting at a distance than using a wireless keyboard or trackpad. Most (if not all) of the Intel NUCs have an infrared sensor.

I happen to have a white Apple remote that I got with my white MacBook in 2006. It’s a really minimalist infrared remote control that originally was meant for use with FrontRow before Apple discontinued it when they launched the Apple TV and Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”. It is literally made for controlling media playback.

I found an excellent guide on how to set it up that worked very well for me, so I wanted to share it and write it down here to remember where I found it for later reference. It’s not too hard to follow and after setting it up with the correct addresses for each key, I am now able to remote control KODI. 🙂

2 Comments on How to use an Apple remote with KODI on Ubuntu on an Intel NUC

Carlos Santos 3rd August 2016 at 12:35 pm

Thanks for the reference 😉

Reply Einar 3rd August 2016 at 2:21 pm

Thank you for finding the information in the first place! It’s easy to follow your guide, but it must have taken a lot of time to figure it all out. 🙂

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-use-an-apple-remote-with-kodi-on-ubuntu-on-an-intel-nuc.html https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-use-an-apple-remote-with-kodi-on-ubuntu-on-an-intel-nuc.html Tue, 02 Aug 2016 17:11:00 +0200 <![CDATA[The Mac is dead, long live the Mac!]]>

The 30th anniversary of the Macintosh

I start up that old Quadra 700 in System 7, and I am back at the personal computer that lets me put whatever I want in the Apple-menu, a truely Wozniakian machine. I’m back at the desktop where I ResEdited all the desktop patterns and changed those STR# resources so my Mac would tell me «Welcome to Einar’s Mac» at start-up, back at the computer where I could put a picture in a special StartUpScreen format in the system folder, and see my picture as the background when the machine booted. I am back at that operating system that lets me choose which control panels and extensions should run, the system that lets me allocate the amount of RAM I want for my programs, the amount of virtual memory used and whether I would like a RAM-disk or not.

These were the days of System 7: The IBM-compatibles were the machines of the corporate office drones, opening their 3,11 Windows so their 1,6 children could Excel in Word with 4 colours. On my Mac, I could publish «newspapers» with the kids in my neighbourhood using ClarisWorks, while others were struggling with config.sys, autoexec.bat and extended memory. I could write orchestral scores in Finale at the age of learning my first words of English at school. I could program my own games in HyperTalk, make a contact database in ClarisWorks or chill with Prince of Persia or Maelstrom. I could draw superbly in SuperPaint even if not on paper. I could MacDraw, MacPaint, MacLISP and MacWrite II. These were the days of PowerBook 140s, the days when PCs didn’t have norwegian characters in the fonts used by MS-DOS while Macs had whatever keyboard layout I would like and the fonts to match them. These were the days of WriteNow, PageMaker, GraphicConverter, Netscape, iCab, WordPerfect and PhotoShop.

Alas, it had to end. Steve Jobs’ second coming at Apple brought a revolution. Bill Gates from MICROSOFT! was presented as Apple’s saviour at MacWorld. Hell had frozen over and Steve Jobs held a funeral for Mac OS 9. Our corporate overlords decided that everything on screen should be grey from now on and that the Apple logo should loose its colours. Resistance was futile and the brushed aluminium age of Apple Inc. had commenced. All the colour, charm, humour and personality of the good old Macintosh System Software was gone. Forever lost to retro-computing was Clarus the dog-cow, the view of the Cupertino campus hidden in «About Finder», the program menu from the days of ye olde MultiFinder, the customisable and colourful Apple-menu, and the illogical charm of logging into a network server over AppleTalk with the Chooser DA.

It was a new jungle of Panthers, Tigers, Snow Leopards and Mountain Lions. It was a Quartz Extreme time of Carbonised Aqua and imprisonment in brushed metal interfaces. It was a time of confusion of keyboard shortcuts, and a time of mousing into the menu after not having had to do so since System 6 in the late 80s. It was a time of every program having a menu called the name of the program, but not containing much other than «Settings..» and «Quit», in stead of the File menu being next to the Apple menu, as Atkinson intended and sense predicted. It was mayham and confusion. It was a time of accepting being a user, not a poweruser. It was brutal, but I adapted.

Macs are more popular than ever, with the Mac-hating sheep of the MS-DOS days now flocking to the glass-walled, consumerist temples that are the Apple stores. For the new converts, the Mac delivers the friendly interface Windows users never knew they could have. (Try out the control panel on a Mac and compare with Windows, and you get what I mean.) But for me, the magic has faded with the six colours. I still use Macs, and in many ways, they are greater than ever, but I don’t like that Apple’s designs are forcing obsolesence while Cook is talking green on stage. I find myself drawn towards the open source world, where lots of the exciting new technological developments are happening. Maybe it is just a matter of wanting to think different(ly)?

This is the legacy of the Macintosh: the idea that a computing device needs a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) to be efficient and compelling. It’s everywhere today, not necessarily greatly executed, but everywhere. I love my iBook, Macintosh Server G3, MacBook, MacBook Pro and EeePC, but nothing gets me moofing like starting System 7.6.1 on the Quadra, hearing the major chord chime, seeing the happy Mac, and booting into the good old Finder. I get the warm feeling of coming home to my personal computer.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/the-mac-is-dead-long-live-the-mac.html https://einar.codeberg.page/the-mac-is-dead-long-live-the-mac.html Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:30:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Inside Macintosh Quadra 700 or Essential upgrades]]> Link back to the main Macintosh Quadra 700 page

There are many different ways of upgrading your Quadra, but the easiest and most essential upgrade is to maximise the RAM. This makes it possible to run later versions of Mac OS that need more RAM to run properly, it makes multitasking smoother, it makes it possible to make the disk cache larger for faster reads from disk and it makes it possible to add a RAM disk. (I wonder why Apple didn't include the possibility to make a RAM disk in Mac OS X…)

In addition to maxing the RAM, I needed to change my PRAM battery. This is the battery that keeps settings for screen resolution, sound volume, disk cache, virtual memory, boot disk, etc. and keeps the date and time counter going even if the machine is off.

