Living in an OS 9.X - ADB/SerialMac World . . .

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . . that's about where I am right now. But I'm LOVIN' IT!

Lots of OS 9 Software, LOTS of OS 9 Hardware, some Hardware/Vertical Market Software bundles w/ADB Dongles.

So I've been purchasing a lil' bit here, a bigger bit there and so forth, setting up my "little" OS 9.X/ADB Bubble.

I've got one pressing question though. LC posted, in a precursor to this thread, that the B&W G-3 was the last tower w/home grown ADB. If that's the case, I've spotted what I think is the B&W 15" Studio Display on one of my my MacSpelunking expeditions.

Was this "war of the worlds" tripod lookin' monitor very good? How reliable? And are any of them worth a D**n after all these years? What do they usually go for on eBay & such? How hard would it be to hack a REAL monitor into it, if it's DOA? I can't test it where it's located, but It'd go REALLY great with a B&W G-3 set up in the living room as a plotter server for the 40" CAMMjet and it'd be a nice color contrast with my Graphite playtoy on the opposite side of the room!

The B&W G-3 version of my 466 DA Tower ought to be a significant improvement over the 6360/Crescendo G-3 466 that I set up downstairs whenever I've got some plotting to do. It's been used in that plotter-server role since I got the 466 DA. It was my main production machine before the DA, but I'm thinking about retiring it due to the plan to push LOTS of pixels through the plotter instead of the postscript outlines (for vinyl cutting/pen plotting) the 6360 was doing fine with all these years.

Besides, it'd be nice to finally collect ALL the OS 9 Native Tower Types, I've got the Graphite DA & a Quicksilver already. I just need the B&W G-3 for now and I'll snag the OS 9 sprint champion, Dual 1.25 GHz MDD when the money available matches the right box . . .

. . . someday . . . =8-\

So whatcha' think? Do I take a chance on the fugl . . . erm . . . appearance challenged . . . tiny . . . AS IS . . .

. . . 15" B&W Studio Display . . . or let the urge pass? :?:

BTW: I'll be bloggin' along in this thread as the process of settin' up my lil' Y2K era playground progresses, so feel free to chime in with ANY & ALL Y2K era info, advice or even silly little stories.

This place is SUPPOSED to be FUN! [] ]'>

 

[Anonymous Freak]

You mean like the one in the middle?

http://www.hurtley.info/Media/StudioDisplayssm.jpg

click to enlarge

I like mine. I have one of the original 'dark blue' ones (released with the beige G3, has the older-style Apple video connector,) two of the B&W ones, and one graphite. One B&W one is a little flaky (works fine for half an hour or so, then the picture slowly fades away over the course of the next half hour.) The dark blue is totally dead. The second B&W and the graphite work perfectly. Although as you can see, the B&W is noticeably dimmer than the others. This was partly just the way it was, and partly probably that it's older and more worn than the graphite.

I used mine as my primary display on my desktop computer for quite a few years, including on a PC. Unfortunately, for some reason, it doesn't work through a KVM I have.

The big thing is to make sure you get a power brick. These boogers have their power connection 'reverse' from normal. Instead of the brick having a wire that plugs into a socket on the monitor, the monitor has a wire that plugs into a socket on the brick. (And the other side of the brick has a standard PC power connector; so when disconnected from both monitor and wall, the brick has no wires at all sticking out.)

 

[Emehr]

I'm also livin' and lovin' the OS9/ADB lifestyle. I picked up a Rev. 2 B&W a year or so back and upgraded the heck out of it: maxed G3 CPU at 1.1GHz, maxed RAM (1 gig), and a Radeon 7000 (kept the original 128 plugged in for dual monitor goodness if I need it).

I've always wanted one of these but could never afford one new. I used a Performa 6116 full time from '96 to '04 so I never got to enjoy any software that couldn't run smoothly on 60MHz, lol.

Anyway, I have an ADB Wacom tablet (6x8) for use with my Adobe suite (Photoshop 6, Premiere 5, Illustrator 9, and After Effects 4, all legit). The main purpose of my G3: an animation studio! And it's perfect for it. My monitor is a 19" widescreen and I can boot into Tiger if I want to browse the net or run some more modern emulators.

I also have a Gravis MouseStick for some A-10 Attack/Cuba goodness, a Gravis Gamepad, and a Kensington trackball, all ADB. I kept all of my software from my Performa days (still have that too!) so I can enjoy LucasArts games, Diablo, Starcraft, Alone In The Dark trilogy, etc. Good times!

Now if I had a nice Wallstreet PDQ I could have a portable version of the last of the ADB Macs!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You mean like the one in the middle?

