Contact the site author, manager, and mis-manager by email.
You can also sign the Guest Book.

Articles/Information About Hardware Modifications and Technical How-To's

Off Site Links  – Links to sites referenced heavily from Sliced Apple, sites I like, both, or sites linked via a mistyped URL.

 

Sliced Apple Software (Various freeware releases of dubious value)

Sliced Apple (NMS) Software - Main site for software I have posted to Version Tracker.

KDE Launcher - Launch KDE in Apple's X11 that works and use other X11 apps using Apple's WM at the same time.

Micalin's Launcher - Set of folder actions to organize and maintain a Dock folder as a pop-up launcher.

NMS Utility - Small faceless application to solve problems of laptop insomnia. Now at version 2.4 (beta).

Sliced Apple General Downloads – A mix of AppleScript Studio, AppleScripts and/or shell scripts that someone might find useful.  Includes Sliced Apple (NMS) Software as well.

Legacy Project PM8500 "Bertha"

Power Macintosh 8500 Separator Project - My legacy computer that separates me from my money

Introduction (Warm up for the Preface (Pre-Pre)) –What the Hell? Why? What were you thinking?!?

Pre-Pre-Preface (Excuses, rationalization, etc…) –First a Word

Pre-Preface (Some OS X/Unix history) -Unix/Apple Background

Preface (OS X history) -OS X

Before (More money than brains) -Original System Technical Specs

After (No money, no br…) –Current System Specs…more or less

Some random thoughts about After -Hardware Discussion re Current System then to now

Early Upgrades (I was poor) –Brief Upgrade History Prior to the BIG PUSH

Hindsight (with foresight) -Upgrade Strategy (had I planned)

Reality of Hindsight (I Am Going To Be Poor - A story of Love, Impulse buying, and Realtek Tragedies) -Psychotic diary of recent upgrades

Just a trim (She Broke It) -Upgrades begin

Oops (I Broke it…Moose from Manure) -Upgrades Escalate

Why plans are important –Scalability and Upgrades

The Aftermath -How it works?

The Actual Math (Benchmarks and wishful thinking) –Lies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarking

Final Thoughts –Conclusions To Date

Those thoughts that come after Final Thoughts -Future plans

The Final Math (with afterthoughts)

 

and more… (Further upgrades and struggles)

Just In Case – Diary of issues relating to moving the PM 8500 to a standard ATX case, not once, but twice

The 8500 Genuine Mac ATX Power Supply – Brief discussion of using a modern ATX power supply in a legacy Mac.

Theory and Reality of Building a Soft Power Signal Inverter – Somewhat tedious discussion of building the adapter circuit to allow modern power supplies to work with the soft power of old Mac motherboards (but it has art)

Other Upgraded/Modified Systems 

Beige G3 (G4 400) Project Site – Beige G3 Tune-up and Pearls of Wisdom -A brief description of details and important points I learned upgrading a PowerMac G3 Mini-tower I placed in an ATX case, graced with some new hardware, and brought up to date including an XPF dependent 10.3 install.

PowerMac G4 AGP Site – Thoughts, opinions and tips on the sawtooth 1999 PowerMac G4 AGP - A brief discussion of how this system relates to other late 90s and early 00s systems and some tips on use and problem solving...

Warranty-smarranty: Upgrades to Our New iBook G4 – Upgrades for the faint of intellect – Using the internal Bluetooth module, 60 Gb HD, and DVD-RW from our defunct PowerBook to update our already new iBook G4

Articles on Legacy Hardware and Software (Including OS X)

Some relevant content may not be linked from this section.

Choosing Legacy Hardware to Upgrade for Play or Work, What to Get and What to Avoid - Brief guide to the upgrade potential of your system and some information on choosing legacy hardware to upgrade.

Thoughts About OS X and Legacy Hardware – General rant/overview on some of the technical differences between OS 9 and OS X, why you want OS X, why installation can be tricky, etc...

Installing OS X on Legacy Hardware –  Links and some tips on installing OS X on Legacy Macs.  More scattered information can be found on this site, especially regarding hardware modifications, or specifics regarding PM8500 (or related) or  PowerMacintosh G3 (beige) system.

Tips About OS 9 on Legacy Hardware (with or without X) – Information on using OS 9 as part of your OS X upgrade strategy for your legacy system, updating to Mac OS 9.2.2 on unsupported system, and USB Card support in Mac OS 9, especially Os 9.2.2.

It Won't Boot in OS 9 or X! -  Booting help.  Just some help, advice, and tricks for booting problems during your legacy upgrade adventures.

