Mac OS 8.6 findings and ramblings

[forzamyro]

My Pismo is now upgraded to G4/500MHz.
And the backside L2 cache was repaired.
(It seems that it was just a lifetime.)

I tried Mac OS 8.6 booting again.
But it still didn't work.
Is there any difference between US and Japanese System?

in your case (succeeded) --- 11 icons

in my case (failed) --- 9 icons

Please let me know if you have any hints.
Thank you.

 

[LightBulbFun]

My Pismo is now upgraded to G4/500MHz.
And the backside L2 cache was repaired.
(It seems that it was just a lifetime.)

I tried Mac OS 8.6 booting again.
But it still didn't work.
Is there any difference between US and Japanese System?

View attachment 1745380
in your case (succeeded) --- 11 icons

View attachment 1745381
in my case (failed) --- 9 icons

Please let me know if you have any hints.
Thank you.

Im not sure what the problem is

I recently threw together another 8.6 on my Pismo for testing some other stuff

and it still worked fine for me, all I did was use the Sawtooth image with my Mac OS ROM and it worked without issue


the only thing I can think of is have you tried another hard drive maybe?

for what its worth I think throughout this I used a 16GB Sandisk CF card (I know recently thats what iv used without any issues)

thats the only thing left that I can think of which is different between our 2 Pismo's now

 

[DearthnVader]

Im not sure what the problem is

I recently threw together another 8.6 on my Pismo for testing some other stuff

and it still worked fine for me, all I did was use the Sawtooth image with my Mac OS ROM and it worked without issue


the only thing I can think of is have you tried another hard drive maybe?

for what its worth I think throughout this I used a 16GB Sandisk CF card (I know recently thats what iv used without any issues)

thats the only thing left that I can think of which is different between our 2 Pismo's now

Same Boot ROM?

 

[Macbookprodude]

My Pismo is now upgraded to G4/500MHz.
And the backside L2 cache was repaired.
(It seems that it was just a lifetime.)

I tried Mac OS 8.6 booting again.
But it still didn't work.
Is there any difference between US and Japanese System?

View attachment 1745380
in your case (succeeded) --- 11 icons

View attachment 1745381
in my case (failed) --- 9 icons

Please let me know if you have any hints.
Thank you.

How can 8.6 work
When Apple states it was installed with 9.0.4 as min ? That means OS9 won’t work or 8.6, unless you are using sheepshaver for PPC ?

 

[LightBulbFun]

but on that note, whats your BootROM version? Im running the latest 4.1.8 I recommend that you update to that version if you have not already

There is "BootROM version: $0004.18f5".

Same Boot ROM?

Indeed

 

[Macbookprodude]

I want to report - I tried the sawtooth image also and it didn’t even boot at all into 8.6.. The original OS that shipped with Pismo G4(was G3 500, I hate the G3) - was 9.0.4, so how can 8.6 work when the original OS was 9.0.4, not even 9 will work ?

 

[Macbookprodude]

If someone gets 8.6 to work on the Pismo, let me know.

 

[Amethyst1]

If someone gets 8.6 to work on the Pismo, let me know.

Did you read this thread? Especially posts 1 and 2? And just for the record, I got 8.6 to boot on a Titanium which is even newer than teh Pismo and had 9.1 as original OS

 

[forzamyro]

Indeed

My pismo hard drive has 11 partitions.
No.1: PowerBook G3 (Mac OS 9.0.4)
No.2: Mac OS 9.1
No.3: Mac OS 9.2.2
No.4: Mac OS X 10.0
No.5: Mac OS X 10.1
No.6: Mac OS X 10.2
No.7: Mac OS X 10.3
No.8: Mac OS X 10.4
No.9: Archive (Data)
No.10: Mac OS X 10.4S (Tiger Server)
No.11: Mac OS 8.6
The last one is a partition for Mac OS 8.6.
I simply used the modified ROM that is the same as your modified ROM.

And simply select "Mac OS 8.6" volume for a startup disk.
(Sorry for Japanese letters)

So I don't think there is a problem with the HDD.

Thank you.

