Please Note: At the end of this read-me are specific notes regarding CAS Latency on PC100/133 Dimms, Serial Number identification, and OS-X compatibility.
OPERATION:
Launching TattleTech will present you with the General Hardware report in its main window. You can select other reports in that window's pop-up menu. Help on installation and other TattleTech functions can be accessed via the "General Help.." menu item in the TattleTech menu.
GENERAL:
Whether you encounter a bug or not, I am particularly interested in receiving copies of the following reports:
Ñ Reports showing "unknown" for the date/location interpretation of the Mac Serial Number. Please note, however, that the Mac Serial Number is required to determine the location of manufacture. If TattleTech does not supply your Mac serial number automatically, please enter it manually using the "Enter Mac Serial Number..." menu item in the TattleTech menu prior to reporting this as a problem.
BUG REPORTING:
Free registrations are available to those who are first to report a functional or other reasonably significant bug and assist in troubleshooting it if requested. The free registrations should occur in a timely fashion during the reporting/problem solving process but if you feel you have been overlooked, please let me know. Depending upon bug report volume, I may not be able to respond to every report, particularly regarding bugs which have already been reported.
The easiest way to do submit Bug Reports is to select the Reports... item from the TattleTech menu while holding down the <Option> key. In the resulting dialog, a number of reports will already be selected and can be restored if necessary by clicking the Default Reports button. To these selected reports, please add the following:
Ñ the report containing the problem
Ñ any other reports which you think may shed some light on the problem
Then click the Write Bug Reports to Text File radio button and enter the description of the bug in the Bug Explanation dialog and your user info in the User Info dialog. Clicking OK will then create a file containing all of the appropriate information. Please email this file to me. If for some reason your Mac hangs/crashes/freezes while running these reports, once you restart please send the partially completed file as it will give me a lot of information regarding the problem.
FEATURE REQUESTS:
The feature/reporting set of any future versions is open to suggestions.
Planned Additions:
Ñ FireWire device reporting
CONTACTING ME:
Please send any bug reports, feature requests, etc. to: mancino@decismkr.com
THANKS:
Once again, a special thanks to Frederick J. Stratton, CTO of Decision Maker's Software, for his tireless work sleuthing the various additions to version 2.83.
VERSION HISTORY:
TattleTech 2.83 Release
Changes:
Ñ Added reporting of the G4 7450 including L2 and L3 caches
Ñ Fix bug related to reporting memory on 66MHz Macs
Ñ Add Altivec attribute to CPU report
Ñ Now recognizes Max ethernet speed of 1 GBit
Ñ Now recognizes certain dimms in Macs using the Hammerhead memory controller (7500/8100/9500 et al)
Ñ Fix bug related to reporting of Infra-Red on rev 3 PB G3 and newer powerbooks
Ñ Fix PC133 memory type
Ñ Added a field to report the dimm manufacturer when available
Ñ Some changes to dimm CAS reporting
Ñ A partial fix for certain problems with interpreting serial numbers
Ñ Add new color codes
Ñ Fix Dual Processor reporting
Ñ Fix SCSI report crash under OS-X Classic
TattleTech 2.82 Release
Changes:
Ñ Added Airport reporting
Ñ Added CPU count
Ñ Added reporting of Carbon
Ñ Added reporting of File Sharing and Program Linking over TCP/IP
Ñ Added FireWire version
Ñ Fixed bug which reported incorrect PCI bus speed in certain cases
Ñ Fixed incorrect memory module reporting on S900
Ñ Various minor fixes and updates
PC100/133 Memory and CAS Latency NOTE:
The reporting of memory dimms has changed in this version. The code has been rewritten to make it more accurate and to present the data more clearly.
Memory is reported in the General Hardware section. Following is an example of how it appears. If you do not see this expanded reporting it is because your model Mac does not support the data structure and/or the entry which supplies this information.
These dimms represent a cross-section of what you might expect to see on a Mac with a 100MHz bus. Module 3 is a PC133 module on the 100MHz bus to help in more clearly illustrating the meaning of the various CAS related fields described below.
Please Note: In the case of PC133 dimms on a 100MHz bus, you will notice a difference between the way Apple System Profiler and TattleTech labels them. ASP is solely reporting these dimms within the context of the bus on which they reside. TattleTech is reporting the same thing in the "cur CAS" field. However, by specifying these dimms in the "type" field in the PC133-xxx-xxx format, it is also reporting that the dimm is technically a PC133 dimm because that is the highest speed at which the manufacturer certifies it will run. A PC133 designated dimm will run on a 133MHz bus - a dimm with a primary designation of PC100 may not.
At any rate, the key to interpreting the entries is immediately below the "Ñ RAM Size" label. The meanings of these fields are as follows:
size = capacity of the dimm in megabytes
type = an attempt to reconstruct the standard format label as it might appear on the dimm. It follows this format:
PCxxx-abc-def
xxx = the frequency class that the dimm is intended for, i.e. 100MHz or 133MHz
a = the CAS Latency, expressed in clock cycles, of this dimm when operating at xxx speed
b = minimum tRCD in clock cycles when operating at xxx speed
c = minimum tRP in clock cycles when operating at xxx speed
d = maximum tAC in ns when operating at xxx speed
e = SPD revision number
f = undefined
cur CAS = the CAS latency of the dimm as installed in your Mac expressed in clock cycles. This is the CAS number of importance to most people. After the "@" sign the bus speed of your Mac appears expressed both in megahertz and nanoseconds
min CAS = the same as the field above except that it describes the minimum CAS latency at which the Dimm is designed to operate and the maximum bus speed at which it can be achieved
max CAS = the same as the field above except that it describes the maximum CAS latency and the bus speed which triggers it
dimm refresh = the minimum frequency at which the dimm must be refreshed expressed in microseconds
volts = operating voltage
pins = number of contact pins on the dimm
width = width of the data path expressed in bits
part# = number assigned by the manufacturer - if provided
mfg date = date the dimm was manufactured - if provided
ser# = serial number assigned to this dimm - if provided
A subsequent beta will also provide the name of the manufacturer of the dimm. Any comments related to this section are most welcome.
Serial Number NOTE:
If TattleTech knows your Mac's serial number it can usually provide the manufacturing date and location. In the case of most Macs made since the beginning of 2000 TattleTech can automatically provide the serial number. However, lately there have been some variations in the way Apple encodes the serial number - this is particularly true of the new Dual Processor Macs. In the cases where TattleTech either can't provide the serial number or the serial number provided decodes into a meaningless date or location, please enter the number manually via the TattleTech menu using the serial number printed on your Mac's case. Once the correct serial number is entered, it will not have to be re-entered.
OS-X Classic NOTE:
TattleTech will run under Classic in OS-X. However, due to Apple's implementation of the Name Registry under Classic, some of the more important information related to hardware is no longer available. To regain this functionality would require a significant re-write of the code to run under Carbon and no decision has yet been made whether to undertake this effort.
