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31Jul/150

Chasing the Maryvale Paper Train

Well, not really chasing, more like just being in the right place at the right time. It turns out they've flipped the schedule on this and the UP service now runs through to the CBD at around 2pm daily.

This is nothing short of perfectly timed. The steel runs down around 3 hours earlier... it's therefore good to go and stretch the legs when these services come through the area.

Malvern Station

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Armadale Station

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Toorak Station

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Hawksburn Station

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Just past Hawksburn

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South Yarra Station

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Just after South Yarra Station

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The curve after South Yarra, just before Richmond...

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Richmond Station

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Nice and colourful... no post processing on any pics!

26Jul/150

Osaka Freight: Suita to Ajikawaguchi (Super Rail Cargo)

This line is an extension of the Suita to Umeda freight/express-train line that runs from Shin-Osaka Station to the Umeda Freight Yards.

suita-to-ajikawaguchi

This line continues further south-west, rising back up to the height of the kanjosen and then branching off on the Yumesaki Line to Universal Studios Japan. Before this though, is Ajikawaguchi freight yards. The home of Sagawa Transport's M250!

This freight train is famous... it's actually an EMU high-speed express freight service that runs through the night to get your urgent deliveries to Tokyo. The opposing service departs Tokyo at the same time and they pass somewhere half-way along the Tokaido Main Line in the middle of the night.

Due to its timetable, you'll really only ever see it resting in the Ajikawaguchi yard. Sometimes I've seen it photographed in the early morning at the Tokyo end, but never really in daylight when moving.

Due to this, I still haven't managed to properly photograph this train. I've seen it depart Ajikawaguchi once and you can find a post with a movie of the departure over here.

Rail-set Train

The last column on each table is a rail-set train. I've seen this pass before from an assortment of locations.

EF210-5 with two flatbeds EF210 departs Umeda Yards Freight from Sakurajima
Freight heading to Sakurajima Station Freight approaching Noda Station Freight approaching Noda Station

Ajikawaguchi

This area is difficult to photograph, but there is a large level crossing on which you can gently walk into the middle of and take photos. Just be very considerate and respect the requests of staff if they ask you to get out of the way!

Super Rail Cargo in Sakai Yards EF210 in Sakai Yards Sesame Street 103 Series to Universal Studios

Timetables

As per previous Osaka timetables, all times are up until Suita. I'll look into extending the SRC through to Tokyo at a later date.

Southbound Suita Ajikawaguchi
Service Origin Arrive Depart Arrive Comments
▲51 Tokyo –– 0511 0526 ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
▲59 Tokyo –– 0451 0510 ▲ = 土 or 休日運休 (Not Saturdays or Holidays)
(4078) ~ (1081) ~ 91 Sendai ºº0723 0833 0900 ºº = ??
▲93 Osaka 1102 1111 1157 ▲ = 月曜日運休 (Not Mondays)
(1881) ~ 1883 Kyoto 1447 1603 1628 Rail-set or 'other' cargo.
Northbound Ajikawaguchi Suita
Service Depart Arrive Depart Destination Comments
▲50 2309 –– 2324 Tokyo ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
▲58 2259 2320 2328 Tokyo ▲ = 土 or 休日運休 (Not Saturdays or Holidays)
▲90 1703 1739 1742 Osaka ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
5088 ~ (3089) 1818 ºº1851 1944 Sendai ºº = ??
1180 ~ (1182) 1040 ºº1127 1225 Kyoto ºº = ??
Rail train or 'other' cargo.

I will go back and get the Super Rail Cargo once more!

26Jul/150

Osaka Freight: Suita to Umeda Freight Terminal

REALLY BIG UPDATE: As of ... god knows when ... this yard has been entirely removed! Here I was, 2 weeks ago, at Shin Osaka station, waiting for a train from Umeda to pass but, alas, nothing came through. Turns out that, upon cruising past on the Haruka, the Umeda Freight Yards no longer exist! The timetables below are still valid but all traffic terminates at Suita.

Any mention of Umeda below is historical. The timetables have been updated to show Osaka... This yard is located right next to the Shinkansen Depot to the south-east of Senrioka.


Buried in upper-central Osaka is Umeda, home of the Hep-5 ferris wheel, the Umeda Sky building, the amazingly-new Osaka station and a relic: The Umeda Freight yards. Very easy to access, these yards' time has to be limited. The yard is situated on a prime development location and the surrounding buildings have slowly been creeping in.

suita-to-osaka

In the yard you'll usually find any number of EF66s, EF81s, EF210s and DE10s for the shunting. There was a rake of WAMUs in there when I checked it out 10years ago, but recently it's been only container traffic. There is a large shed at the southern end which restricts visibility. You'll also find a very long passenger tunnel under the width of the yard. It connects the Umeda Sky Building to Yodobashi Camera. I really do wish this was an overpass!

