RE: G3s G4s, MacOS and CellQuest - a cautionary tale

From: Carl-Magnus Hogerkorp (carl-magnus.hogerkorp@molmed.lu.se)
Date: Wed Feb 02 2000 - 09:46:40 EST


Dear All,

I wonder who to curse (BD,Verity or Apple). Having looked through all inputs
on this line of subject, I thought let's just use the WinList on the G4 in
the meantime. However, despite the use of iMate the computer can't find the
dongle and therefore won't cooperate.

OK that CellQuest doesn't work in the OS9 environment, what about Winlist is
it just the ADB connects that is the problem or is it the OS9 again?

What is possible to run on the G4?
Shall I send it back?


Carl-Magnus Högerkorp
Stem Cell Laboratory
University Hospital of Lund
Sweden

-----Original Message-----
From:	Newsom, Brian S. [mailto:BSNEWSOM@txccc.org]
Sent:	den 13 januari 2000 17:57
To:	Cytometry Mailing List
Subject:	RE: G3s G4s, MacOS and CellQuest - a cautionary tale

David,

Sorry to hear about your woes. I wanted to pass on the information I have
regarding this issue. I have been talking to BD about upgrading some of our
FACScans to Macs with Cellquest and have talked to them briefly about G3 vs
G4. They know there are problems with OS 9.0 and they are working on them,
that is why currently they are only selling G3's. They do have OS 9.0
compatibility in the works and I would expect it would come fairly soon. In
our discussions with BD it sounded as though by the time we get our act
together to get the necessary machines they may be ready to go with G4's and
OS 9.0.

Best of luck,
Brian Newsom
Director, Flow Cytometry
Center for Cell and Gene Therapy
Baylor College of Medicine


-----Original Message-----
From: David Chambers [mailto:davidc@ccmi.salk.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 11:26 AM
To: cyto-inbox
Subject: G3s G4s, MacOS and CellQuest - a cautionary tale



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




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