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[iMic]

IdentityTool Pre-Release


After 48 hours in development and 24 hours of intense testing across as many machines as I could find, IdentityTool is ready for a limited release. This Pre-Release version of the software is being made available to members of ThinkClassic and MacOS9Lives.


What Does It Do?

IdentityTool is a simple application that allows you to switch the model and series identifiers of your Mac with those of another machine.

On launching the software, it automatically detects the current model identifier of your Mac and what MacRISC properties are currently set, presenting them in a clean and simple interface. From there you can manipulate them to your will, selecting another Macintosh model from a list and enabling or disabling MacRISC properties to create your ideal configuration. Click Apply, enter a password and the software takes care of the rest.

IdentityTool is derived from the same source code as LeopardAssist 3, with its proven history of stability and reliability when interfacing with Open Firmware.


What Is It For?

Some possible use scenarios for this software include using it on a Panther system to allow the installation of Tiger on machines that are otherwise unsupported, enabling MacRISC2 to allow a newer Mac to format a hard disk with OS 9 disk drivers in Disk Utility, or changing the model identifier to that of an older machine to allow a newer Mac to boot into Mac OS 9.


Download (1.7MB) https://app.box.com/s/ukxg5qb5gc8ks62wrxa0


The application has been tested on Mac OS X Panther and Tiger on several machines, including an iMac G4, Power Macintosh G4 (QuickSilver) and a PowerBook G3 (Pismo). That said, as it is pre-release software, it is recommended that you test it on non-mission critical systems first.

As is expected, making overly drastic changes can result in an inability to boot into Mac OS as the operating system loads drivers based on machine identifiers and platforms. Changing a PowerBook G3 to use the identifiers of a Power Macintosh G5 with MacRISC4 is unlikely to result in a bootable system. If this occurs, normally a PRAM reset is sufficient to restore the machine to working order. In addition, you can force a reset from Open Firmware. Hold Command + Option + O + F on startup and enter the following, making sure to press return after each line:

Code: [Select]

reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

Icon




Screenshots











Cheers,

iMic.

[supernova777]

nice work..
when are u making the os9 version? LOL 

[iMic]

IdentityTool, like LeopardAssist, calls into some of the commands provided in OS X's BSD subsystem. It makes it almost impossible to port it over to Mac OS 9. I'm also not aware of a way to interface directly with the NVRAM from within an OS 9 system. It may have been documented somewhere but I wouldn't expect it to be a simple task.

Since most of the use of IdentityTool is to enable the formatting of volumes and the startup of Mac OS 9 on computers that would be consider Mac OS X only, it makes sense to start the process with a utility in Mac OS X since it's the native operating system for those models. If you're installing OS 9 to a completely blank drive with no previous Mac OS X install, then using the modified ROM or entering the OF commands manually is likely a better option.

[DieHard]

Can we get any takers to a make a Bootable OSX DVD that contains the Utility ?

That way pure OS 9 users will have access to this neat Utility ?

[Custos]

Would this work on a PPC g5 to boot os9? I would love to see what os9 could do on my single core g5. with the architecture being so different it would seem that it would have many issues even if it did boot.

[Metrophage]

Would this work on a PPC g5 to boot os9? I would love to see what os9 could do on my single core g5. with the architecture being so different it would seem that it would have many issues even if it did boot.

No... No OS 9 install would have drivers for much of anything in a G5. It will happen pretty much when we get the OS 9 source code and start work on 9.3 - which is probably never. What this project is useful for is likely getting to run OS 9 on the later G4s, there are a lot of them out there.

Unfortunately, writing drivers for MacOS had always been "black magic" before OS X, even when these were supported systems.

[Custos]

There is software on certain linux distros(ie..backtrack/kali) that are used for reverse engineering software. Never tried it on a OS.

[supernova777]

i personally think that mac os 9 can run on a g5.. but people have too much fictional reasons that they have dreamt up that are the reasons why it cant when truly.. steve jobs didnt want them running 9.
the same reasons were once thought to apply to why u cant run mac os x on a pc.. and guess what??
anyway ... maybe im wrong, but i cant wait for the day that i see someone post that they have it workijng on a g5.. ; )

[Metrophage]

i personally think that mac os 9 can run on a g5.. but people have too much fictional reasons that they have dreamt up that are the reasons why it cant when truly.. steve jobs didnt want them running 9.

There were fictional reasons, but those applied to the G4 machines. I never believed that there was any practical reason why a Mac couldn't have boot information for OS 9 *and* FW800, or USB2, or whatever. I know that Jobs just wanted to kill it to move on to the NeXT big thing. I really think we can have 9 running serviceably on most, if not all, G4 Macs. But the G5 seems to be different than "just a bigger G4". Considering how much faster the system bus is, how likely is it that the chips are similar? Even the CPU instruction set isn't the same. Running MacOS 9 on these is possible in the way that running it on some industrial PPC card or IBM PPC server is.

Of course, it would be great to do, and be screaming fast. But can the underlying software handle 8 GB of RAM on a 1GHz bus, with none of the safeguards that modern OSs use to do this sort of thing?

the same reasons were once thought to apply to why u cant run mac os x on a pc.. and guess what??

