Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

A couple questions for Sawtooth owners:

1. What color is your power button LED? (Mine appears green - think
the LED is actually more of a yellow or yellow-green)

2. What is the approximate pulsation rate of this LED during Sleep?
(Mine is ~1.5 seconds for a full cycle of dark-brightest-dark again.
My old Gig-E - white LED - was at a much more leisurely ~4 second
pulsation rate)

I suspect that this LED is on its own hardwired circuit, as Dan
suggested. If there was a way to tinker with it through the OS, it
would have been discovered by now. Others have tried in vain already.

Just the same, I looked into 'man pmset' (in the 10.4 manual pages)
and didn't see anything very promising. I tried and got nothing but
the same generic "recipe book" of allowed commands/arguments whether I
typed (in Terminal) either of these:

pmset ~g [pslog or whatever]

sudo pmset ~g [pslog or whatever]

That was disappointing. I tried reading a Shell Script Primer, but my
eyes glazed over. Sometimes it's better to start in the middle with a
clue than at the beginning with none. All I want at this point is a
sensible conversation with Terminal - I won't be messing with kernels
or kexts (whatever *they* are - let me guess - kernel extensions?) any
time soon. To paraphrase an amusing bit from another poster here, my
relationship with the command line has only gotten as far as agreeing
to meet for coffee.

Sean

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

> From the shell (Terminal), the pmset tool
> manages it.  Perhaps there's something in the docs, 'man pmset'.  Of
> course, it could also just be a hardwired circuit...

Thanks, Dan. I read up a bit on 'man pmset'. I got as far, so far, as
seeing what I could "get." I'll have to dig deeper.

Sean

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

I should mention another difference between the Gig-E and the
Sawtooth: The color of the power button LED. The Gig-E's was white.
The Sawtooth's is yellow. In daylight it is clearly yellow. In poor
light or darkness it appears more green (because of the blue around
it). I wonder a) if this Sawtooth's power button LED was replaced at
some point with a part different from stock, maybe even something from
a non-Apple computer, b) if incorrect voltage would alter the LED
pulsation rate and if that would point to a PSU/wiring problem that
also caused the case fan to "complain" (low but constant "just not
right" noise) and could even be related to it (a wiring mixup during
some past repair?), c) whether the LED its;ef is just faulty somehow,
and c) if I might also complain that I don't like this "green" light.
White is the proper color of computer Sleep breathing, at least for
the Gig-E and its brothers.

I also wonder why Apple would not enable some control of the power
button LED's behavior through the GUI, at least to enable or disable
this pulsation during Sleep (some people can't stand it). It's not
like it's a dangerous thing to allow the user to easily control
(imagine an "Overclock CPU" pane in System Preferences). I ran across
an article stating that Apple had patented their particular "Sleep
breathing." Could that have anything to do with them (seemingly)
keeping it entirely out of the user's hands?

Maybe the only thing to do is replace the existing LED with a proven
white, slow-breathing one from a Gig-E. Not today. Probably easier to
just buy a whole Gig-E.

Sean

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Tina K.]

On 2011/01/29 08:17, Yersinia so eloquently wrote:

Oh and while I TOTALLY agree with both Sean and Tina on how cool (and
endearing) Macs are when breathing while sleeping, gotta say the one
thing I personally NEVER liked about ANY Mac design was where they put
ports and outlets. As far as I'm concerned, this aspect of the physical
design could have been done precisely to make things harder. I know, I
know, it's not aesthetic to have to see "the nest" so that's why they
did them this way, but most of the time, I can only appreciate
aesthetics when they ADD to the FUNCTIONALITY (like the breathing which
assures me that my Macs are OK and sleeping), not DETRACT from it!


The Mac Pro has a headphone, two USB 2, and two firewire 800 ports on 
the front just underneath the power button so perhaps Apple has finally 
woken up & smelled the java. Or maybe it was a mistake that slipped by 
his Steveness and they'll be removed in the next redesign.


Of course all my firewire devices are fw400. Sigh.

Tina

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Tina K.]

On 2011/01/28 23:57, Sean Carroll so eloquently wrote:

Have all Macs, or at least desktops, since... well, since whenever Apple
introduced it... have they all "breathed" during sleep? Do they still?
Except for trips to the Apple Store to gawk and dream, the entirety of
my Mac experience has been Power Macintosh 7100/66 - Gig-E - Sawtooth.
So I don't know.


