#insert mozilla firefox joke here

[fluffydancer618]

What if I assign a fursona to entire rtumblr what then

[zerohour1974]

The Grumpy Git (This Old Mac edition)

Well after a long absence it time to return and oh have I been having fun lately with technology. So hang on to your butts it’s going to bumpy ride…

Well my i7 laptop decided to give up the ghost with no swan song, no announcement, so sweet FA.  At 4AM it worked.  Shut it down got some sleep.  Took it out with me.   Press power button, Power light comes on but sod all else.  No error messages, no beeps just straight out nothing.

Originally thought it was a hard drive fault as it had been slowing down a lot lately.  Later test by taking drive out and testing it on another machine.  Not that.  Took the laptop totally apart examined motherboard. Can’t see any damage.  Confused.

Ok so I guess you are thinking so what…laptop died move on.  Well that is just a bit of background which started the next chain of wonderful events.  Sitting on my desk I have an Apple Mac G4 800 MHz (Quicksilver 2002 model) machine.

I had before the laptop packed in intended on using the machine with MorphOS and had only just installed the setup the day before the laptop death.

So now I had to reinstall OS X on the Mac as I knew that from previous MorphOS running it could not access my wifi adapter so it would have to go.  Cue the fun…

So I insert Disc 1 of OS X 10.4 (which is a 4 CD set) and restart the Mac.  Now to get an Old Mac like that to start remember to press the Option key to get the boot menu.  Which I forgot so several false MorphOS boots later I finally get the familiar Apple boot logo on screen.

Setup hard disk with Disk Utility.  Off we go with attempt number 1 of install. Immediately it says it fails the verification scan of the installation media.  Recommends abort installation.  Ok not a great start.  So I need to check the CD for scratches but obviously because its using this to run at the moment, the drive is locked so I can’t get the disc out.

After a bit of a think I now have to restart the machine and get into the Open Firmware.  Manage to eject the CD using “eject cd” command pretty straightforward.  Turns out the CD has something on the edge which I clean and all seems fine.  Reinsert disk, restart install using “mac-boot” this Open Firmware seems quite handy.

Attempt 2.  Disc seems to pass verification.  Install begins but fails at 35% of Asian Language Support with error message.  Says to Restart.  Back to Open Firmware and ejecting disk.  Clean disc thoroughly. reinsert, reinstall.  This happens 3 more times, each time repeat process of eject etc.  and I can honestly not see what the problem is with the disc.  Scream in frustration.

Ok Plan B, I have a copy of OS X 10.2 (Panther).  It installs fine, magical or so you would think.  Now I am using a TP Link USB Wifi adapter as I don’t have an Airport for this machine.  Wander off to use another machine with internet capability.  The machine isn’t mine so I could not just use it as a replacement to the i7 before anyone asks.

Only drivers available for said Wifi adapter is OS X 10.4 - OS X 10.11.  Bugger…

Back to the drawing board.  Now I virtually back everything to a large 3TB external hard drive surely I must have a copy of OS X 10.4 on there.  After an hour of searching the drive I find Amiga OS 3.9, Amiga OS 4, Linux ISOs,  Mac OS X 10.5 DVD ISO (can’t use as my drive won’t read DVDs), everything bar the kitchen sink but no OS X 10.4 ISOs.  Right now I am starting to get really frustrated.

Back to the internet. Manage to find a set of downloadable ISOs. I’m sure there is someone losing their shit at this point as I did not rush to EBay and order a new set of discs.  I am a man who needs things to work. I will eventually get some new discs but I was desperate at this point.

Finally managed to find a blank CD and burned new copy of OS X 10.4 Disc 1.  Sure enough this works and I manage to get OS X 10.4 installed.  Yay success.  Install Wifi driver and it actually works.  We are getting somewhere.  Or are we…

Run Software Update … Three updates required. One being the 187Mb Combo update to get the machine from 10.4 to 10.4.11.  Set it running.  Download gets about 1-2 MB downloaded and keeps stopping as connection fails.  Arse.

Tried this about 4 times every time same story.  sometimes it would even get as far as 4-5MB before failing.  At this point I am sure I am being trolled.  This is just a stupid one thing after another it’s getting beyond a joke.

Back to the internet… also now getting moaned at for keep borrowing the machine that can connect to the Internet without dying.  I download the combo update from Apple and put it on a flash drive.

Insert flash drive to Mac.  Claims it can’t read it.  I could give you a long explanation but I won’t.  Lets just say I had to format it Drive Utility on the Mac and had to set it to MSDOS mode as it was set to a GPT mode from a previous install with it.

Right finally Combo Update installed.  This process has taken about 6 or more hours to put you in context.  To say patience is running thin at this point would be putting it likely.  I am at Hammers and Physical Window launching stage almost.

Internet seems slightly less wobbly but still not great however Software Update still not working correctly.  I manage to install TenFourFox (a Firefox for G4 Macs, as Mozilla abandoned them long ago).

Long story short (ha, irony considering how much I have waffled so far) I had go to support.apple.com and manually find and download the 4 needed updates listed.  Each file is average 80Mb and given the Wifi adapter is on a USB 1.1 connection. The maximum it can do is about 176k/sec so each download is taking between 40-60 minutes.  So although I have quite fast broadband it needs a USB 2.0 to use it properly which I don’t have on the G4.

4 hours later its now Midnight and I have installed the patches.  Finally the Software Updater decides it wants to work. Why has something been fixed with the updates I downloaded.  but however there is still 5 more Java updates to install and a security update.

To quote Spongebob …Two hours later …finally it finishes the Software Update.  Wifi seems to have stopped dropping out.  Did it need to warm up or something? I’m confused.

Downloaded some of my regularly used software all seems ok.  Well it worked but man it was a stressful journey to get here.  I have ordered a USB 2.0 card for it and hopefully I should have no issues.  We shall see..

Due to the joys of Macintosh Garden and a lot of slow downloading.  I have managed to get BloodRayne, You Don’t Know Jack (UK Edition).  Try YDKJ if you get the chance it’s wonderfully stupid and sarcastic.  Also Diablo (the original).  

So off to celebrate Diablo’s 20th Anniversary.  Ironically it took a journey from hell to get here but we see what happens next.  Especially as I am stuck with this damned machine until I can get a new laptop or desktop.

Well that’s it for now… until next time …Nanoo Nanoo.