Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

icruise · Apr 27, 2004, 07:31 PM

I have a Powermac 9600/233 (my first mac) and it isn't being used for anything, so I thought I would play around with it. I have tried installing Mac OS X on it, and it works better than you might think, but since it is still using the original processor, you can only get up to 10.1. Since the system original came with Mac OS 7.5, I thought I would try putting that back on for old time's sake. However, here is where I am running into problems:

I have lost the original software install CD that came with the system, so I can't use that to install the software. I have tried downloading the freely available version of 7.5.3 from Apple, and while it installs fine, when I try to boot I get a message that it doesn't support my system. My guess is that my computer will only work with system 7.5.5 and above, although I could be wrong about this.

I've tried using the 7.5.5 updater from within Mac OS 9.1 (installed on another hard disk), but the updater says that my system is newer than the one it would install, and won't let me go any further (and won't let me change disks, either). I'm getting a little frustrated. Does anyone have any advice for me? Is there something I've overlooked, or that I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

Kami · Apr 28, 2004, 12:36 AM

The 9600/233 needs 7.5.5 as its minimum OS (according to everymac.com). If you install 7.5.3 I wonder if you can then intstall the 7.5.5 update before you restart the computer?

icruise · Apr 28, 2004, 01:45 AM

No, as I say, if I try to run the updater for 7.5.5 under OS 9.1 (which is the only way I can think to run it) the program tells me that the current system (9.1) is newer than the system that it will be updating to, and it won't let me install. You would think that it would allow you to switch disks, since I have 7.5.3 and 9.1 installed on different disks, but that button is grayed out.

Big Mac · Apr 28, 2004, 02:24 AM

Why are you interested in reinstalling 7.5 at all? It sounds like the update won't install because you're booting from a newer OS on one of your drives. Have you tried booting from a CD and then installing the update?

1000th post!!

icruise · Apr 28, 2004, 03:47 AM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
Why are you interested in reinstalling 7.5 at all? It sounds like the update won't install because you're booting from a newer OS on one of your drives. Have you tried booting from a CD and then installing the update?

It's just for the hell of it, really. Because I wanted to use it again after all these years. I don't see how booting from a CD will help, since the only CDs I have to boot from are OS 9 CDs anyway.

Lateralus · May 3, 2004, 04:56 PM

Originally posted by Icruise:
...I have tried installing Mac OS X on it, and it works better than you might think...

A shame, isn't it? I've always felt that Apple intentionally crapped on 604e users just to drive new machine sales.

I have heard that 10.1 is really very useable on a 9600/350 Mach V. And that it is actually fast with a good bit of RAM, a fast hard drive and a supported video card.

icruise · May 3, 2004, 05:26 PM

I'd say that it's definitely more useable on a 9600 233 with a goodly amount of RAM than it is on some "supported" machines with 128MB of RAM. It's not a speed demon or anything, but certainly usable. It is kind of a shame that nothing higher than 10.1 is supported, since I would think they'd be even faster.

Kami · May 23, 2004, 04:07 AM

I dug through some CD's and found a copy of the 7.5.5 Install CD for the 8600 & 9600. Are you still working on this project? Let me know via PM

icruise · May 23, 2004, 05:38 AM

Thanks, but I eventually found the install CD myself. And it turns out the problem was that my hard disks were formatted as Mac OS Extended, and System 7 can't read them. Once I reformatted one of them, I was able to get System 7 installed without a hitch.

Kami · May 24, 2004, 02:16 AM

Great news. So, how is it running???

icruise · May 24, 2004, 02:35 AM

Seems lightning fast compared to OS X, but I guess that's a given... I was surprised that Explorer worked in System 7 without any apparent problems, so I was even able to get on the net. I haven't really used it much since the install, but it does bring back memories.

Eriamjh · May 24, 2004, 07:01 AM

Originally posted by Icruise:
Thanks, but I eventually found the install CD myself. And it turns out the problem was that my hard disks were formatted as Mac OS Extended, and System 7 can't read them. Once I reformatted one of them, I was able to get System 7 installed without a hitch.

I was going to mention this. I have a 7300 that I wanted to put the original 7.5.5 on it, ut because of HFS+, it couldn't access the other drive of MP3 files and data, etc. Oh well.

nJm · Jun 13, 2004, 08:35 PM

I have been playing with a PM 7200\120 I picked up a few years ago at a local school sale. It came with no disks and Os 8.6 on it. It was SOOOO slow it wasn't really worth using. I formatted it and put on 7.5.3 off the Apple website and while it worked quite nicely it was still slow in some respects. Loading up websites on my cable connection took ages in the browsers for OS7. Last night I borrowed a friend's old G3 iMac restore CD and put OS 9.1 on it. Wow is it quick now! It takes a while to load up and all, but now while actually using the computer it feels quite ok. And this is without any cache chips and only 32mb ram.

Tsilou B. · Jun 15, 2004, 04:50 PM

You should really think about installing Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1 on your 9600 if it has enough RAM. With more than 128MB RAM, YDL runs a lot faster than Mac OS X, and you have an OS that's as stable as Mac OS X and that supports current browsers, e.g. Mozilla, Firefox and Konqueror - the browser whose engine (KHTML) is the basis for Safari.
You can use the old Mac for office work, internet/email, as a print server (it uses CUPS and is therefore compatible with Mac OS X) etc.

YDL 3.0 is a free download from www.yellowdoglinux.com

rsande · Jun 21, 2004, 11:39 AM

Only problem with installing Yellow Dog is that you have to have a new enough version of Mac OS or System to install. I tried installing it on my performa 603e, but as it is (system 7, after a wipe) it can see the CD, choose to boot from it, and then boot off the HD. I'm guessing you need 8.6+ or 9.1+ to do it, since I started to do it a year or so ago when I had 9.1 on it. Very promising for greater utilization of an old mac

especially for those of us who have no money and want a unix based apple computer