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Hash · Feb 9, 2003, 02:10 AM

I am willing to give up on use of Firewire 800, which according to many sites, is the primary reason why new Powermacs cant boot OS9.

Consideration: new iMacs can boot OS 9 (and they lack Firewire 800)

Axo1ot1 · Feb 9, 2003, 03:17 AM

OS 9 is for chumps

Gul Banana · Feb 9, 2003, 03:25 AM

It is not that the new macs do not allow OS 9 to run, it is that OS 9 does not support them and that there will never be any further development on it. Not going to happen.

Sarc · Feb 9, 2003, 11:02 AM

I guess you could still hack it to run on the Dual 1.25.
The Dual 1.42 are gone though.

chabig · 12:26 PM

So the bottom line is...you can't "flash the firmware" to make the new machines boot OS 9. As someone said, it's not that the machines are crippled so as not to boot 9, it is that OS 9 does not support the new machines.

Your question is kind of like asking "How do I flash the firmware to boot Windows XP?" Can't do it.

Chris

Hash · Feb 9, 2003, 12:24 PM

Yup, new dual 1.25 seems to be possible for hack..you never know.. anyone knows if low level drivers for old 1.25 will work for new 1.25? (suppose we omit Firewire 800 and bluetooth). Flashing firmware is i mean using ROM of older MDD onto newer Firewire800 MDD

reader50 · Feb 9, 2003, 01:21 PM

http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-desktops/143140/how-can-i-boot-os9-new/

Good luck. Knowing Apple, you will likely have to make assorted adjustments in the flasher to bypass all the model/version checks. Oh, and if you hose your Mac, it's not my fault.

We seem to have a lot of OS9 haters on the boards nowadays, not sure why. It's awfully useful for fixing X problems, and UT doesn't play worth a darn in X.

chabig · Feb 9, 2003, 01:38 PM

I don't hate OS 9. I use it regularly on my PowerMac 7600.

Just because we're telling you that Apple's new machines won't boot 9 doesn't mean we hate it. We just relaying fact.

Chris

Hash · Feb 9, 2003, 01:57 PM

chabig, hate to say you, but you completely dont grasp the picture. Maybe you dont know what flashing firmware is? Or maybe you dont understand the difference between OS9 and windows? I guess you re helpless.

Superchicken · Feb 9, 2003, 08:28 PM

Acctually he seems to understand. Running OS 9 or Win Xp on these or rather attempting to run would be attempting to run incompatable software.

OS 9 is not made for these machines, same reason the new power books can't boot, there's not the propper drives in the OS to support these... or well there MIGHT be for the mobo... but there's a good chance that they might have changed the mobo hence you wouldn't even be able ot use that with OS 9.

Personally I'd love to have the ability to run OS 9 on a new machine, it's pretty spiffy and it's my home... but I understand why apple's not gona put the cash into continuing to develop for it.

Eriamjh · Feb 9, 2003, 09:19 PM

OS9s development ended with the last round of G4s, etc. If you were to figure out what needed to be added to OS9 and the firmware to support it, then be my guest.

If you must have OS9, don't buy one of these machines. Buy an iMac (word is, they still work with OS9 because there weren't enough changes to make 9 not work) or get the OS9 G4 Dual 1.25 that Apple still sells (or pick up one used somewhere).

Perhaps www.os9forever.com will have news on what you can do?

Hash · Feb 9, 2003, 10:54 PM

If i had a chance, i would compare bit by bit, part by part new and old MDDs/maybe ROM/ OS 9 is same - 9.2.2, so all changes are related with hardware.

Cipher13 · Feb 9, 2003, 11:55 PM

Wow, there are an awful lot of quitters in here.

It is possible, and it will happen.

reader50 · Feb 10, 2003, 01:31 AM

I've previously outlined a potentially dangerous flash method. Here is a safer approach.

We need a custom bootloader to get OS 9 started. This assumes the motherboard has not really changed except for the FW800 / APE additions. The most likely route is located at:
HD/System/Library/CoreServices/BootX

This file starts the OSX load process. It needs to be replaced with a file of the same name that loads the 9 startup code instead. It will have to load enough to get past firmware dependencies, to where the OS's code takes over completely.

This way, the firmware will happily see an OSX install on the 9 partition, and will begin the boot process by loading and executing BootX. But you end up in 9 instead. Most likely without Airport or FireWire, separate drivers would be needed to enable those. Or PC/PCI cards, with 3rd party drivers.

I do not have the development experience or assembly compilers to tackle this. Fortunately, there are plenty of people around who have everything needed. Best guess is a month or three before someone has a beta package out that will allow 9 to boot.

Cipher13 · Feb 10, 2003, 02:03 AM

I'm convinced that this can be done.

It simply all depends on how Apple has gone about preventing OS9 booting.

There is NO reason OS9 wouldn't boot on these machines. No FW800 or AirPort, sure, but that isn't a concern right now.

If you're a quitter and don't wanna see OS9 on a new PowerMac? Well, I don't see any point in further contribution to this thread from you.

First things first; simple Open Firmware commands.

setenv boot-device hd:x,\\:tbxi

Possibly get OF to force boot OS9, unless it has been patched to disallow it.

If so, the possibilities are: flash the firmware with something else (as Reader has described), or allow the firmware to initialise, passing to bootx or a suitable substitute which has the capability to boot OS9, after the firmware has been passed out of the equation.

I have some more specific ideas, but... who knows their stuff and wants to see this happen?

Eriamjh · Feb 10, 2003, 06:20 AM

Yup. I'm a quitter. I quit using OS9 a long time ago.

Leonard · Feb 10, 2003, 10:41 AM

Question is, who would be brave enough to try this firmware hack on their new PowerMac or Powerbook? It would be an awful pricey paperweight if something goes wrong.