Not impressed with my new toy

[mikkh]

I've just inherited a MAC powerbook - in lieu of payment for doing a job for someone.

I thought I might enjoy playing with a MAC seeing as it's roots are in Unix like Linux is, but it's very annoying basically. No right mouse button in MAC's

It doesn't help being ten years old obviously, but it does have 550 MB of RAM and a 20 GB HD as opposed to the 64 MB of RAM it originally shipped with. It's had it original OS 9 upgraded to OSX 10.3 too

Unless I upgrade the OS to 10.4 I'm stuck with Safari 2.3 as a browser, which is a bit like saying you can only have Firefox 2 on an XP machine.

Looks like it will be going on Ebay faster than I thought

[Lynnrose]

My two daughters have MAC's and love them. I have no idea what they are like as I am happy with Windows XP and Vista.

[mikkh]

They have modern MAC's though, with a much newer OS on them. It does make a lot of difference in using them

It's similar to me using Windows 95 (with all it's restrictions of what software you can use) and them using Windows 7

I may end up putting Linux on it, but having read some installation instructions, it's like stepping back in time 10 years when installing Linux was mostly only for geeks

[ken]

I've still got Yellow Dog Linux on my iMac, not that I used it for at least 5 years. I plan on keeping it another couple of years and sell it to the British Museum. Its still got its original 7 gig hard drive, although I did jack the RAM up to 512 Mb. I changed the CD drive, which proved expensive as its a SCSI. It would get me online in an emergency, if everything else broke down.

[mikkh]

I'm looking at 'Slackintosh' or Debian PPC as the most viable options because Yellow Dog seems to have very precise system requirements that this G3 laptop might not fulfill - in the latest versions anyway.

Just shoved one of my LOTR DVD's in the drive to test if it really is a DVD drive - It is and it plays it at full speed despite the 400 MgHz CPU. That was the edge MAC's had though in the old days their PPC CPU's were far superior to their 'wintel' rivals. It's probably much closer to a 750/800 Celeron or Duron CPU in real processing power.

Of course they've sold their souls to Intel recently and all modern MAC's use Core 2 duo and quad core CPU's instead

At the moment it's only use is as a fairly large screen portable DVD player !

[ken]

Well impressed with my new toy, spent another ton yesterday and got an instrument panel for it and it came this morning. Can see what I'm doing now, without relying on the virtual instuments. It also gives me a GPS on old planes that are not fitted with them, so I know where I'm going.

[Lynnrose]

That looks ace KC.
My parents friends in America - the husband is an ex-pilot and he has a room in his house that is set up just like a thingypit of a plane apparently and he spends hours 'flying' his planes.

[mikkh]

I first thought hmm, that's going too far, but then I remembered spending nearly £100 on some pretty stainless steel scaffolding to rest my rods on when fishing, so I guess we're even

Had a frustrating day putting Linux on the MAC. The DVD drive can handle films fine, but is very temperamental about the tiniest flaw on an install CD/DVD so I finished up doing a net install from a 15 MB ISO

It took a LONG time, but finally I have a working OS on it that can use modern software and has a workaround for the missing right mouse button

[ken]

The new price of my rig without the instrument panel is about 480 quid, without the software. The intrument panel has 6 fuctions and another 6 onscreen funtions. These Saitek sellers say buy 6, the modules will fit on the switch control panel and have them each set different. At a 100 quid a time, that would be going over the top. Anyone setting up this type of rig, you have got to have one instrument panel. Its very hard to fly anything half way decent without one. The yoke has a built in powered USB 2 hub, but if your connecting more than 4 modules you need another powered USB 2 hub. Unpowered hubs cant cope and you get a warning come up and nothing works. Everything always works out more expensive than you first think and the Microsoft softwares not cheap either.

These are what commercial pilots start off with Lynnrose, before they graduate to the big simulators. Its takes a long time before they see the inside of a plane.

[elvisuk]

Hey LynnRose i like your discretion of "just like a thingypit of a plane". ;D It's a Cabin of a plane

[elvisuk]

Hey KC can you play Helicopter Sims on that thing well?

[Lynnrose]

Lol Elvis, it's the censor on the forum, changing c-o-c-kpit

[elvisuk]

OK LynnRose, i still like "just like a thingypit of a plane" ;D

[ken]

You can Elvis, you can use the yoke as the cyclic stick and the throttle quadrant as the elevators. Fixed wing aircraft you fly with your hands and feet and helicoptors you fly with both hands. You dont need the peddles to fly a helicopter, the propellers go round by themselves.

The principle of the two aircraft is the same. A plane moves and the wings stay still and a helicoptor stays still and the wings move. They have both got the same controls, but they are arranged differently for ease of use. You need the independant foot breaks on a plane to steer while on the ground as well as operating the rudder. A helicopter isnt likely to be landing at 150 nmph, unless its straight down which doesn't require brakes to stop.

You can get a civilian helicoptor license without flying a fixed wing. To get a military helicoptor license you need a fixed wing license before you start.

[elvisuk]

Interesting KC i only wanted to no if you could fly helicopters

[ken]

Personally I would have trouble controlling a helicopter with a yoke system Elvis. Anyone who can grip the yoke with their left hand shouldn't have any trouble at all. I can fly my model helcopters, because I dont have to grip the cyclic stick on a radio control unit. Fixed wing are easier fo me to fly and I handle them on both a yoke or a joystick. Under the right conditions, I could probably land a plane using my right hand and my feet and not touch the yoke or joystick. When your a pilot I will tell you how its done.

