been a while. hope you are all doing well.
we upgraded our old platesetter a few months ago. stepped up to metal plates and this unit blows our old one away when it comes to screens and gradients. new platesetter was pulled out of a shop that went out of business so we basically got a crate of STUFF and had to try to make heads or tails of what was what. the company that sold it to us deals strictly in presses so they had no idea what they were selling, they just wanted it gone. we got the pc with the harlequin rip up and running, after replacing power supply and motherboard. worked great for a couple months and then it died. replaced a couple more parts. back up and running for a bit then died again. think it's done for good this time. we're exploring options and i had a thought that might be crazy but don't know enough about it to say. instead of buying another pc to do only one task [run the rip/output plates] why can't i just use boot camp [or parallels/vmware/etc] to run windows on my mac workstation? is this feasible? has anyone seen or done anything like this? the only downside i see is if i run bootcamp, i think i'll have to log out/log in when switching. 75% of our work is digital, though, and we run the press one or two days a week, so it's not like i'd have to constantly be logging in/out. like i said, i know zero about this side of things. i set up virtual box on my mac at home several years ago and installed linux just to mess around a little, but it was very limited. i must be overlooking something, because this seems like too easy a solution, am i right?
edit: prob should have mentioned my setup. running 10.8.5 on a 2012 imac. will upgrade to 10.9 within the month [waiting for new digital press]. 16gb ram, 2.7ghz core i5, 2tb hdd
harlequin is version 7.something. if i can get the pc to power up i can verify
With bootcamp you have to actually reboot to switch between Mac and PC operating system. With Parallels or vmware you can have both the Mac OS and Windows OS running at the same time. I think the biggest issue would be getting the platesetter hooked up to the Mac. I assume it is probably connected via SCSI cable. Getting a SCSI card to work on a Mac these days is no easy feat. If your Mac workstation is an iMac I know that isn't possible as there is nowhere to plug in a SCSI card. Not sure if it is even possible these days as I don't know if anyone is even making SCSI cards for newer Macs.
OS X and SCSI are not a good thing.
I fried a SCSI tape drive putting it on a Mac with OS 9/OS X...
:ninja:
lucky for us it's connected via usb! i'm thinking this might be a feasible avenue, then? asked our rep but they've been less than helpful. prob because they're selling computers with their platesetters that might not actually be necessary for smaller shops like us and that's a pretty good revenue stream.
If it is USB it will probably work. You will need to buy a copy of Windows though as you have to activate it. I would recommend Windows 7 Pro. XP is a dead end, Vista sucks, and Windows 8.1 is Windows 8.1 which I consider a consumer version.
the bummer is harlequin version 7 is xp only. version 8 will run on windows 7. i have a copy of xp and upgrading the rip will probably be a deal breaker for the boss. it's looking like this dual boot plan might work out, though. i'm surprised no one really tries this. i can see the downsides for a big shop, but for a small 2 ½ man operation it could be a way better way to go...
You can use XP if you can get it installed (no problem) and activated (might be a problem). But after April XP will be completely unsupported. Probably isn't that big of a deal.
Does that mean I can't get suppourt for Win NT?
In the words of my boss "well I can't see how that's possible". :shoots_self:
Quote from: Farabomb on January 08, 2014, 12:34:03 PMDoes that mean I can't get suppourt for Win NT?
In the words of my boss "well I can't see how that's possible". :shoots_self:
:lmao:
Yes, the same man that couldn't concive how a PDF at 100% doesn't measure correctly on the screen with a ruler placed on it.
and...
How that if the temp in prepress (has the thermo set to drop to 56 at 3:30) drops below 65 degrees the thermo plates come out very, very dirty.
Yes, I just discovered the thermo setting after the 3rd progressively dirty plate came out. I'm now waiting for the temp to come up so I can finish making plates. Saving those $.03 cents vs. the not inexpensive plates. :death:
I've been remiss in not binning an older manual (doorstop), for Screen flavour of HQ-PM. If you think it'd be any use to you, let me know. I have ways of sending o'seas ... :ninja:
Now we just had an argument about how a $3 thermometer at the platesetter isn't smarter than me running to check the thermostat in another room every time I make a plate.
Are you fucking serious? I'll buy my own then.
Quote from: Farabomb on January 08, 2014, 04:21:09 PMAre you fucking serious? I'll buy my own then.
Sometimes it's just easier. :shrug:
Quote from: frailer on January 08, 2014, 04:26:17 PMQuote from: Farabomb on January 08, 2014, 04:21:09 PMAre you fucking serious? I'll buy my own then.
Sometimes it's just easier. :shrug:
Don't forget to take it with you when you go.
As soon as I can figure out what direction I want to go. I can't continue to battle daily against someone that will contest simple logic.
