Revisiting the StarFlyers Fun Site in 2021!

The StarFlyers Fun Site is one of my earliest fan websites of the StarFlyers that I did in late 2014! Unfortunately, my previous web hosting provider (000Webhost) decided to expire the site due to server costs (it’s not my fault, it’s theirs!). Looking back at this website was a revolutionary experience! I was using SoftQuad’s Hot Metal Pro 4.0 to do the website coding (I was mentioning on that site that this was made using 90s commercial software, specifically 1997.), while retaining compatibility with older browsers such as Netscape Navigator 3, and Internet Explorer 4. The web address is formerly located at thesffunsite.site11.com.

What would be a good project is to look up that website into oldweb.today to see if I was right! And I did! Old 90’s website style reimagined on a modern PC (I used Edge on Windows 10 as the host.), something that my 2014 self had some imagination on an ASUS Transformer T100 before Windows 10 came out!

As you can see, some people used to download sound clips of the StarFlyers games from here, but unfortunately, the Internet Archive has not backed up the clips correctly, only the pages that are visited before (think HTML). But all I can say that people using Netscape Navigator 3 on their retro computer (either Windows 3.1 or Mac OS 8) would’ve probably gone to that website if it was still alive. Speaking of Netscape Navigator 3, Michael MJD has made a video about it for you to enjoy here:

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Overall, it was a blast from the past! I hope you enjoyed time travelling with me to see the StarFlyers Fun Site from 2014 before it became wiped out forever! If you like this blog post, stay tuned for more! In the meantime, I gotta get back to the present day, so take care!

Taking the eMac out of storage in 2021!

One day, I brought my eMac out of my storage shelf from the office, and wanted to turn it on to see if it still boots, and yes it does! I have found no issues!

It is running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther on the 2004 model (which is what I have), and is one of the last CRT Macs ever produced! The Stargate movie trailer created for Cornica mentioned earlier was done on the eMac, after I upgraded the QuickTime version from version 6 to version 7.5. Version 7 of QuickTime on Mac OS X 10.3 is the only version supported on an early macOS to play H264 MP4 files correctly! It took a couple of weeks of work and play on the eMac just to update what I missed when I first got the machine. I installed several things on the eMac, some Mac OS 9 software (I didn’t know that the eMac came bundled with Classic Environment!), and some Mac OS X software in between!

There are too many to list! But the most interesting programs that I installed are iWork 06, NeoOffice, AppleWorks 6, Microsoft Office 2004, Jeopardy 2nd Edition (MacSoft), Rockett’s New School, Spy Kids Mega Mission Zone, Roxio Toast 7 Titanium, Classilla 9.3.3, The Sims Life Stories, and of course, Tetris Elements!

So, it’s still working beautifully, aside from a buggy DVD drive which keeps closing when I open it, but I had to hold the tray to put a CD or DVD in or take it out, and that solved the problem! But anyways, keep on reading here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection, and take care!

Taking the PowerBook 540c out of storage in 2021!

The last time I used my PowerBook 540c is when I was trying to test out the AppleCD 300 on that unit, but I had to hold off for another time because the display got all glitched out (it’s due to the fact I was using it in the kitchen). Now we are in 2021, and the display on the PowerBook 540c has not glitched at all! I thought I should give that a try, but upon turning it on, it made a weird alarm-like sound, which is the motors on the fan and the hard drive aligning themselves (Trust me, the hard drive is not dead!), but after waiting a little bit (and a little tap, though usually not necessary), it finally booted! Now I am able to test out the AppleCD 300 on the PowerBook 540c!

The first thing I tried out is installing QuickTime 3.0.2, but unfortunately, I had to disable the HP Background extension in the Extensions Manager of Mac OS 8.1 (the OS that is on the PowerBook 540c, and the latest for 68040 Macs), even though I don’t have an HP Printer for older Macs, and after I did that, the installation was successful!

The next thing I tried was putting an Audio CD in the AppleCD 300, but unfortunately, two of my Hi-Res Audio-capable Headphones (Audio-Technica On-Ear, and Tunai In-Ear), won’t fit the headphone jack because the two headphones mentioned both have four-pole connectors. I then resorted to using my Apple Earbuds that came with my iPod touch 4th generation, and upon playing the Audio CD that I just put in the drive, it came out very quiet, and only coming out mostly from the left channel. I know, it is not a new CD-ROM drive (it came out in 1992 and is one of the first double-speed CD-ROM drives out there that became popular in mainstream multimedia), but I actually needed to crank up the volume on both the PowerBook 540c’s AppleCD player software and on the AppleCD 300 itself, and finally I could hear it playing, but still a little bit on the quiet side. Keep in mind though, the drive is playing through an Analog method, unlike the Digital method used in modern CD drives in computers.

