CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[Kennyken]

Hello Tom!
Hello everyone. My first question is a non CED question.
I have an older Imac ( osx 10.2.8 ). Is there any way of upgrading my older machine to make it current with javascript/flashplayer etc. Or is it futile? It's not that I'm cheap. I just love my older Imac.
Secondly, I was wondering how the folks at CEDatum refurbish used CED cartridges. I have a few in my possession and I'm thinking about giving it a whirl. Your thoughts....
Everyone is free to give me some feedback if they like.
Thanks in advance.
Ken McCreath
Vancouver BC
Canada

[cbertra2]

I had a cartridge rebuilt by CEDatum and it works just as good as an OEM cartridge. The really cool part, it was a Hitachi cartridge which has not been available as a NOS for years. So I highly recommend CEDatum. Remember, please do not throw away your old cartridge body because it can be rebuilt just like new and the price is very reasonable.

[7jlong]

Just to briefly answer your iMac question - the latest Mac Flash player only requires you to have OS 10.1 or later, so you shouldn't have trouble installing it. Similarly, Apple keeps an eye on Java and updates your machine as necessary. To check this click on the Apple menu and check under Software Update to see if you are current.

You should note, though, that if it is an older iMac (pre-'06) and has a PowerPC processor and not an Intel processor, then obsolescence is not far away I'm afraid. With their latest OS (10.6) Apple dropped support for these machines, and it won't be long before add-on software starts to drop support for older machines as well.

If you do a search on some basic terms like "upgrade imac" or similar, you will come up with tips and procedures to work around some modern limitations, but after a while you end up with a Frankenstein computer that is buggier than a baitbox (in my experience).

Might be best to think about upgrading your hardware soon.

[Kennyken]

Thank you for your advice on both questions.
Yes I'm in the market for a new computer now and I'm going to send Cedatum some of my older cartridges for reconditioning.
I was planning on getting a new pc or mac but I just thought in the meantime I could upgrade my old imac.
Thanks again guys !!

Regards,
Ken McCreath

[cedmagic]

Ken:

Assuming your iMac has a G4 processor, you can upgrade the machine to keep it useful for a few more years. I'm running a PowerMac G4 Cube (450 MHz/1.5GB RAM) with Leopard (10.5) and it works fine for everything except recent games where it can't keep up with the high frame rate. As James mentioned, you will never be able to go beyond Leopard, but software developers will be supporting PowerPC machines for a while longer and a modern web browser should be available for a number of years.

To upgrade to Leopard, first max out the RAM in your machine, which should be pretty cheap if it is a few years old. Then if it runs at less than the minimum Leopard speed of 867 MHz, you can fool the machine into thinking it runs at that speed using the Open Firmware trick described on this page:

http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html

You might be interested in this picture of the three Macs I use at home, each spaced about 10 years apart:



From left to right these are:

Macintosh IIci (1989)
PowerMac G4 Cube (2000)
MacBook Air (2009)

The IIci was used for most of the development of CED Magic back in the late 1990's, and I still use it for web site email, word processing, and to maintain my CED collection database (in Microsoft Excel). One thing most people don't realize is that computers today are slower than they were 20 years ago in terms of perceived user experience thanks to a principle called Wirth's Law that states "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law

Using System 6 the IIci can boot up and launch 1980's versions of Microsoft Word and Excel in about half a minute. With its high-end video card (originally $5,000 in 1994), the IIci has more screen space than either the Cube or the MacBook Air.

Recognize that city in the background on the 20" display?

--Tom Howe

[Kennyken]

Thank you very much for that information Tom. I knew you'd be the right guy to ask.

ps- Yes I do recognize that skyline.