I was buying some other stuff from OtherWorld Computing anyway, and saw that they still sold RAM for the Quadra, so I thought I'd better order some while it is still available. I also got a PRAM battery. Sadly, they do not offer VRAM for Quadras anymore.

Before I started upgrading the machine, I consulted the Macintosh IIcx/IIci/Quadra 700 hardware repair manual that I found somewhere on the internet. (It's copyrighted by Apple, but I suppose they don't mind if I make it easily available.) I then put the Quadra on its side and opened the lid by pulling up the tabs on the back of the machine. There was no screw to unscrew on this Quadra, even if it is supposed to be one in the middle of the back of the computer. The last time this computer was opened was probably when the hard drive failed in the late 90s some time. It was naturally very dusty inside. I blew off the dust before taking the picture below. The power supply is easy to remove once you have pressed the latch

Initially, I had some trouble getting the power supply out. After a long while of fiddling about underneath the power supply, I found the latch that the repair manual mentions. It is a white latch located on the underside of the slot the power supply is resting on, on what is usually the top of the computer. After I found this latch, it was easy to lift the power supply out of the computer.

I then followed the repair manual's sections for removing the hard drive and removing the floppy drive and disk mount. And finally, I could see the four SIMM slots for RAM and the PRAM battery next to it. I wonder why the RAM slots and PRAM isn't situated on the part of the motherboard that isn't covered by the disk drives and the power supply. It could have been much simpler to upgrade this machine and there is plenty of room above the two expansion slots. Strange design decision.

The repair manual suggests using a special SIMM removal tool to get the RAM SIMMS out of their sockets. I don't have such a tool, so I looked closly in the repair manual at the illustration showing what the SIMM tool does and then I looked closley at the SIMM sockets and realised that all I needed to do to get the sockets to release the SIMMs is to press the two black latches on each side of the SIMMs away from the SIMM circuit boards with something. Two small flat screwdrivers worked well for this job.

The new SIMMs from OWC was slightly taller than the old ones, wich made me worry about wheter the disk mount would still fit into the case on top of the new SIMMs. I installed the new SIMMs anyway by sliding them into the slot from the side and raising them until they were vertical. There was no loud click of the black latches, but after raising the SIMMs to 90 degrees, they sat firmly. I had to start with the one furthest to the right, since all of them had to be slided in from the left. Quadra 700 without the power supply

The PRAM battery is sitting inside a small black plastic box, next to the SIMM slots. Yesterday, I changed the PRAM battery in my Beige G3, so I didn't have to look up how to get the battery out of the box (as I had to yesterday). The trick is to stick in a small, flat screwdriver on both of the short sides of the box, between the inner plastic covering the poles of the battery and the upper plastic cage and lift the plastic cage upwards. When changing the battery, it is important to remember wich way the battery sat. I took out the battery without thinking about that until it was too late, but luckily there are + and - indicators on the bottom of the battery cage in the Quadra 700.

Then I reassembled the machine by putting everything back. My worries about the SIMMs being to high turned out to be unnecessary. The disk mount and the power supply both fit perfectly even with the higher RAM and the lid closed properly afterwards. Then I plugged the Quadra into my monitor through the VMAC-1 VGA to Apple DB 15 plug and plugged in the keyboard and mouse, connected the ethernet through the Farrallon AAUI to RJ45 plug to my Macbook Pro, turned on internet sharing on the Macbook Pro and turned the machine on.

Bong! The machine booted just fine into Mac OS 7.6.1. In the "About this Macintosh" (in the Apple menu) it said I now have 68 MB or RAM. I then went into the Memory control panel and upped my disk cache and into the Date and Time control panel to set the current date and time. Everything seems to be working fine. My plan is to install Mac OS 8.1. Mac OS 7.6.1 is a good operating system, and it is possible to bring some of the newer features of Mac OS 8 back to 7, but since I never used Mac OS 8 back in the day (I jumped directly from a Performa 450 with 7.6.1 to an iBook Clamshell with 9.2.2 in 2002), I am looking forward to trying out the latest operating system the Quadra can run. My plan is to use this Quadra as I used my Performa 450, that is for musical notation, sequencing, patch editing, word processing, picture editing, HyperTalking and some light gaming. With iCab and Transmit, the old gal can even surf web pages and upload files to my web hotel. :-)

The Quadra 700 after removing the power supply and the disks

The About this Macintosh desktop accesory in Mac OS H-7.6.1

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/inside-macintosh-quadra-700-or-essential-upgrades.html https://einar.codeberg.page/inside-macintosh-quadra-700-or-essential-upgrades.html Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:27:00 +0200 <![CDATA[How to import Mac OS X Adress Book contacts in Thunderbird]]> I am migrating from Mac OS X Mail to Thunderbird (to make syncing between machines easier) and as part of that process I wanted to import my contacts from the Mac OS X Address book. It is possible to use contacts from the Mac OS X Address book without importing them, but since I am going to sync Thunderbird on my MacBook Pro with Thunderbird on my netbook running Ubuntu, I want to import the contacts.

On the help pages for switching from Mac OS X Mail to Thunderbird it is suggested that one could drag and drop contacts from the Mac OS X Address Book to the Personal Address book inside the Address book window in Thunderbird. But sadly, it doesn't work. The «Personal Address book» will not get highligheted if I drag contacts to it and if I release them over it anyway, nothing happens.

In stead, many forums on the net suggest selecting all contacts from the Mac OS X Address book, dragging them to the desktop, and thus creating a .vcf file of all your contacts. When importing this file into Thunderbird, I experienced that half of my contacts were not properly imported and had blank firstnames and surnames. It might be a text encoding problem, since all names starting with «Å» were blank after importing, but on the other hand, names starting with «Ø» were imported correctly, so maybe it is not about text encoding at all. Many contacts without any sepcial characters were blank as well. Anyway, this way of importing contacts doesn't work either.

