Upgrading old Mac to satisfy Coolscan 5000

[JohnP]

Hello,

I wanted to buy a new Mac but am backing away because the Nikon Coolscan 5000 doesn't like late (current) OSX.

I also understand that the Coolscan doesn't like modern (current) Windows OS.

So...

I am considering upgrading my 9 year-old Mac, but will have to upgrade the RAM and install USB 2.0 board.

Has anyone upgraded their old Mac to run the Coolscan?

Can old Macs tolerate USB upgrade?

Where can I buy a USB 2 board?

Will using Firewire mean that I don't have to upgrade the USB?

Will I be able to find "ancient" RAM?

What is the the most recent Mac OS that the Coolscan can tolerate?

Thank you,

John

 

[Paul T.]

I have a G4 that I found on the street and upgraded it with more memory, Sonnet processor, USB 2.0- card and hacked video caRd - principally so the nipper could play his Star Wars Lego game. I use it as my day to day macine in preference to my Mac Book Air.

If you have the deskop machine, it's very easy to upgrade and fit a USB 2.0 card. I bought mine off eBay; iI did go through two, the first one wouldn't sleep properly, so I sent it back. I've a feeling if you search for PCI Apple USB 2.0 card they cost very little - mine was crica $10.

From what i remember (it was a couple years ago) you shouldn't need a driver, most simply work under OSX - I am not sure about OS9, though. I did partiition my drive and install both operating systems (this was to do with setting up the processor upgrade) but I haven't tried OS9 in years.

A lot, of course, depends on your machine. There is still a lot of support for the G4 - what is your machine?

This site is terrific for info on G4 etc upgrades:


http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/cpucards.html

 

[splitimageview]

USB and RAM are easy to install on these Macs, if you are adventurous there are CPU upgrades as well, although you probably don't need one of those for scanning.

Probably want to stick with OS X Tiger (or Jaguar or Panther) on an older machine anyway, so not having Leopard compatibility should not be a problem.

 

[historicist]

OS X 10.4 will be fine. 10.5 sometimes is, sometimes isn't. I don't know where you are but old computers can be expensive to upgrade, a USB 2 card should be really cheap but RAM can be quite expensive if it's not a currently popular kind - findng it won't be a problem, but you will be paying a lot - 512Mb for an early G4 is 60 dollars while 2Gb for a Macbook Pro from a couple of years back would be half the price.

Same goes for hard disks etc. If your current mac really isn't up to the job it might be worth buying a second hand one from ebay - old G4s are ridiculously cheap these days. You could probably get one with good enough specs for the same price as a RAM and OS upgrade. eMacs in particular are very cheap second hand and more than powerful enough for scanning.

 

[ailardi]

I am running NikonScan 4.0.2(?) (the last version, anyway) on an 2.4 iMac , 4GB RAM with 10.5.6. No problems runnng the ED5000. If anything, it runs a lot faster with the iMac than my old G4, even though it is not Intel native and has to run through Rosetta. Make sure you do a clean install of the Nikon software.

 

[tjh]

I'm running a Coolscan 5000, with Vuescan and Nikon Scan on a Mac Pro with the latest OS - Leopard 10.5.6. Works great, no problems in 6 - 9 months since I bought the scanner.

 

[dfoo]

I've used Nikonscan with Leopard. Crashes alot. Works fine with XP in a VM, XP straight up, and Vista. I basically don't use it much anymore, except for color which I rarely shoot. For B&W I use vuescan which works great under Mac.

 

[historicist]

btw, I haven't heard of any problems with Nikonscan and Vista. Much more people have problems with Nikonscan and 10.5. Though admittedly Nikonscan on my Vista machine won't recongnise my scanner while it does work (more or less) on my 10.5 Mac.

 

[FPjohn]

Try Other World Computing - MacSales for compatible upgrades, memory etc.

Vuescan works well, IMH, under OSX 10.4, 10.5 .

yours
FPJ

 

[photogdave]

I have an old Minolta scanner that works great except it uses a SCSI connection. The cost of putting a SCSI adapter in my G5 tower seemed too high with no guarantee of future compatibility.
So instead of upgrading my computer I run the scanner on my old G4, which is networked to the newer G5. When I've done my scans I drag them over to the newer machine to work on them in photoshop, post them on the net etc. This also gives me an automatic backup on the G4.
So if I were you I would buy my new computer and just keep running the scanner on the old one.