Saturday, October 11, 2014

Mac OS 9 is a Lightning Rod

Apparently debating the merits of Mac OS 9 is very 2014. Via TenFourFox Development, all the hubbub was kicked off by an Ars Technica article* about living with OS 9.2.2 for a few days, which was followed with a rebuttal from Riccardo Mori at his blog. Some previous points of view on the subject are from The Vintage Mac Museum and LowEndMac, but I wanted to use this as an excuse to point to a Mac OS 9 Lives Forum thread which reveals how to boot OS 9 on MDD FW800 Power Macs.

(UPDATE: This note was left in the comments: Flashing the G4 FW800 MDD is no longer needed and it is not the preferred approach, we now have a Bootable 9.2.2 Install CD (with Modified ROM 10.2.1) that will boot unsupported G4s and Install 9.2.2. You can get the CD ISO image at www.macos9lives.com/smforum or at www.thinkclassic.org)

First sold in 2003, the FW800 models were the first Power Macs, and only G4 Power Macs, to not boot OS 9. This remained the case till over a decade later when this Mac OS 9 Lives thread, "Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp", appeared. The whole thread is incredibly long (these were a dedicated, persistent bunch), but I'll just point to this post which has the actual solution. Basically it involves flashing the firmware with an older version that supports booting into OS 9. This works for the FW800s because the earlier firmware is for a very similar MDD model.

Efforts are also underway to duplicate this approach with other Macs, and the thread, "Mac Os 9 boot on unsupported iMac G4", reports limited success. Perhaps this won't work so well on other models because the only available firmware downgrades are too old and for too dissimilar hardware. It sure would be nice seeing an aluminum PowerBook booting OS 9, though.

As far as I read, the only limitations on the MDD are the disabling of the Firewire 400 ports in OS 9 and the Firewire 800 port running only at 400 speed, also only in OS 9. In OS X everything works fine. But for that, you get an OS 9 booting machine for your FW800, and now you too can join the online Mac OS 9 wars! Small price to pay for having access to all that great audio, productivity, and gaming software from the '90s-'00s.

*WARNING: That Ars Technica article is like weaponized banality.

8 comments:

  1. The EASIEST way to do a Dual 1.42GB MDD in OS9 is to get the very last MDD model ( http://lowendmac.com/2003/power-mac-g4-mid-2003/ an economy model: no FW800, but it does boot to OS9), and replace the single 1.25GB CPU it came with, with the Dual 1.42 from the FW800 (both have the same bus speed and it works GREAT. FW800 is nice, but since G4-compatible eSata PCI cards are so common, and FW400 still works just fine for most stuff, this is a much simpler and more functional solution.

    Apps like Final Cut and Photoshop that have DP support do very well with the new dual CPU and it is ridiculously fast! The fans do cycle a bit and it can be a little overwhelming at times, but this really only becomes a problem at 82+ degree ambient temperatures.

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    1. incorrect.. your information is out of date + you are uninformed.

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  2. Slightly off-topic:

    Have you noticed how slow the Classic mode is compared to SheepShaver?

    I tried running SimCity 2000 under Classic and my G5 Quad was begging for mercy. On Leopard with SheepShaver it is butter-smooth. Even my Intel Mac Mini with all the translation going on is faster.

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    1. I notice that sometimes, too. It depends on the program. On a few games, the sound in Classic stutters badly and slows everything down, whereas Sheepshaver plays them fine. Other games play perfectly fine in Classic, and I have no idea what the difference is.

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    2. I gave up of Tiger on my G5 for Classic. Nothing that I really need to run on OS 9 needs the MMU or 9.2.2 and SheepShaver is so much faster overall.

      For the oddball application that will refuse to run, I have a functional 6500/300 in the cellar.

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  3. Flashed my FW800 and now triplebooting OS9/OS X/MorphOS - works really well

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  4. Flashing the G4 FW800 MDD is no longer needed and it is not the preferred approach, we now have a Bootable 9.2.2 Install CD (with Modified ROM 10.2.1) that will boot unsupported G4s and Install 9.2.2. You can get the CD ISO image at www.macos9lives.com/smforum or at www.thinkclassic.org

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  5. I have downloaded and installed the modified OS 9.2.2. It works beautifully.

    I have no FW devices, so not big worry. I connected two Macs with Ethernet since both have Gigabit ethernet. Much faster than either FW speed anyway.

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