POWERWATCH NEWS POWERWATCH VIEWS POWERWATCH SYSTEMS POWER TECH POWERWATCH FILES ABOUT POWERWATCH POWERWATCH LINKS JEFF'S LOSTWORLD		October 1996 Power News Archive (Up to November Archive)   Monday, October 28 "My God" were the first words I spoke as I fired up the fabled PowerTower 200e at around 6pm tonight. I couldn't believe that it actually showed up, and I was even more pleased to see that it was correctly configured. Good job, Power Computing. More: It's extremely fast. Much more than I thought. One of my old 8mb DIMM's from my Powerwave didn't work. It crashed right away. Darn, only 56mb of RAM :-( It has those cool convenience power outlets on the back of the computer, e.g. for your monitor to plug into. It came with CD Toolkit 1.6.3 (groan).. a user told me his PTPro 225 came with version 2.0. I'll figure something out. Did I mention how fast it is? That IMS Twin Turbo card (4mb) is incredible. I haven't even touched Photoshop, either. I immediately updated to 7.5.5 and IMS Twin Turbo 3.5 -- no problems. My external Jaz drive (which has been flaky of late..) also works fine at it's SCSI 4 position. The manual is very good.. actually has a color cover instead of my Powerwave's b&w :-) Helpful in taking it apart. Comes with Don Crabb's Guide to Macintosh System 7.5.5.. funny, because the PT didn't even come with 7.5.5! I will post more tomorrow. MacBench scores and more, later in the week. The Journal will also be updated later in the week. I am still committed to getting others their systems. If you ordered a PowerTower 180e or 200e before 9/26 and have not received it, please let me know.   Saturday, October 26 Several users have written asking if the 3D acceleration and SRS sound in the PowerBase news of yesterday means for ALL PowerBases. To the best of my knowledge, the whole 3D/SRS thing is partially what slowed down the arrival of the PowerBase. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but all PB systems will have the 3D graphics and SRS sound!   Friday, October 25 Our friends at PowerLogix have introduced the PowerBoost Mach 9, which can get PowerTower Pro 225's to nearly 270mhz! That's nearly 57 on the MacBench processor scale! Wow! Only $179 too! Read the press release to see all the details! The Mach 9 works on all Power 604 or 604e systems. In addition, the Mach 8R accelerator for PowerWave systems. They'll be out "very soon." I have added two new sections to PowerWatch Views about Accelerating your Power System and PC Compatibility and Power Computing Systems. PowerBase's will have an SRS surround sound system (did Apple start this trend?) plus the 3D acceleration will include 3D RAVE and 3D RAGE technologies. PowerWatch Notes has been updated slightly.   Thursday, October 24 YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAWW!!!  A call to Keith at x6621 (give this man a raise!) got this result: We want to ship it right away since you've been waiting so long.. like tomorrow. You can stick with your 180e or move back to the 200e. Either way, you'll get it Monday..." Gee, I wonder what I chose? Yes, the PT200e 32/2000/8xCD/Zip/IMS 4mb is once again on the way! I don't know if PowerWatch had anything to do with it, but....   Monday, October 21 FRUSTRATION: A call to Power Computing's "order status line" once again told me that I had a PT 200e on order. When I told her that my sales rep had changed it to a 180e two weeks ago, all she could tell me is that her database isn't updated often. Hello?? I have this fear that my PowerTower will never be built! This is NOT good customer service. She made no effort to help out. Help me Brian Combs, you're my only hope! Power Computing has started advertising faster PowerCenter systems: PowerCenter 166 (604) - 16/2000/8xCD (mini-tower) $2395 PowerCenter 180 (604) - 16/2000/8xCD (mini-tower) $2795 These are not yet shipping. Power ShipWatch has been updated accordingly. The addition of 8x CD-ROM drives throughout the PowerCenter line has been reflected in this ad (December MacWorld). Saturday, October 19 MacWeek reports in a story that Power Computing will be shipping all three PowerBase models this week. From experience, I'd say a few grains of salt is necessary, but as soon as users report them coming in, I'll let you all know! Thanks, Daniel Nash! Have a PowerCenter on order? Did you pay for the 8x CD-ROM? If so, call your sales rep ASAP, and they will credit you $170, since the 8x will be standard as of Monday. If you opted for the standard 