BTW, NICE piccie, NICER Collection! I can't wait to see it on a monitor a tad bigger than 10.1" though. =8-\

Is that the iMac-on-a-Tripod lookin' CRT or the, later, LCD version? I'm stalking the CRT . . . }

. . . two of the B&W ones, and one graphite. One B&W one is a little flaky (works fine for half an hour or so, then the picture slowly fades away over the course of the next half hour.) The dark blue is totally dead. The second B&W and the graphite work perfectly. Although as you can see, the B&W is noticeably dimmer than the others. This was partly just the way it was, and partly probably that it's older and more worn than the graphite.

I used mine as my primary display on my desktop computer for quite a few years, including on a PC. Unfortunately, for some reason, it doesn't work through a KVM I have.

I haven't worked on anything less than a 19" B&W Panasonic at 21" resolution since about 1987 . . . [] ]'>

I wish I still had it, cuz it was nice and shallow, as compared to a Color CRT. I was saving it for a MacQuarium hack, but it went away with most the Macs that had made the cut for my uprooting from the Big Apple. I moved to the nicest small town in NC and lost my storage room during my first hospitalization. Five years later I'm unpacking all the stuff that just happened to be in my apartment, which my parents saved for me and the town has been gentrified (read: RUINED!) and is now . . .

. . . surrounded by the sprawling cancer of suburban hell.

The big thing is to make sure you get a power brick. These boogers have their power connection 'reverse' from normal. Instead of the brick having a wire that plugs into a socket on the monitor, the monitor has a wire that plugs into a socket on the brick. (And the other side of the brick has a standard PC power connector; so when disconnected from both monitor and wall, the brick has no wires at all sticking out.)

Does the CRT have a lump-on-a-rope too? BLEEEECH!!!!!!!!! I may just avoid that Bondi Blue (?) POS I spotted in that case!

Bruegger's is closing so I've gotta sign off for now, thanks for the quick reply!

 

[quinterro]

I moved to the nicest small town in NC and lost my storage room during my first hospitalization. Five years later I'm unpacking all the stuff that just happened to be in my apartment, which my parents saved for me and the town has been gentrified (read: RUINED!) and is now . . .. . . surrounded by the sprawling cancer of suburban hell.

Would that town be Lizard Lick? I'm in between Raleigh and Wake Forest in the boonies myself.

 

[LCGuy]

Does the CRT have a lump-on-a-rope too? BLEEEECH!!!!!!!!! I may just avoid that Bondi Blue (?) POS I spotted in that case!

Nah, the 17" CRT has an inbuilt power supply - best of luck finding a working one though, I remember these monitors had a *lot* of problems back in the day.

 

[Bunsen]

I'm rolling my honkin' big ADB Kensington Turbo Mouse trackball around with my fingertips and typing on my black Apple Extended Keyboard II, both attached to my new Cube via an iMate ADB-USB converter.

In 10.3 I had the Kensington prefpane to customize all four button clicks, and their combo chords. In 10.4 I have basic one-click functionality, but functionality nonetheless.

I too have a fair collection of ADB accessories, from pointing devices and drawing tablets to joysticks, gamepads, and even a wireless IR keyboard/ball combo It's a real shame development for the iMate stopped, and that they're still pretty expensive when they turn up.

Also, may I add, LONG LIVE RS-422 !!

 

[Bunsen]

Does the CRT have a lump-on-a-rope too? BLEEEECH!!!!!!!!! I may just avoid that Bondi Blue (?) POS I spotted in that case!

AH I had a feeling you were talking about a CRT, whereas Anonymous Freak's "booger" is an LCD. Does your quarry look like this?

'cause that's a 17"er. (16" viewable, so easily mistaken for a 15"er I guess) Nice specs, too; hardly a "POS", with that Mitsubishi Diamondtron tube and all. I'd grab it. If it's working that is.

According to everymac, there was no 15" Studio CRT

http://www.everymac.com/monitors/apple/index.html

Personally, I'm absolutely delighted with my new shiny pixel pump .

Last 'o the Apple tubes, and the only one with ADC.

Many might bag ADC as a misguided effort - I have myself. But with my display hosting and powering my H/K 10W ball speakers, my keyboard and mouse, and (some day) my iSub, there is but one umbilicus trailing back to the Cube for everything, including monitor power. Add a USB DVD drive, and the computer might as well be in another room - which for audio engineers is often a good thing. Call me a latter day ADC convert.

IMHO their big mistake was making ADC proprietary - and one they should have learned from the AppleVision connector fiasco. I see they've learned their lesson with DisplayPort being an open standard.

Ah, offtopic again ... where where we ... ADB ... ADC ... what comes next?

 

[Christopher]

ADD?