What was originally planned finally happened! But anyways, I think the PowerBook 540c still works great, aside from a very minor display glitch where it changes colours after it corrected itself, but other than that, no issues found so far! Oh, and one last thing, I started contributing QuickTime videos of movie trailers off of my DVD collection on a newly-created website known as Cornica. Go check it out! (Well, not because of my uploads, but the whole collection of user-contributed QuickTime movies too!) Also, don’t forget to check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! You never know! Maybe it can be a post about experimenting vintage computers, or maybe it can be a forgotten CD-ROM software treasure! There’s lots of computer-related things I can blog about, but I have to get back to work, so take care, and happy computing!

Revisiting the Early 2005 15-inch Aluminum PowerBook G4 in 2021!

I always love my 15-inch Aluminum PowerBook G4! It was donated by a reader of my blog around five years ago! One day, when I was about to play my O Canada CD-ROM on that machine, during boot-up, the screen glitched itself, and wouldn’t get past the usual login stuff, so I used my Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Door as a backup. Both the PowerBook G4, the Power Mac G4 MDD, and the eMac G4, all use a Mac OS 9 System Folder for Classic Environment use, because the O Canada CD-ROM that I got at a thrift store came out in 1997 and uses Macromedia Director 5, it was not updated for Mac OS X compatibility.

Well, that was around one or two years ago, almost, not sure, but anyway, I managed to bring out that Aluminum PowerBook out of storage and onto my desk! And when I turned it on, guess what? It fixed itself! Things come and go sometimes, so that glitch that I was encountering earlier turned out to be usable again! I plugged the charger in and the PRAM reset itself, but it was not keeping time, so I turned on the Wi-Fi and back off so that the correct time is shown.

On the Aluminum PowerBook G4, you can browse modern websites using a program called TenFourFox. That puts Safari and Camino to bed! I’m not sure if the Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection website would work on TenFourFox, but if I went there on my PowerBook, it would be a nice surprise! (Although some YouTube embeds won’t show correctly.) TenFourFox is still being maintained. The Aluminum PowerBook G4s can have OK performance when browsing the modern web with TenFourFox, but I suggest if you plan on going that route, you would need to have at least 2 GB of RAM installed on your Aluminum PowerBook G4!

The Aluminum PowerBook G4s (especially the 1.5 GHz models) are good performers for running a Windows 2000 virtual machine on them using Microsoft’s Virtual PC 7! Windows XP is a little too graphics heavy, and a little too processor intensive, but I chose Windows 2000 because of its lightweight user interface and NT-based stability compared to earlier Windows versions such as Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and ME.

I’m running Mac OS X 10.4.11 on my Aluminum PowerBook G4, and it is overall the best operating system to use on these models compared to Mac OS X 10.5.8, which would be a better fit for my other computer that I have, the iMac G5! And to add to that, I’ve upgraded my Roxio Toast from version 6 to version 9 on my Aluminum PowerBook G4 and installed version 10 on my iMac G5, because I wanted to burn Video CDs and HFS Standard discs that my latest Roxio Toast won’t do (well, the only modern equivalent that I found is Burn.), and I’ve been a long-time Roxio Toast user since 2016, so why not?

And to wrap this blog post up, here’s a quick note: I have used my iMac G5 (a thrift store find and running Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard) during February, and I am glad to say that it’s still working well without any issues! There is still a known issue of the whirring noise that is on my iMac G5 (perhaps it is an earlier revision iMac G5?), but other than that, it’s still in tip-top shape after two or three years sitting on my computer display in my office doing nothing!

Well, what do you think? If you like this blog post, stay tuned for more! In the meantime, I’ll be back to working on my computers, so take care!

Muppet Kids Preschool uploaded to the Internet Archive and Vetusware!

I’ve uploaded Muppet Kids Preschool, which is a 1999 compilation of educational games featuring Jim Henson’s Muppets, developed by WayForward Technologies, and published by Brighter Child Interactive, originally released in 1997 as separate releases.