4x drive, you may want to make sure you'll be getting a 8x as well! Two new topics have been added to PowerWatch Views: Future Products, and Software Bundle support. Friday, October 18 As many of you have heard, Apple is cutting prices this weekend to levels which may lie below the clone makers current prices. In other words, a price cut from a certain clone maker seems likely. PowerWatch Views was down this morning because Pair Networks upgraded our server with more RAM and hard disk space! It's back up now. I'll be away from school this weekend, so updates will be few and far between. Thursday, October 17 (SF Earthquake 7th Anniversary!) I have updated my Jeff's Journal page about the road towards my PowerTower 200e, now 180e. I'm very pleased to say that it looks like these pages have settled into a steady rhythm of activity. Since PowerWatch's inception, here are some stats (this is for my whole Lostworld site, but PowerWatch gets most of the business by far): Over 360,000 raw hits, averaging nearly 20,000 per day Over 17,000 different hosts served Over 3.5 gigabytes of data transferred, averaging 142mb per day! The busiest day was our first, with nearly 40,000 raw hits. Weekends are much slower, averaging around 13,000. A typical weekday (10/16 for example) gets about 22,000.   Wednesday, October 16 Woo-hoo! Apple Computer posted a $25 million fourth quarter profit! This is great news for all Mac users! Thanks, Dale Burger! A user reports that Power Center systems will start shipping with 8x CD-ROM drives standard next week. This has not been confirmed by any Power people though. A lot of people complain about Power's customer service. Today, I want to praise it. Out of nowhere, my sales rep Keith, whom I highly recommend (x6621), called me at work to confirm that my change had been made to a PT 180e (I was concerned about this because calling the order status line still had me down for a 200e). He was very patient and courteous throughout the whole experience.. Way to go!   Tuesday, October 15 A few notes about PowerWatch Views ... If you want to reply to a message, you can actually paste the html of the message location in your reply.. first, go to the message you want to reply to.. use Netscape to copy the link location of the message (where it says Message 3 of 5, copy the '3') .. then paste that in your message as a link back! Also, I've added a section about Monitor and Video card options. If you've got more suggestions, pass them on!   Monday, October 14 I have redone the navigation bar at the top of each page a little bit. Power Files is simply the link to our FTP site, which currently holds the IMS Twin Turbo v. 3.5 driver and the ATI XClaimGA new driver. More will come as time goes by! Man, is today slow or what? Nothing new to report, at least not yet. No signs of shipping PowerBases, either...   Saturday, October 12 We are now using Web Crossing again for PowerWatch Views. Register, and enjoy. Have a great weekend and keep sending in those reports! If you're looking for the old views section, you can read, but please don't post. I have updated my tale of getting the illustrious PowerTower 200e in Jeff's Journal.   Friday, October 11 Power Computing gained another competitor today. APS, the famous Mac hard drive reseller, has systems for much less than comparable Power systems.. Will Power cut prices? Stay tuned... Please start using Web Crossing as the new PowerWatch Views section. WWWBoard is way too clunky and overcrowded, and I've made WebX much easier to use. I will change all the links later this weekend, so please start today! Dale Burger, from the Computing Canada web site, has a story about Dr. Gil Amelio's first visit to Canada after becoming Apple CEO. He seemed to put to rest the rumors of MacOS 8 not being backward compatible, among other things. "That's simply untrue," Amelio said. "When you deal with system architecture you have to clearly go to a new foundation. Embedded in (Mac OS 8) will be a 7.5 module so that any programs you have for System 7 will run under the module. But what they won't be able to do will be take full advantage of all the new stuff, which I hope is fairly obvious." Thursday, October 10 Chris Winn reports that there are new EDO VRAM options for PowerBase systems. You can now upgrade to 4 mb. Also, Level-2 cache options are coming. Visit the Power Computing BYOB page to see this. I spoke with my sales rep today, and I'm quite bitter. Motorola has delayed