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Griffin Technology Hardware Adapter Trio Reviewed
• iMate ADB To USB Adapter
Apple's migration from its traditional conductivity protocols of ADB, Serial, and SCSI to the newer, hot-pluggable and more user-friendly standards of USB and FireWire has been mainly a positive development. However, it does pose a problem for those of us with a substantial investment in older computer input devices and other peripherals. In some respects, my WallStreet PowerBook offers the best of both worlds, with its complete set of legacy PowerBook ports, plus PC Card adapters for USB and FireWire connectivity. My old WallStreet can connect to almost anything with its arsenal of ports. But now that I am seriously contemplating a system upgrade in the near future, the fact that a lot of my favorite stuff is no longer supported by the newer Apple machines has sunk in as a practical consideration. One solution of course would be to just kiss my old friends goodbye and replace them, but I am very partial to some of my keyboards, pointing devices, and microphones, and of course there is an expense issue involved here as well. Another solution is provided by Griffin Technologies' fleet of adapter products, that make the transition to the new conductivity standards much more gradual and painless, and which offer some other advantages while doing it. The two leading candidates on my new Mac short list are the new titanium PowerBook, and the G4 Cube. I'm not sure which way I will jump yet, but neither of these machines supports ADB and neither has an analog sound-in port. iMate ADB To USB Adapter The product that will allow me to use my favorite MacAlly keyboard and collection of ADB input devices is Griffin's iMate, which plugs into a USB port or hub at one end, and provides a familiar ADB port at the other. 
Griffin says that some ADB devices such as keyboards, mice, and bar code readers can operate with the iMate without any driver software, but for devices with custom drivers that won't, you can download the latest version of their iMate driver from their website. The iMate driver provides the functionality of the ADB manager. This allows ADB devices that require custom drivers to operate on an iMac, iBook, PowerBook G3, PowerMac G4, or a Mac with a USB card. The iMate is a small plastic housing containing circuitry and an ADB part, attached to a USB cord and connector. You just plug the latter into a USB port on your Mac; plug an ADB device into the iMate, and you're in business. Of course, compatibility is not 100 percent, (some of the possible issues you might encounter but listed below), but chances are the iMate will do the job for you. We tried several ADB keyboards with the iMate adapter, including a big, old, solid, Apple Extended Keyboard II, an Adesso Tru-Form, and a DataDesk SmartBoard. The first two worked perfectly the MacAlly USB to PCI adapter card in my UMAX SuperMac S-900. We also tried to the Apple keyboard in a built-in USB port on a Lombard PowerBook, and it worked fine there too. However, for some reason, the iMate would not support the DataDesk keyboard on either machine. As for input devices, we tested a standard ADB mouse, and a MacAlly two button mouse, which has its own programmable driver. The Apple mouse worked fine, as did the MacAlly without its driver loaded (in which instance both buttons revert to a standard click). However, activating the MacAlly Mouse driver software caused the S-900 to lock up hard, requiring a fresh restart. Fair enough. Griffin warns that programmable devices may require the iMate driver software, as noted above,. I downloaded the driver, but still no joy with the MacAlly, whose own driver software still caused the S-900 to crash. However, I'm more inclined to blame the MacAlly software driver, which I have seen cause unstable behavior on other Macs (my old PowerBook 5300 for instance), even when you have the mouse plugged into a standard ADB port. In general, the iMate will serve its purpose of allowing at least most ADB peripherals -- Apple items in particular it seems -- to support newer Macs. I especially liked the little activity LED on the iMate, which lets you know that information is flowing. It's not especially functional, but it's entertaining. Issues: On Lombard PowerBooks, ADB keyboards function normally except that waking the PowerBook up is done with the Power Key. This is different than built in ADB where any keystroke could wake up the Mac. This is because during sleep on a Lombard PowerBook G3, power is removed from the USB bus during sleep and consequently the ADB bus as well. So the only form of communication possible at that point is the signaling used for soft power on. On the Power Mac G3's and early G4's, sleep works as expected and awakening from sleep with a keystroke or mouse movement works as expected. iMate System Requirements iMac Computers
iBooks
Power mac G3/G4 Computers
PowerBook 333 MHz and 400 MHz (Lombard)
Compatibility Note: Please note wakeup from sleep mode is supported with ADB keyboards using the iMate but the power on key is used with external keyboards on the new PowerBook G3s. This is different than previous PowerBooks that would awake with any keystroke. Macs with USB Cards
The iMate is a cool little product, and is a unique life saver for those of us who need to use ADB devices with recent Macs. However, its implementation is not 100 percent compatible, and therefore I am giving it a general three smiley rating, although if it does the particular job you need it to do, five smileys would be appropriate.  For more information, including a list of supported ADB devices, visit:
iMic Analog To USB Microphone Adapter Nearly every review of the G4 PowerBook that I've read has complained about the omission of an analog microphone input jack from the new machine. I agree. USB microphones may be the future, but this is now, and I have a collection of microphones and headsets that I'm in no hurry to replace. Griffin's iMic adapter to the rescue. iMic universal audio adapter is a device that not only lets you use both line level and regular, non-amplified, PC-style mics, of which there is a vast selection available, with USB Macs, but also supports sound out through the USB port, allowing you to connect speakers and headphones with standard 1/8"/3.5 millimeter plugs. 