Do you want your young children to learn about things that are the same and different? They can do it the Muppet way with occasional skits featuring Kermit and Gonzo doing stunts accompanied by classical music!

Here are the download links:

https://vetusware.com/download/Muppet%20Kids%20Preschool%201.0/?id=16824

https://archive.org/details/muppet-kids-pres

These programs should work on Windows 95 up to Windows 10 64-bit, possibly Windows 3.1. They should also work on System Software 7.1 up to Mac OS 9.2.2 (including OS X Classic) on Macintosh Centris/Quadra computers (68040 with FPU) and PowerPC-based Macs.

Enjoy!

-Katie Cadet, March 2021

Burning custom Video CDs, Super Video CDs, and DVD Audio discs using Ashampoo Burning Studio (Windows 10), and Burn (macOS)

I remember when Nero had the ability to burn Video CD’s and Super Video CD’s to play on any player that supports these formats, but unfortunately, to burn a Super Video CD, you would need to buy an MPEG-2 Encoder. That’s the only downside back then! I’m not sure if Nero still does Video CD and Super Video CD support, but I remember on the Mac side that Roxio Toast (as well as its Windows counterpart Easy CD Creator) in its early days before being acquired by Corel had support for Video CD and Super Video CD, but that quickly fell out of favour in recent years.

But good news! I actually found two programs for macOS and Windows that can help you make your own Video CDs and Super Video CDs to play on your good old Sega Saturn! If you are on a Mac, you can use Burn. And if you are on Windows, you can use Ashampoo Burning Studio! The only downside of Ashampoo Burning Studio on Windows is that you will need to find a converter that can convert any video file that you have to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. And I do need to note that the video converter has to be compatible with Windows 10, because a lot of the old software that can do that are now incompatible with the new OS and are long gone!

As a bonus, you can use Burn to create your own DVD-Audio discs from Hi-Res Audio files at 96-192 kHz 24-bit! They are incompatible with DVD-Video players, but the only way that I could play these custom discs is by using the Creative MediaSource DVD-Audio Player that came bundled with my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 on my HP Pavilion a6010n, but for most people, you will need to use the open-source VLC Media Player, as it offers DVD-Audio support out of the box.

Anyways, back to the other subject: How do you play Video CDs and Super Video CDs created using Ashampoo Burning Studio and/or Burn? Well, for me, I use a Toshiba DVR630 (equivalent model in the United States is the DVR620) DVD/VCR Combo to play back my burned Video CDs and Super Video CDs without any problems. Sometimes, some Super Video CDs can have synchronization issues on some players and the kind of TV that you are using, and what kind of cable connection and quality that you have. You’ll find out for yourself when you put it in your player if it supports Video CDs or Super Video CDs (and if the player supports MPEG-1)! You can also use VLC Media Player or MacVCD (if you are using an older macOS) to play Video CDs on a personal computer. That way, you don’t need to go hunting for a dedicated DVD-Video player for the home cinema that supports MPEG-1 anymore, even though physical DVD sales are declining!

But anyways, if you have a modern macOS Catalina/Big Sur computer or a Windows 10 computer, Ashampoo Burning Studio and Burn are two of the latest and greatest burning programs that still have the ability to burn Video CDs and Super Video CDs as well as DVD-Audio discs for legacy use. Don’t forget to check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection, and take care!

Organizing a Digital Music Library and transferring from physical media with the help of computers!

I’ve been using Discogs recently to catalog my physical music collection. As I go through my physical music collection, I sometimes transfer them in 96 kHz 24-bit FLAC files for use on my FiiO M3K portable music player. These include formats such as Vinyl Records, Cassettes, Audio CDs, Blu-ray Audio, and DVD-Audio.

For my vinyl record and cassette transfers, I use a Technics SL-Q200 turntable and a Harman-Kardon CD-91 cassette deck hooked up to a Sony STR-VX2 amplifier and outputted from the Tape Out to the Line-In of my Sound Blaster Z of my Custom Built High Performance Windows 10 PC using an RCA to Eighth-inch Stereo Mini adapter. I also have an Audio Technica AT-LP2D-USB as a backup or for some records that won’t play properly on my main Technics turntable.

I then use software to transfer my vinyl records and cassettes to Hi-Res FLAC such as Acoustica’s Spin it Again (can’t do FLAC, but can do 96 kHz 24-bit WAV files), AlpineSoft’s VinylStudio, and Wave Corrector. The first two mentioned are paid software, but they do offer a free trial for you to try before you buy.