I'd previously walked around the area and took a few photographs. The album is here if you want to check it out.

This yard is on the 'Osaka Station Bypass' that the high-speed trains to Wakayama and the Airport use. Also the Super Rail Cargo to Ajikawaguchi and the freight trains I'll mention in this post.

The traffic mentioned is fun to photograph and the lighting at any time of day provides great opportunities. Below are some shots of the area. Note that the first photo below was taken from the Heart-Inn hotel just south of the yard and walking distance from Osaka Station.

JR Freight Yards Umeda EF66-29 stabled EF200-14 stabled

DE10-1527, DE10-1575, EF210-9 Previous gantry? Kyoto-bound Haruka passes

Timetables

Times listed are between Suita and Osaka and don't relate to the map above :) I'll update that soon!

Southbound Suita Osaka
Service Origin Arrive Depart Arrive Comments
1069 Niiza 0616 0656 0705
3050 Fukuoka 0721 0742 0754
▲4058 Niigata 0654 0732 0741 ▲ = 休日運休 (Not Holidays)
(2060) ~ 4060 Sapporo 2026 2054 2103
▲5066 Hiroshima ºº1446 1533 1545 ▲ = 火曜日運休 (Not Tuesdays)
Has ºº, define this.
▲56 Tosu 0506 0516 0528 ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
(3072) ~ 72 Matsuyama 1002 1034 1045
(3076) ~ 76 Niihama 0329 0433 0445
84 Hirano 1700 1705 1717
86 Himeji ºº1747 1838 1850 (Timetable has ºº. Define this.)
▲90 Ajikawaguchi 1739 1742 1754 ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
(4088) ~ 1085 Sendai 0458 0536 0545
1089 Tokyo 0527 0605 0614
2074 Kagoshima ºº1248 1319 1330 (Timetable has ºº. Define this.)
3094 Kanazawa 0430 0508 0517
8098 Aomori 0039 0422 0433
1392 Hirano 1459 1501 1515 配給 = Light Engine Movement
1476 Suita –– 0926 0937 配給 = Light Engine Movement
Northbound Osaka Suita
Service Depart Arrive Depart Destination Comments
▲57 2043 2056 2058 Tosu ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
1066 2024 2033 2117 Tokyo
▲4059 2232 2241 2319 Niigata ▲ = 休日運休 (Not Holidays)
4061 2324 2333 0011 Sapporo
73 0824 0836 0848 Takamatsu
75 1547 1600 1630 Takamatsu
81 1112 1124 1126 Himeji
83 1124 1138 1212 Hirano
85 2105 2117 2127 Himeji
▲93 1049 1102 1111 Ajikawaguchi ▲ = 月曜日運休 (Not Mondays)
▲1080 1924 1934 2017 Niiza ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
1084 ~ (4089) 1829 1839 1925 Sendai
▲2081 1230 1243 1256 Fukuoka ▲ = 月曜日運休 (Not Mondays)
2089 1211 1224 1226 Okayama
3095 1333 1343 1425 Kanazawa
62 ~ (3051) 1640 ºº1651 2029 Fukuoka Define ºº on stop at Suita.

All traffic above is containerised. Also note that the yard can only be entered from the north. Hence trains to Ajikawaguchi (which is further down the line) have to be accessed by running around at Suita!

24Jul/150

WCF Clients: Set credentials BEFORE you do anything else!

I've just lost hours of my time and, Microsoft, I'd love it back. I had HTTPS WCF services running from a web app on IIS and I needed to merge in a NET.TCP service as well. Web.config hell, I tell you, but it eventually worked.

I then tried to set the ASP.NET Membership Authentication 'required' on the push services (DuplexChannelFactory) via NET.TCP. Everything I read online said I needed a certificate, so I specified this on the server, using the server certificate as I already had HTTPS configured.

This all worked OK... but trying to specify the Username and Password on the channel factory for the generated Client was a nightmare!

It turns out that, long story short, you SHOULD NOT do anything to the generated client after instantiating it. Set the username and password immediately.