My Power Mac G5 did and my Mac Pro does, but the effect doesn't have the 
same impact because instead of the power button 'breathing' it is just 
one little (led?) light about 1/16" in diameter.


I loved my Dual G5 and love my MP, the Al cases are elegant and the 
insides are an engineering marvel (in my eyes anyway), and when it comes 
to performance there's no comparison to that little 'ole G3. But there's 
no love quite like your first love, whether it's your first 
boy/girlfriend, the home you grew up in, your first car, or your first Mac.


Tina

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[bryan adkins]

I have tried this myself a few times trying to mess with kernel extensions
to no avail  I know there was a linux kernel that would allow you to use
the sleep indicator light to show HDD activity, there might be some info on
it don't know though.  I also read awhile back that there is a key in
Info.plist named intensity so that might be what we are looking for.  If
anyone has any ideas I am more then willing to test out and try on my PB G4
but from all I have looked into it hasn't been done.  I am relatively new to
all the coding mumbo jumbo but like I said I messed around with kernel
extensions and couldn't work it out specifically   If I can find that linux
kernel maybe someone can offer some help or at least point me to a better
forum to help out on that.


On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 7:17 AM, Yersinia  wrote:

> On 1/28/11 11:43 PM, Tina K. wrote:
>
>> On 2011/01/28 20:30, Sean Carroll so eloquently wrote:
>>
>>> I liked the way that, during sleep, the power button light on my old
>>> Gig-E would fade and brighten. I don't know when Apple started with
>>> this, but it was new to me in 2000. (I liked to point out this amusing
>>> - but not useless - feature to non-Mac people
>>>
>>
>> My first Mac was a Graphite iMac 600 MHz, the first time I saw it
>> 'breathe' while sleeping I was in love with it. I wish that I still had that
>> adorable little Mac so I could give it a hug.
>>
>> Silly and OT I know, but what can I say?
>>
>
> Actually it was my Powerbook 5300 where I first noticed that they breathe
> while sleeping. My first 3 Macs (Performa 475, PPC 7200/120 and Beige
> Gossamer (born a G3/266, later enhanced to G3/400) didn't do it that I ever
> saw, but I've seen my 5300 and Lombard Powerbooks, and G4 Quicksilver 867
> all doing it. I don't know if my G4 Mini does it, though, since its power-on
> indicator is facing the "wall" side of the hutch on my computer desk so I
> can get at the "free"  USB port easilyh lemme see, maybe if I'm
> careful enough I can turn it around without loosening the AC adapter
> cordahhh. YES, it DOES! LOL Maybe it's a "New World" Mac thing?
>
> Oh and while I TOTALLY agree with both Sean and Tina on how cool (and
> endearing) Macs are when breathing while sleeping, gotta say the one thing I
> personally NEVER liked about ANY Mac design was where they put ports and
> outlets. As far as I'm concerned, this aspect of the physical design could
> have been done precisely to make things harder. I know, I know, it's not
> aesthetic to have to see "the nest" so that's why they did them this way,
> but most of the time, I can only appreciate aesthetics when they ADD to the
> FUNCTIONALITY (like the breathing which assures me that my Macs are OK and
> sleeping), not DETRACT from it! To wit:
>
> For me, it's a major PITA to have to turn the whole damn computer (tower or
> big desktop box) around so as to be able to see/get at the ports and
> plug-ins to change a plug-in/make sure it's seated properly or try to
> remember how/where you plugged something in if you're "tracing lines" from
> the power strip. And why couldn't the Mini have its power-on light by the
> power switch and the optical drive on the right or left side of the panel
> with the power switch/pug-in/ports?  Translation: why did they have to force
> me to choose between being able to see the power light and be able to easily
> access the optical drive at the expense of being able to easily power on,
> PRAM Zap or plug in flash drives, speakers or headphones? And who was the
> freakin' idiot who couldn't put ALL the commonly used stuff (USB ports and
> AC-adapter plug-in) on the RIGHT side of the iBook? (or all on the left) --
> USB ports on opposite sides of the AC-adapter gets me hopelessly tangled up
> when I need to use the mouse while the machine needs to drink wall juice.
>
> Ooops...Sorry... <:-{
>
> /rant off
> /hijack off
>
> ~Yersinia
>
>
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> those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power
> Macs.
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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Yersinia]

