6400 weirdness

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6400 weirdness

Hey,

A neighbor got a 6400 for free. Worked fine. But it only had 48 megs of ram and OS 8. So I got some RAM (it's now 136) and installed OS 9.1, Word, PowerPoint and he installed AOL 5.O. Everything was fine. I left him working on the machine. Later, when he went to shut down, instead of shutting down normally, he got the watch going forever. He pulled the plug. Now, at startup, after the desktop loads, the watch starts again. It doesn't do it with extensions off but it does do it with base. Anybody got a clue?

William
www.williamahearn.com

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perhaps an...

extension conflict @ boot?

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If there's anything in the st

If there's anything in the startup and shutdown folders in the system folder, remove them and give it a try. I'd vote for AOL as the culprit. What's AOL's instant messenger called? I forget.

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...

uh... "AOL Instant Messenger", or "AIM"?

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AOL

Yeah. That's what I thought. But AOL isn't present in the 9.1 base extensions folder. My feeling is that something is trying to connect to something else. Some odd networking software? I'm stumped.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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Must have been selective forg

Must have been selective forgetting. If my previous suggestions don't work, just for the fun of it, disconnect the floppy drive.

Hey William, I just checked out your website for the first time. Very, very cool! You wrote all that? Impressive. Do you have a book out? Interesting topics, and you're a good writer.

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Floppy?

Really? I'm thinking of nuking and paving and see if it happens again.

Thanks for the nice words about my website. Yes, I wrote all of that. Right now I'm working on a retrospective on Hitchcock and then some articles on noir and detective fiction and then back to the book.

Thanks again.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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Yeah, I've encountered a coup

Yeah, I've encountered a couple of 6400's that were screwed-up because of bad floppy drives. Disconnected the floppy, they started up peachy keen.

Hey, "2001" is on my top ten list of best films. I wrote a term paper on it in 11th grade where I figured it all out. There's nothing ambiguous about it at all. It's actually a pretty straightforward story. I love your remarks about HAL 9000. The whole computers in film topic is a great angle.

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I've had problems with the 9.

I've had problems with the 9.1 ATI video extensions causing problems on older hardware. I'd try disabling them and see if the delays remain.
It may be dependent on what system the 9.1 CD was originally for.

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Yeah, the 6400 didn't have an

Yeah, the 6400 didn't have an ATI chip. It was the 6500 that first had the Rage II video. This is starting to sound familiar. The 6400 Zone and its Forum are good places to find answers, of course. You might want to post the question there too.

William, I'd like to read your analysis of the Star Trek computer too. Just a suggestion.

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floppy drives, ambiguity and Star Trek what?

Hey,

I'll check the 6400 zone and the floppy drive. It's a retail install of 9.1 and not machine-specific. As for ambiguities in 2001, the ending is a garden of distraction and inference and many viewers and critics have commented on it. What Star Trek computer? Not the scene with Scotty and the Plus in the flick about the whale where he talks into the mouse?

William
www.williamahearn.com

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That mouse scene with Scotty

That mouse scene with Scotty always comes to mind. That was hilarious. Was that a Mac Plus?

No, I mean the computer on the Enterprise, especially on the original tv series. There were a few episodes where the computer had a distinct personality and relationship with the crew. And it seems now very forward thinking, with all the voice recognition stuff, and the little cards like flash drives. In many ways different from HAL 9000 on 2001 which came out at the same time.

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Yup, a Plus

Hey,

I had to draw the line somewhere and if I included TV shows, I'd be writing that series for the rest of my life. There are a few pre-Tron Disney flicks that I missed and some other obscure films that I'm running down. I never was a big Star Trek fan. Also, the computer in Star Trek isn't as significant a character in the film as was Hal or Alpha 60 from Alphaville.

But thanks for taking the time to read it.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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Keep it up

You know, after reading some of your mid-life crisis blogs, you had me a little worried about you, but your website shows a part of someone that's very much got it together. You've got a real future there. I've got you bookmarked and look forward to reading more and new entries. Let us know when you get that book together. Keep up the good work.

Back on topic--I've installed OS 9 on 6400's using the retail 9.04 version (white with big yellow 9 disk) and never had any problems. I always immediately upgraded to 9.1 and even 9.2 because 9.04 was one of the lousiest OS's in my experience.

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Huh?

Yo,

What mid-life crisis blog? That's somebody else. Not me. No way. I'm not having a mid-life crisis (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Thanks again.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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Ha! Sorry, my big mistake. Ma

Ha! Sorry, my big mistake! Maybe it's the number of letters in your names or something that got me confused. My bad.

I know what it was. For some reason, early on in this thread I had Henry Kissinger associated with you. I must have been flipping threads to fast, or maybe it was a Dr. Strangelove moment.

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HC, I believe you're thinking

HC, I believe you're thinking of our venerable Doug-Doug the Mighty.

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Venerable's a good term.

Venerable's a good term. My apologies to DDTM too.

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extension conflict?

>extension conflict @ boot?

Nope. The entire desktop loads. It's when the desktop has finished loading that the watch starts up. The 6400 is trying to connect to something or load something or do something and I can't figure out what.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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Appletalk? Chooser? Printer w

Appletalk? Chooser? Printer weirdness? File sharing? Have you checked/disabled any obscure stuff like that?

Just to rule out everything, have you reseated the ram and stuff?

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Appletalk?

Hey,

That's where I think the problem is. In some strange network setting. I'm going to try and get to the machine tonight.

>Just to rule out everything, have you reseated the ram and stuff?

This is not a RAM problem. It's definitely a sofware problem. But thanks for suggesting it.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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9.1 retail disk?

You know, I've never seen a non-machine-specific retail version of OS 9.1. The only ones I've ever seen were 9.04. As they say over here, you sure you sure you sure you sure? Maybe there was one bundled with later retail OS X's, but what color is your disk?

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machine-specific installs

Hey,

Machine-specific is a term like clean install or fresh install. No one ever seems to get them right. Machine-specific CD installs -- as I know it -- began with OS 8 and the first or second wave of the iMacs. The CD install that came with those Macs did not work with other machines such as the Quads that could run 8 or other PowerMacs. The installers sought a gestalt or computer number and if it didn't get it, it stopped. The install could not happen. Since the 6400 shipped with SSW 7.5.3, the installer that I'm working with obviously didn't ship with this machine. And it obviously isn't limited to a specific Mac. Machine-specific installers don't install software badly or in some crippled version, they won't install at all on other Macs. This isn't an installer problem.

William
www.williamahearn.com

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