This will work:

WcfClient = new WcfClient (new InstanceContext(WcfCallback), "");
WcfClient.ChannelFactory.Credentials.UserName.UserName = "username";
WcfClient.ChannelFactory.Credentials.UserName.Password = "password";
WcfClient.InnerChannel.Opened += WcfClient_Opened;

This wont:

WcfClient = new WcfClient (new InstanceContext(WcfCallback), "");
WcfClient.InnerChannel.Opened += WcfClient_Opened;
WcfClient.ChannelFactory.Credentials.UserName.UserName = "username";
WcfClient.ChannelFactory.Credentials.UserName.Password = "password";

Adding events to the ChannelFactory worked OK, if done prior to the credential configuration. But as soon as you touch the InnerChannel it'll throw a read-only exception as follows:

InvalidOperationException was caught
Object is read-only.

Anyway, the re-ordering worked like a charm... just keep an eye on it!

24Jul/150

Osaka Freight: Suita to Hirano (Kudara Terminal)

There are three ways for freight to be delivered into Osaka by rail. The first is into Ajikawaguchi located to the west of the city near Universal Studios, The second is into Umeda Freight Terminal, right in the heart next to Osaka Station, and the third is to take the Osaka Higashi Line to the east and arrive at Hirano Station. The latter service is the one we'll be investigating today.

The freight line itself runs south out of Suita Terminal, over the Yodogawa (Yodo River) and then wraps around the city, clockwise from Shigino to Hirano. This used to be freight only, or for movements to dead-head electric stock, but it currently being upgraded to a passenger line. The line was originally to be called the 'Osaka Outer Loop Line', but is now to be known as the Osaka Higashi Line. At Suita, the freight approaches from Suita in the east, whereas the passenger services will approach from Shin-Osaka in the west. Likewise, at the end of the line the passenger services will take the triangle to the west and arrive at Shinkami/Kyuhoji, whereas the freight ventures west to Hirano Freight Yard.

Currently there is no passenger service between Shigino and Shin-Osaka, but this is expected to start by 2018. There seems to have been an illegal site occupation on the former alignment near the triangle at Suita.

google-maps-suita-hirano yahoo-maps-suita-hirano

Seen to the left is the map of the line from both Google and Yahoo respectively. As you can see, the blue line highlights the path which crosses the river and then heads around lower Osaka.

There are no yards in between Suita and Hirano, so the freight will proceed as quickly as possible south, slotting in to the passenger traffic at the junction north of Shigino.

Once at Hirano, the freight is transferred to road vehicles for the rest of the journey.

I believe that both electic and diesel locomotives work over this line, but I've only currently seen DD51s pulling the freight services. Then again, if you look at the an EF66 here on Street View and an EF81. That latter EF81 looks like the locomotive I photographed in Umeda Yard years ago.

Timetables

Thanks to the latest JR Freight Timetable for 2015, I can provide the following timings for the freight services in and out of Hirano. Please do take note of the comments column and ensure that you're ready for disappointment. Not all services run on this line, regardless of the slots available.

Southbound Suita Hirano
Service Origin Arrive Depart Arrive Comments
▲65 Tokyo 0542 0547 0623 ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
1067 Koshigaya 0442 0444 0515
83 Osaka 1138 1212 1251
(▲1077) ~ ▲1079 Niiza 0948 1145 1222 ▲ = 新座(夕)-横浜羽沢間 稲沢-百済(夕)間 日曜日運休
(Not Sundays between Niiza[Evenings]-Yokohama and Inazawwa-Hirano[Evenings])
▲1092 Nabeshima 1311 1350 1422 ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
▲4070 Niigata 0625 0637 0719 ▲ = 南長岡-百済(夕)間 休日運休
(Not Holidays between South Nagaoka-Hirano[Evenings])
(▲4077) ~ ▲4076 Hachinohe 1647 1713 1748 ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
(82) ~ (▲3082) ~ ▲5087 Asahikawa 1420 1422 1453 ▲ = 青森(信)-百済(夕)間 月曜日運休
(Not Mondays between Aomori[Junction]-Hirano[Evenings])
¤7085 Tokyo 0411 0420 0457 ¤ = Runs on unknown dates, not regularly.
8096 Sapporo 1352 1404 1440
Northbound Hirano Suita
Service Depart Arrive Depart Destination Comments
▲64 2129 2201 2232 Tokyo ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
84 1629 1700 1705 Osaka
▲1074 ~ (1076) 1945 2018 2044 Niiza ▲ = 百済(夕)-稲沢間 日曜日運休
(Not Sundays between Inazawwa[Evenings]-Hirano)
1078 2044 2144 2128 Koshigaya
▲1093 1929 2002 2043 Fukuoka ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
▲4071 1303 1335 1427 Niigata ▲ = 休日運休 (Not Holidays)
▲4075 ~ (▲4074) 1959 2030 2123 Aomori ▲ = 日曜日運休 (Not Sundays)
▲5086 ~ (▲3083) ~ (83) 2231 2304 2312 Sapporo ▲ = 百済(夕)-青森(信)間 日曜日運休
(Not Mondays between Hirano[Evenings]-Aomori[Junction])
¤7082 2150 2222 2240 Tokyo ¤ = Runs on unknown dates, not regularly.
8097 2307 2342 0140 Sapporo
1392 1425 1459 1501 Osaka 配給 = Light Engine Movement

