Wotcher Flowers, I thought I would share my recent experience with everyone. Recently we had the need to set up a new CellQuest analysis workstation to cope with demand for Mac time. So we ordered a new computer from Apple. It was a G4 machine because that's all they sell now unless you want an iMac or powerbook. Of course, it shipped with MacOS 9.0 installed, and arrived last week. A very nice looking machine, rather reminiscent of a Porsche :-) B-D now ships CellQuest with a USB dongle, so there were no problems with USB-ADB adapters or the like, and CellQuest installation went fine until we tried to run it. Firstly the BDPAC control panel would not work because the computer told us "BDPAC cannot load because BDPAC cannot be found". Secondly, CellQuest ran perfectly for 5 seconds (approximately) and then the Finder decided to intervene, saying it wanted attention. If we gave it such, it shut down CellQuest saying that the server containing it could no longer be found, then complaining about a Type 3 error. Note that while the finder could not get our attention, CellQuest ran nicely - we could load and save files, analyze, print, etc., but one accidental click outside the CQ window and WHAMMO! We tried the usual things - increasing CQ memory, turning all unnecessary extensions off, disconnecting the network, etc, etc, all to no avail. "No problem", I thought, "Let's install OS 8.6, we know CellQuest is fine with that" Except.... THE NEW G4's WILL ONLY RUN MacOS 9.0 or LATER. It is totally impossible to install 8.6 on them. We called Apple for help and were told that this is indeed the case and they couldn't/wouldn't help, hard luck, it was the Application's fault. Apple has changed to a new motherboard in recent machines and it is impossible to use older versions of MacOS. So we gave up and sent the G4 back. We found a blue G3 machine at MacWarehouse, it runs 8.6 and runs CellQuest impeccably. All the above diatribe is just to warn others thinking of getting a new computer that they may have no prospects of being able to run CellQuest on it. It is sad that Apple should no longer manufacture machines capable of running a previous OS, particularly since OS 9.0 appears to have issues with many other applications software as well. Pity. -- David
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Mar 10 2001 - 19:31:03 EST