On Wednesday, October 3, 2001, at 04:42 PM, bob wrote:
>> Motorola chose to use a third party CD Drive.
>
> Wait a minute, John. The OEM Apple drives are all third party drives.
> Apple
> buys them just like you and I might from the same manufacturer.
Yes, but then Apple gets off their ass and writes their own
software driver for the drive. I don't remember Motorola writing any CD
drivers - perhaps because, like the other cloners, all they wanted to do
was leech. In the PC world the drive manufacturers themselves often
have to write the drivers and then submit then to Microsoft. The number
of people you could be complaining about here that are as responsible
for your problem as Apple, if not more so, grows all the time.
> out-sourced. The difference perhaps likely is something in the firmware
> that
> enables the new Apple OS's to recognize them and then ignore those
> others if
> they haven't been Apple sanctified.
There is no Apple sanctification or firmware trick. If you get the
same Sony (or whoever else at the time) mechanism it works. That's why
there are clones with drives that work with newer versions of the OS.
> Everything in the hardware is usually the same. If I read the spec
> sheets of
> every drive ever put originally in an Mac, it will probably be the same
> as
> those used on other machines and platforms.
Spec sheets miss implementation differences. Specific software
must be written for the implementation differences. Two drives with
identical features may need very different sofware to implement those
features. The driver hack that people do to the Apple DVD/CDROM driver
just forces it to ignore specific drive properties and behave in a
generic fashion. This is usually "good enough". In my experience it is
a lot flakier than the original drive. For example, software unmounting
and remounting is not as reliable (even with an Apple drive).
> drivers as confirmed when I look in the Find Info window at those
> files. I
> swapped my daughter's CD drive from a UMax for a faster one and her old
> one
> worked in every Mac I tried--unless I had the OS up to "we find this
> drive
> repugnant" era of the Apple marketing suits.
You might make a general complaint that Apple renamed OS 8.0 to
that number so that they could sidestep licensing agreements with the
cloners (they never had to provide 8). I reiterate, only one Mac OS
version ever contained the generic driver. That driver didn't work as
well with regular Apple Macs.
> I'm sorry, I can't agree. "...crippled functionality to their
> customers" has
> been the watchword for their marketing strategies for a long time.
>
> Remember the system enablers that used exactly the same systems
> versions, but
> required you to have a recognizable identity in that system for the
> specific
> model of machine before it would work?
Yes, I remember the system enablers. Looking for a conspiracy
theory there is really reaching. They only separated classes of
machines. It was Apple's first attempt to get some of the software out
of the ROM. The enabler didn't just identify the machine, it was part
of the system software. It wasn't terribly successful and was
abandoned. The fact that it was abandoned means that they all of a
sudden got a newfound trust in us?
Anyways, like I said, the between Jobs era of Apple had much worse
problems than any of these. Gass�e's "55" license plate comes to mind
and the big supply SNAFU of '95. In terms of the hardware the
Classics, original LC's, and x200's might be considered crippled
designs. But, there's not much to complain about currently.
> In the hardware department, "...crippled functionality to their
> customers"
> includes artificial limits on RAM to force the purchase of the next
> level
> model.
You obviously don't know anything about hardware design. This is a
joke. The only machines that might be said to have had this problem
were the Classic II and LC II/III. You can't anticipate every possible
new density of RAM chip in advance and have to go with what you can
get. When were there artificial limits set on the RAM? Before
standardized SIMMS when everyone had it on board? Historically, most
Macs address and could take significantly more RAM than any comparable
PC.
> NuBus and PCI slots restricted in number to prevent someone from
> upgrading their machines to a comfortable or useful level--a satisfied
> owner
> of a Mac doesn't buy another for some time.
Restricted? You mean by the case size or the number of
controllers? Each PCI controller can only take so many devices and then
you have to put a new one on or a bridge. Some machines were designed
without slots, some with 1 or 2, and some with a bunch. But, they are
limited by other design decisions in machines. The OS is capable of
addressing very large numbers of slots through external bridges and
such. The main thing is that you know from the outset how many slots
are available when you get the machine. This is unlike the PC world
where often you get a 3 or 4 slot machine with none available.
> The crippling of the standard IDE capacity for two IDE devices per slot
> by
> only allowing one in the Tanzania models. What does that protect an
> owner
> against? Is there a flaw in that standard that they've saved us from?
> Yup,
> Apple's fear that someone with 3 drives and a CD won't become a new
> customer
> soon.
Apple had just started using IDE and hadn't implemented slave
capabilities in ANYTHING (630's, 5200's, etc.). It wasn't some
conspiracy or crippling. They didn't have slave capable controllers
until the second revision of the G3. They weren't protecting anyone and
there was no conspiracy. That's like saying it was a conspiracy that
Microsoft didn't support SCSI in the OS. Or, maybe the present
crippling is that they don't support RAMBUS or DDR.
> It isn't a matter of supporting more drives. It's the hypocrisy of
> frustrating and screwing up their customers for venturing outside the
> envelope of an Apple captive audience.
Get CDROM toolkit. They support a large variety of third party
drives. The fact is that is exactly what you are to expect with any
vertically integrated computer. Back in the heydays of larger
marketshare more third parties wrote drivers for Apple hardware. Less
do so now (and the hardware is more differentiated).
> BTW, If they're so smart, why is that little 4 function calculator
> still in
> the menu?
haha! Why is the smiley face there when you turn it on? Same
reason really.
--
Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and...
Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca>
Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling
Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html>
Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml>
Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/>
Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