I've translated the comments from the timetable to the best of my ability. From this I've even learnt of new freight yards that I had no idea about. For the comments that also suggest places, I'm a little confused... Should there be a need to state the to/from, when you could just say that the service doesn't run? Or is it part of a greater service where some legs aren't always operating? Does this mean that the consists will be shorter?

I'll find out in a few weeks when I go stalk this service for a morning or two!

19Jul/151

DE10 Locomotive – Co-Bo or AAA-B?

Any idea what I'm talking about? It's the wheel arrangements of diesel/electric locomotives. As per the old steamers (Whyte Notation) and their arrangements of 2-6-4 or 4-8-4+4-8-4, more modern locomotives use a similar nomenclature known as the UIC classification.

The basic idea is that, per bogie, a letter starting from A is assigned, determined by the amount of wheelsets; where a wheelset is 2 wheels plus an axle. The letter is incremented from A for each wheelset. A bogie with two wheelsets will be defined as a Bo, 3 wheelsets means a Co.

You'll notice I put the letter 'o' after the B and C above. This is because, on some locomotives, the wheelsets can be mounted on the frame. The 'o' indicates that the wheelset is mounted on an attached bogie. I was about to write that I hadn't officially seen an 'Ao' yet; wouldn't the bogie spin on the wrong axis and derail? It turns out that it wont if you mount it correctly. The Japanese DD54 (wikipedia.jp) is of class Bo-1-Bo. I do note that it's not an 'Ao'... but it is indeed a bogie with only one axle!

As above, not all wheelsets are mounted on bogies, and not all wheelsets have power attached, so you'll need to read the wiki link on UIC classifications to really get the full picture.

Japanese wheel arrangements

My favourite Japanese electric, the EF-66 as seen below, is a Bo-Bo-Bo.

EF66 detaches from consist

JR Freight arrives behind an EF66 EF66 arrives at Minoakasaka EF66 stabled awaiting return cargo

This majestic piece of equipment therefore has three bogies with two driven wheelsets each. The Japanese fashion is to have traction motors strapped onto each axle in parallel.

An now, the DE10

This is one of the more light-weight, shunting-type locomotives used around yards in Japan or for shorter freight movements. It's seen below at Aomori, ready to pull the passenger consist of the Nihonkai that I travelled on away from the EF81 that was ready for a snooze.

DE10 to tow Nihonkai consist

DE10 in Umeda DE10 shunting DE10 shunting
DE10-1527, DE10-1575, EF210-9 DE10-1527 DE10 shunting at night

I recently acquired a Micro-Ace model of one in the Watarase Railway colours. Gold and Maroon is really quite fetching over the standard Red/Grey/White/Black.

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DSC07552 DSC07554 DSC07582

Anyway, back to the point, I was reading the back and saw that the 'real world' technical specifications indicated that the wheel arrangement was infact AAA-B (where that B can be translated to a 'Bo'.) I was expecting Co-Bo... not AAA. What gives? It turns out that, for tractive effort and weight distribution, the front bogie is actually articulated! So they've classified it as three mini-bogies of one driven axle each.

I then recalled seeing mentionings of this on the JNS Forum posts here [DE10 - What does it haul?] and here [More tech questions re Class DD51 and DE10 diesels]. The latter links to a blog post titled 【仙貨へGO!】この足は誰のもの?仙貨に搬入されたDE10の台車たち from a Japanese enthusiast by the name of 歩王(あるきんぐ) (Arukingu). 仙貨 (Sen-kamo) is actually an abbreviation of Sendai Kamotsu, the freight yard in Sendai. Do not get this confused with Sendai Transport, a comedic rock band! The title of the blog post loosely translates to: "[Let's go to Sendai Freight Yard] Who's wheels/legs are these? Lifting a DE10 Locomotive." Here's the main picture you really need to see:

Articulated bogie
8Jul/150

SqlDateTime vs DateTime (The battle of the Milliseconds)

This was a good one. I had stored a data row both locally in SQL CE 4.0 and then remotely via a WCF service to SQL Express 10.50.4000. I also then stored the 'most recent' date of the most recent local row in a local 'settings' table as an nvarchar. This was formatted as yyyy-MM-dd HH:ii:ss.fff. I'd then pull this date from the settings table and send it to the remote service that asked are there any records newer than this date?.

