Burning Firewire Issue ... Panther for life...

B

benwilcox

Registered
Well, the rumors are true. I was first in line at Frye's Electronics in Irving, TX today to get my Tiger copy. Very excitedly, I tore open the box when I got home, powered up my IBook and opened the software package. I was surprised first by the DVD format of disk. My IBook does not have a DVD drive and the package under "requirements" actually does not list a DVD drive as a requirement. I got creative though. I had bought an external hard drive enclosure from CompUSA I hadn't used yet, unhooked the Artec VOM-12E48X DVD drive from my PC and connected it to the external enclosure. It doesn't fit inside, but I wasn't going for permanent. The enclosure connected to the Mac via USB and the Apple OS X install disk was fully visable and usable on my IBook to my great excitement and joy. I never would have thought a PC DVD drive would read a Mac formatted disk and that the Mac would be able to use the drive. It worked! The rain started on my parade as soon as I clicked "Install Mac OS X" however, and was dutifully informed that I could not install OS X on my computer. I have the original blue 300MHz Ibook. It's been upgraded to 40GB drive, has 288MB of RAM, and is running Panther happily. All without Firewire. Seems the Firewire issue for Tiger is real. No Firewire, no install. Gee. Thanks a lot Apple! I don't have a use for Firewire. It's pretty evil to use that as a discriminatory point.

If anyone ever comes up with a creative workaround, maybe software that lies to the OS to tell it it really has firewire when it doesn't, please put me on the list to let me know! Coders, this would be a brilliant hack!

The good news is I now have a way to use a DVD drive for zero $$$ with my IBook. The bad news is... Panther will be the only OS my IBook will ever know. I love it, but that's sad. Really sad.
 
Kind of clears up the lingering question about FW in the thread about Tiger requirements. I wish someone would explain why this OS requires hardware that many users will never have a need for, let alone use. I have no firewire devices and I can't see ever buying any as long as USB is supported. I can understand requiring hardware that the OS needs to consult in order to function or requiring that certain hardware NOT be installed, but firewire strikes me as an extra, an add-on. My personal bet is that Apple is only doing it to prod people like you, benwilcox, to upgrade your equipment. A motherboard dongle. Cheeky, if you ask me.

I did read elsewhere, though, that you can request Apple send you a CD version of the Tiger discs.
 
It has been pointed out many times that the new OS ships on DVD. It is on apple website and is written clearly on the box. Apple will supply the Tiger on CD if you send your DVD back to them (look around on apple website for details)
 
Drumhum said:
It has been pointed out many times that the new OS ships on DVD. It is on apple website and is written clearly on the box. Apple will supply the Tiger on CD if you send your DVD back to them (look around on apple website for details)
Click to expand...

For a fee.

I find it odd that Apple insists on FireWire a technology it has made run slower and more erratically on the Mac than Microsoft has made run in Windows, and has even dropped the cables for its own iPods.
 
Part of the fun is that Frye's pricing label on the front says "Mac CD-ROM" on it. The actual box says "Requirements: Macintosh computer with PowerPC G5, G4, or G3 processor; built-in FireWire; and 256MB of physical RAM". The firewire issue is all there black and white, I was just too excited to upgrade to let that sink in when I read it. The "Contents: DVD containing Mac OS X and Xcode 2; printed and electronic documentation" is at least a clue that the disk is obviously a DVD, however, Apple strangely doesn't list that as a requirement.

What's funny is you could have one of the original blue and white G3 towers with built-in firewire and probably meet the requirement, get it home, and find that your built-in CD drive isn't what the doctor ordered to install the software. Apple should have at least put the DVD requirement on the box.

Yup. Bummer. I have never had a use for firewire. Ok, maybe I'm lame never owning a digital video camera. Everything I have is able to run off of USB and USB 2 is faster than the firewire 400 anyway. Now if you have firewire 800 that is another story!
 
It says on the box under Contents:
DVD containing Mac OS X and XCode 2 etc.

Below that under requirements are the listed requirements of G3 with Firewire or newer. Doesn't say DVD required but you could figure that out by the line right above it.

The reason that Firewire is required is because that is Apple's cutoff point for machines that they think can run it at a reasonable speed.
 
Right -- FireWire isn't technically required to install Tiger, as I could remove the FireWire daughterboard from my machine, and Tiger would still install just fine.

It's just that the only machines that are Tiger-supported happen to have FireWire ports. Instead of the archaic, cryptic Windows-style requirements (like "required: Pentium III, BIOS revision 3.2.067a, Chipset XLX909, firmware revision 12, etc."), Apple chose to say, "If your machine has FireWire ports, it's supported." It's just an easy way to tell if you can run Tiger or not, instead of checking firmware revisions and crap like that.

...and USB2 is only faster than FireWire 400 theoretically (FireWire's max is 400mbps, USB2 is 480mbps), but since USB2 is so processor dependent, in real-world tests, FireWire blows it away in terms of speed. USB2 is more widely used, but it's definitely not faster.

http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html
 
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