Is anyone out there using a Mac for this? What works and what doesn't? EBL? I have a Powerbook G4 running OS 10.4, and a Camaro-haven't bought anything yet. I don't mind paying for software if needed. I did a search and most of the responses were 5 or more years old- things are different now.

And before anyone tells me to go buy a cheap laptop- I'll put a carb on this car before I own another stinkin PC. I'm done with those headaches. TIA

 

Both Mac and PC have their headaches. I work with both on a daily basis as an IT guy. I have never heard of any datalogging/tuning software for the Mac OS. In reality since macs only have about 4% of the consumer market it doesn't seem likely that anyone would write a datalogging/tunning program for it.

If your forum search hasn't turned up any dead, or forgotten links you will most likely hear the same from other members.

 

Your best bet for using a Mac with logging software is using one with Intel Inside and then Bootstrap for running Windblows XP

 

I haven't seen any datalogging software that is Mac compatible. I am using an intel based Macbook with an XP virtual machine (parallels).

Good luck.

-Schultzy

 

Thanks for the positive responses. I've figured out that it would be easy if I had a core duo machine. I was hoping there would be a way to use my G4. I'm not an "IT" guy at all so I'm really pretty lost. I was hoping I could partition or load enough windows programs on this to get it to work.

I did a search over on LS1.com and found that HPtuners for the LSX crowd is fully Mac compatible.

Thanks

 

But that won't support your ECM. Its also expensive.

You might be able to run a DOS emulator but most of the Dos and Windows 3.1 programs won't support a USB connection to the ECM, they'll want a Serial connection with a Powerbook won't have.

Honestly, there are brand new $400 laptops out there. The systems work just fine as long as you aren't downloading every "scanner" software the pops up through Internet Explorer and run Firefox or Opera, a good standalone browser solves many problems. I haven't had active virus detection on my PC in over a decade. I just scan it once in a while with trent housecall an online scanner. No viruses ever found.

Macs are fine, I have 2 older PC's at home along with a Powerbook G4, and 733mhz G4, and a 1.42ghz x2 G4 mirror door. All of them are so stable I've gone several months without restarting before.

I'm even running several Virtual machines to emulate older OS's as Dos, and Win98se so I can play all of my old games without WinXP/Vista incompatiblity options.

 

If your mac will run parallels, you're good to go !
Just run the M$ stuff under parallels.

 

His mac won't, its a powerbook, hence Power PC motorola, no mactel setup.

 

Cflick,

Hope you're doing well. Happy Holidays? How's the burban running?

 

And a Happy Holiday(s) to you, too !
Got an EBL-Flash, so things have gotten easier. Did a couple reality checks on where I was going, trashed the tune and started over ( again ) so now it's running stronger, and better MPG than it ever did.
Still doing *almost* all of it under a Linux, but there are one or two things that just won't run right in the emulator.
Wrote a script or two to convert data logs into wav files, and a good audio editor gives me better graphing than a spreadsheet ever could.
Still chasing ion curves, too. That's going slower than hoped, but going.

 

ONLY because so much of this is windows based, I bought another laptop off e-bay for $100. W98, network ( LAN only ) and tuning/logging software. Nothing else. A dedicated machine. Less trouble than trying to adapt things that either don't work, or don't work well. AND the older ( cheaper ) used stuff generally has a serial port.

 

I've written a couple of pieces of software, using Realbasic, to do logging on my G4 for the 7730 & similar ECUs, a tuner and a Romulator controller. The tuner, which I call "ALDLx", mimics ALDLmon and WinALDL function by function, the Romulator controller "PKTKx" will upload & download .bins reliably - I've gotten them working pretty well. Email me, I'll send you the source & compiled apps.

 

old thread same question. i really don't want to pay the money to buy windows and deal with the bootcamp installation on top of buying all of the programmers and editors etc. I'm pretty good with macs but winblows just **** me off. so far I can tell that I will need a USB programmer that runs $250 plus software and would like to use eeproms instead of eproms. if I throw windows on top of that I'm looking at almost $400 or more. almost makes it worth it to have a pro program the chip for me and make sure it is done right the first time.

 

Where are you getting $250 for the cable?

If you feel like paying for it, you can get a cable for $90 (which is still expensive).

Personally, you may hate windows, (Its not my favorite either), but buy a cheap netbook for tuning then. Its got windows, its about $250 to $300. Exceedingly tiny, long battery life. Perfect for tuning a car.

 

Exactly.

As for the whole Mac vs. PC debate, trust me Macs are just as bad and in some cases worse when compared to PCs. I've worked on both for years. They each have their own sets of problems. Typically where people get frustrated by PCs it comes from their own user errors, cheap hardware, and bad computing habits. As with all things you get what you pay for and cheap PCs are generally just crap. Apple doesn't sell Macs in price points as low as PC makers do. But the funny thing is that all the hardware in a Mac is actually built by manufacturers that build the parts that go into many PCs. You are often getting the same quality of hardware, it just depends on what price point you are shopping at. Pre-built sub-$600 PC's are often total ****. If Apple tried to sell a $299 Dell equivalent it would be crap too. Likewise a $3,000 system is WORLDS away from your $500 Dell or HP system.

I've got a fairly expensive machine that I built myself. I run Windows 7 on it and I don't get blue screens, get viruses, have lockups, crashes, hardware failure, or anything like that. In fact none of the machines I've built, or the laptops I'm using which I did not build, suffer from such problems.

 

You can rest assured that having a "pro" tune it will not be done right the first time. It's a process, not a once-through thing.
You can also be sure that having it done right, $400 is dirt cheap.

 

here i need a USB version as I don't have a serial or parallel port on my comp. hmmm maybe I could reformat my old pc I gave to my brother but that thing is far from being a decent computer (solid 18GB of storage, with i think a 256k processor) not to mention on it's last legs. As for mac vs. PC I'm not getting into it. I've done tech support for both and i've made my conclusion. i just want to know if there is anything that will work with my mac, NOT why you think i should go PC.

 

Well, in that case the question has been answered. There are no official products that work. Someone did post up some info on a custom program he made, so you should follow up with him if you don't want to go PC for tuning.

 

Very simple. I'm a *nix guy. I'd LOVE to find software, even bad hacks, that don't require M$ Windows. There's some very ancient stuff for DOS, though.
So, your choice is the same as mine. Run the windows stuff in an emulator, or hack WINE enough to run it in your native OS. If you're at least OSX and good with hacking source, then WINE is probably the way to go for you, but even WINE doesn't run a lot of this stuff very well.

SO, the short answer is no there isn't, and THAT is the reason ! Sorry.

 

Bringing a post back from the dead, I know.

However have to comment on this.

I'm tuning my GTA now, its a 94 B-body LT1/4L60E swap.

Both TTS Datamaster and TunerCAT work FLAWLESSLY under Parallels 5 and OS X 10.6.3 on a Macbook Pro 15.4" using the USB AKM cable.

I was initially worried, but figured I'd just fork over the $40 to have the PCM fixed if it bricked it. But it doesn't, works perfect.

But just like all flashing, make sure that you disable ANY powersave settings, if that machine goes to sleep when you are flashing your PCM its done.

This ofcourse, only applies to PCM's that can be flashed, so its 94+ LT1 swaps or newer.