The iMic allows the connection of virtually any non-PlainTalk analog microphone or sound input device to the iBook, G4 Cube, Titanium PowerBook G4 or any other Mac with USB ports. The iMic is a disk shaped module about 2" in diameter, with two female ports and a switch. The ports are for sound-in and sound-out, and the switch selects between line level and mic level depending upon which type of mic you are using. Just plug the iMic's USB cord connector into the Mac's USB port, and a supported device into its port. I tested the iMic on three Macs: A Lombard 333 MHz PowerBook; my WallStreet PowerBook with its MacAlly US the PC Card adapter, and my UMAX S-900 tower, which has a MacAlly the USB PCI card adapter installed. The latter two machines are running Mac OS 9.1, while the Lombard has both OS 9.1 and OS X beta. iMic requires a minimum of Mac OS 9.0.4. Mics tested included a mic level, PC type headset, and a mini boom mic, also mic level. Apple PlainTalk mics are not supported. With the Lombard, which has built - in USB, the two PC mics worked fine. The iMic doesn't require driver software. It was just a matter of opening the OS 9.1 sound control panel and selecting one of the USB Sound-In options: External Mic USB and Line In USB. It doesn't matter which. Lombard of course has a PlainTalk compatible analog sound in port, but with iMic, you can use regular mic level mics. Griffin claims the iMic produces better sound-in results than Apple's built-in audio. We also tested the iMic's sound out capability with a set of satellite stereo speakers. The Mac OS 9.1 sound control panel also allows you to select USB sound out. The Lombard supported the speakers nicely under both OS 9.1 and the OS X beta.. Key Features:
Supports:
The iMic sells for $35. I am giving the iMic a four smiley rating. The inability to support PlainTalk mics accounts for the point reduction.  For more information, visit:
NE Mic PlainTalk Adapter Apple's PlainTalk microphone is different from a standard mics in that incorporates a built-in pre-amplifier that supplies a line level audio input to the computer. This means that any microphone or other device you plug into your Mac's PlainTalk microphone jack needs to support line level input. However, the PlainTalk microphone interface means that Mac users are shut out of the majority of computer microphones on the market, especially the vast array of inexpensive ones available for Wintel PCs. And while Apple's own PlainTalk microphone is a very decent unit, it must be either perched on top of your computer monitor or hand-held, neither of which is necessarily the most ideal or convenient solution. People who use voice input a lot will probably prefer to have a headset or boom microphone. The solution for Mac users who want to use non-PlainTalk microphones is the Griffin Technology NE Mic audio adapter, which is compatible with most non-powered microphones that have a standard 3.5 mm stereo or mono jack. 
This adapter is fully compatible with the PlainTalk audio port used on recent Macs. It works by amplifying the mic level signal that most microphones output and converting it to the Mac's line level signal. Designed for both professionals and hobbyists, the Griffin NE Mic adapter incorporates a low-noise amplifier, and requires no set-up or drivers. The NE Mic adapter plugs into the microphone port on Mac OS systems, giving you the option of using a wide array of inexpensive microphones, multimedia displays, communications devices, and headsets manufactured for both the PC and consumer market. "You will now be able use any microphone that you could buy at a computer or discount store," says Paul Griffin, CEO of Griffin Technology Corporation. I tested the NE Mic with a cheap PC mini-boom microphone that I picked up from a surplus mail-order house for Can $3.99 (that's about US $2.60), figuring if I got decent results with that, then performance with higher-quality PC mics should be even better. My test procedure was simple. I basically recorded similar phrases several times using the Alert Sound recorder in the Mac OS 9.0 Monitors And Sound control panel, and then subjectively compared the results produced by three microphones -- the $3.99 cheap-o; an inexpensive mic and speakers headset combo that Griffin sent along with the NE Mic test unit; and an Apple PlainTalk mic as a control. To use the NE Mic adapter, I just plugged the adapter module into the test Mac -- in this case, my son's PowerBook Lombard 333 MHz machine, and then plugged the two inexpensive microphones into it in turn. Not surprisingly, the stock Apple PlainTalk mic supplied the cleanest audio input of the three. However, I was surprised at how good the cheap little boom mic was, and I got a very acceptable recording of my voice using it. The headset mic was disappointing, however. It had plenty of volume, but produced an unacceptable background hum or buzz no matter where I said its in line volume control. Having established that the cheap PC boom mic offered reasonable input quality for recording, I decided to see how it would work with dictation software, in this case IBM ViaVoice. Here again, the results were surprisingly good. Dictation accuracy using the $3.99 a microphone did not appear to be much less accurate than it is with the Andrea headset Mic that ships with ViaVoice, or with the Apple PlainTalk mic. At $20, Griffin Technology's audio adapter offers a low-end solution for novice or aspiring Digital musicians, Audio/Video producers, Multimedia designers, and Voice Recognition users. The audio adapter's preamplifier outputs approximately an 100x gain on the normal Mic Level signal produced by unpowered microphones. This produces the professional industry standard Line Level signal used by Apple since the Quadra models. "With all the multimedia monitors with built-in microphones on the market today, the NE Mic audio adapter fills a great need," says Griffin. The NE Mic adapter is compatible with desktop Macs and PowerBooks that have an analog sound-in port, as well as all models made by erstwhile Mac cloners such as Power Computing, Motorola, Umax, Marathon, PowerTools, and APS. It is also compatible with most legacy Mac systems introduced since 1993. I found that the Griffin NE Mic adapter works as advertised, and is a useful accessory for adding more mic flexibility to your PlainTalk Mac. Applelinks rating: four smileys. For more information check out the Griffin website at:
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