UPS finally refunded the overcharged tariff

Last November UPS mistakenly charged me a $684 tariff on $355 worth of computer parts shipped from Europe. It was shortly afterwards reduced to $51.30, but I had prepaid the tariff to avoid warehouse fees, so UPS owed me $632.70. They finally issued the refund in July after repeatedly E-mailing their accounting office in India approximately monthly. (Phone number? Ha ha ha.)

I don't know if these overcharges are still happening, but I've basically stopped importing anything from outside the United States unless they pay the tariff for you, or until there is more clarity. I'd also like to get that $51.30 back — especially since they were Apple parts, and one of the parts even said "MADE IN USA." Until then, any new Australian computer exploration is staying local to the in laws' in regional New South Wales, and it will be awhile before we get any new Japanese systems to play with.

MkLinux and the pimped-out Apple Workgroup Server 9150

As is typical here in the Floodgap lab, it all started so innocently: rebuilding a flaky Apple Workgroup Server 9150, the odd duck of the Workgroup Server line and older cousin to our beloved Apple Network Server. And then I just had to pimp it out for MkLinux.

Before the sui generis IBM AIX-based Apple Network Server, one of our favourite machines here at Floodgap, there were the WGSes, the Workgroup Servers, Apple's well-intentioned but conflictingly received line of Macintosh rebadges hopped up with high-spec options and special server software. While certain users had long repurposed desktop Macs as ad-hoc servers, these computers were the first Apple systems explicitly positioned and sold as such, and the first generation was even advertised with A/UX, Apple's own hybrid System V UNIX implementation.

A/UX ultimately didn't survive the 1994 68K transition to PowerPC, but in 1996 Apple publicly offered another option: run Linux, using the Mach microkernel. Although MkLinux emerged after the 9150's discontinuation, it's still just an overgrown NuBus Power Mac, so between more RAM, a beefier CPU upgrade and various video cards, by the end of this article we ought to have a configuration that gives us the best of two worlds — classic MacOS and MkLinux — in one server.

But first we're going to have to rebuild it. And these plastics definitely don't want to stay in one piece.