Who ever thought that? I had Rhapsody running on a PentiumII box I literally found in the street. Why hackintoshes are possible is because Apple already did most of the work of porting the OS to run on Intel machines. Tricking them to run on supported hardware which is just not "authorized" is a much easier task than running it on a system it wasn't written for in the first place. Even if Apple themselves decided to make an OS 9 variant for G5, it would be different enough that it might not be able to run the software we run on OS 9 now. It's only slightly less impractical than running MacOS on a non-Apple PPC, like an IBM server.

anyway ... maybe im wrong, but i cant wait for the day that i see someone post that they have it workijng on a g5.. ; )

I would love to see that, as would my G5. But I will not be holding my breath. I am just grateful that we have been able to extend the glorious house of cards that was OS 9 another couple of levels.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Thanks Michael for this. Again.

Can we get any takers to a make a Bootable OSX DVD that contains the Utility ?

That way pure OS 9 users will have access to this neat Utility ?

A Live CD with OSX DiskUtility and Identity tool would be great for pure OS9 users.

About G5s... There is another trouble related to Little Endian/Big Endian on G4vsG5 behaviour. If Motorola/Freescale would designed G5s instead of IBM, G5s could boot OS9. 

Reverse engineering OS9 to work on G5... 

[Metrophage]

I ran IdentityTool earlier today, and it did not work for me in 10.2.8, in case anybody needed to know. This was on a FW800 which was set up with Jaguar for some old peripherals. The program did run, but the buttons didn't do anything. I was able to check the current script up in the menu. Trying to run the script IdentityTool froze. Next time I tried to boot the system, it wouldn't boot anything until I reset the NVRAM in Open Firmware. Then it worked fine. I upgraded that partition from 10.2 to 10.3 and was then able to run the program without problems. Of course, by then I could have just typed the stuff in OF and saved time.

Nice work just the same! I was planning on breaking out my FW800 this week anyway, and was unaware of the great work having been done recently on these unsupported systems. First reading about this today, and then DieHard posted a new installer disc today with iMic's edited ROM on it. Handy he saved me the trouble of tinkering with it since I had only two blank CDs left. Great, great work guys! I am so psyched to have a working MDD again.

[supernova777]

would love to see that, as would my G5. But I will not be holding my breath. I am just grateful that we have been able to extend the glorious house of cards that was OS 9 another couple of levels.

yea im not about to hold my breath either..

[iMic]

I ran IdentityTool earlier today, and it did not work for me in 10.2.8, in case anybody needed to know. This was on a FW800 which was set up with Jaguar for some old peripherals. The program did run, but the buttons didn't do anything. I was able to check the current script up in the menu. Trying to run the script IdentityTool froze. Next time I tried to boot the system, it wouldn't boot anything until I reset the NVRAM in Open Firmware. Then it worked fine. I upgraded that partition from 10.2 to 10.3 and was then able to run the program without problems. Of course, by then I could have just typed the stuff in OF and saved time.

LeopardAssist 3 had some issues running on Jaguar as well. Seems to be combination of issues running the REALbasic libraries on Jaguar and some missing command line tools.

In the absolute worst case scenario, I'll have to limit the application to running on Panther, Tiger and Leopard.

[Custos]

yea im not about to hold my breath either..

My g5 will continue to collect dust. Osx runs faster on my mdd so I doubt os9 would be any better on it.

[IIO]

you must be joking.
OSX on a G5 is about 10 times faster compared to an MDD.
for music and video i have no use for OSX on a G4.

[Custos]

you must be joking.
OSX on a G5 is about 10 times faster compared to an MDD.
for music and video i have no use for OSX on a G4.

Well the g5 I got is a lowend single core with hardly any ram in it. My MDD is a dual core with the ram maxed out and really does run faster. I prefer os9 for audio work too. But any video work I do has to be on osx or winblows 7.

[iMic]

I've removed the application from my Box account. The completed release is now available from SourceForge. This version contains a few last-minute tune-ups. The website hasn't been activated yet, but the SourceForge download mirrors are now accessible.


Application

IdentityTool-1.0.zip (1.7MB)


Source

IdentityTool-1.0-src.zip (9.8MB)



Cheers,

iMic.

[Protools5LEGuy]

The completed release is now available from SourceForge. This version contains a few last-minute tune-ups. The website hasn't been activated yet, but the SourceForge download mirrors are now accessible.


iMic.

I wonder if I could use this tool in a reverse way, I mean, if we could install OSX for PowerMacG5 Discs on G4s...

I know the Kernell of G5 OSX should be different than G4s... Just curious, because a friend just gave me a set of PantherOSX for PowerMacG5s...

Look how iBookGuy use a Unique Machine OSX installer to work on  another...
[youtube]ngJ9q9wHcS0[/youtube]

[IIO]

a G4 will never boot into 10.6 (damn!)

[supernova777]

protools guy;;
this is the almost the exact method i used to install tiger 10.4.11 onto my imac 2008 which wouldnt allow me to install.. i modified the installer disk using the same process of creating a read/write copy of the original disc and made some small alterations to a few text files

i suppose u could bypass all of this and use the identitytool if it works on newer osx macs

i have never had a problem installing any version of panther onto a g4..
which discs do u have? (id#?)
im guessing that they must be custom made for the MP model G5's... (dual core)??