Quote from: Farabomb on January 09, 2014, 08:05:35 AMI can't continue to battle daily against someone that will contest simple logic.
Sounds like the last dump I worked in. Sometimes you just have to move on and hope that karma takes care of the idiocracy.
I still have to see that movie.
Because of the situation I wish no ill will but someone here NEEDS a wakeup call. The thing is, he can't remember shit so it will only be a temporary fix.
I cannot speak to you again until you've seen this movie.
I thought it was standard fare by now...
Quote from: Farabomb on January 09, 2014, 08:05:35 AMAs soon as I can figure out what direction I want to go. I can't continue to battle daily against someone that will contest simple logic.
The following is a magnet that I picked up some years ago, as it seemed to apply quite highly to our workplace...
Cheers, John the Fontaholic
Quote from: gnubler on January 09, 2014, 09:18:50 AMI cannot speak to you again until you've seen this movie.
I thought it was standard fare by now...
It's not on Netflix or I would have. I do believe I have it on a drive somewhere, just have to find it.
Gonna Thread Jack this back on topic.
In regards to running Bootcamp or VM Ware/Parallels I would recommend running Bootcamp.
Both Parallels and VM run a Virtual PC at the same time as OSX, which is great in most environments, but when also running a rip on top of it, unless you have mega ram (16 or above) and an i5 or i7 quad core processor expect some loooong rip times and a lot of out of memory errors.
With Bootcamp you might have a shot. Curious to hear how it turns out if you try it.
think i'm gonna try boot camp first since it will be the lower entry fee if it doesn't work. i might have enough horsepower [16gb ram/i5] if needed. our plan is to just schedule better. if i have to log out and log back in to make plates i'm going to burn all the plates we need at once, rather than one here/one there on demand. we try to run all the press work together each week and even then it only runs one or two days a week. the tech rep for one of our dealers is concerned that "rips are heavily registry dependent so the xp simulation might not be compatible", but i'm not sure he's fully grasping the boot camp concept...
Quote from: agent_orange on January 09, 2014, 10:18:21 AM"rips are heavily registry dependent so the xp simulation might not be compatible"
= annual service contract = must be this or that = major money maker = fear = dealer control :spy2:
It is not an XP simulation. You actually install XP. Bootcamp is a little more complex setting up than Parallels/VMWare. With Bootcamp you are going to have to re-partition your drive as Bootcamp has to have it's own partition. I agree with Santa that it would be better not to have both OS's running at the same time but I would try something like VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org) first since it is free and just to see if you can make it work. You can install XP and run it without activation for a few days and you won't have to re-partition your HD as VirtualBox uses a VDI file as a virtual hard drive. When you are done you just delete the VM along with VDI file and you've lost nothing.
Quote from: Joe on January 09, 2014, 10:47:24 AMIt is not an XP simulation. You actually install XP. Bootcamp is a little more complex setting up than Parallels/VMWare. With Bootcamp you are going to have to re-partition your drive as Bootcamp has to have it's own partition. I agree with Santa that it would be better not to have both OS's running at the same time but I would try something like VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org) first since it is free and just to see if you can make it work. You can install XP and run it without activation for a few days and you won't have to re-partition your HD as VirtualBox uses a VDI file as a virtual hard drive. When you are done you just delete the VM along with VDI file and you've lost nothing.
that's what i thought about the "simulation" but wasn't sure enough to challenge him on it. brilliant idea with virtual box. nothing lost and less painful if it doesn't work out. gonna try that...
Quote from: Santa on January 09, 2014, 09:51:54 AMBoth Parallels and VM run a Virtual PC at the same time as OSX, which is great in most environments, but when also running a rip on top of it, unless you have mega ram (16 or above) and an i5 or i7 quad core processor expect some loooong rip times and a lot of out of memory errors.
just checked and the ram requirement for our rip is 2mb [that is not a typo], so we should be pretty good if i need to go parallels/vm route...
agent_orange, see your PM please.
just to update everyone, we ended up buying a used xp machine. it was cheap enough that it made braving the unknowns of boot camp/parallels/etc not worth the hassle. we did end up with the perfect storm, though. had a new digital press get installed/set up/trained on while i was setting up new pc for the platesetter, and we're busier than all hell on top of that. been a crazy couple weeks. now if i can get half a second i might be able to try out all the new bells and whistles on the digital press that the salesman promised is going to "change my life"...
Quote from: agent_orange on January 22, 2014, 08:08:41 PMtry out all the new bells and whistles on the digital press that the salesman promised is going to "change my life"...
Oh, your life could well change; would hazard a bet not in the way the salesman said. :laugh:
You never know. Some people like pain! :whip:
Did the salesman specify if the life change was good or bad?