[elvisuk]

I have always wanted to fly a real helicopter the nerist i will get is a game

[ken]

Radio control is the nearest thing you can get Elvis, but you have to spend at least £200 for a helicoper to do it. They work exactly the same as the real thing, except the controls are all on a box about 8 inches square. Its an expensive game though, they break easy and spare parts and tools are expensive. They are good fun, because they will do things a real one wont. Perhaps a real one will, but I dont think you would want to risk the price of a gunship to try it. Simulators are good fun and you cant hurt yourself. I haven't flown a real plane for about 35 years and I dont think anyone would let me loose with one now.

[elvisuk]

Got my games pad today will give it a go later

[elvisuk]

Well they have sent me the wrong games the one they sent me only works with a PS3 not a PC

[ken]

Thats the trouble now, there are too many gaming devices about Elvis.

Samsung Spinpoint F4 Eco run much cooler than most hard drives. I have put a 1 Tb in the docking station, where other drives tend to get hot if run for very long and the Samsung doesn't. I'm going to install XP and run Sim X on that. I have some good games that wont run on Win 7 and I've got a feeling that Sim X will run better. It runs on Win 7, but I'm beginning to find snags in it. Yesterday I took off in a US Navy Boeing F/A 17 from Heathrow and had a perfect flight and landing. Trouble was, when I hit the breaks the after burners came on and I took out half of Dublin. One of the control drivers installs OK, but then suddenly gives out when you most need it.

I have got a dedicated drive for the sim anyway, if it works better with XP its no skin off my nose and I will be able to use my older games on the same drive. It will be interesting to find out if I can run an attack submarine with these same controls. None of my underwater games will work on Win 7, so I need an XP installation anyway.

[elvisuk]

"Well they have sent me the wrong games" It was meant too say Games-pad, i sent them an email today.

I have a 1.5TB External Hardrive it's a Samsung Story it never gets hot

[elvisuk]

I received this at 4.15pm I will give it a try later.


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Hi,
Many thanks for the order & confirming receipt. The strike 3 has now been replaced with the Strike FX which is essentially the same joypad but in updated packaging. The latest drivers can be found here www.speedlink.com/?p=3&cat=3315&pid=23518&paus=2 & this have worked for a customer who had the same query as you previously. Let me know if you are still having a problem with PC use once you have tried these.
Regards, Nic.

[ken]

As long as it is a Strike FX that they sent you and not another version, it should be alright. Its supposed to be for both PC and PS3. I have got a good quality joystick for war games, but I've never used a game pad and know nothing about them really.

[elvisuk]

H! KC,

I aways use a Games-pad it saves the Mouse and Keyboard, i have never use a joystick when i have try at mates i just cannot get use to them

Yes its a Strike FX for a PS3 or a PC.

I did try the drivers and it seed to put them on but it just will not make a connection the lights on the Game-pad and the lights on the USB thing are just blinking all the time

[elvisuk]

H! KC,

Well the games-pad is working fine now had a mess with it today and it finally gave in.

KC

[ken]

Well done Elvis.

Yeah, a game pad is flexible, whereas all my stuff purpose built. Since adding the control panel, I have more or less done away with the keyboard and mouse within the game. I only need the mouse for navigation on the charts. None of my controls can be used outside of the games and a game pad can.

I've held up until tomorrow. I put XP on a drive in the docking station, installed the sim and drivers without any trouble. Then I put in a Red Arrows addon that has to be activated. I sent an email for the activation key and got a reply to tell me they don't work at the weekend, I will have to wait till tomorrow for the key. As its now part of Sim X, its disabled the whole thing until its activated.

I can get into the Win7 drive and use planes that I know work OK. I haven't deleted that drive yet, until I'm sure the XP version works alright. If XP doesn't cure it, I will have to go the hard route and try and iron out problems with it. Look out forums here I come. I wont have wasted my time by making an XP drive, I need one anyway for my nice submarines and nasty U-Boats. All my wartime fighters and bombers only work on XP and thats a really good war game. My non Microsoft ship sims haven't been tried on Win7 yet, so I might need XP for them. Now it all down to getting this main lot working, roll on tomorrow.

[elvisuk]

Well i'm not in to games as much as you KC a gamespad is fine, but i may get a joystick next year just to see if i can master it

I am looking for a helicopter game at the moment as i have not got a lot of games at the minute

[ken]

Best of luck on that one Elvis. Theres plenty of cheap games out there, but they wont run on Win7 and anything that will is expensive at the moment. Another 6 months and prices will have dropped and there will be secondhand stuff going for next to nothing. I will let you know if I see anything halfway decent. Some of the games that look like fixed wing games also include helicopters and you might pick something up cheap that way. Its no use paying very much before you know how you get on with it. By next Christmas you might have bought a real one.

[elvisuk]

Thanks KC but i don't think i have much chance of a real one, yes well i am not in any rush as i have got too get use to the gamespad and work it in yet i will have a look around and see if i can find something with a helicopter or a tank game, i am playing Halo at the moment as i gave most of my games away not long ago