I also tried «asking a question» on the Thunderbird support pages, but that process just stalled when I hit submit. I am using the newest Firefox, so I suppose the browser is not the issue…

Finally, after having searched for a long time on many forums online for help and ending up with lots of broken links to scripts that were supposed to solve the problem, I found VCF to CSV. It converts vCard files (.vcf files) to the LDIF CSV format that Thunderbird imports. I just had to open Mac OS X Address book, select all contacts, drag them to the desktop, rename the file to the name I wanted for my new address book in Thunderbird, open the tab with vcf2csv.com in Firefox, select «Choose file…», select the file I had just created, wait for the conversion to finish and then choose «import…» from the «Tools» menu in the Address book window of Thunderbird, select «Address book» and select the newly converted file. And all my contacts were finally correctly imported.

I find it very strange that Thunderbird does not correctly import Mac OS X Address book without the use of some third party tool. It is probably the most used Address book after Outlooks address book. Ideally, the drag and drop method suggested in the oficial Mozilla documentation for switchers should work, but even if that didn't work, the importing of vCards should work. Neither does in Thunderbird 17.0.6.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-import-mac-os-x-adress-book-contacts-in-thunderbird.html https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-import-mac-os-x-adress-book-contacts-in-thunderbird.html Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:16:00 +0200 <![CDATA[How to sync podcasts between a Mac and Linux computer]]> I have been looking for a good way to sync podcasts between my Macbook Pro and Asus EeePC running Lubuntu. On the Mac, I have been using iTunes and for a while I just synced the \~/music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Podcasts folder from my Mac to my netbook with BitTorrent Sync. Then I only had to download the podcasts once on my Mac, and all podcasts would be synced to the netbook. The main problem with this apporach was that there was no way of seeing wich podcasts I had allready heard/seen without either remembering its file name or opening it to check if I had allready heard/seen it. There was also no nice GUI to see the metadata for the podcasts on my netbook without opening the files in a media player.

I stumbled across gPodder, an easy to use open source podcatcher for Linux, Windows and Mac. gPodder is a program that only does podcatching, but it does it really well. It doesn't play video or sound by itself, but the user can choose any desired program to do that. There is a sync service built into the program, but I am not a fan of trusting third party servers in «the cloud», so I am not using that.

gPodder stores all its settings and all downloaded podcasts in a folder called gPodder in your user directory. The formats of the files in the folder are the same no matter which operating system you are running. This means that to keep the same settings and the same downloaded content across machines, you could just sync the gPodder folder with BitTorrent Sync from one machine to the other. The smart thing about this is that it doesn't matter if I am at my Mac or my netbook, I can now download podcasts on wichever machine and they will be available on the other machine as well.

With the same settings, syncing from one machine to the other, you are not able to choose different programs on each machine for playing your podcasts, and even if you choose the same program on the Mac and Linux machine, you will get into trouble, since they are not stored at the same place. What you need to do is set gPodder to use the «Default program» for both audio and video in the «General» tab in the «Settings» panel and change that program to whatever you like on each machine. On the Mac, mp3 files defaults to open in iTunes if you haven't changed this setting, and this is not ideal, since iTunes will, by default, add any files to its library, thus storing the same file twice on the machine.

I am using VLC as the default program for most video and sound files on both my Mac and EeePC. To set wich programs act as default on a Mac, choose a file of the desired format in the Finder, press command-I (or choose «Get info» from the «File» menu) and choose the desired program in the pull down menu on the lower left. Then click «Change all…» to make this change universal for all files of this type. On Lubuntu, just select «Default programs» from «System settings» in the Lubuntu menu and change to your desired programs. On Ubuntu, choose «System settings» from the dash or dock, then choose the «Details» settings panel and the «Default programs» tab from the menu on the left and set music and video to whatever you prefer.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-sync-podcasts-between-a-mac-and-linux-computer.html https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-sync-podcasts-between-a-mac-and-linux-computer.html Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:28:00 +0200 <![CDATA[How to sync files between computers securely and fast]]> Behold, the end of the time of the sneakernet has come! For a long time, I have wanted to sync some files back and forth between my various computers. So far, I have been using AFP over TCP/IP, FTP or sneakernet with USB dongles to transfer files between machines. The downside to this way of syncing files is that I have to manually copy any file I have changed from one machine to the other. It is easy to get conused about wich machine ha the newest version of a file. A disadvantage of using AFP over TCP/IP is that I have to have file sharing (or netatalk on linux) enabled all the time on one or more machines, wich might be a bad idea since it is probably not that hard to crack the password and get full access to my files. Or I have to turn it on and off every time I am tranferring some files back and forth.

The other option, so far, has been using one of the many cloud services out there. The problem with cloud services is that they are slow, since they have to transfer all your files from machine A to a server on the internet (or «the cloud») before machine B can download the files from that server. Even with a fast internet connection at both ends, this is much slower than just transferring the files manually over a local area network (LAN) from one machine to the other. It might also be slower than sneakernet.

The other problem with cloud services is privacy. DropBox was recently hacked and since it encrypts every dropbox folder of every dropbox client with the same encryption key, all data uploaded to DropBox was suddenly public information. Even if the companies behind your cloud service might have better security in place, you have no garantee that the data you upload to their servers will not be sold to marketing companies. You better read those terms of service… How much do you really trust Apple, Microsoft, Google, Dropbox or Cannonical?

The brilliant solution to the syncing problem is Bittorrent Sync. It is a new syncing service using peer-to-peer connections with the bittorrent protocol. If you are syncing two machines on the same local area network, these two machines will connect to each other and sync the data between folders on the two machines. This is much faster than any cloud service, since it doesn't have to upload any data to any server on the internet before downloading from the same server.

If the machines syncing folders are situated in different locations, the connection is made over the internet from the first machine to the second machine directly. Since no server is involved this is also faster than the cloud services.

If more than two machines are syncing a folder, the bittorrent protocol will make sure that data gets conveyed as fast as possible from the machines that have got the data to the other ones syncing the same folder, with different mchines contributing different parts of the folder, just as when you download files with a normal bittorrent client program.

Since all connections are made between the computers syncing the folder and no server in «the cloud» is involved, there are no third parties that will have a copy of the data transmitted. The connections between machines are encrypted, wich means that the data is not easy to sniff out either. Every folder you sync gets a random generated «secret», a key that you have to input at all the other machines syncing the same folder. By inserting the secret, the other machine gets to know wich machine(s) to connect to and wich folder to sync.