shipment of 200mhz 604e's again, not arriving until at least late November. Keith, my sales rep, suggested moving down to a 180e, which they can build sometime this century. Well, so that's what I did. Sigh. We will be probably returning to Web Crossing as our message base (see how annoying WWWBoard is when it get's large! Don't say I didn't warn you!) this weekend. Please go and preview the WebX-based PowerWatch views, posting if you'd like, and let me know if you like it or not! Wednesday, October 9 Uh oh. I got a call from my Power sales rep. about the nationwide shortage of PowerPC 604e chips. He mentioned that we need to discuss my options. I will keep you all posted about what those are. Another user with a PT Pro 200 on order said that they offered either a PowerCenter 150 or an upgrade to the PT Pro 225, which could be received in two weeks. I don't think there is any "I'm sorry, here's a discount" deal on this. Power owners with ATI video cards should grab the latest driver from Apple's ftp site, in the Unsupported directory. It fixes a bug with WordPerfect, and works fine on my Powerwave. If you can't get onto an Apple ftp server, why not grab it now from PowerWatch's ftp site? I'm pleased to report that PowerWatch activity is on the rise again! Great!   Tuesday, October 8 I trimmed down the PowerWatch Views section a bit. This will probably happen quite often to save download time. If you're the owner of one of the following machines, you can get a new graphics acceleration video driver from Randall Shaw's web page. This software missed the boat on 7.5.5, but he got permission from Apple to distribute this update! PowerCenter PowerCurve PowerTower (but not Pro) Monday, October 7 Read my tale of the process I have been going through while getting my PowerTower 200! It's currently why and how I got it, but wait til I get this bad boy! It's on Jeff's Journal! The official line on PowerBase systems from Power themselves has come down: PowerBase 180 and 200 - shipping next week - if you called and ordered one right now, you'd wait 6-8 weeks. (yes, that's November-December) PowerBase 240 - shipping in early to mid-November. If you ordered this minute, it's a 8-10 week wait! (December-January!) Thanks to everyone who jumped on this story. Still, the story below leads me to believe that some Power sales people are quoting dates pretty far off... Whoa! Two separate users report that PowerBases may not be in users hands until next year! He quotes a Power salesperson as saying that PowerBase 180's won't ship until around December, while PowerBase 240's won't ship until January! ShipWatch has been updated to reflect this possibility. Keep your eyes on PowerWatch for the latest news!   Sunday, October 6 The ever pro-Microsoft C|net has posted a review of the PowerTower Pro 225. They say how fast it is, then they said it kept crashing when more memory was added. Therefore their review was rather negative. There is also a Mac buying guide, in which they recommend a $4800 PowerMac 9500/150 over a $3800 PowerTower 180 system. I've tried being nice, but I think they're morons. Go tell them what you think, and while you're at it, mention PowerWatch! :-) It's been a slow weekend for PowerWatch, both in news and activity. I'm providing the graph of how we did in week one of life. Note how it basically dies at the end of the week. I'm hoping something big will happen to bring us back! day: #reqs: --- ----- Sun: 7824: Mon: 39263: Tue: 28874: Wed: 31990: Thu: 23480: Fri: 17630: Sat: 13400:   Friday, October 4 Over on MacInTouch, Ric Ford posted a story about Apple Abandoning Backward Compatibility in MacOS 8. Yes, old programs won't work on Copland anymore! This makes Jeff wonder if this MacOS could be... BeOS??? As PowerWatch comes off its "high" from the beginning of the week, when it was mentioned on so many web sites, I'd like to kindly ask for readers to continue to spread the word! Tell friends, people on newsgroups, other web sites, etc! PowerWatch will only survive if people keep coming back!! Don't forget to bookmark this page!! A few users have reported that MacMall is giving away Macromedia Freehand 5.5 as well as a Zip Drive if you order a Power system from them. Apparently though, you now have to buy 5 Zip disks to get the free drive. Hot News: Have a Power system with an IMS Twin Turbo card w/8mb VRAM? Having sync-on-green or other problems? Want the cure? Here's the latest version of the driver software - IMS Twin