On 1/28/11 11:43 PM, Tina K. wrote:

On 2011/01/28 20:30, Sean Carroll so eloquently wrote:

I liked the way that, during sleep, the power button light on my old
Gig-E would fade and brighten. I don't know when Apple started with
this, but it was new to me in 2000. (I liked to point out this amusing
- but not useless - feature to non-Mac people


My first Mac was a Graphite iMac 600 MHz, the first time I saw it 
'breathe' while sleeping I was in love with it. I wish that I still 
had that adorable little Mac so I could give it a hug.


Silly and OT I know, but what can I say?


Actually it was my Powerbook 5300 where I first noticed that they 
breathe while sleeping. My first 3 Macs (Performa 475, PPC 7200/120 and 
Beige Gossamer (born a G3/266, later enhanced to G3/400) didn't do it 
that I ever saw, but I've seen my 5300 and Lombard Powerbooks, and G4 
Quicksilver 867 all doing it. I don't know if my G4 Mini does it, 
though, since its power-on indicator is facing the "wall" side of the 
hutch on my computer desk so I can get at the "free"  USB port 
easilyh lemme see, maybe if I'm careful enough I can turn it 
around without loosening the AC adapter cordahhh. YES, it DOES! LOL 
Maybe it's a "New World" Mac thing?


Oh and while I TOTALLY agree with both Sean and Tina on how cool (and 
endearing) Macs are when breathing while sleeping, gotta say the one 
thing I personally NEVER liked about ANY Mac design was where they put 
ports and outlets. As far as I'm concerned, this aspect of the physical 
design could have been done precisely to make things harder. I know, I 
know, it's not aesthetic to have to see "the nest" so that's why they 
did them this way, but most of the time, I can only appreciate 
aesthetics when they ADD to the FUNCTIONALITY (like the breathing which 
assures me that my Macs are OK and sleeping), not DETRACT from it! To wit:


For me, it's a major PITA to have to turn the whole damn computer (tower 
or big desktop box) around so as to be able to see/get at the ports and 
plug-ins to change a plug-in/make sure it's seated properly or try to 
remember how/where you plugged something in if you're "tracing lines" 
from the power strip. And why couldn't the Mini have its power-on light 
by the power switch and the optical drive on the right or left side of 
the panel with the power switch/pug-in/ports?  Translation: why did they 
have to force me to choose between being able to see the power light and 
be able to easily access the optical drive at the expense of being able 
to easily power on, PRAM Zap or plug in flash drives, speakers or 
headphones? And who was the freakin' idiot who couldn't put ALL the 
commonly used stuff (USB ports and AC-adapter plug-in) on the RIGHT side 
of the iBook? (or all on the left) -- USB ports on opposite sides of the 
AC-adapter gets me hopelessly tangled up when I need to use the mouse 
while the machine needs to drink wall juice.


Ooops...Sorry... <:-{

/rant off
/hijack off

~Yersinia

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Dan]

At 7:30 PM -0800 1/28/2011, Sean Carroll wrote:

how do you change the "breathing rate" of a sleeping Power Mac G4?


hum.   That pulsing rate would be controlled by the power manager, 
PMU (SMC in the newer Macs) -- as that's the only thing running 
during sleep.  In the GUI, you hit the PMU thru the Energy Saver 
system preferences.  From the shell (Terminal), the pmset tool 
manages it.  Perhaps there's something in the docs, 'man pmset'.  Of 
course, it could also just be a hardwired circuit...


- Dan.
--
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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

For those interested, a possibly interesting discussion:

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=120614

Sean

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

My first Mac was a Graphite iMac 600 MHz, the first time I saw it  
'breathe' while sleeping I was in love with it. I wish that I still  
had that adorable little Mac so I could give it a hug.


Have all Macs, or at least desktops, since... well, since whenever  
Apple introduced it... have they all "breathed" during sleep? Do they  
still? Except for trips to the Apple Store to gawk and dream, the  
entirety of my Mac experience has been Power Macintosh 7100/66 - Gig- 
E - Sawtooth. So I don't know.