With some cloud services you have to put the files you want to sync in a special folder, but with Bittorrent sync, you can sync any folder on one machine with any folder on another machine. So, if you for instance want to keep your LibreOffice settings synced between a couple of Macs, you could sync the LibreOffice folder inside Application Support folder in your Libraries folder. Or you could update programs only on one machine and sync the program folder to all the other machines to avoid having to download the same programs more than once from the internet.

Another advantage of Bittorrent Sync is that there are no limitations on the amount of data you can sync, since there are no servers in «the cloud» that could limit your capacity. There are no extra fees for transferring more data than a certain amount and no need to buy extra space on cloud servers. However, If you want to, you may limit the upload and download bandwith BitTorrent Sync is allowd to use.

There is also a possibility to sync only one way. A scenario where this might be usefull is if you want to share some photos with some friends, but don't want to let them add their own files to the folder to be synced back. There is also a possibility to make a one-time «secret» that will let a person sync a folder only within 24 hours of the generation of the secret. These secrets might be one-way (read only) or full access.

At this point, Bittorrent Sync is only available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux, but Bittorrent labs are working on making clients for mobile phones and tablets as well. The Linux version is managed through a webbrowser in stead of the program having its own GUI. Check out this blog post for the lastest Ubuntu and Debian user packages. Many thanks to tuxpoldo for making the packages!

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-sync-files-between-computers-securely-and-fast.html https://einar.codeberg.page/how-to-sync-files-between-computers-securely-and-fast.html Mon, 20 May 2013 13:22:00 +0200 <![CDATA[Sleipnir på norsk og svensk]]> Jeg har de siste månedene brukt nettleseren Sleinir fra Fenrir Inc. Det geniale med den er at man kan ha haugevis av faner liggende åpne i ulike fanegrupper og navigere mellom dem ved hjelp av håndbevegelser på styreplata. Det er en effektiv måte å navigere rundt på nettet, særlig om man ofte besøker de samme sidene. Om man bruker ulike operativsystemer og smarte telefoner og dingser kan man synkronisere bokmerker mellom de ulike plattformene også. De har versjoner av nettleseren for Mac, Windows, Android, iOS og Windows Phone.

Da jeg var inne for å oppdatere nettleseren til nyeste versjon så jeg at Fenrir spurte etter frivillge til å oversette Sleipnir til ulike språk. I og med at jeg liker nettleseren og ville likt den enda bedre på norsk tenkte jeg at jeg kunne hjelpe til. Neste versjon av Sleipnir for Mac vil derfor komme med norsk og svensk lokalisering. På denne siden kan man se hvilke andre lokaliseringer Sleipnir kommer med.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/sleipnir-p%C3%A5-norsk-og-svensk.html https://einar.codeberg.page/sleipnir-p%C3%A5-norsk-og-svensk.html Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:46:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Where to find software online for the Macintosh Quadra 700]]> Link back to the main Macintosh Quadra 700 page

This is a list of links to sites where software comaptible with a Quadra might be found. I will add to it when I discover new sites, so this list will hopefully grow with time. Most of the software is useable on any Mac (or emulator) running System 7 or Mac OS 8. There are also some System 6 programs that might be usable in System 7 and 8. For use with a Quadra, the software must either be "68k" or "Fat Binary". "68k" indicates that the program is coded for 680x0-processors used in the early Macs. "Fat Binary" means that the program has code for both 680x0 and Power PC processors. "PPC" programs will only run on Macs with a Power PC prosessor.

System 7 Today Software Centre - all software is tested on Mac OS 7.6.1 and divided into 68k and PPC categories
Abandonware macintosh - french site focused on emulators, but with lots of usable 68k software
The Gryphel project - software for 68k Macs
Al's older Mac software - some old programs, utilities and games
Programming utilities for Mac OS - by Alexander M Kasprzyk
Old Apple Software sorted by localisation

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/where-to-find-software-online-for-the-macintosh-quadra-700.html https://einar.codeberg.page/where-to-find-software-online-for-the-macintosh-quadra-700.html Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:48:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Which operating system software to use on the Quadra 700]]> Link back to the main Macintosh Quadra 700 page

The Quadra 700 (and 900) can run any system version between system 7.0.1 and Mac OS 8.1. Which system version is right for you is a matter of which features you want/need, how much RAM you have installed, wether you would consider buying a system version on CD or stick with what you have on diskettes, CD(s) or what is available for download from Apple and wether you are planning to use software which require a certain system version. The older system versions demand less RAM and hard drive space, but they have fewer of the modern features built in, so for machines with enough RAM, a newer system might be better. Many of the newer features are available even to older systems with additional innstallation of control panels, extensions and other software.

Allthough a Quadra can run Mac OS 8.0 and 8.1, these system versions demand lots of RAM, so unless you have 20 MB or more, they might not be very useable. They also use a lot of hard disk space. I have got 8 MB of physical RAM (16 with RAM doubler) and currently I am using H-7.6.1. H is Apple's code for norwegian software. Unfortunately 7.6 and/or 7.6.1 isn't available for free download from Apple and since 7.5.5 is more or less the same system but with fewer of the additional "modern" features as part of the system, it is probably the best choice if you haven't got a CD with 7.6.1. You just have to install a few more extra system extensions and control panels. Even with 7.6.1 there are a couple of extras needed to be installed for maximum useability in the modern world and on the internet. System7today.com have this page of ultimate updates for Mac OS 7.6.1 on 68k Macs.

I have also tried H-7.1 (which I have original diskettes for) and H-7.5.3. My idea was trying to use the smallest and fastest system possible since my Quadra only has 8 MB of physical RAM (16 MB with RAM doubler). My main reason for changing from H-7.1 to H-7.5.3 was that I had trouble setting up MacTCP and therefore had trouble connecting to other computers and the internet. In 7.5.3 it is possible to use open transport, and with it DHCP, which means that there is no configuring of IP adresses and such needed. (I'm slightly IP challenged and I have a dynamic IP adress with my internet provider.) With both 7.1 and 7.5.3 I used Tyler Sable's guide to installing a "modern" system 7.0.1 and System 7.5.5. However I found system H-7.5.3 with Sable's additional "modern" features quite unstable with lots of bombs and sudden stops in the middle of processes, especially network related processes, so I thought I would give H-7.6.1 a new chance. So far, H-7.6.1 has been much more stable than H-7.5.3. Unfortunately, the norwegian version of 7.5.5 isn't available for download, but H-7.5.3 is.