If it was a studio LCD with the composite and vga ports, get it. They are probably one of the most rare of all of the Apple screens.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I moved to the nicest small town in NC . . . and the town has been gentrified (read: RUINED!) and is now . . .. . . surrounded by the sprawling cancer of suburban hell.

Would that town be Lizard Lick? I'm in between Raleigh and Wake Forest in the boonies myself.

Lizard Lick?????????? :?:

Nope, "The Peak of Good Living" right next door to the most malignant tumor on the face of the Triangle. CARY!

BLEEEECCCHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > PTUI!!!!!!!!!!

The natives call it the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees! :-/

Sounds an awful lot like Andersonville to me! [] ]'>

When I was living with my brother there for five months, I watched one of their "Town Meetings" on Cable TV. That was the nastiest, most arrogant collection of ignorant pissants I've ever seen in one place, (outside of D.C) each of them sitting behind a laptop and trying to OUT SNOB the others. The only way to make ANY improvement on that town council woulda' been to toss in a Satchel Charge . . .

. . . well that might be a little extreme, but you should hear the laughs I get at the store when I tell THAT one! }

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm also livin' and lovin' the OS9/ADB lifestyle. I picked up a Rev. 2 B&W a year or so back and upgraded the heck out of it: maxed G3 CPU at 1.1GHz, maxed RAM (1 gig), and a Radeon 7000 (kept the original 128 plugged in for dual monitor goodness if I need it).

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!! NICE! I snagged an '02 Quicksilver, but still haven't got it up & running.

I've always wanted one of these but could never afford one new. I used a Performa 6116 full time from '96 to '04 so I never got to enjoy any software that couldn't run smoothly on 60MHz, lol.

Well, NOW you've got one! Congrats, comrade! Back when I first enlisted in the MLA, I went about collecting all the stuff I'd been dreaming about from the IIfx-Quadra eras. Now I'm into the old Iron from the pre-Y2K-Y2K+3 era! Costs are a little higher, but I don't NEED all that much! [] ]'>

Anyway, I have an ADB Wacom tablet (6x8) for use with my Adobe suite (Photoshop 6, Premiere 5, Illustrator 9, and After Effects 4, all legit). The main purpose of my G3: an animation studio! And it's perfect for it. My monitor is a 19" widescreen and I can boot into Tiger if I want to browse the net or run some more modern emulators.

Your mention of the ADB Wacom is what prodded me into editing the thread's title! Sometimes being a mod has its good points! Mine is a 12"x12" SERIAL Wacom and the interface for my 40" CAMMjet runs off the ole' DIN-8 connection (RS-422?) and the Software's Dongle is ADB.

The only animation I've ever done (on a computer) was my PogoHamsters Avatar over on 'fritter. I did that in GraphicConverter and it worked GREAT, but the new forum software cuts the limit to 80x80 pixels, My bouncing pets are something like 83x83 and I don't feel like doin'em over, maybe I'll post them in this thread . . .

. . . especially with Christmas coming up! }

Does your Rev. 2 B&W still have the good old fashioned serial port/modem port (AKA: 1.5 Serial Ports! =8-P) combo?

I also have a Gravis MouseStick for some A-10 Attack/Cuba goodness, a Gravis Gamepad, and a Kensington trackball, all ADB. I kept all of my software from my Performa days (still have that too!) so I can enjoy LucasArts games, Diablo, Starcraft, Alone In The Dark trilogy, etc. Good times!

Yep, I've got almost every package I've ever bought, each in its own Zip-Loc bag w/docs, distribution media and the informative parts of the boxes cut & flattened in the bag for ID purposes. I don't recall which JoyStick I've got, but it's USB for the G-4 466 DA along with the Nostromo Gamepad I programmed to run all my hotkeys for reformatting pics in GraphicConverter . . .

I've got the early version, the new one Scares ME! 8-o

Now if I had a nice Wallstreet PDQ I could have a portable version of the last of the ADB Macs!

What's a Wallstreet PDQ? I want a Wallstreet too, but I'm not familiar with that designation/variation.

 

[JRL]

Now if I had a nice Wallstreet PDQ I could have a portable version of the last of the ADB Macs!

What's a Wallstreet PDQ? I want a Wallstreet too, but I'm not familiar with that designation/variation.

It's just the second Wallstreet model series (the models with L2 cache)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Does the CRT have a lump-on-a-rope too? BLEEEECH!!!!!!!!! I may just avoid that Bondi Blue (?) POS I spotted in that case!

AH I had a feeling you were talking about a CRT, whereas Anonymous Freak's "booger" is an LCD. Does your quarry look like this?

'cause that's a 17"er. (16" viewable, so easily mistaken for a 15"er I guess) Nice specs, too; hardly a "POS", with that Mitsubishi Diamondtron tube and all. I'd grab it. If it's working that is.