 

[Amethyst1]

When Apple states it was installed with 9.0.4 as min ? That means OS9 won’t work or 8.6

This thread proves otherwise.

 

[Macbookprodude]

So, thst means 9.0 also runs on it ?

 

[forzamyro]

Im not sure what the problem is

I recently threw together another 8.6 on my Pismo for testing some other stuff

and it still worked fine for me, all I did was use the Sawtooth image with my Mac OS ROM and it worked without issue


the only thing I can think of is have you tried another hard drive maybe?

for what its worth I think throughout this I used a 16GB Sandisk CF card (I know recently thats what iv used without any issues)

thats the only thing left that I can think of which is different between our 2 Pismo's now

OK. I will try a 16GB Sandisk CF card.
Do I need to prepare CF-IDE adaptor for that?

 

[DearthnVader]

OK. I will try a 16GB Sandisk CF card.
Do I need to prepare CF-IDE adaptor for that?

PCMCIA to CF.

 

[forzamyro]

PCMCIA to CF.

I have tried it.
But the CF card was recognized as "PC CARD".
So, I cannot select it for the startup disk.

 

[weckart]

I have tried it.
But the CF card was recognized as "PC CARD".
So, I cannot select it for the startup disk.

Wallstreet/PDQ is the last PowerBook that can start from the CardBus slot. The New World firmware took away that possibility.

 

[forzamyro]

Wallstreet/PDQ is the last PowerBook that can start from the CardBus slot. The New World firmware took away that possibility.

Thank you.
I will try the CF-IDE adaptor.

 

[DearthnVader]

Wallstreet/PDQ is the last PowerBook that can start from the CardBus slot. The New World firmware took away that possibility.

Well, not entirely.

The New World ROM has a Card Bus driver, so you maybe able to boot a Blessed System Folder from CF, you'll just have to load the Mac OS ROM from a "supported" media, and the Blessed Mac OS System Folder needs to be the first Blessed Classic Mac OS System Folder it finds.

This should work in theory, but I've never tested it, so I could be wrong, but I have tested it by other means than Card Bus, you can load the Mac OS ROM from any supported source by Open Firmware and it will search until it finds a Blessed System Folder on all media, assuming the drive is formatted with OS 9 Drivers.

 

[weckart]

Well, not entirely.

The New World ROM has a Card Bus driver, so you maybe able to boot a Blessed System Folder from CF, you'll just have to load the Mac OS ROM from a "supported" media, and the Blessed Mac OS System Folder needs to be the first Blessed Classic Mac OS System Folder it finds.

It sounds possible in theory but if you for example have a faulty IDE cable or a dead HDD/optical drive and need to boot the ROM from some external source like a FW device on the Pismo, then you might as well just boot the rest of the OS from there.

Thanks for the news about the CardBus driver. I had always thought it was moved from firmware and into the OS so that there was no way of getting the chicken before the egg so to speak. MacOS/X certainly will not boot alone from CardBus without a kickstart from somewhere. We've tried.

 

[LightBulbFun]

From what I have played with, you cant boot a Pismo from a PCMCIA card (not directly anyhow, im sure you could with with a helper volume xpostfacto style if you really wanted to!)

which as I described is how I boot OS X from a USB 2.0 Cardbus card, I boot the USB stick from the onboard USB1.1 port, and before OS X has a chance to find Root device (but after the kernel has booted of course) I whip it out and jab it into the cardbus card

OK. I will try a 16GB Sandisk CF card.
Do I need to prepare CF-IDE adaptor for that?

if you have a another random HDD on hand I would just try that first to see Mac OS 8.6 on its own HDD boots up or not as I know CF cards are relatively pricey

but for reference SDCFHS-016G is the exact card I have, and this is the CF-IDE adapter I use in my Pismo

 

[weckart]

Wallstreet/PDQ is the last PowerBook that can start from the CardBus slot. The New World firmware took away that possibility.

Cheer up, philgxxd. Apple restored booting from the Express slot with the Intel MacBook Pros. I was able to boot Leopard from an Apiotek eSATA ExpressCard on my Santa Rosa MBP.