The one feature I would love to have available that comes in Mac OS 8.1 is the ability to read HFS+ volumes. It would make it easier to access some software that is actually compatible with system 7 and 68k macs, but that is distributed on a HFS+ volume in the form of disc images. (I have come across a few of those.) It would also make burning CDs for use on the Quadra from other machines much easier and faster. I am now using an external SuperDrive through the USB 1.1 port of my iBook Clamshell (G3/300 MHz) to burn CDs for the Quadra, since the version of Disk tools in Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard" on my MacBook Pro has no support for creating disc images or burning CDs with HFS-volumes. Mac OS 10.4 "Tiger" on my iBook Clamshell supports HFS volumes. After I got my internet connection working (I needed open transport on a CD to do that), I have been using FTP to transfer files between my Quadra and my MacBook Pro.

Here are some information about different system versions compatible with the Quadra:

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/which-operating-system-software-to-use-on-the-quadra-700.html https://einar.codeberg.page/which-operating-system-software-to-use-on-the-quadra-700.html Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:36:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Essential additional hardware]]> Link back to the main Macintosh Quadra 700 page

…for connecting to modern networks and the internet

Farallon AAUI RJ-45 Ethernet transceiver

Because the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900 were made while there were two standard ways of connecting to an ethernet network (Coax with terminators in the ends and RJ-45), Apple chose to think differently and develop a third type of port called AAUI-15 for the built in ethernet. There is an article on Low End Mac about the AAUI Ethernet connector and it's history. Since RJ-45 Ethernet has become the modern standard for wired networking, an ethernet adapter is more or less a necessity if you want to connect your Quadra to the internet or network it with modern Macs or PCs. The other way to network would be to use LocalTalk, wich can be useful for networking with Macs without Ethernet ports (pre-Quadra Macs). There's an article by Adam Rosen on Low End Mac about networking with older Macs.

I found a used Farallon AAUI RJ45 Ethernet Transceiver on ebay that didn't cost much, even with shipping from the USA to Sweden. It works fine and connects my Quadra to the internet connection shared from my MacBook Pro. It's the one you see on the right here. There is also some types wich have two RJ-45 ports that allow you to connect more than one computer to your Quadra.

…for connecting to a modern screen

Viewsonic VMAC-1

The other essential hardware addition to a Quadra 700 or Quadra 900 is an adapter from Apple's DB-15 display port to a standard DE-15 VGA port to connect the Quadra to a modern screen. In the past, the manufacturers of screens for Macs included cables for their screens. The trouble is that the Quadra would use how certain pins on the plug are connected in the screen cable to figure out wich screen resolution, colour depth and what refresh frequency to use, so even if you have a cable that connects an older screen to your Mac and the port on the back of the screen is a VGA port, you can't use this cable with another screen with a VGA port if it is not capable of using the exact same resolution, colour depth and refresh frequency. I tried using a cable that came with my Radius 2 page greyscale display (21 inch) to connect my Samsung SyncMaster P2770HD screen/TV to the Quadra and the result was that I could only use 16 greys in 1152 x 870 and the screen looked very blueish. Even if it is possible to get a Mac DB-15 male to VGA DE-15 female adapter "block" such an adapter would not be of much use since there is no way of knowing wich resolution and colour depth it is made for when you buy it, except if it is stated by the seller. It might not match your screen at all and you will have no flexibility if you need to connect to other screens with other resolutions in the future.

After some research, I found that the Viewsonic Universal Macintosh Adapter VMAC-1 that has DIP swithces for changing resolution and sync mode would probably be one of the best options. I found this user guide online. I got one on ebay that was unused and in its original packaging. It has DIP switches for setting the resolution and sync mode, but these can be hidden by a lid when set. With this adapter I have been succesfully using 16 colours with a resolution of 1152 x 870 and a 75 Hz refresh frequency on my Samsung screen. The screen seems happy with the sync mode set to either Separate, Composite or Separate+Composite. Lately, I have switched to 832 x 624 to get 256 colours. (I have the stock 512 kB of Video RAM, so I can't get more than 16 colours at 1152 x 870.) 16 greys was fine on the Radius screen, but many programs seem to anticipate either black and white or 256 or more colours. My Samsung SyncMaster handbook does list Mac 640 x 480, Mac 832 x 624 and Mac 1152 x 870 in a "Table of standard signal modes" together with horisontal and vertical refresh frequencies and polarity, so maybe that is why it has worked so well for me. It doesn't list the other resolutions the Quadra 700 support and I haven't tried them either. "If it ain't broke…"

For more information about the internal graphics card in the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900, the article by Dale Adams, the original designer of the Quadra 700 and 900 built in video capabilities is the best place to start. There is also an article by Glenn Fleishman on TidBits discussing the advantage of the on board video of the Quadra 700 over later computers in the Apple lineup. Where to find these things in Europe

Places to look for items like these in Europe would be amazon.de, amazon.co.uk (they do not ship electronics to the rest of Europe for fear of mismatched power outlets, so if you don't live in Britain, use amazon.de in stead), finn.no, blocket.se, dba.dk, ebay.se, ebay.co.uk, ebay.de &c There are lots of cheap items from the USA on ebay. These can usually be shipped quite cheaply if they don't weigh much. If they are not too expensive, you don't have to pay customs either. For more costly or heavier items, it is usually better to shop in Europe since there is no customs inside the EU and shipping is less expensive. It's also better for the environment not to ship lots of heavvy goods around the world.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/essential-additional-hardware.html https://einar.codeberg.page/essential-additional-hardware.html Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:19:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Network Time setup for Central European Time with summer time]]> Link back to the main Macintosh Quadra 700 page

Network Time is a control panel that sets the time and date of your Mac with the help of a network time server. You can download it from system7today.com. Network Time comes preconfigured with some time zones in America and it can use the settings of your "Map" control panel. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with the settings from the "Map" control panel if the name of the control panel is anything else than "Map", so unless you use some sort of english localisation this feature doesn't work. But it is easy to set up manually.