The remote service would usually repond with the correct answer, when there were newer rows. But, every so often, it would also respond with Yes! In fact there is! Here is the record with the date you just specified!. WTH? I sent the remote service the exact date and it responds with the same record, which is supposedly newer (no greater-than-or-equals here) when it is exactly the same? ... or is it?

It should not have returned this record. The date should have matched the check date I sent the service and the is there a record with a date greater than the check date should not have been true...

DateTime objects stored in MSSQL lose accuracy

Turns out that, in the land of the datetime data format in MSSQL, that the accuracy is not maintained.

MSSQL, with the datetime format, can only store milliseconds of ##0, ##3, ##7. There's a lot of posts on this splattered all over the web.

Be careful when storing a datetime as a string

So what was my issue? I was getting the datetime from my local record and storing this as a string in another table, called settings, which was a key-value-paired one-size-fits-all user-settings table.

I was formatting it to the correct SQL format, preserving the milliseconds. Of course, I could, in this case, store any 3-digit millisecond value I required.

When I then read that back as a datetime in C#, the value was rehydrated correctly.

When I then sent that to the server, the value was up to 2 milliseconds less/greater than the ACTUAL record in my local db and the remote db. Therefore the server would, every so often, return the record I had based my date off... because I was storing it as text more accurately than MSSQL was in the datetime format.

SqlDateTime to the rescue

C# has a data type known as SqlDateTime. If you grab your DateTime from any object, pipe it into the constructor of a new SqlDateTime and then grab the .Value on the other end, you'll wind up with the DateTime as it would be stored in the database!

Tada! You'll no longer have to worry about inaccurate milliseconds!

In fact, you should probably switch ALL DateTimes in your C# app to SqlDateTimes if you want to get rid of shitty little bugs that will only occur when you do something at an exact millisecond that CANNOT BE STORED IN MSSQL.

End Rant.

2Jul/152

Power Mac 7200: PC Compatibility

The 7200 was marketed as PC Compatible out of the box and came stock with an 820-0728-A Apple PC Compatibility Card. Getting one of these to work without the original disks was quite a challenge! Let's start by checking it out...

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Once in the case, there's ribbon cables and audio cables running everywhere.

The External Cable (is not required)

It turns out that if you boot the machine up without the cable patched in then it isn't needed; the PC display is routed internally through to your monitor.

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I'm going to guess that the internal ribbon cable, as seen in the last picture above, is the reason for this. It must route the video output through to the standard Macintosh video. I don't know if this causes a performance hit.

Upgrading it

My initial understanding was that the CPU is fixed and so is the on-board 16mb of RAM, but there is an extra slot that you can slap up to 64mb into. See Oliver Schubert's notes here. I therefore purchased an additional 64mb on eBay to get my card to 80mb. Make sure it is 5v NON-EDO FPM 4x64!

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The RAM arrived from eBay (new DIMM is above old in the picture above) and I plugged it in and turned it on. Windows still reported 30mb of RAM (2mb to video, I imagine) and so did the BIOS. I initially thought I'd bought a dud... after a few reboots and poweroffs I still couldn't get the total amount to register. I powered the machine down completely and inspected the card. It seems that the DIMM had around 0.5 of a millimetre more to be pushed into the slot!

Rebooting with a properly seated DIMM showed 64mb in the BIOS. I had actually expected 80mb if it was working properly, as the on-board 16mb should've totalled to that. Nothing I did further remedied this. 64mb worked for me though.

For fun, I removed the DIMM altogether and rebooted. Trying to start the PC got a loud beep. Nothing. It wouldn't start... I then read the actual manual:

Your PC Compatibility Card has one socket available for RAM (random access memory). Some versions of the card come with a DIMM (dual inline memory module) already installed. On these cards, you can increase memory by replacing the installed DIMM with a greater-capacity DIMM.

Some versions of the PC Compatibility Card do not come with an installed DIMM. On these cards, you must install a DIMM in the socket prior to installing the card in your computer. Otherwise, the card will not work.

Hah... so... my card had 32mb in there.. I removed it and added 64mb. When it was partially inserted it somehow appeared as 32mb. When correctly inserted the 64mb was visible.

ram

I then checked out PC Setup and saw that, when no RAM was in, it told me NO RAM.

noram

Duh...