 

[philgxxd]

@weckart
As far as i understand with the esata expresscards is:
Or you get one with a bootable chipset which uses the native drivers built into macOS but get data corruption further down the line or you use the other cards without bootability.

 

[forzamyro]

From what I have played with, you cant boot a Pismo from a PCMCIA card (not directly anyhow, im sure you could with with a helper volume xpostfacto style if you really wanted to!)

which as I described is how I boot OS X from a USB 2.0 Cardbus card, I boot the USB stick from the onboard USB1.1 port, and before OS X has a chance to find Root device (but after the kernel has booted of course) I whip it out and jab it into the cardbus card

if you have a another random HDD on hand I would just try that first to see Mac OS 8.6 on its own HDD boots up or not as I know CF cards are relatively pricey

but for reference SDCFHS-016G is the exact card I have, and this is the CF-IDE adapter I use in my Pismo

View attachment 1747105

"boot a Pismo from a PCMCIA card"
That is not my main purpose.
I will play with it some other time.

I don't have another IDE HDD.
I have already ordered SDCFHS-016G and CFIDE-44 from Amazon.
I was going to try it tomorrow.

But the situation changed.
Mac OS 8.6 on Pismo suddenly came to boot up.
I don't know why.
I've tried many many things for a year and a half, but it didn't work.
PRAM, SCM, backup battery, USB, Expansion bay, ......

Mac OS ROM J1-2.5.1
But there is a risk in unexplained resolution.

 

[Jubadub]

But the situation changed.
Mac OS 8.6 on Pismo suddenly came to boot up.
I don't know why.

Was today a colder day than the other times? From this thread, it seems 8.6 with G4s (or is it just the non-officially-supported models?) heats up a lot.

In theory, if you use an SSD or even CF, it will use less electricity and heat up less. Making sure the laptop is on a surface that does not heat up much might help, too.

Just a guess. Also, long live KanjiTalk! We need more Japanese software and games archived in the Macintosh Garden...

note tho that if you have a 7450 or newer you will still have to Fake the CPU PVR in OF to that of a Rev 2.7 7400.

So, to do this, would it be something like this?

dev /
.properties
" Rev 2.7 7400" encode-string " cpu-pvr" property

I guess my CPU value is totally off, and the CPU PVR property name is also a completely blind guess on my part.

It would be nice to see a complete list of Mac OpenFirmware possible properties and values (like cpu-version values for 7448, 7457, 970, 970FX, 970MP etc.). All I found were some quick general guides and whatnot.

 

[LightBulbFun]

to fake a CPUs PVR to boot a Classic New World ROM Mac OS that does not include native support for you CPU in question

you do something like this

dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4
000c0206 encode-int " cpu-version" property
.properties

obviously replace "PowerPC,G4" with whatever the OpenFirmware name of your CPU is, you can do dev /cpus ls to find out if your not sure and if you have 2 CPUs you have to run the above for both by appending @0 and @1 etc at the end so "/cpus/PowerPC,G4@0" etc

and replace the "000c0206" with the PVR you want in this case 000c0206 is the 7400 Rev 2.6

and .properites is to check it changed correctly, you can run .properties before you run the encode int line to see what your real/current PVR is before you go about changing it

keep in mind this only changes the PVR value in the OpenFirmware Device tree, OS X etc will still check the actual CPU's PVR value

 

[forzamyro]

Jubadub-san, LightBulbFun-san
Thank you for your advice.
But it is difficult for me to understand how to "Fake the CPU PVR".
I need a little time.

What I was afraid of happened.
The power is turned off again at Mac OS 8.6 startup.
There is no problem with other OS (as ever).

I replaced the HDD with my new SDCFHS-016G and CFIDE-44, which has only one volume of Mac OS 8.6.
But the power was turned off with the same result as HDD.

I tried 2 other methods with my IDE-USB external HDD case (connecter).
In these cases, internal HDD was removed.

1) CF card
Mac OS 8.6 volume was not recognized to boot.
There appears "?" folder icon.

2) Original HDD
There are 10 system volumes includes Mac OS 8.6.
Mac OS 8.6 volume was not recognized to boot again.
The others were bootable.

I don't know why it's just "Mac OS 8.6".