Category: Kev’s Blog

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Installing Windows XP on Virtual PC 7 for Mac OS X

Virtual PC 7 for Mac OS X comes with a preconfigured VM image for Windows XP. The approach for installing from disk image (.iso, .dmg) files instead of physical media is not so obvious, but here’s the steps that worked for me.

I’m installing on Virtual PC 7 on OS X 10.5 running on a dual G5 Power Mac.

Select the ‘Install from a Virtual PC for Mac CD’ option:

Next you’re prompted to install the install disk:

At this mount if you double-click the first of the .iso images for Virtual PC, it will mount the disk image, and should appear in Virtual PC:

This step seemed a bit flakey for me. If it doesn’t work, unmount the image, close Virtual PC and try again. I also noticed that it doesn’t work with the .dmg images, only the .iso images.

If it does pick it up, you’ll see in Virtual PC it shows the XP Pro disk is inserted:

Press Continue and it starts installing:

It only take a couple of minutes:

When it prompts for disk 2, double click the second of the .iso files:

Once installed, you’re ready to start up the VM:

XP starts up and you can continue through the XP setup steps:

Done!

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Arduino IDE board settings: ESP8266 vs ATmega328

I’m working on a couple of different project, one using the ATmega328 and another using the ESP8266 (programming the Oracle Code card which I talked about here).

Just so I don’t forget what settings to use with each board, leaving a note here for reference.

IDE settings for ATmega328:

IDE settings for ESP8266 – from https://github.com/cameronsenese/codecard/tree/master/arduino :

Under Tools set the following settings:

  • Board: “Generic ESP8266 Module”
  • Upload Speed “115200”
  • CPU Frequency: “80 MHz”
  • Crystal Frequency: “26 MHz”
  • Flash Size: “4M (3M SPIFFS)”
  • Flash Mode: “DIO”
  • Flash Frequency: “40MHz”
  • Reset Method: “nodemcu”
  • Debug port: “Disabled”
  • Debug Level: “None”
  • IwIP Variant: “v2 Lower Memory”
  • VTables: “Flash”
  • Builtin Led: “2”
  • Erase Flash: “Only Sketch”
  • Port: This is the port that shows up once you turn on the CodeCard and press a button
  • Programmer: “ArduinoISP”
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Mapping network drives across Mac OS 9, Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and current MacOS versions

Having a NAS drive on your network is an easy and simple way of copying files to/from different machines on your network, even older machines. I have a small collection of older machines, mainly older Macs like a 2002 Powermac G4 and a 2005 Powermac G5. When working on blog posts like this one, it’s easier to drop screenshots in a central place where I can pick them up from my daily driver MacBook Pro to include them in a post.

I have a Netgear ReadyNAS drive which supports SMB as well as AFB drive shares which supports most clients. This post on the Netgear site says not to use both options at the same time, I’m not sure if this is still an issue, but in most cases SMB has worked well.

Recent Windows PCs and Macs are easily able to mount the SMB share, so no problems there.

OS X 10.5 on the G5 is able to mount either the SMB or AFP drive without any issue, the NAS shares for SMB and AFP both appear in the Finder under the network section.

OS X 10.4 on the Powermac G4 is able to natively mount the AFB share, but can’t see the SMB share.

Mac OS 9 on the same Powermac G4 though is a bit more tricky but still works natively. Go to the Apple menu and open the Network Browser, then press the Connect icon and then ‘Connect to Server’:

Enter the IP for the ReadyNAS:

Connect either as a Guest user or with specific credentials:

Done! Now you should be able to browser the shared drives and access like normal:

At some point I also looked at using a util called Dave to mount SMB shares on OS 9, but at least for OS 9 to the ReadyNAS using SFB this isn’t needed.

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