Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 01:04:19PM -0500, Sandwich Maker wrote:
i've just acquired a beige g3, so i've studied up on these a bit.

afaik the ide flaw is the same as the u5/u10 [0] - 48-bit addressing,
limiting drives to 128G, though there's supposed to be a clever hack
that involves partitioning larger drives. [1]

No, the problem is that the DMA transfers are too fast for the chip
to keep up and you get data corruption.

You could fix it with a third party driver under S 8 and 9, SX up until
10.2 included an automatic work around. It was dropped in 10.3.

Geoff.

Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 01:04:19PM -0500, Sandwich Maker wrote:

" I have a Blue and White Macintosh G3 (original model) that only works
" with older drives. There is a flaw in the IDE controller chip and the
" fastest drive made that works with it is 20gig, anything newer is too
" fast. :-(

also, there is scsi on the motherboard, though it's directed to the
back panel - it's for connecting all those legacy apple scsi
peripherals.

My memory, and LEM, say that B&W G3s dropped the SCSI that the Beige
machines had.

Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 03:38:51PM -0500, Joshua Boyd wrote:
My memory, and LEM, say that B&W G3s dropped the SCSI that the Beige
machines had.

Mine has firewire and USB 1, both of which are NT bootable and an add
on adaptec narrow scsi controler which is also not bootable.

Apple had offered a bootable wide scsi controller as an option, but
mine does not have it.

Without an additional controler the only option was a single IDE drive.

It also has a zip disk (not bootable) and at one time had a bootable
IDE CD-RM drive. It now has a Toshiba 4x DVD-R burner and won't
boot from it.

In order to boot it, I had to disconnect the CD-RM drive and fish through
several CD-RM drives until I found one that was slow enough to boot it.

The second version had a better IDE controler chip on it's motherboard
and would support 2 IDE drives up to 120gig (or so).

When I found out that the machine was not going to boot anything over
20gig (April of last year) , a friend in the U.S. offered to send me
a bootable IDE controler that did not have the problem.

It's now January, and he's moved here, but he never seems to remember to
bring the controler card when he visits.

Geoff.

Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 04:03:35PM -0500, Joshua Boyd wrote:

Shipping aside, how hard is it for you to get stuff there, from, say the
US? I would hope that you wouldn't have the troubles that some
countries do of customs stealing everything of value. Are the import
fees excessively high?

It depends upon how it arrives and and how it is documented. For example,
things sent by post office under about $100 including shiping arrive tax
free. The limit is supposed to be $50, but they tend to be flexible on it.

Computers are taxed at 16.5% of the declared or their estimated value.
I once got screwed because someone sent me a used cdrom drive and some
powerbook parts that did not "look" used and I was forced to pay a
large import duty on what the guy in customs thought they should be worth.

He could not understand why someone would pay $25 to ship parts that
cost $30.

There is also a one or two are ok for personal use, three and more MUST
be for business philosphy. So you could send me two 300gig hard drives
and I'll get them with little hassle, but if you sent me a box of 10
1gig drives that you bought for $10 at a flea market, I would be forced
to get an import permit and pay duty on them at their expected value of
$150-$200 each.

Things sent via courier service such as FEDEX, UPS and DHL are taxed at
the MAXIMUM possible rate plus clearing costs. An example would be
a $100 printer sent by airmail via the post office with two color ink
cartriges in it would be taxed at 16.5% if they taxed it at all,
while a single $25 ink cartridge sent by post office would not
be taxed either, by UPS it would be taxed at 110% (it's an office
supply) plus VAT (16.5%) on the cost of the cartridge, shipping and clearing
fees.

Usually things do arrive, but books seem to disapear the most.

Then there is the story of the 10 U.S. only cell phones I bought from
someone over the internet for $50. :-(

The most popular way of shipping things is ask a tourist to bring them
for you,

Geoff.

Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 12:08:38AM +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

It depends upon how it arrives and and how it is documented. For example,
things sent by post office under about $100 including shiping arrive tax
free. The limit is supposed to be $50, but they tend to be flexible on it.

