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PowerBook G4 SuperDrive Speed Bump Hack

Posted by pudge on from the do-not-try-this-at-home dept.

George Wright writes "A guy called cynikal has managed to hack the firmware on the PowerBook G4's "Superdrive" (the Panasonic UJ-815A slimline slot loading DVD-R/RW burner) to enable DVD-R burning at 2x (instead of 1x), DVD-RW burning at 1x (instead of it being disabled), CD-R burning at 16x (instead of 8x) and CD-RW burning at 8x (instead of 4x). Thanks a lot cynikal! The drive now reports as a UJ-815A instead of a UJ-815, and has a firmware revision of D101 instead of the DOC4, DOCB or DWDB the PowerBooks came with. A firmware downgrader can be obtained from the same place to downgrade back to DOCB if you want to, and there is a discussion thread."

7 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Well this article has been on for 10 minutes and no posts yet, so fp for me.

  2. DMCA ?? by $exyNerdie · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    Does this affect DMCA in any way ??

  3. Re:I did it by FueledByRamen · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I'll be honest with you (moderators and potential moderators): How does this come even close to being informative? It's supposed to be funny, or just stupid, depending on how you look at it.

    --
    Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
  4. They should fix OSX first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Many Unix geeks, particularly on Slashdot, have praised Apple's decision to base Mac OS X off of the enterprise-ready BSD codebase. However, it seems that most have never actually taken a closer look at this OS. If they had, a closer inspection would reveal that Apple's philosophy toward *nix and Linux compatibility has been one of "embrace and extend", and this is meant in the M$ sense. Wherever possible, Apple has engineered their operating system to be incompatible with industry standards. Simply put, Mac OS X is a nonstandard, bastardized Unix that bears about as much resemblance to the real thing as does, say, Windows ME.

    Let's start with the windowing environment, since that is the first thing users will notice. While both KDE and GNOME are mature, stable, and accepted as IEEE standards, Apple has elected to use neither. In fact, they don't even use X at all! Their display system is a proprietary, closed-source system called Quartz Extreme. In addition to the moral issues involved with closed software, this precludes the user from running X apps. There is an untested and alpha-quality X11 emulation layer available for download, but it is emulation, so programs will be slow. Does this sound like a standards-based system to you?

    Looking under the hood, it gets worse. While all other *nixes use standard ELF binaries, Darwin (Apple's name for their proprietary "Unix" kernel) does not. It uses Mach-O, an unproven format that is proprietary to Apple. The moribund FreeBSD, off which OS X is based, uses ELF, so clearly Apple went to the extra effort of "switching" (heh) simply to break compatibility. With ELF, users would be able to run most of their Lunix apps; with Mach-O this is impossible. Additionally, Apple has moved most configuration info fromhuman readable text files into a proprietary database called "NetInfo", which is much like the Windows registry we all loathe. Why? These are only a few of the ways that Apple has deliberately broken compatibility with other systems, presumably in order to lock users in to expensive Mac hardware.

    When we factor in the threat to users' civil liberties that is posed by the DRM included to support the iTunes Music Store (do you really think it will end there?) it is obvious that real *nix gurus should give OS X a wide berth. Caveat emptor.

    1. Re:They should fix OSX first by GeorgeWright · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      1) Mach-O isn't specific to Apple. It's the binary format used by the Mach microkernel, which DOES NOT belong to Apple.
      2) X11 is not an emulation. It's natively compiled on and runs natively on Mac OS X. Nothing is emulated. Nothing is slow.
      3) KDE and GNOME aren't as enterprise ready as Aqua. Noooooo waaaay.
      4) I'm not sure why NetInfo is used, but I hazard a guess it's to try to retain source compatibility with legacy applications from Mac OS Classic whose source base assume there is something like that?

      --
      George Wright
  5. But can ya get those PowerPC chips to 1GHz .. ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Or do you wait until the mythical G5 shows up.

    Apple zealots please flame away...

  6. G5s shipping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    See Apple's web site. This news is irrelevant. Free BJ to anyone who buys me one, just reply to this message with your e-mail address. I am an Apple user and I am gayyyyyyy.