That thing where you connect the two machines together with an ethernet lead might work, if you can figure out how to do it - I seem to remember we had a dicussion over at 68k once where it was said that a Windows PC connected to the internet via WiFi could pass the connection across to a Mac in this way, so I assume it will work between two computers of any sort and using any sort of internet connection. However, I could never got it to work and just bought a wireless bridge instead, which is much better anyway.

Indeed, indeed, Macster. Sure, while i don't think i could live without internet access and the like, i still find myself yearning for the much simpler days of LC and Classics......ahhh....good childhood memories......

What you want is an app for routing, tried netinforouter or whatever that app was? It's definitely not built into OS9, unfortunately - and there are/were very few inexpensive apps for the task.

a Windows PC would be easier to share the connection from, unfortunately.

It's not just a matter of plugging it in and working, with TCP/IP and OS9.

Agreed, Cory. Windows Internet Connection Sharing is VERY easy to set up, and works excellent with OS 9. When i use it, i have my network set up like this:

Dell: Computer with internet connection, direct connection to dialup modem, IP address 192.168.0.1
iMac: IP Address 192.168.0.2
Quadra 700: IP address 192.168.0.3
AMD K6: IP address 192.168.0.4

All computers are set up with the Dell's IP address (192.168.0.1) as the Router server address and DNS server address. Works fine.

Just found this on LEM:

http://www.lowendmac.com/practical/03/0429.html

Hope that helps.

Oh well. Thanks anyway for the replies. Previously I've used an XP machine to share the connection but it's not actually mine so I was hoping to set it up on my own equipment. The only PC I own is some old Win '98 machine that can connect to the internet but I'll be buggered if I can get it to share the connection. I think it needs the original windows CD or something.

What machine are you on? I've found that OS 9 is usually faster at some things than OSX on the same machine, but somehow, the added weight of OS X brings it significantly more stability. My iMac here, just as an example, has an uptime of 73 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes, under Mac OS X 10.4.8

I don't expect OS 9 to last more than 5 days without really needing a reboot, although I'm sure it's technically capable of lasting longer. Even System 7 and OS 8.1 feel more "robust" for some reason. (they're also faster on hardware that can run them, than OS9 is. )

Actually for me the stability isn't even as much of an issue as I thought it would be. I'm one of those weird people who turns their computers off when they've finished with them, so I'm only worried about programs crashing and bringing the system down. So far, none have done that. I always found that OS8.1 was crashing all the time, but that's probably just because I was running it on a lousy performa.

This is only a 400mhz graphite G4 tower by the way. With hardly any memory in it - yet it runs beautifully. Just one example: it runs the Amiga emulator MacUAE pretty much as fast as my Core Duo machine runs e-UAE. Possibly faster. Except there are no sodding OS9 drivers for my Logitech joystick.

IPNetRouter or Vicom Internet Gateway are your frients. They will allow you to share your internet connection with any computer on the network architecture of your choosing. They will also allow you to employ "ganging." Say you need some extra bandwidth and you've got a few modems and a few telephone lines. As more bandwidth is required, the software will make more internet connections. Internet Gateway does this, but I'm not sure if IPNetRouter will.

Peace,
Drew

Computer speed is a very subjective thing, a G4/400 would be painfully slow to me because of the photos and video I've been working with, but if I were doing purely word processing or other "office" tasks, it would be overkill - even with OS X.

Reliability with OS 9 isn't a big issue if you restart often I suppose, but there have been issues, mostly with Internet apps, that cause it to be a big issue, even if I restart once every five hours. I'll probably try it again over the summer though, since I don't plan on needing Internet apps on that machine.

IPNetRouter must have been what I was thinking of earlier - when I said "netinforouter" - Though, aren't both of those apps commercial apps?

I know people with "crazy fast" PCs that feel slow to me... compared to my G3/500 with 512mb of ram, even my G3/450 with 256mb of ram is faster than some people's Semprons at like 3GHz with like 512mb of ram or whatever.