Mac OS 8.1-8.6

The card just works. The PC Setup Control Panel is installed with the OS and command-return switches you to the PC. I hadn't tried networking from Windows... but I had found that it didn't seem to be configured.

As that the machine came with this OS and had Win95B installed on the PC side, I didn't have to go through anything to get it working. It wasn't until I installed 9.2.2 fresh that I was at the whim of 90's vintage technology.

Mac OS 9.2.2

Nothing. No control panel, no command-return. Mac OS 9 Cross-Platform Issues reports that you can get it to work under 9.0.4... and so I tried for myself on 9.2.2.

Note: This turns into a rant very quickly. If you just want the required files, then jump down to here.

Tips for Running Windows on Mac has a FAQ for getting it to work. They state that networking hadn't worked since 8.5 (probably why it didn't work when I tried.) Their link to PC Setup 2.1.7f failed me, but I found it over here at the PC Card FAQ. It is also available on alksoft's site labelled 'Stuff that might be useful'. Of course... that 'Mac Drivers' link didn't work... so grab it from the PC Card FAQ.

Did that work for you? It didn't for me... the zip from PC Card FAQ had a __MACOSX folder in it and a file that was unrecognised by my 9.2.2 installation. If it still works when you read this, go to the official site here and download the actual driver itself from them.

It worked! And then asked for registration details... enter the following:

  • Licensee Name: FREE
  • Site Number: 469
  • Authorization Key: UEV-EVZ-7TU

Picture 5 Picture 6 Picture 7

...and I then it tells me that I need PC Setup 1.6.4 installed first. Yey! You'll find the first file you need here. Extracting the BIN will give you a disk image. Simply double-click it and Disk Copy will mount it onto your desktop. Run the installer and reboot.

Once rebooted, I thought I'd try and muck around with PC Setup 1.6.4. It seemed to work, but I had no HDD. I had a 1gb disk in there that I wanted to use natively. Don't even bother trying to use real PC Partitions... go with a Drive Container on a spare disk/folder.

PC Setup will take years to build the drive file, so go make a coffee. Once it's done, start the PC. You'll need a boot disk. There seems to be one at the PC Card FAQ with CD-ROM drivers and the like.

Note: You must insert the floppy only once you are on the PC side. A floppy inserted on the Macintosh side will be mounted onto the desktop and be invisible to the PC. Switch to the PC using command-return and then insert the disk. Use command-E at any time to eject the disk.

Anyway, back to the floppy disk image... the files you've downloaded will prove problematic. It'll be next to impossible to create the disk images as the metadata from the zip files seem to be missing and the files wont be openable in Disk Copy or any such program. Your best bet from here is to load up another machine, say Linux or Windows, and create a floppy. Here's someone else who had the same trouble. Their answer was to get another person to write a physical floppy and mail it to them!

I tried this, booting up my old windows PC with floppy drive, but it didn't work! I'm thinking the zip format was the issue... so I started searching deeper. Googling for more information got me to Oliver Schubert's DOS Card FAQ which had pointers to Apple's download site. This was full of dead FTP links, but gave me the real file names in BIN and HQX. I slapped these into google and came across this directory listing. I don't know who you are yahozna, but I love you. The files were there!.. sitting, waiting to be downloaded. And shite, sometimes things just work: they extracted and mounted perfectly via Disk Copy! I took a copy of the second disk for safe-keeping also.

Turns out this disk isn't bootable. Go figure. You're actually meant to have installed DOS 6.22 from the disks that were originally included with the DOS Compatibility Card. I don't really want to do that, so we'll try trick it. We really just want the drivers for our Win98 install.

Grab the Windows98_SE boot image from here and burn it to a floppy. Once created, grab CDROM.SYS from the PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-2of2 and copy it onto the Windows 98 disk. Either delete an existing driver (like BTCDROM.SYS) and rename it to that, or edit CONFIG.SYS and add in a line for CDROM.SYS.

Or, you can just download the boot disk here that I created which will work fine! It also has all the required networking files.

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Boot this floppy and crawl to a DOS Prompt. You'll get a warning that C:\ is no good, as expected when no partitions exist. Run FDISK and create a new logical partition. Reboot, booting off the floppy again and we should be set... you should now have a CD-ROM drive and usable C: Drive.

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Usually from here, you'd run setup off the CD. Fortunately, we know in advance that the CD will be inaccessible on the second reboot into Windows setup. So, format your disk here and then copy the win98 folder to C:\. You can then run SETUP.EXE from C:\WIN98SE\. This will save a lot of headaches!

