What I'm doing with my old iBook G4

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:27 pm

So I found my old iBook G4. We're talking oooold. Has OS 10.5.7 on it. I guess that's Leopard??

So after much digging I found my original Unisyn installer CD and put Unisyn on it. It works. Then I had to upgrade to a bit newer MOTU MIDI driver and it sees my MIDI Express XT!! I disconnected the MEXT from the hub connected to my Mac Studio and connected it to the iBook G4, and it saw the MEXT and I configured my devices and it all works.

So then I set up screen sharing and even though the OS is so much older, the screen sharing is working with Ventura and I can control Unisyn on the iBook G4 from my Mac Studio! Check out the screen capture:

: DP11.21andUnisyn.png (4.24 MiB) Viewed 4177 times

So it seems to me that all I need to do is get a USB switch like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Selector-Bi-Dire ... 09KWNY4WB/

And if I ever need to do Sysex, I can just flip the switch and switch from the Mac Studio over to the iBook G4. Then when ready to go back to sequencing... switch back to the Mac Studio.

Just need to get the switch and more cables.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:39 pm

Following up... I'm screen sharing over WiFi and the iBook is so old it can only do 2.4 GHz? Can't do 5 GHz.

So I have the screen sharing set to Adaptive Quality. When I change it to Full Quality any motion gets slower.

So I may try connecting via Ethernet. I have a Ethernet switch connected to my Mac Studio which is then connected to a Euphonix MC Control and MC Mix, but I think I should be able to connect the iBook to the switch? Screen sharing over Ethernet has got to be faster than 2.4 GHz WiFi?!

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 11:14 am

I has this arrangement to use a UAD card and Unisyn installed on an old G5. I used ethernet, but don't recall it being faster than WIFI. I use Screen Sharing on other Macs and there is always a lot of latency regardless of the connection.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 11:21 am

Good to know. I thought there might be more bandwidth over Ethernet since my ancient iBook G4 doesn’t support 5GHz WiFi.

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 1:06 pm

Ethernet might be better anyway. WIFI seems to get flaky when there are a lot of USB3 and Bluetooth devices in the immediate vicinity. As for bandwidth, I don't know what they were at the time of the G4/5, but wasn't it 10, 100, or 1000 bits? Versus 2+G for wifi?

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 1:15 pm

Why do you need an Ethernet switch? Any Ethernet network should handle this. If a network is not available, a CAT 5e cable between the two Macs should be fine. I'm pretty sure that, by the G4, Ethernet ports were able to auto-detect and that crossover cables were no longer necessary.

I was going to respond earlier on my iPad this morning but I couldn't — other threads, yes, but not this one.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 2:09 pm

mikehalloran wrote:Why do you need an Ethernet switch?

I need it for my two control surfaces I’m already using. The Mac Studio has one Ethenet connection. So I’m using the switch to connect both my MC Control *and* MC Mix at the same time.

I’m assuming if I want to network my Mac Studio to the iBook G4 over Ethernet, I’ll have to connect the iBook G4 to the switch.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 4:11 pm

Looks like this was to be short-lived anyway. My iBook G4 is having real issues reliably booting up. Sometimes it boots in "verbose" mode and I type "mac-boot" and it still comes up in verbose. Other times... like currently, I hold the power button down until it shuts off and it makes a chime and the screen is dark and it does nothing. Probably just too old and if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to find a different old Mac. Be fun if I could find a functional G4 cube.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 5:25 pm

AMAZING! Thank goodness for the Internet and old posts. I was having an issue with the IBook G4 not booting as I mentioned. I could get the open firmware screen and if I typed "mac-boot" it would give me this error:

"ALLOC-MEM request too big!"

I came across this article:
https://hints.macworld.com/article.php? ... 4203923522

So I removed and then re-seated the internal Airport Card which you get to by lifting off they keyboard by sliding some tabs near the top and I'm booting again! Huzzah!!!

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Wed Mar 08, 2023 5:47 pm

Connected the iBook G4 to the Mac Studio via the Ethernet switch (that I need to have for my MC Control & Mix surfaces) and seems the screen sharing is a tiny bit more responsive. Also it's still booting okay after re-seating the Airport card.

Michael Canavan · Post by **Michael Canavan** » Thu Mar 09, 2023 12:30 am

James Steele wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:27 pm

I really miss that windowing system MOTU had with DP and Unisyn.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:16 am

Michael Canavan wrote:I really miss that windowing system MOTU had with DP and Unisyn.

I vaguely remember there was some interoperability between DP and Unisyn? Like you had a menu item in DP that sent a Unisyn bank or something?

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:36 am

James Steele wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:16 am I vaguely remember there was some interoperability between DP and Unisyn? Like you had a menu item in DP that sent a Unisyn bank or something?

DP would publish patch names selected in Unisyn in the patch window. I could never get this to reliably work with all synth profiles, as it seemed all profiles were not created equally.

Michael Canavan · Post by **Michael Canavan** » Thu Mar 09, 2023 12:04 pm

James Steele wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:16 am
Michael Canavan wrote:I really miss that windowing system MOTU had with DP and Unisyn.
I vaguely remember there was some interoperability between DP and Unisyn? Like you had a menu item in DP that sent a Unisyn bank or something?

I dunno? I was talking about the diagonal arrow that sends the front window behind all others etc. I seem to recall on of them also pinning the window in front of all windows, sort of like you can now only do with plug in windows. These days I have command ~ memorized to sort through open windows.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:56 pm

Well... just an update. Looks like my iBook G4 bit the dust. I turned it one... the fan was spinning super fast, so I turned it off by holding down the power button and it's been dead as a doornail since. Won't start up.

I'm too in love with the concept of running Unisyn on another Mac via screen sharing to give it up. So I think I'm beginning my quest for the fastest, most portable OLD Mac I can find that can run Snow Leopard which I believe was the last macOS that Unisyn could run on. I'm wondering if there are any Intel Mac Minis that could run Snow Leopard. I'm keen on the idea of having a small compact "headless" Mac as my "Unisyn box" in order to have a smaller footprint than a laptop. Maybe a G4 Cube if I can find one in working order.

I do have an older MacBook that is running Yosemite. It was the "brains" of my live backing track rig. Thinking of updating that with a newer Mac and maybe pressing the Macbook into service for Unisyn duties, but I need to do some research and see if it can run Snow Leopard. Then there's the business of finding a Snow Leopard installer. Ugh... the things we do for (the) love (of a good sysex editor/librarian).

I've heard about MIDI Quest, BTW, and it's expensive and last time I checked out the demo it struck me as rather buggy.

MOTUnation.com