Articles on Hardware Modifications and Technical How-Tos

Some relevant content may not be linked from this section and most links are also linked elsewhere on this page.

Using an ATX Power Supply In a Legacy Mac    - Using an ATX power supply in a legacy PCI 1st generation Power Macintosh

Building a Signal Inverter for Using Soft on a Legacy Mac with an ATX Power Supply - Theory and reality of building a soft power signal inverter.

Upgrading an iBook G4 to Internal Bluetooth - Our project to add internal Bluetooth to our (rev 2) 1 GHz iBook G4.

Mouting a PM8500 Motheboard in an ATX Case -  A description/diary of issues I encounter while re-casing my PM8500 "Bertha".

Using Apple OEM Bluetooth Module (from laptop) in Desktop -  Brief description of using Apple's Internal Bluetooth module in different computer.

Some Tips on Taking Apart the iBook G4 and PowerBook 12 inch -  A general description of iBook G4 and PowerBook disassembly, NOT a detailed set of instructions

Setting Up Bluetooth WAP Internet Access Using OS X, and a Cingular Sony-E T637 Mobile - Brief setup instructions.

 

Comments and Predictions About Apple on Intel- Some clarification of what these means, my personal take about what it does and does not mean, and predictions.  

Posted 6/10/05.  We can see how accurate my few predictions are.

Article About How and Why PCI Quartz Extreme Can and Does Help - Discussion about how small differences in the details can make all the difference in the end.  Why PCI QE may help of certain legacy systems.

Pirates – who hate pointy things - mp3, AV Piracy, and the Law of Unintended Consequences.  A brief article about DivX and where it came from, and where we might be going.

Why Windows Sucks, but Microsoft Likes Variety – I know why I like my OS of choice, do you?

 

Other On-Site Pages 

My Apples – List of all Apples/Macs I have owned with Specifications.  Of little interest to ANYONE but me.

Site History – Short page of the site with chronology

The Final Truth – Things I don’t want to learn

Micalin's Poetry – I decided to keep this content on this site since it is unlikely to be preserved anywhere else.

Off-Site Links

Macintosh Repository – Repository of legacy Mac systems, software and drivers. This is an invaluable resource and, in fact, may resources that used to have dedicated pages (such as XpostFacto, and OS 9 Helper) are now hosted there. Sign up and support the site!

XPostFacto – Open source project that allows OS X to run on just about ANY PCI based Macintosh.

OS 9 Helper – Utility that modifies the Mac OS 9.2.1 updater to allow it to install and run on certain unsupported Macs.  From 9.2.1 you can update to 9.2.2 normally.

Surfin’ Safari* - Dave Hyatt's, development lead for the rendering engine (webcore) of Apple’s KHTML based Safari web browser, gives us a peak inside the complexity and tradeoff’s involved in building a Web browser from someone truly on the inside in this talented and focused community. Dave Hyatt is a player in the web browser development world having been a leader or founder of at least three browsers including Mozilla, Camino, and now Safari.

*The original site is gone but I have re-linked to the current webkit blog.

Ars Technica – Very good articles on the technology beyond the computer hardware and operating systems of today.  Ars has been following OS X since its earliest days and have the articles and perspective to prove it. 

Technical Review of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger - Mac OS X 10.4 is one of the most important system releases Apple has ever done, and one of the most groundbreaking and technology packed.  Think it's hard to tell...read this... 

XLR8 Your Mac* – Detailed and specific technical news, discussion, and reviews geared towards technically inclined hobbyist interested in specific types of modifications or upgrades. Includes a very extensive hardware compatibility database and set of How To technical articles that are invaluable.

*Sadly, this excellent wealth of legacy mac information went down the very month I re-activated my site, November 2025. The last time I visited the site was 20 years ago and it went down days before I tried again. XLR8yourmac, I salute you...you will be missed.

There are many other excellent Mac sites that I visit every day, including many many new ones in 2025. I will try to add links to those as I have time.

All background images on this site are standard OS X Apple background images supplied as part of a standard OS X 10.2 or 10.3 install.

If you find any links or content that you feel violates your intellectual property or inappropriately accesses your site please let me know.  If you have an interesting hobby site (even if only you might think it is interesting) please email me the link.

THE SLICED APPLE SITE HAS NO ADVERTISING.  If you are seeing adds they are not coming from here. Furthermore I am a private individual and I DO NOT harvest email addresses and spam people,  sell the email addresses, or anything of the kind.  

If you send me an email and I don't respond then certainly I could not pick it out of my clutter of spam.  Just put PM8500 or Sliced Apple in the subject and I will catch it.