Odds & Ends

RAM startup disks and G3 Series PowerBooks Last time, we mentioned that G3 Macs cannot have a RAM Disk serve as a startup disk. An Apple TIL file explained that this was related to the use of SDRAM in these models. However, several readers (including Andy Huang) informed me that they can create a RAM Disk startup disk on the G3 Series PowerBooks, even though these also use SDRAM. I am investigating this. Meanwhile, if anyone has the explanation for this apparent contradiction, please let me know.

Sonnet video card adapter and Power Mac 8100/80 problem Dave Rodgers writes: "Sonnet Technologies acknowledged a problem with their video card adapter when used in conjunction with the Power Mac 8100/80 models only. When this combination is used, the PowerMac fails to fully boot up regardless of the OS. Sonnet currently has no working solution but has stated that they will work on solving the problem as soon as possible."

IXTV and PageMaker conflict Allen Brown found a conflict between PageMaker and the IXTV Tuner extension on his G3 266. The symptom was that PageMaker pages displayed a line across the screen. Turning off the IXTV Tuner extension solved the problem. IXMICRO explained that the IXTV VDIG file conflicts with PageMaker. The file is only needed to capture video. They advised removing the file except when needed.

Update: Matthew Ruben found a work-around for this problem: "Using KeyQuencer (or any other macro program), I have a key combination that switches my monitor bit depth from its current millions of colors to 256 colors, and then immediately back to millions, and then launches PageMaker. Don't know why it works, but this prevents PageMaker docs from displaying the horizontal line (and also prevents the toolbars from being grayed out and allows documents to be edited)."

Tomb Raider II problem addressed by a replacement CD? Tim Maddux writes that, while the Tomb Raider II 1.0.1 patch fixes several of the reported problems, there remains an issue with some CDs where the program crashes wherever Lara dies. Tim claims that if you have this issue and contact Aspyr, they will send you a new CD.