I've found that one of the reasons Macintosh hardware lasts longer is that for a long time, Macintosh Software has actually been lighter than its Windows counterparts - the fact that we don't have to worry much about malware, or for the most part, maintenance, seems to have a huge effect on the overall speed of the system.

Naturally, my P3/933 was also faster than the specific other PC I'm referring to, but I don't have malware protection on my own machines, nor do I usually install games or much other than the minimum set of apps I need to get by - which seems to have a big difference in Windows. (Whereas I've got every other app in the land installed on my iMac - and not a single one of them have slowed the system down.

So... it may or may not be som ething inherent in the design of either system - I happen to think it is, just that Mac OS X sucks ever-so-slightly less than Windows, at least in my experience.

I know a lot of really smart people who keep their systems clean, and their Windows boxes could very well be faster than the other one I'm thinking of.

I might be able to go on - but shouldn't.

BTW, does Vista have any improvements in overall stability/reliability and speed, as far as how long an install lasts?

Yes, the issue of installing applications slowing down the system is an interesting one. I remember seeing a report recently where they'd tested the difference in boot time after installing popular Windows applications, as well as some of the additional core components like DirectX, .Net runtime etc, and it showed that each one added to the boot time slightly, some much more so than others. Obviously things like Norton AntiVirus increased the boot time by a lot, as they're actually loading stuff on bootup (that's why I don't use any realtime virus/malware protection, as it just bogs down your system and you don't really need it if you know how to avoid that kind of stuff anyway), but it's interesting that programs which don't load anything on startup also seem to have an (albeit minor) impact. I guess it's just because they make the Registry larger, and that is loaded on startup. My PC (see below for specs) actually takes about 70 seconds to boot now (from power button to full desktop), which is about the same as 10.4.9 on the G3 (only 70 seconds to boot a cutting-edge machine on an 8.5 year old free computer...truly awesome ), although it used to take only about 40 seconds so I think it just needs a reinstall as the Windows installation is 2.5 years old now. Certainly fresh installations do boot very quickly, so I think a large Registry is probably the problem - I do have a lot of applications and games installed. OS X not having a Registry-like system probably helps with boot time.

As for Vista, it is meant to be faster, at least if you have a modern system (on a system near the minimum specs it will be slower because it's heavier). This is because it's the first major reworking of Windows NT since version 4.0, so is now optimised for the computers of today eg the memory management is designed for PCs with 1 GB Ram, as opposed to 16 MB. For example, you'll have seen people complaining how large a proportion of their Ram is being used when they start Vista up, but actually this reflects how it now exploits all of your Ram by doing things like loading frequently-used programs into it (SuperFetch). If the Ram is then needed by a program, Vista will release some of it. USB keys can also be used as SuperFetch space (ReadyBoost), which is meant to make things faster.

It's more stable as far as that drivers are no longer meant to be able to crash the system (most serious crashes on previous versions were caused by drivers, or bad hardware) - a lot of drivers (I know graphics drivers, often a big problem, definitely have) have been moved into userspace from kernelspace, so they simply reload if they crash. Apart from that, XP was pretty stable so there wasn't a lot of room for improvement.

It still has the Registry though, so I assume the same issue of large Registries will still exist.

I haven't installed it outside of a virtual machine yet though, so will give you my impressions once I have it up and running, if anyone's interested.

I am actually interested in what you end up thinking about Vista when yyou get it running outside of a VM. I haven't seen the final Vista, or vista outside of a VM yet, but my Vista-capable PCs are old, and I don't want to try bootcamp on the iMac again - at least not until Leopard is released. (though, I suppose AppleCare will cover it if I have another disaster with bootcamp.)

How many of us thought the same thing about XP when it was new, and now it's like the defacto standard, at least for systems I use.

As far as the language censor goes - I wouldn't mess with it much, the only thing I'll want to make sure is that it doesn't go filtering out the names of any Panasonic subsidiaries that make optical drives for Apple.

