Fun with my Powermac 6500

[highlandcattle]

Today started a bit boring with not knowing what I would do to keep myself busy. After having lost twice with Warcraft III multiplayer, done the dishes and fed the plants, I decided I should finally work out my plan of turning my PowerMac 6500/275 (the fastest -G4 computer I own.)into a Rhapsody (OSX server) box.

Well that didn't work out: The only downloads I could find were either for intel or were to advanced to run on my lowly 6500. After having deleted the original Mac OS 8.6. I decided to give the old girl a clean 7.6.1 install. Wow it feels so much faster now! After this I thought what they heck, lets install Be OS. I still have the original disc which came with a Mac magazine 14 years ago. It is the Preview Release.

What an awesome OS! It feels so smooth. The multitasking also feels very smooth. It turns the Powermac into a modern system. You don't notice that you are using a 14 year old system. Only trouble is that the sound is not yet working and I cant seem to get online in Be OS (any tips about that?) Would it be wise to update the system to R4.5? I can't seem to find an software compatible with this Preview release.

Other stuff I found amazing today: Cyberdog is actually a decent browser. It feels pretty fast on 7.6.1 and although it renders pages incorrectly it does open or download everything within a acceptable speed limit. Which is kinda the point of a browser. I which I had this computer back in 1998 .

Also the disk tool included on the Mac OS X server 1.2. Is pretty great,it is much more useable then that what is included with system 7.6 or 8.

I'm intrigued with all this video equipment that is included with this mac. What software is handy and great to edit videos in 7.6.1 or could I use it in BeOS?

 

[protocol7]

Assuming the Preview Release detects your onboard ethernet it shouldn't be too hard to get online. I managed it on my 7500. The main problem with trying to use BeOS as a main OS is the lack of software (but then Rhapsody would have fared little better as it to had a short shelf-life). 4.5 and up would definitely be the way to go but if you want to try some apps in the Preview Release check out the obsolete folder on this FTP. Anything labeled for AA (Advanced Access) should work on the PR as they were both DR9 (in fact I don't think there was much/any difference between the two but I haven't seen a copy of AA to verify this).

You'll need to set up the connection manually as I don't think DHCP is supported. I'm working from memory here but you go into the Network preferences panel, click on add network interface and choose yours (onboard powermac most likely). Assign a manual IP to the machine, add the gateway/router IP (the IP of your router) and dns servers. While you're there you can give the machine a network name. You could also enable FTP and/or Telnet access (I find FTP is handy for getting files in and out). Then click on restart networking. If all goes to plan, you can fire up NetPositive and get a very broken view of the modern innernet.

As for sound that should work out of the box. But your 6500 is in the "unsupported but Compatible" section of the PPC HCL along with my 5400.

 

[Cory5412]

BeOS on a lot of the PCI PowerMacs is actually pretty awesome. I had BeOS R5 on both my 7300/200 and 6500/250 for a time, and it was pretty much completely compatible with all of the hardware, and even gave you some pretty good control over how sound was output from the machine, letting you control the sub volume as well as keeping the internal speaker enabled and putting things out to the various audio jacks.

As I recall, BeOS R5 also worked well with the tv and a/v inputs on the 6500, if yours has that system installed, mine did not so I never verified this.

It was said of BeOS (or maybe this was NeXT) that they'd either be the first to fail or the last to make it... and it's sort of unfortunate, with that in mind, that BeOS didn't make it. It really does embody what would have been great to have in a modern deskto operating system for consumers and other standalone stations, and just a little bit more deployment of some of the UNIX and multiuser concepts (they were soooo close already) would have made it a formidable competitor with NeXT/OSX as well as Windows NT and the traditional UNIX set. It was extremely efficient at using multiple processors, and it has made some very old hardware feel new, at least to me. It's... just a little tiny bit shameful how much faster and stable BeOS and its apps are on some hardware than the period-appropriate Windows or Mac OS often is. If only it'd gotten apps from some of the major developers.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

BeOS is better on a BeBox. 8)