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That last screen... Windows will sit there 'updating settings' for a very long time! Prepare to wait for around 30 minutes.

Now you're at the desktop, slap the PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-2of2 disk back in and run setup.exe. Keep all the boxes checked, install the drivers and hit restart.

run-setup

installer installer-options installer-complete

helper-installed

After a reboot you should then have your CD-ROM drive in My Computer! Command-Click on My Computer and then choose properties. Go to the Devices tab and you'll see three items that need drivers. With the Windows 98 SE CD in there, you can choose properties and then Reinstall Driver. Let Windows choose the driver off the CD and you'll be set.

At this point, audio still didn't work. Looking at all of the manuals for the cards, you'll note that they all output audio through the CD Audio cable. It's actually patched in... instead of the audio from the CD drive going straight to the motherboard, it is fed into the cd audio input on the PC card, mixed (I assume) and then another cd audio cable connects the cd audio output of the pc card to the motherboard.

The big hint here was that, after installing Mac OS 9.2.2, had I correctly set up the Mac for CD Audio input? Switching back to the Mac and checking the sound panel, I noticed that I was mute to the world. There was no input specified! An easy fix: set this to CD Audio and switch back to Windows. Tada! All the nasty sounds of Windows 98 SE. Actually... I never did mind that guitar solo on the Welcome screen.

Networking wasn't too difficult. Following the 'How do I network the Mac and PC side at the same time?' instructions at the bottom of the pc card faq, I downloaded the DOS NetWare Client file from FreeDOS, copied it to a CD and then transferred it over to Windows on the Mac.

Note: You cannot use multi-session 'USB Style' CDs in the Macintosh. If you're copying files onto a CD in Windows and want it to work in the Macintosh then you have to do it the old way. Select 'With a CD/DVD Player' rather than 'Like a USB Flash Drive'.

Anyway, back to the networking... There's no need to do much here, I've put all that is required on the floppy image I've created. Slap it in and drag the NWCLIENT folder to C:\.

copy-nwclient-over edit-autoexec edited-autoexec

Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT and make sure the following lines are at the end of the file, in the following order:

C:\NWCLIENT\LSL
C:\APPLE\MACODI

I'm assuming you would've done all of this from a Command Prompt window inside Windows 98. So reboot your machine once this is done. Hit ESC when you see the pretty Windows 98 loading screen to see what DOS is doing underneath.

Once back in Windows, go to control panel, networks and then add a new adapter. Select the ODI adapter under the 'detected' category. It'll take a really long time... and won't really tell you that it's doing anything... but it is busy! Just leave Windows at the desktop at this point. It shouldn't ask you for a Novell Disk at this point; if it does, then you need to restart the windows side and check your errors on boot up.

add-adapter enable-sharing net-hood

Once installed, reboot as Windows asks. When Windows loads, you should be prompted with a login for Client for Microsoft Networks. You can just hit enter here to set your password as blank.

Once booted, I got to Windows, jumped into a command prompt and typed in IPCONFIG. Oh goody! I had a 169 'internal' IP. This wasn't going to work. There had been no errors, everything seemed to be fine... but PC Setup 1.6.4 on Mac OS 9.2.2 wouldn't let my packets flow. Trying a renew_all on ipconfig reported that my DHCP server wasn't available.

I thought I'd try the patch that was meant for Mac OS 8.5, but that didn't work... it installed, I got my newly patched extension, but on a reboot I still couldn't contact the outside world. Based on the post from Phil Beezley on the FAQ from Oliver Schubert:

...On some Macs, it is also necessary to replace the extension called Apple Enet with the Ethernet (Built-In) extension provided with Mac OS 8.5.
The more official solution to the network problems when using Mac OS 8.5 onwards is to use PC Setup 2.x.

Prior to trying 2.1.7f, I thought I'd try replace this extension. I inserted the Mac OS 8.5 CD, located Ethernet (Built-In) and copied it into the System Folder. It complained that there was an older version in there... how does that happen in 9.2.2? Anyway, You then need to delete/disable/move Apple Enet. Reboot the Macintosh.

It came back up... no errors. Chooser still worked, so did browsing the internet on the Macintosh side... so... I booted into Windows. Command Prompt reported a perfectly defined IP address from DHCP. Internet Explorer even tried to render a page!

configure-ie-1 configure-ie-2 configure-ie-3
configure-ie-4 ie-usage-1 ie-usage-2

After rebooting, I was on the internet! Windows 98 SE is working beautifully! I quickly tried MOD4WIN... nostalgic much? I do wish I could find a copy of Vibe, the MP3 Player that turned into Sonique.