Turbo v.3.5 - you won't find it anywhere else-- that's right, a PowerWatch exclusive! Many thanks to David Negvesky for his help! This file is now on our ftp server at ftp://ftp.lostworld.pair.com/pub   Thursday, October 3 A PowerWatch user reports that Power offered him an upgrade from a 1.2gb hard disk to a 2.0gb drive for only $50. This was on a PowerCenter 150 order. That's quite a bargain! Nope.. not gonna happen! It turns out that PowerBase orders aren't happening til next week! The systems may not even ship out until November! Agh! On a side note, Power was unable to confirm for one reader whether those famous noisy fans will make an appearance in PowerBases. Back by popular demand: The old-style PowerWatch Views has returned. Power Computing seems to be providing customer service there too! I hope it will be easier for all to navigate and understand. Sorry for the mixups lately! I'm trying!   Wednesday, October 2 Brandon Pierce says that he fixed the sync-on-green problem with some $25 adapters from Griffin Technology. If anyone has more info, drop us a line. PowerWatch tipster Scott Sind has a temporary fix for those having trouble with ATI video cards and PowerCenter machines: Either switch to the onboard video (no need to remove the card), or in the Monitors & Sound control panel switch the sound output quality to 11.025 kHz. This will restore the "lost" or "crackling" sounds in games and will not interrupt a clickable system sound. Many users have also reported that PowerPC 604e shortages are preventing Power from shipping any 200mhz based systems. Also, since Power was taking inventory this week, nothing was shipped. Users have reported that alternate hard drive configurations for PowerBase systems are now available. This has also been reflected on Power's Build your Own Box page. PowerWatch Views will probably go back to it's old format due to user request. Oh well. People didn't care for my font shrinking too much, so it went back to it's old size. Andrew Welch, our favorite Thaumaturgist, has had a lot of trouble with Power Computing. Why not read his story on the Ambrosia Web Site? Extinct computer owners rejoice! I've made pages for PowerCenter and the original Power owners on the Systems page! Plus, upgrade info coming soon!! Don't forget about ShipWatch, which allows you to see how long it will take to get that new system!! It seems as if Power Computing has a 2-4% educational discount on some of their products. I also know that several campus resellers (UCLA is one of them) are selling Power systems. David Negvesky tipped us off about the Sync on Green problems with the IMS Twin Turbo monitors. Here's a summary: Version 3.5 of the TT driver has been out for 2 weeks. Normally it would be available on their web site, which is currently experiencing problems. He was happy to mail be a copy. This will be posted to PowerWatch as soon as it gets here! Apparently, part of my problem was that TwinTurbo preferences were not being saved. A work around for this is to 1) ensure that the TT gamma startup is in the Startup Items folder, and 2) uncheck both boxes (general and text acceleration) in the TT general controls window. The zoom feature does not currently work on the Apple 1710 monitors. IMS is working on this but has had no luck thus far, nor is IMS promising that there will be a fix. The built-in MPEG driver is currently being worked on for the Apple 1710 monitors. No release date is known. Use Sparkle (TM) for now. In case you don't know what the Sync on Green problem is, here it comes: As you are probably aware, if you don't turn off the "sync on green" box in the graphics card's control panel, the screen is overlaid with a sickly green wash. Even when disabled, the green stain is present at bootup until the control panel kicks in. I wouldn't mind this so much but recently, no matter what I did to the control panel (trash old pref file, reinstall Turbo drivers, etc) my screen stayed green even after reboot, in all bit depths and screen resolutions. Then, as suddenly as the problem had appeared, it seemed to resolve itself. I was back to green before CP load only. Tuesday, October 1 Power Online Evangelist Brian Combs has more information on PowerBase upgradability: The Alchemy architecture (upon which PowerBase is built) would require a ROM upgrade to support the 604. As am result, none of the systems based upon Alchemy, whether from Power Computing, Apple, or any of the other guys, is likely to