Well things evolve, and now there are the laptops and software that mean you can gig from the lappy alone - not only leaving the van at home but taking on those uber rigs with new visual possibilities.
I made this jump in 2001, moving from mx30+v5+vhs+dvd+flash/laptop to an Apple Titanium Powerbook and Vidvox's VDMX.

So here is an article on how to set up your powerbook to give it a dual-use as mean vj machine without conflicting with its other lives. Its been written with VDMX in mind, but other apps should be similar.

The key to all this is having your hard-drive partitioned, and having one of them dedicated as your performance OS. This cuts through all the crap, allowing you discrete optimum setups that you can select with one-click. Best of all, you burn a drive image of your performance drive to CD, and you know you can always get your powerbook to a reliable live state in minutes.

Step-by-Step Config

// 1 - Prepare
Backup anything on your internal drive. Get an OS9.2.2 install disk. Make two desktops: one for your desktop (i use my business card layout, apart from looks its damn practical in a loud club!), and another for your output screen (640x480; this could be black, colourbars or your logo)

//2 - Partition Drive
Start-up the powerbook from the OS9 install disk (hold down 'c' after the tone). Load 'Drive Setup' from the utilities folder. Choose four partitions:
600meg; for the performance OS9.
1800meg+; for the normal OS9.
6000meg+; for OSX
the rest; for your files.
Once this is done, close drive setup and name them.

//3 - Install OS9&X
Before we go crazy with the performance OS9, its probably an idea to reinstall the normal OS's.

//4 - Install Performance OS9
This is where its at: you want a super-cut down OS for quick start-ups, optimal performance, and preset for video-out. The following should get you through (from notes...):

Boot from CD, get installer up.
Only select MacOS9.2.2
Select 'Customized Installation...' option
From the resulting dialog box select:
[x] Core
[-] Compatibility
file exchange
[-] Mobility
trackpad
[-] Multimedia
openGL
quicktime
[-] Network
Firewire
USB
[-] Utility
Control Strip
[x] Video
[-] Apple Menu
Apple System Profiler
[-] Control Panels
Appearance
Control Strip
Date
Energy Saver
Extension Manager
File Exchange
Keyboard
Memory
Monitors
Mouse
Sound
Startup Disk
Trackpad
[X] Fonts

And let it install.

//5 - ATM
Start-up from the new OS (you can hold down 'Alt' after the tone to select which startup disk) and install ATM from the Applications/Adobe folder on the CD. You might want to install acrobat to view your vjsoft manual. Don't install stuffit, as it won't work without open transport.

//6 - Video Out
Turn of the powerbook. Plug in a monitor to the s-video/comp out socket. Turn on. Once loaded, set the second monitor to what you want, ie 640x480 NTSC or PAL. To keep the change from NTSC to PAL you need to click on the 'OK' button on that screen - so important to do this now!

Control Panels -> Monitors
Arrange the two monitors so that they only touch corner to corner, so its really hard for your mouse to stray onto the output screen.

Control Panels -> Appearance
Having copied those desktop wallpaper files into the performance OS drive, drag them onto the screens in the desktop tab and click 'set desktop'.

//7 - Other Stuff
Control Panels -> Memory
Turn off virtual memory, if you use it turn on RAM disk.

Control Panels -> Energy Saver
Turn off any power saving feature for the 'power adaptor' setting. If you put a very short delay on screen dimming for 'battery' setting, you'll realise it isn't plugged in properly sooner rather than later...

Create a folder on the desktop for all your shortcut/aliases, and drag the opened window to the edge of screen for a quick-access pop-up menu. If you leave things on the desktop, they'll appear in the normal OS9 too. Make an alias of the startup disk control panel and any video folders and chuck them into the pop-up folder, along with your vj app once its installed...

//8 - Install your vj app.
Make sure its all on the performance OS disk.

//9 - Test!
Test it, do everything you would to it in a club!

//10 - And make a disc image
Burn a disc image CD for home and one for the road. It'll be invaluable when those dodgy belkin USB video drivers fuck it all up (but at least they didn't interfere with final cut on the normal partition, eh!)

And lastly...
Codec: PHOTO-JPEG @ 80%
the G4 optimised version with fcp3 is even better.

Corrections, Comments, Updates
This has been written largely off the top of my head for visnaut, with the help of some scribbled notes when i finally did all this for myself... i had spent a long time juggling extension sets, locations and the like until the belkin saga made me want to start again with a few lessons learnt. Point being, some things might have got lost in the translation, i might have it completely wrong, or this might go out-of-date with OSX getting better all the time. So please please please post any corrections, updates or whatever, and i'll edit them in - its good for all of us to share this kind of knowledge.

Cheers,
Toby [Dec02]