Computers are taxed at 16.5% of the declared or their estimated value.
I once got screwed because someone sent me a used cdrom drive and some
powerbook parts that did not "look" used and I was forced to pay a
large import duty on what the guy in customs thought they should be worth.

He could not understand why someone would pay $25 to ship parts that
cost $30.

There is also a one or two are ok for personal use, three and more MUST
be for business philosphy. So you could send me two 300gig hard drives
and I'll get them with little hassle, but if you sent me a box of 10
1gig drives that you bought for $10 at a flea market, I would be forced
to get an import permit and pay duty on them at their expected value of
$150-$200 each.

Things sent via courier service such as FEDEX, UPS and DHL are taxed at
the MAXIMUM possible rate plus clearing costs. An example would be
a $100 printer sent by airmail via the post office with two color ink
cartriges in it would be taxed at 16.5% if they taxed it at all,
while a single $25 ink cartridge sent by post office would not
be taxed either, by UPS it would be taxed at 110% (it's an office
supply) plus VAT (16.5%) on the cost of the cartridge, shipping and clearing
fees.

Usually things do arrive, but books seem to disapear the most.

Then there is the story of the 10 U.S. only cell phones I bought from
someone over the internet for $50. :-(

The most popular way of shipping things is ask a tourist to bring them
for you,

I am amazed. I hear stories like that (and sometimes worse) about
Argentina, Hondoras, Romania, Turkey, and other places, but still I'm
rather surprised that Israel is like that.

That said, it sounds like single items under $50 shouldn't cause you
trouble, and to me that sounds like getting a UW-SCSI card for the Mac,
and a pair of 50gig drives shipped seperately wouldn't be too much
trouble.

But, if the mac is not a priority, then who cares. Because I'm sure it
can still use network storage just fine, and really how hard are gige
cards likely to be to get locally?

Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 05:05:06PM -0500, Joshua Boyd wrote:
I am amazed. I hear stories like that (and sometimes worse) about
Argentina, Hondoras, Romania, Turkey, and other places, but still I'm
rather surprised that Israel is like that.

This is a very strange country. Sometimes it's like the U.S. and sometimes
it's the worst of third world countries, usually it's a combination
of the two.

That said, it sounds like single items under $50 shouldn't cause you
trouble, and to me that sounds like getting a UW-SCSI card for the Mac,
and a pair of 50gig drives shipped seperately wouldn't be too much
trouble.

But, if the mac is not a priority, then who cares. Because I'm sure it
can still use network storage just fine, and really how hard are gige
cards likely to be to get locally?

Probably not. But tat this time, I have absolutely no money to spend
on such things. At some time in the future, that should change, but
for now, I'm stuck with what I've got.

Moral of the story:

1. Don't get involved in starting a startup unless you have enough in
the bank to keep you going for two or three years and don't invest
it in the startup.

2. NEVER! NEVER! let it affect your health.

Geoff.

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 @ 00:08 +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson said:

The most popular way of shipping things is ask a tourist to bring them
for you,

Just out of curiosity:

What about freight? Are the rules any nicer when using the slow boat?

How about shipping via airliners? Expensive, but if it allows you get
past some of the customs costs, it might be worthwhile.

Actually, I don't know if the airlines will take packages any more. The
last time I did it was 1995.

Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 03:54:49PM -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

What about freight? Are the rules any nicer when using the slow boat?

No. The customs people are the same.

How about shipping via airliners? Expensive, but if it allows you get
past some of the customs costs, it might be worthwhile.

There is air freight, but it ends up at the customs office. If we ever meet
in person, I'll tell you the story of a protoype cell phone/gaming device
that I worked on. It was sent DHL in a wooden crate from Korea

Actually, I don't know if the airlines will take packages any more. The
last time I did it was 1995.

Sure. As long as you don't list your name as B. Laden and your address
as Afganistan. :-)

Geoff.