THAT'S THE ONE! Was it only made in B&W G-3 Blue? It'd only be a POS IF it's a freakin' CRT with a lump-onna-rope! Does it have an ACTUAL, real life, honest to goodness VGA port or the usual bogforsaken Apple connector . . . erm . . . umm . . . ditziness!

BTW, I've always loved that Graphite/Clear CRT, but unless it's for a very specific Mac, for a VERY specific purpose, I'd NEVER spend the greenbacks for the Jobsian "pretty factor." The Woz Rocks (and dances!) the other half of that duo . . .

Ah, offtopic again ... where where we ... ADB ... ADC ... what comes next?

ADD?

ALWAYS! That and a couple more learning "disabilities" . . . whatever! Never slowed ME DOWN! }

I was gonna' come back with "XYZ," but thats an ooolllddd joke! : . . . and yours was funnier! :lol:

If it was a studio LCD with the composite and vga ports, get it. They are probably one of the most rare of all of the Apple screens.

Sounds good, I'll keep a lookout.

 

[LCGuy]

THAT'S THE ONE! Was it only made in B&W G-3 Blue? It'd only be a POS IF it's a freakin' CRT with a lump-onna-rope! Does it have an ACTUAL, real life, honest to goodness VGA port or the usual bogforsaken Apple connector . . . erm . . . umm . . . ditziness!

IIRC it was only made in Blueberry, to match the B&W G3. However, you'll be pleased to know that it shipped with a standard VGA connector, which makes sense since the G3s had VGA ports.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm rolling my honkin' big ADB Kensington Turbo Mouse trackball around with my fingertips and typing on my black Apple Extended Keyboard II, both attached to my new Cube via an iMate ADB-USB converter.

My DA abhors the iMate! I thought it was a good idea, but maybe it's the iMate that abhors KVM setups . . . :-/

I too have a fair collection of ADB accessories, from pointing devices and drawing tablets to joysticks, gamepads, and even a wireless IR keyboard/ball combo

A friend gave me an ADB wireless Mouse (along w/TWO of those Kensington MongoBalls) but I've never heard of a wireless ADB KBD! I hope I can find my KeyStone ADB-PS2 converter from The Silicon Valley Bus Company then I can switch the DA/HP_Mini pair to a USB KVM/USB Wireless KBD/Mouse and use the PS2 wireless rig for the PowerDuo/APD combo! [] ]'>

Also, may I add, LONG LIVE RS-422 !!

HEH! notice my post above and the new thread title! [] ]'>

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Wallstreet PDQ / portable version of the last of the ADB Macs!

What's a Wallstreet PDQ?

It's just the second Wallstreet model series (the models with L2 cache)

Thanks, NOW I know what to look for!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Does the CRT have a lump-on-a-rope too? BLEEEECH!!!!!!!!! I may just avoid that Bondi Blue (?) POS I spotted in that case!

Nah, the 17" CRT has an inbuilt power supply - best of luck finding a working one though, I remember these monitors had a *lot* of problems back in the day.

Again, GOT VGA? If not, it's untestable, AND IF the price reflects such, I'll still snag it for its Dual Usefulness . . .

. . . my plastic fish are yearning for a new home! }

 

[MacJunky]

What's a Wallstreet PDQ?

It's just the second Wallstreet model series (the models with L2 cache)

Thanks, NOW I know what to look for!

Actually the Wallstreet 250(83 bus) and 292(83 bus) models had 1MB L2. the PDQ 266(66 bus) and 300(66 bus) had 1MB L2 as well. It was the 233(66bus) WallStreet that had no L2 and the 233(66bus) PDQ had 512KB L2.

WS came with 2GB HDD, PDQ came with 2, 4, 6.

Aside from that I dunno.. Rage LT vs Rage Pro LT?

Really, may as well go for 292 WallStreet over a 300Mhz PDQ because of the bus speed if you want the best of the best.

 

[Mike Richardson]

THAT'S THE ONE! Was it only made in B&W G-3 Blue? It'd only be a POS IF it's a freakin' CRT with a lump-onna-rope! Does it have an ACTUAL, real life, honest to goodness VGA port or the usual bogforsaken Apple connector . . . erm . . . umm . . . ditziness!

IIRC it was only made in Blueberry, to match the B&W G3. However, you'll be pleased to know that it shipped with a standard VGA connector, which makes sense since the G3s had VGA ports.

Later models were also colored Graphite, to match the first G4s.

Some of these suffer from flyback failure. If you are purchasing one, test it first for at least 3 minutes by connecting it to a VGA source. Any popping noises or sudden squeezes/zoom effects in the tube should disqualify the purchase. I wind up recycling 2 out of every 5 of these displays I get due to the flyback.