/me shakes his fist at UJ-815.

And by the way, thank you to Drew for mentioning IPNetRouter, which appears to be exactly what I need.

Basically bootcamp killed the EFI and the hard disc on my iMac. They had to replace the logic board and the hard disc. I was without it forlike 2 weeks in February. I didn't mention it too loudly at 68kMLA though, for fear of some kind of repercussion.

It was covered under applecare because it was definitely a hardware problem, it wouldn't even boot OSX or from the install/restore/hardwaretest DVD. Unfortunately, a bit of data was lost in that event.

Ahwell, it's better now.

Oh, I love corporate networking by the way - I wish I had enough machines/time/space to set up a nice little activedirectory domain. I had one going once, but the high school decided they didn't like students repurposing their machines. "oops!"

here at NAU we've actually got our XP machines and macs authenticating over ldap to dana, our student unix server which runs like, Solaris 8 or 9 I think. (forgot the exact version.)

I think we have remote home directories on that server too. It's an okay setup, a bit less organized than I wish it would be, but when you've got heterogeneous networks, that tends to happen I suppose.

It's possible to run OS9 without crashing, and for me it's not OS9 itself that causes the crash, it's OS9 that allows crashes caused by badly written Internet apps - word processors and most "multimedia" apps (music players, final cut pro) and "pro" apps (photoshop, bryce/poser, indesign2, pagemaker6.5, dreamweaver/flashMX) do just fine.

It's one of the reasons I'm considering OS9 on my Pismo as the "work" machine, as well as to keep pictures on and rip cds while I'm not at my iMac.

re: imac/bootcamp: I don't know if it was a hardware fault or what, but yeah, applecare covered it, luckily. My parents would've had a pretty big fit if they found out I had ruined the iMac by deciding to play with Windows on it.

By that reasoning, I'm not too keen on trying it out again, if I want XP, I'll just put it on one of the surplusDells. []

My big complaint is about the change in the overall attitude, it has become commonplace on the 68kMLA to use pretty foul language, and with people like wackymacs, it's not uncommon to be outrightly rude to people, or indirectly (or directly!) put them down.

It's things like that that made me start to reconsider whether or not I feel like the 68kMLA is a community I want to stay a member of.

A lot of people have had a bit of a disliking for Wackymacs for awhile, he can be extremely rude at times, and I suppose that's why some people... return the favor, so to speak.

I've been reading the AF thread - it's a really frustrating thread, especially because I can see some of the "old MLAer vs. new MLAer" tensions coming out, which shows me that some of our newer members feel contempt for the older members, who think they are somehow more committed to 68k macintoshes than the newer members.

What I've noticed is that in some cases - it's true. When a member like Unknown_K posts, it's almost always regarding an actual 68k mac, and he's been there almost as long as I have.

However, when one of the "newer" members posts, I notice a lot of ppc, and 'help me with my mac mini 'and the like. Not the greastest ever, I think.

It's okay once in awhile, but when it's the only thing some people ever post - it gets really frustrating really fast.

Oh - and I am thinking of stealing one of my friend's DVDrom drives and putting Vista on the SurplusDells. One of 'em's a PIII/933 with 512mb of ram, and a 20 gig hard drive, perfect fit for a "baseline" system, I suppose.

Gentlemen (and Mesdames, if any is listening)

We, including HG-T himself as OP, are doing a bonzer job of making this thread lurch from one to the other topic raised in the first post.