This is how to set it up to use Central European Time:

Open the Network Time control panel and write "time.euro.apple.com" in the Time Server box
Choose "Add/change Time Zones…" from the Time zone pull down menu.
Click "New"
Write "Central European Time" or whatever you like in the "Zone name" box.
Click the "Universal time +" radio button
Write 1 in the h box.
Click "Use Daylight Savings Time".
Click the "Add" radio button.
Write 1 in the h box.
Choose Begin: "Last" "Sunday" "in" "March" at "01.00" and End: "Last" "Sunday" "In" "October" at "01.00" as shown in the picture above. This wil automatically set Central European Summer Time at the right time.
Click "OK" twice.
Choose "Central European Time" (or whatever you called it) in the Time Zone pull down menu.
Click "Set Time" to set time or choose a time interval at wich time will be set by writing in the "Every… hour" box.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/network-time-setup-for-central-european-time-with-summer-time.html https://einar.codeberg.page/network-time-setup-for-central-european-time-with-summer-time.html Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:45:00 +0100 <![CDATA[EM's Quadra Pages]]>

Welcome to my Quadra 700 pages!

This is a collection of information and links concerning the Macintosh Quadra 700. Some of this info will also be useful for people with other Macs from the early 90s and for people emulating a Quadra with BasiliskII on a modern computer. Especially Quadra 900, Mac IIci and Mac IIcx users might find some nugget of relevant info, since the hardware of these machines resemble the Quadra 700 a lot. The Macintosh IIcx and IIci use the same case design as the Quadra 700 and can be upgraded to a Quadra by switching out the motherboard. The Quadra 900 was released at the same time as the 700 as its big brother and lives in a larger case, but is otherwise very similar to the 700.

I wrote these pages in HTML with Simple Text on the Quadra 700 for maximum compatibility with older browsers and minimum load times. All pictures are kept relatively small in size for the same reasons. Sometimes less really is more. If some letters look strange, you should set the character encoding in your browser to "ISO Latin 1", "Western European" or some other name indicating the "iso-8859-1" encoding.

The dates in paranthesis after a link is when I updated the page lastly, in dd.mm.yyyy format. I think I might have the newest pages on the internet designed on a Quadra 700. Of course, I also have my WordPress blog, but I want to keep these pure HTML pages for people using older browsers and slow connections. I am not hosting these pages myself on the Quadra (it might possibly be done with MkLinux and the LAMP stack if the machine's RAM is maxed), but the excellent Transmit FTP program let me upload it to my web hotel.

Hardware

Quadra 700 hardware specifications (24.04.2012)
Essential additional hardware (12.02.2012)
Inside Macintosh Quadra 700 or Essential upgrades (03.07.2013)

Software

Which system software to use on the Quadra 700 (15.03.2012)
Network Time setup for Central European Time with summer time (11.02.2012)
Where to find software online (15.03.2012)

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/ems-quadra-pages.html https://einar.codeberg.page/ems-quadra-pages.html Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Format anxiety]]> I am a long time Mac user and have been through many transitions during the years. The 68k to PowerPC processor transition was allmost unnoticable for me as a user. When I switched from my Performa 450 with System 7.6.1 to an iBook Clamshell in 2002, the iBook ran all my programs just fine, even if many of them were from 1994 and for 68k processors. Everything continued to work well even after upgrading the Clamshell from Mac OS 9.0.4 to 9.2.2. No backwards compatibility problems at all.

The transition to Intel was harder. My iBook died when I stumbled in the power cord in 2006, so I bought myself a MacBook for Christmas. (I was able to ressurect the iBook in 2008, though.) I didn't use OS X on the iBook, so that was a new user interface to master and in addition to that, none of my old programs could be run on the MacBook since Intel Macs didn't support Classic Mode even if I was running Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger". Luckily Apple supplied some great free programs in the iLife suite and I soon downloaded OpenOffice and some alternative browsers. I got a copy of AppleWorks 6 and that helped me slightly further (although not as much as anticipated, since it would not read my old ClarisWorks 2.1 documents, only my quite new AppleWorks 5 documents).

In 2009, I upgraded my MacBook from Tiger to Snow Leopard, wich was a huge improvement even if it was a bit buggy in the start (this is the only time I have been an early adaptor of a new Mac OS) and in 2010 my MacBook died and I bought a MacBook Pro. (Later I was able to ressurect my MacBook's hard drive, so even if it lacks a battery and optical drive, it works. I use it for wireless backup and for ripping DVDs with an external optical drive.) I also bought Finale PrintMusic, a light version of the Finale music notational program, since I was a heavy user of Finale from 1989 untill 2006, but OS X broke it for me at a time when I couldn't afford bying a new version for OS X.

Yesteryear, I got iWorks from my mother and took a day to convert all my old ClarisWorks 2.1 documents to AppleWorks 5 on the iBook, convert all of those with AppleWorks 6 on my MacBook Pro to AppleWors 6 documents and convert those further to Numbers and Pages, in addition to my AppleWorks 6 documents. I find it quite ridiculous that Pages will read Microsoft Word files in all types of legacy formats, but not AppleWorks and ClarisWorks documents unless they are AppleWorks 6. It is sort of Apple's way of giving the finger to their own long time customers at the same time as they are giving a helping had to long time Microsoft users.

AppleWorks 6 also had much better support for legacy Microsoft formats than legacy Claris/Apple formats. Even if Apple is constantly going forward and trying to promote itself as the company of innovation, most people actually like to be able to open their own documents, even if they were made some years ago. Being able to open old documents made with Microsoft software, but not with Claris/Apple software is totally insane if Apple want people to use and trust their software. It gets even more ridicolous when the ability to open your documents in older versions of the same program is not available either, since the newer Macs are unable to open pre OS X applications, so if you don't have an old Mac lying around, you are totally unable to convert your old documents to newer formats. If you go from a 386 IBM clone with Windows 3.11 and Microsoft Office to a MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard", then iWorks will import all your documents just fine. But iWorks won't open your ClarisWorks 5 documents made on a PowerPC Mac in 2003.