For those who didn't read the fine print

Here are all the files mentioned and how to use them.

Files Comments
Apple Macintosh PC Setup 1.6.4 Disks
PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-1of2.img.bin

PC_Compatibility_1.6.4-2of2.img.bin

The first disk contains the Macintosh side and will get 1.6.4 installed on any Mac OS up to 9.2.2.
The second disk contains the PC drivers. This is NOT a boot disk. The original expectation is that you have already installed MS-DOS!
Macintosh PC Setup 2.1.7f
pcSetup217Mac_22Aug2000.sea.bin

Windows Drivers for PC Setup 2.1.7f
pcsetup217.exe

PC Setup 2.1.7f Setup/Installation Manual
217finalpcsetupinstall.pdf

These files were all secured from the Wayback machine. I have no idea if they work or not!
My Windows 98 SE Boot Disk
BOOT98SE.img.sit.hqx
This disk is bootable and contains the CD driver. It is originally the 98 SE Boot Disk. So it'll drop you to a command prompt where you can use FDISK, FORMAT.COM and then run SETUP from the CD.

I actually recommend that you copy the WIN98 folder to your C drive first! (call it WIN98SE) and run SETUP.EXE from there... that way you wont have to practice magic when it can't find the CD drive during installation.

This also contains the Network Drivers. Copy the NWCLIENT folder to C:\ and edit AUTOEXEC.BAT as specified above.

50mb Hard Disk Image of above boot disk
TinyBootDisk.sit
As mentioned, this is a bootable harddisk image that should work for people having issues booting from floppy disks. It contains everything you need for CD and network. The Win98SE Boot Disk RAM DRIVE is also loaded as D:\ (CD as E:\)
PC Compatibility Card Manuals
7" Card Manual12" Card Manual
The original Macintosh manuals for each card.

It's been a pleasure...

1Jul/157

Power Mac 7200: OS 9.2.2

Mac OS 9.1 is officially the final OS supported on the Power Mac 7200. I've got a new PCI graphics card and PCI USB card on the way and so I'll need Mac OS 9.2.2 for full compatibility. Below details how to achieve this.

Mac OS 9 Lives

I had previously downloaded 9.2.2 from here. It's known as Mac OS 9 Lives and it comes as an ISO with Apple Software Restore and a disk image of a partition with 9.2.2 fully installed. To install the software you only need to run the restore and it'll turn a partition on your local machine into a bootable system image.

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..of course, I installed this and rebooted and got the standard This startup disk will not work on this Macintosh. I assume from here you could hack the system folder and edit the gestalt ID matching code (as was done with the 68k) but I instead chose to use OS9 Helper.

To get my machine booting again, I had to find a boot disk that worked fine on my hardware to switch back to the 9.1 startup disk. My old Presto PPC boot disk wouldn't work on this PowerPC... so I had to guess how to boot from a CD. Turns out, with the 9.2.2 boot/firmware, that holding down C at boot will startup from the CD.

Official 9.2.2 ISOs

If you want the real ISO, then go there's more information on it at Macintosh Garden: Mac OS 9.2.2 Universal. You can also get it at winworldpc.

This wasn't going to work either, so I started researching and heard out about...

OS9 Helper

There's quite a few links that explain how the Power Mac 7200 owner should use OS9 Helper to hack OS 9.2.2 into submission. The basic idea is to download OS9 Helper and run it on your machine.

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This application will not hack/fix an installed version of OS 9.2.2. Instead, it requires that a version of 9.1 or a patched version of 9.2.1 reside on a local hard disk. It will then update this to the version you require.

This stopped me from using the partition I'd just created with Mac OS 9 Lives and therefore made me use my previous 9.1 startup disk.

The app requires that the relevant Apple OS Update for the version you wish to install be downloaded locally. I didn't try the download links available... instead I searched the net. Finding this was much easier than expected; it turns out that my own ISP still has a cache of Macintosh software! iinet's public FTP located here has a whole swathe of archaic Apple software to download!

Once you've got the required updater, re-run OS9 Helper. I quickly found out that you can't just jump to 9.2.2, you'll need to follow the upgrade steps and install 9.2.1 first. Installing 9.2.1 via OS9 Helper is a breeze. Once done, restart your Mac. It should boot back up to your desktop without issue.

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Once booted, set up 9.2.1. You're now ready to apply the 9.2.2 update. Do this via OS9 Helper once again.

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And now you're done!

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