Silly and OT I know, but what can I say?


My reaction to the discovery of the breathing was along the lines of:  
Oh, this is *too* cool. (Very profound.) One of those little touches  
that made a Mac more than a box. Underestimated, perhaps.


Sean


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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

So-how do you change the "breathing rate" of a sleeping PowerMac G4?


I don't think you can, at least not easily.


I'm surprised, Kris. I got the idea that maybe one *could* from  
something I think I read (here?) about being able to change fan  
speeds in the... um, what is the Mac term for BIOS... Open Firmware?  
(No, I've never been a Windows guy, but a brief stint as an IS tech  
trainee - Dells, Windows 95 and 98 - burned the acronym BIOS onto my  
brain. Most Mac users never have to think twice about Open Firmware  
or deal with (or even see) a black screen with white type where you  
can't use the mouse; not so on the other side, at least once upon a  
time.) I have absolutely no clue about tinkering within the depths of  
the operating system through Terminal, much less the particulars of  
firmware. I thought I'd start with a simple question before I did  
some research and tried to get my mind around all *that.* It was  
probably naive to think that you could just type something in  
Terminal and *voila* change the setting of a hardware parameter, but  
I'm admittedly naive.


Also, I think this change in rates might not be related to the  
exact model, but perhaps related to the version of OS X you're  
using, Panther, Tiger, or Leopard?


No, the rate remained the same in the old Gig-E from the installed  
Mac OS 9.0.4 through Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 . The difference between  
the Sawtooth and the Gig-E is quite pronounced, I might add. On the  
order of twice as fast.


If it was related to the OS, that would seem to imply that it could  
be changed working within the OS. That would be easy (not for me, but  
for someone else).


It occurs to me now that both the Gig-E and the Sawtooth had/have the  
same firmware update, 4.2.8 . I'm not sure what that means as to the  
role of firmware here, but there you have it.



I'm not a big fan of Sleep, it seems to cause lots of problems.


So I've heard, although I've never had problems with Sleep. I only  
put the Mac to sleep manually now, however. If it was an always-on  
computer, I'd go back to auto settings or try hibernation instead  
(thanks for the link).


Sean

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Tina K.]

On 2011/01/28 20:30, Sean Carroll so eloquently wrote:

I liked the way that, during sleep, the power button light on my old
Gig-E would fade and brighten. I don't know when Apple started with
this, but it was new to me in 2000. (I liked to point out this amusing
- but not useless - feature to non-Mac people


My first Mac was a Graphite iMac 600 MHz, the first time I saw it 
'breathe' while sleeping I was in love with it. I wish that I still had 
that adorable little Mac so I could give it a hug.


Silly and OT I know, but what can I say?
Tina

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Re: Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Kris Tilford]

On Jan 28, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Sean Carroll wrote:


So-how do you change the "breathing rate" of a sleeping PowerMac G4?


I don't think you can, at least not easily.

Also, I think this change in rates might not be related to the exact  
model, but perhaps related to the version of OS X you're using,  
Panther, Tiger, or Leopard?


I'm not a big fan of Sleep, it seems to cause lots of problems. If I  
were trying to save energy, I'd probably be using Hibernate (Safe  
Sleep) instead of Sleep. Hibernate saves a lot more energy, and comes  
back to life just about as quickly without the issues of Sleep,  
although any Wifi connection may be dropped. There are several 3rd- 
party Preference Panes to enable hibernation on most PPC PowerMacs:



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Changing the breathing rate of a sleeping Power Mac G4

[Sean Carroll]

I liked the way that, during sleep, the power button light on my old
Gig-E would fade and brighten. I don't know when Apple started with
this, but it was new to me in 2000. (I liked to point out this amusing
- but not useless - feature to non-Mac people, i.e. almost everyone,
the same way I pointed out every other Apple superiority - though for
all I know other brands might have also included this feature or
something similar at some point.) Slowly. So relaxing you could fall
asleep to it yourself. Silly but true. The "new" Sawtooth is more
hyper this way. Rapid breathing. It's the visual equivalent of
snoring.

So - how do you change the "breathing rate" of a sleeping Power Mac
G4?

Sean

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