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USB on a 6400? Or Ethernet to an IMAC? - 2007/10/21 23:02I have a 6400 - 200 Performa tower that I still do some real work with, mostly because it is maxed and works perfectly. Also I have versions of Apps that are 8.6 friendly and do the job nicely for what I need out of this machine. I'd like to add a card or some such that would get USB capabilities on this machine.
I would like to do this somehow so I can swap files with my newer machines, and also to get a multi-Gig drive on it for back-up. The internal IDE is getting noisy, and the external SCSI is also noisy. I'd like to run all this stuff off onto an external USB drive so if I loose the IDE I can buy another and dump everything back on a new drive.
Also, is there a Ethernet crossover cable that I can plug between the 6400 and an IMAC or something? If so how do I set that up? At least I could drag everything off of the 6400 onto a USB drive connected to the IMAC that way?
Post edited by: whisperer, at: 2007/10/21 23:41
Post edited by: whisperer, at: 2007/10/22 00:01
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swordbreaker55
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Re:USB on a 6400? Or Appletalk to an IMAC? - 2007/10/21 23:54The Sonnet Tango 2 will give you what you need. Not really sure if the drive you want will work, as most USB drives are well-documented under OS 9, but not 8.6.
I'm also not certain if the ROM on these units will handle hard drive devices over 32 GB. I DO know that such devices will not boot; they can't be used as bootable backups, in other words.
The 6400 series can accommodate OS 9.1 with a retail CD--such CD's are white with an orange 9 on them. Keep this in mind if you need to upgrade.
Nate
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whisperer
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Re:USB on a 6400? Or Appletalk to an IMAC? - 2007/10/22 00:23I'm running Photoshop 6 and MacDraft 4.3V3 on this machine and am not sure if they are OS 9.2.1 compatable? I'm a little skitish about upgrading this to OS9 when it runs absolutely solid and trouble-free on OS 8.6. I do have the disc that you are talking about - original OS9.2.1 as Apple sent this to me free when I was upgrading my G4 from OS8.6 to OSX. Some such drivers that were only available by upgrading in 2 jumps.
My internal IDE is a 120G. Does that mean anything as to weather the Tango card will be able to see more then 32G? The card on that Tango link says "(2) Power Mac 5500, 6500, and 20th Anniversary Mac are not supported." Does this include the 6400?
Also, can I run an ethernet cable to my IMAC that sits next to it on the same desk? If I can get them to talk then I can do everything I need to through the IMAC.
Post edited by: whisperer, at: 2007/10/22 00:58
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swordbreaker55
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Re:USB on a 6400? Or Appletalk to an IMAC? - 2007/10/22 01:44Photoshop 6 is most certainly compatible with OS 9.x. A patch should bring this up to 6.0.1, squashing a number of major bugs in the process. None of these are specific to OS 9
I don't see why MacDraft shouldn't run. There is a version available for newer Macs with OS X. Patches are available for versions 4.4 and up
OS 9.2 won't run on machines with a 600-series CPU, of which the 6400 is one. Again, find 9.1 if you want to bring the 6400 up to that release.
Sonnet also makes a SATA card which carries the same warning you mentioned. The warning does NOT include the 6400 models, as far as I know. The card will bypass the ROM with a ROM all its own, allowing for SATA drives of any size. IDE drives work with a bridge adapter, also from Sonnet (separate purchase).
Using a crossover cable, it should be possible for the iMac and 6400 to transfer data. You could also do this with a router and Web Sharing.
Nate
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whisperer
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Re:USB on a 6400? Or Appletalk to an IMAC? - 2007/10/22 06:35Thanks Nate for all the info. I have 6 Macs that I use on a regular basis and a few more that are parked. I have been using them for many years and am a fairly proficent "user" but not that great at the Techie thing. This likely puts me in the catagory of "knows just enough to get into trouble".... :) I still have several 020 and 030 machines and even a 1 meg Apple though I don't use them anymore except for 1 Quadra. I'd be happy to give a whole pile of that stuff to somebody that could use them, software and cards and everything.
I think I'll try the crossover cable first, I'm guessing this would be a communication by AppleTalk? The IMAC is running OSX so I'm not sure how OSX will see this. I can probably figure out though how they can talk to each other if possible.
I will look around and see if I have OS9.1 in my stack of OS discs. I have accumulated a bunch of original OS discs over the years. (Heck, I think I even still have OS6 on floppies).
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krowmagnum
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Re:USB on a 6400? Or Appletalk to an IMAC? - 2007/10/22 08:13Try the crossover ethernet cable first and that should take care of transferring files. Here is a good site on networking older Macs.
You can get a PCI USB card for the 6400 but USB on OS 8.6 can be tricky. USB on OS 9.1 is no problems and if you really want to get USB on the 6400 you should upgrade to OS 9.1 and almost anything that runs in OS 8.6 will run fine in OS 9.1. You can run OS 9.2 but not from a 9.2 disk. You need an OS 9.0 - OS 9.1 install disk and can then update from Apple's site to OS 9.1 if it's an OS 9 installer, and if you want to go to OS 9.2 you can using a program called OS 9 forever but there's not much point in going past OS 9.1 on your 6400.
Look for a 2 port USB card and preferably one that has been proven to work in a Mac but most 2 port cards work fine in Macs.
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