So the weekend came and went and then Thanksgiving and then another weekend and my wife kindly re-purposed valuable chunks of my free time all along. This goes of course without mentioning other time consuming domestic annoyances like "enjoying" the symptoms of our only car battery and alternator dying on the road and enlisting the appropriate experts to replace them. Yet what have brought my MDD project to a stall is that the video card started showing those weird textile patterns on the screen making it totally unreadable. I have had reseated the card in the past with some degree of success but this time is more stubborn than before and to no avail. This happened once again shortly after my last post and almost immediately after I successfully got my MDD online for first time (bridging two dd-wrt routers wirelessly) and was about to log in into this forum with Classilla after updating it. I went and put the video card of another MDD (a single processor one that has no hard drive in it) and the problem went away yet these two are different video cards and I did not have time to figure out the video card driver installation procedure. Diehard's instant DAW automagically recognized my previous video card from the get go somehow.
I'm guessing that it shouldn't be difficult to figure out the driver's install on that should I want to permanently cannibalize my other MDD though Mac OS 9 still makes me feel like a novice even after my having done some geeky projects on my own here and there like flashing third party firmwares to routers, installing MorphOS (Amiga compatible OS) to a Mac mini G4, write a little VB, etc, but as I have said before Mac OS 9 is different to the Windows, OSX and Linux interface/workflow (My impression is that current Linux iterations borrow from the other two). Of course, should I get stuck with that you guys will be the first to know
My original intention when I purchased my MDD a few years back was to simply house my Oasys PCI (which synths were a lot of fun to use back in 2002 on a Windows 98 box that died) but it wasn't until very recently and on my third attempt (which only succeeded with your help) that I was finally able of putting it all together as a working unit. Unfortunately my lack of experience with the interface and workflow of Mac OS9 has hindered my Oasys PCI ride per se. I mean, I haven't played with the Oasys synths or effects (which seem to be some sort of a hassle to integrate into Cubase and I do not remember that being the case at all in my Windows box back then). I have had instead much more fun with Cubase (which I have used in Windows, OSX and even on Linux via wine!) and with the synth plugins you guys generously made available here than with my Oasys card itself... ...until my video card on my MDD went
(I have already done the power supply mod to it two years back as the MDD power supplies are known to be prone to fail). Now, I have a few video cards, including a couple of AGP ones and a PCI card here and there but they are Windows only cards and then unless I permanently cannibalize my other MDD (single processor one) my other choice would be spending $15.74 on e-bay to replace my Radeon 9000 64MB. Can I just put my Radeon in the oven and try to re-float it? I have read somewhere in here that the single processor MDD was somehow better for DAW purposes but don't remember to have read the final word on that. Is the second processor seen/used by Cubase or the plugins or by any audio software in Mac OS9? In the mean time I have been spoiled over the years to keep my latency to a minimum, run two or three live plugins on guitars and vocals, run a reverb and a delay as internal software sends and yet monitor them right through the host while I record without any audio dropouts. If it wasn't for the latter I could see my self investing some cash in water cooling this beast as it is truly loud but the $ I've spent on this project's hardware wise hit a cap
As for my Oasys PCI (which I've read somewhere in this forum that it isn't regarded very high) since I am fairly proficient using Windows, discovered recently that there's a patch that allows Windows 98 (the only other OS that can house my Oasys PCI card drivers wise) to use upto 3GB of RAM, that there's an unofficial service pack for it, that there's a software called kernelex that allow some recent apps to install by fooling them into thinking you are running XP and that some Core2Duo boards have drivers for 98SE (and I happen to have a 3000Ghz C2D 8400BX laying around) I have decided to try to give it another dignified home.
I still have my other single processor MDD intact and will get it running as a fun project. In the mean time I will look for any recommendations on how to replace my dual processor MDD's video card, flash the ROM of an existing Windows one etc. as I hate not to see it fully operational.
At any rate, this forum and the Macintosh Garden have been truly awesome discoveries for me. The software collection you guys have made available here plus the vast knowledge and thorough replies you provide in record time alone makes the ride worth it. I will totally stay around and will look for (or wait for you to e-mail me) whenever you have some pages full of ads so we can click them out in gratitude though please if possible do not integrate the ads to the forum, instead make a page of only ads and we'll stay for a few minutes clicking on the suckers.
Regards!!!