Odds & Ends: Mac OS 9 and USB 2.0 PCI cards drivers; CD tray opens with iMate connected: a follow-up

Mac OS 9 unable to support USB 2.0 PCI cards Randy Singer writes: "At Macworld Expo this past week many vendors were sporting PCI cards which add USB 2.0 device support to PCI-equipped Macs. With a theoretical speed of 480 Mbits/sec and prices as low as under $40, USB 2.0 devices are often less expensive than equivalent FireWire devices. However, you aren't running OS X, you may not get what you are paying for. One very well respected company's rep told me that there is actually only one company that makes the driver for all of these different cards, and that because Apple has not released enough information about OS 9, the driver only provides USB 1.1 speeds (12 Mbits/s) under OS 9, but under OS X it will attain USB 2.0 speeds (a theoretical 480 Mbits/s). Several vendors mention this fact, albeit not always prominently, while others fail to mention it altogether."

CD tray/iMate interaction: a follow-up John Cunningham reports that after updating this G4/533 (Digital Audio) firmware to version 4.2.8 (10-18-2001), the previously reported problem of the CD tray opening if the iMate was connected has vanished.

Update: Several readers have since reported that the fix does not work for them. One user noted the problem disappeared until after the power manager was reset.