After these experiences, I am very cautious about saving my documents in Apple's own formats. Even if Microsoft has also changed document formats many times to force customers to move to newer versions of their software, they still make sure that their new software will open their own legacy formats, so their own users don't loose the ability to open their documents produced in earlier versions of the same software. Any software company with respect for their users would do this when moving to new document formats.

I am not really willing to bet my documents on Apple's continued support for their own formats, so I have converted most of my text documents where formatting is not important into Rich Text Format (RTF). Rich Text Format has been with us since the dawn of time and is still a widely supported format that includes support for bold, italics and other simple formatting, as well as less problems with using letters outside the English alphabet across platforms and text encodings, wich is quite important if most of your documents are not in English. I have yet to come across a word processor unable to open RTF documents.

For documents with page formatting, like term papers and such, I have made PDFs of them in additon to converting them to open document format (.odt) wich is usable in LibreOffice, OpenOffice, NeoOffice, AbiWord and most other open source word processors. I had to convert to Microsoft Word format first in Pages and AppleWorks 6 and then open those word doceuments in NeoOffice to convert them to open document format.

I have also converted all my old ClarisWorks spreadsheets into Numbers documents quite recently, but I am now thinking that I will convert those as well to open document format (again I will be exporting to MS Excel and then use "Save as.." in NeoOffice. I converted my old MacPaint, MacDraw and ClarisWorks draw and paint documents to PDFs a long time ago, so all of my old concert posters and such are still with me.

There are many good reasons to use the open document formats. First, they are widely supported by a lot of software that is under active development by people in the open source movement. Even if it is not such an old and widely supported format as RTF, more and more programs are including support for opening and saving in open document format. As I am not really willing to buy proprietary software to do things free software does just as well, it seems a good choice both for my wallett and for not becoming to dependent on the whims of large companies like Apple and Microsoft.

Another reason to use open document format is that whatever operating system you are using, there is software easily available that will open these documents. This means that you can mail these documents to anybody, and they will be able to read them easily, and if you in the future should decide to change operating system, there is no need to convert your documents, since software that read these files are available for all the major operating systems. With the direction of both Mac OS and Windows going towards forcing the otherwise brilliant tablet and smart phone GUIs onto desktop and laptop users, with more or less lock-in to their own app stores, and less and less availability of the file system, I am getting more inclined towards changing my operating system. I have started exploring Linux distributions in virtual machines with the VirtualBox, but that is another story.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/format-anxiety.html https://einar.codeberg.page/format-anxiety.html Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:43:00 +0200 <![CDATA[Beste nettleser for Mac OS 10.3.X?]]> Når jeg nå kjører Mac OS “Panther” 10.3.9 på min iBook Clamshell betyr det at det er mange nettlesere jeg ikke kan benytte nyeste versjon av, fordi de nyeste versjonene som regel krever Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger” eller nyere. Dette er et problem fordi nettet er i utvikling og eldre nettlesere ikke nødvendigvis støtter nyere nettsiders design. Nyeste versjoner av Safari, FireFox og Internet Explorer som kan kjøre i Mac OS 10.3.9 er alle utgamle, så dermed er ikke de noe alternativ.

Den vanligste nettleseren til Panther ser ut til å være Camino. Den anbefalles i alle fall av flere nettsteder. Nyeste versjon jeg har fått tak i som fungerer i Panther er 1.16.11. Den er ikke så alt for gammel. Camino fungerer, men det går ikke særlig fort og med en gang den skal kjøre JavaScript, som f.eks. Google translate Widgeten på mostad.eu stopper den opp og gir feilmeldinger.

På iBooken min kjører Opera 9.64 merkbart raskere og den tåler JavaScript bedre. Den er heller ikke så voldsomt gammel. I begge nettleserne har jeg forsøkt å få nettleseren til å ta minst mulig plass fra selve nettsiden ved å skru av unødvendige verktøy- og bokmerkelinjer på toppen av skjermen. Også der kommer Opera bedre ut fordi jeg kan skru av absolutt alt untatt én linje med navigasjonsknapper, felt til å skrive nettadresse og søkefelt, mens Camino viser en linje til bokmerker selv om man ikke har lagt noen der. (Klikk på bildet til høyre for å se hva jeg mener i litt større detalj.) Dessuten er knappene på den øverste linja hakket større enn i Opera. På en skjerm med 800 x 600 punkter er det å spare kanskje 30-40 punkter på toppen av skjermen noe som betyr litt for sørfeopplevelsen. Skjermen er uansett liten i forhold til designet på de fleste moderne nettsider.

Et tredje nyligere oppdatert alternativ er iCab. I likhet med Camino er iCab noe tregere enn Opera på min iBook i Panther. Derimot er den veldig god å ha i OS 9, der den er den mest oppdaterte nettleseren jeg har funnet. Den ble aktivt vedlikeholdt for MacOS 7-9 inntill for et år eller to siden.

Kommentar fra 2023: Jeg ville ikke kjørt et utgammelt operativsystem som ikke lenger får sikkerhetsoppdateringer eller utgamle nettlesere som heller ikke får det på en maskin jeg kobler opp til internett. Det oppdages nye sikkerhetshull i programvare hele tiden og hvis man ikke får de nyeste sikkerhetsoppdateringene er maskinen ens lett å kompromisse. Dette kan skje automatisk til alle med nettlesere med disse sikkerhetshullene og trenger ikke å være målrettet mot deg som enkeltperson. Hvis man vil kjøre utgammel programvare bør man ikke koble maskinen til nettet.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/beste-nettleser-for-mac-os-10_3.html https://einar.codeberg.page/beste-nettleser-for-mac-os-10_3.html Mon, 30 May 2011 12:06:00 +0200 <![CDATA[Nytt liv i legendarisk maskin]]> I 2002 overtok jeg Mammas iBook “Clamshell” G3. Det er “Revision B”-modellen fra år 2000. Den har en 300 MHz G3 prosessor, 64 MB RAM, 6 GB harddisk, innebyggd 56k-modem, plass til AirPort WiFi-kort, en USB utgang, lydutgang og CD-ROM-spiller. Og en 800 x 600 punkters 12-tommers fargeskjerm med ATI Rage Mobility L skjermkort med 4 MB VRAM.

