[Macpartners] None

[James Serdy]

>Hi,
>
>Our Alpha, one of a kind, machine is now 10+ years old, and at the 
>moment supports all of the tissue scaffold work going on in our labs 
>and at MGH and at the Cleveland Clinic.  It runs on a Mac FX and Lab 
>View 2.2.1 along with a lot of custom electronics and software. 
>That is the reason we have not (and now, cannot) upgrade.  Our 
>licensees are doing that with their machines but for other fields of 
>use.
>
>Yesterday afternoon I went to restart the MacFX (hard boot is the 
>only way for over a year now, and this is necessary anytime the 
>machine sits unused for about 3 days because the computer freezes). 
>This time it brought up the question mark startup disk icon.  So I 
>took out the hard drive and gave it a few quick twists of the wrist 
>to free up a stuck drive (saved me many times with my SE) and tried 
>again.  No luck!  Finally I took a drive from the standby FX I found 
>and stashed in a corner years ago and swapped.  A-OK as far as  the 
>computer was concerned.  Next I took the original drive and 
>installed it in the SUSI.  Then when the computer started and tried 
>to open that hard drive a Damaged Disk window came up with the 
>question "Initialize?"  I certainly did not want to risk erasing all 
>the Alpha Controller software so I canceled, then lo and behold, the 
>Alpha Controller files appeared on the screen!   Does that mean that 
>the drive is partitioned?
>
>Anyway, I trashed enough stuff from the other FX drive (now the 
>startup drive) and copied over the Alpha Controller files 90+ MB. 
>However, when I try to start the LabView Alpha 3.32 program file it 
>seems to succeed almost to the end then displays an out of memory 
>window and bulldozer.  Already the blue strip window has appeared 
>along the bottom of the screen which used to be just before 
>completion.  The other strange behavior is that during the loading 
>windows flash on and off saying that it is searching for VI's, which 
>never used to happen.  Is that because it is looking for the drive 
>by the old name?
>
>I am very nervous to go any further than I have at this point.
>
>Apologies for the long narrative.  If this makes any sense and you 
>have suggestions for our predicament, they are welcome.  We need to 
>nurse that machine along a while longer!
>
>
>Jim, Research Staff, 35-011     3-2606