Is there a majority for splitting off the consideration of Stability of operating systems from Browser sharing?

de

At the risk of sounding like some pretentious, enlightened guru who’s above it all, I find there is quite a lot of humour in the silly little absurdities that people get involved in if you care to look for it. A guy at my old high school used to get beaten up all the time, and whenever he did he’d burst into uncontrollable laughter. It wasn’t out of bravado, it was out of genuine amusement at how patently ridiculous it was that he was being beaten to a pulp just for being different. Nowadays whenever people are rude, whenever they get into petty disagreements, or even whenever they outright insult me, I always think of Dave pinned to the ground by six kids on the school oval, laughing his head off and then all I can do is laugh at how silly we all can be. The moral of the story? Even if people some people occasionally act like twits on the forum, it won’t bother you unless you let it. There are people who act like twits everywhere in life. I can tell you it doesn’t bother me in the slightest; in fact it probably just makes me appreciate the nice people more. Apologies if that sounded like a load of pretentious twaddle – you’re all free to get angry and annoyed by those people if you’d prefer that.

As for Wackymacs – I think he is a mostly amicable person who can be frustrating and abrasive at times. In other words, he is a human being. If any of you know someone who has all the amicability without the irritability, I want to meet them!!

I suppose I can understand the eventual decline of interest in 68k Macs and whatnot, but what I've noticed is that... that really is not the case, there are many people becoming more interested in them.

It's not just the offtopic posts, in fact, I almost don't care about offtopic posts - it's the fact that the general attitude has become more rude. Sure, everybody there is just human - but does that mean we all have the right to be continuously rude to our fellow human beings?

And as Unknown_K mentioned on that AF thread, more than one respectable member has been driven away by some of the younger members.

I'll admit, we have had a few crazies, but what I've discovered is that those crazies are very sane, normal people, just that they react a bit different to the Internet because they don't necessarily understand that somebody online has no real consequence in their real life.

And for me, that's what it comes down to. After being a member of the 68kMLA community for 5 years, the most important thing I've gotten out of it is that it's important to balance my real life with my time sitting in front of the computer.

And that's the big thing that makes me wonder about whether or not I'll return to the 68kMLA, because I know very well that I can fully enjoy my 68k macs on my own, or at both IRC channels, so all is good in my life.

I just had another look at that thread to see if there's any updates (as before they were saying that the site would be back online today or yesterday) and a huge amount of real nastiness has now appeared I always thought the 68kmla was a lovely little community too, but underneath there's actually all this hatred of each other - I always felt we all got on well, I don't know why some of the others have to have such problems getting on with one another

Ooooo, I just had an idea! If we can't agree on whether or not PPC Macs should be allowed in the 68kMLA, or whether 68k Macs should be allowed in a PPCMLA, what about this...

Instead of re-forming the 68kMLA, we start a totally new organization! We start the LEMLA! The Low End Macintosh Liberation Army! I personally think that this would be a really neat thing to try.

When the 68kMLA was begun, practically nobody would dare call anything besides the first run PPCs and some "Road Apples" low end. However, in a day and age when practically any Mac with onboard SCSI is considered low end, wouldn't it be wise to change focus a bit? While a 68k or PPC CPU was the cutoff in the original 68kMLA, the times have changed. I would think that a LEMLA would be for discussion of any Macs with onboard SCSI, running OS 9 or below. Since anything running the Classic Mac OS is in the same boat that all 68ks were in when the 68kMLA started, wouldn't it be a good idea to reflect that change?

I will be the first to say that I would join the LEMLA without question if it would be able to unite the old 68k die-hards and the newer generation of PPC people. I realize that this would be a radical change, but it might be for the better.

Who's with me?

Did you think no-one from the forum was capable of getting angry, just because we don't normally see it? A couple of people getting into a hissy fit because they're having withdrawal symptoms doesn't really mean anything.

The forum has been down for a month, and firstly people are starting ridiculous rumours (i.e. 'Tom Levens is actually a sludge monster from the planet Zybotrox, he's been recalled to his home planet, that's why the forums are down blah blah blah'). Next people start getting frustrated at how long it's taking to get back up, so they take their frustration out on anything and anyone. Then everyone starts mourning the end of the world because people are starting to get frustrated, the forum is not what it used to be, it'll never be the same again etc. etc.

The forums will come back on eventually, and then all will be back to normal. If it's not, I'm reasonably certain the sky won't fall in. So I wouldn't worry about it all too much.