For my DVD-Audio discs, I use a program called DVD Audio Extractor, which is the only program that can create FLAC files from this rare format! I also have an LG Blu-ray Drive with an OWC Mercury Pro USB 3.0 enclosure, so that I can rip my stereo Blu-ray Audio discs using MakeMKV, and importing them into Audacity for the track splitting, and exporting them to FLAC.

For ripping music CDs, I use dbPowerAmp CD Ripper and Exact Audio Copy, as they both use AccurateRip technology to repair or eliminate the bad tracks on scratched discs.

To help identify which song is which, I use Mp3Tag, both for Windows and macOS. It is free for Windows users but a Mac App Store purchase with a free trial as well.

And for converting music for other devices, I use dbPowerAmp Music Converter as well as the encoders from RareWares. dbPowerAmp is useful when I need to convert FLAC files to Apple Lossless files if I want to play my music collection on my iPad Air 4 or iPad Pro 2015 via iTunes/Apple Music syncing.

As a bonus, I always take my music library with me old-school style using Verbatim’s Digital Vinyl CD-R’s! I remember buying these back in the late 2000’s and rediscovered again in 2019-2020 thanks to thrift stores, and on Amazon. Any Audio or Data CD Burning Software for macOS, Linux, and Windows are compatible with those specialty discs! They are mostly great for vinyl transfers, and like with any CD-R, are compatible with older CD-ROM drives and Audio CD players that can handle up to 700 MB of data or 80 minutes worth of audio.

So that’s the essential software I use for transferring my physical music collection to Hi-Res 96 kHz 24-bit FLAC files and organizing them too with the help of computer hardware and software! Most of these items mentioned are linked so that you can check out the product before you buy (or try a free trial if it’s a computer program!). I’ll be glad that I have a lot of music to go through on my FiiO M3K and on my recent iPads, because in my opinion, I really enjoy the quality of physical media in a digital transfer that I did on my own, and that I don’t need to buy a compressed (‘lossy’) version of an album that I like on the iTunes Store anymore.

But anyways, if you like this blog post, stay tuned for more computer-related sightings here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection! It can be a recently discovered CD-ROM game, a Computer-related project, you name it! For now, I’ll be back to working on my computers and listening to my digitally transferred music, so take care!

Barbie and her Magical House (1994) now available as a Hybrid Mac/PC ISO Disc Image!

I just bought Roxio Toast Burn from the Mac App Store recently, and I was having fun with it on my iMac 4K running macOS Big Sur without any issues burning CD-ROMs that ImgBurn has on my Windows 10 devices! I was trying out the Disc Image Merge tool on Roxio Toast Burn to make a Hybrid Mac/PC Disc Image of Barbie and her Magical House, originally released as separate versions in 1994! There would be no need to burn either a Windows-only version or a Mac-only version, because now you can use the CD on both devices!

If you want to download it, links available below:

https://archive.org/details/barbie-and-her-magical-house-hybrid-mac-win

https://vetusware.com/download/Barbie%20And%20Her%20Magical%20House%201.0/?id=16770

http://macintoshgarden.org/games/barbie-magical-house (Second Download)

The idea originated from what I read that the initial releases of the Living Books titles from 1992-1993 were split into separate versions, one for Mac, and one for Windows. When Version 1.1 came out in 1994, they combined the separate versions into a hybrid CD-ROM. I thought “Well, I should do the same, but with new technology, on the Barbie and her Magical House title”, since a hybrid CD-ROM wasn’t released to the public, no worries, it’s now available! Don’t forget to check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection, but for now, take care!

An iPad donation from a reader of my blog!

A reader of my blog donated a 2015 12-inch iPad Pro to my collection. This is one of the largest iPad’s that I have ever owned, and I am writing on this right now! I noticed that it has a dedicated keyboard which they call a Keyboard Folio. It’s a really nice add-on! Don’t you find? Don’t forget to check back for more blog posts here at Katie Cadet’s Computer and Video Game Collection, and take care!

Well Whaddya know?

I finally got SBK Superbike World Championship for the PlayStation 3, Need for Speed Undercover for the Xbox 360, a book about video game consoles, and a Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Oh sorry, I was so excited, I just couldn’t stand it!)

Anyways, Merry Christmas, and have a happy 2021!