I 2006 snublet jeg i strømkabelen så strømforsyningen kortstlutta, så da batteriet var tomt 20 minutter senere var iBooken død. I alle fall fram til 2008, da jeg gjorde en hjemmesnekra reparasjon av strømforsyningen og fikk liv i den igjen. Riktignok var løsningen ustabil og det var bare så vidt jeg klarte å holde strømforsyningen sammen, men det virka.

I 2011 kom jeg over en billig erstattningsstrømforsyning på tyske amazon. Der fant jeg også en billig 512 MB RAM-modul og et billig AirPort-kort. Uten å bruke spesielt mange kroner var plutselig iBooken mer funksjonell enn noen gang. Dødt batteri og liten harddisk til tross.

Hvorfor gidde?

Da jeg i jula 2006 kjøpte en MacBook fikk jeg en maskin med Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger” og Intel Core 2 Duo prosessor. Det var et langt steg fram fra iBooken med OS 9 og G3 prosessor. Men det innebar også at min gamle programvare ikke lenger virka. Jeg fant nyere versjoner eller alternative programmer for det meste, men jeg har ennå ikke klart å finne et program for redigering av lydene på min Roland synthmodul for OS X og det er også noen OS 9-spill som aldri kom for OS X. Jeg har også noen programmer og spill for OS X som er skrevet for PowerPC-prosessorer og som aldri kom i “Universal” (PowerPC og Intel) eller Intel-versjon. De kan brukes via Rosetta, den innebyggde PowerPC-emulatoren i OS X, men det går tregere enn å bruke disse programmene på en PowerPC-maskin.

iBooken er en ikonisk Mac og en av de fire Macene jeg har eid siden 1994, så av rent nostalgiske grunner er det hyggelig å få liv i den. Jeg tenker jeg skulle bruke den som en “kjøkkenmaskin” til nettradio, podkaster og nettsørfing i tillegg til den nevnte redigeringen av lyder på synthmodulen min og et og annet retro-spill. Dessuten appelerer det til nerden i meg å skvise ut det siste av bruksverdi av en 11 år gammel datamaskin. Et lite hobbyprosjekt.

Jeg tenkte jeg skulle dele erfaringene jeg gjør meg med iBooken. Kanskje det er noen andre retro-Macere i Skandinavia som kan ha glede det. Foreløpig har jeg i tillegg til Mac OS 9.2.2 også Mac OS 10.3.9 “Panther” innstallert. Har også lurt på å oppgradere til Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger” (det er vistnok mulig selv om Tiger ofisiellt ikke fungerer på maskiner uten FireWire) eller å prøve en Linux distribusjon. Uansett hvordan det blir med dette så er maskina vel så funksjonell som mange nettbooks der ute og har trolig et langt og produktivt liv foran seg.

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/nytt-liv-i-legendarisk-maskin.html https://einar.codeberg.page/nytt-liv-i-legendarisk-maskin.html Fri, 20 May 2011 12:02:00 +0200 <![CDATA[PDF-verktøy for Mac OS X og noter]]> Jeg holder på å skænne noter, artikler, notater og kompendier jeg har på løse kopier. Hver gang jeg har flytta har jeg bært med meg kilovis med papir og permer og ordnere og hvert sted jeg har bodd har jeg brukt masse plass på å ha ting stående og samle støv som jeg er allergisk mot. Jeg beholder selvfølgelig ting jeg vet jeg kommer til å spille igjen på papir, men alt det andre resirkulerer jeg etter å ha skænna det. Med noter og artikler og kompendier som PDFer er de lette å dele med andre og lette å lagre og transportere. Om man vil spille eller lese gjennom kan man gjøre det fra skjerm og så kan man skrive notene ut igjen om man bestemmer seg for å bruke de til et prosjekt. Jeg har også fått mange skænna noter, bøker og artikler fra andre. Mye var lagra som separate GIFer, TIFFer, JPGer eller PDFer for hver side eller hver sats. Jeg holder på å samle både mine egne skænna sider og de jeg har fått fra andre i PDFer og en del av dette har jeg lagt opp på Petrucci Music Archive (IMSLP).

I og med at jeg har skænna en del har jeg også funnet et par gode verktøy til å behandle PDFer på Mac som jeg tenkte kanskje andre også kunne ha glede av å vite om. Det ene er programmet Yep. Det koster noen dollar, men er verdt det. Det bruker jeg til å samle løse bildefiler jeg eller andre har skænna til PDFer og til å legge til tags i metadata. Selv om jeg har organisert alle notene mine etter komponist og med tittel og utgiver i dokumentnavnet kan det være nyttig å hurtig kunne finne f.eks. nederlandsk musikk for fiolin, traverso og continuo. Det er fort gjort å legge til et par tags når jeg uansett bruker Yep til å samle enkeltsidene til PDFer og dermed har jeg mange flere ting jeg kan søke opp notene mine på enn bare tittel, utgiver og komponist. En annen praktisk ting er at om man lager PDFer i svart/hvitt så rensker Yep ut gråtoner fra bakgrunnen i de originale skænna filene, så dermed blir gulnede ark mer lesbare som PDFer enn de var på papir og om man skriver de ut igjen blir de faktisk bedre enn originalen man skænna i noen tilfeller.

Det andre verktøyet jeg har funnet er opensource-programmet PDFsam. Med det kan jeg kombinere flere PDFer til én. Yep klarer ikke det, så jeg trengte et annet verktøy. Tidligere har jeg først gjort PDFene om til TIFFer vha Preview og så samlet de i Yep, men det er rimelig klønete og funker ikke spesielt bra med flersidede PDFer som skal samles. Man kan også dele opp PDFer eller rotere sider med PDFsam. Det kan være greit om f.eks. et helt dokument har annenhver side opp ned (typisk om man skænner bøker).

]]> https://einar.codeberg.page/pdf-verkt%C3%B8y-for-mac-os-x-og-noter.html https://einar.codeberg.page/pdf-verkt%C3%B8y-for-mac-os-x-og-noter.html Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:55:00 +0100

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