Holy cow, it works! (Powerbook G4 1.33 12")

[Cloudane]

Greetings and nice work, guys!

It was only really a coincidence that I was cleaning up some old stuff and wondered if it was possible to run OS 9.2 on anything yet (being that the emulators for PC only go up to 9.0).  In a last ditch "meh" I dug out my old love the PowerBook G4 (my first Mac ) and did some Googling and eventually ended up here.  Nice timing, as it look like you just got it figured out 

I grabbed and burned the ISO for unsupported G4 Macs here
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2143.0

It didn't start but I did the open firmware commands here
https://www.thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?pid=4889#p4889

Then it started no problem!  I almost died when I saw that old Happy Mac icon

Post installation, the boot gets to like 95% worth of the progress bar and freezes.  Along the bottom, the jigsaw pieces go as far as what looks like a PC compatibility extension.  It's a total hard freeze, no mouse movement.

Still, I'm impressed it made it this far!  The display looks ok, the sound works, wow!  Of course, if anyone knows how to get further in the boot, all the better...

[supernova777]

will it boot up with extensions off?
(hold shift while booting i think?)

http://support.apple.com/en-ca/TS1926

[Cloudane]

That was fast!  Good call, I just tried that.  Gets to the end of the "Starting Up" progress bar and then freezes again, unfortunately!

[supernova777]

which is the last extension puzzle piece to show up before it freezes?
or does it get past that part?

wait
which machine is it
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.33_12.html geforce FX Go5200
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.33_15.html radeon 9700
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.33_17.html radeon 9600

i think noone has got this to work unfortunately..
i think its a problem to do with the video card ??

does your powerbook have nvidia or radeon graphics?
i think u might be short on luck with this one man:(

[Cloudane]

It's the 12.  Forgot to mention the size.  I seem to recall its NVidia chip can be a bit of a gotcha when trying to hack things onto it.

It gets to like a PC compatibility extension if the extensions are loaded, but as mentioned, also freezes if I hold shift to disable extensions.

Screenshot http://cloudane.com/bucket/2015-02/IMG_0401.JPG

The installer works so I think there's hope?

[supernova777]

wow thats annoying.. its like RIGHT about to boot too.. 1 tiny little smidge away

it looks like the last things it loaded were USB + pc file exchange ..

if its your only mac os 9 system then theres not much u can do..
if u have another mac os 9 machine u could use target disk mode to access the drive and somehow make some changes
but that might require expertise, experience + precision (and some magic fairy dust)

u would need some help frm "iMic" from thinkclassic

do u have another partition with osx ?

[Cloudane]

I know :p

Oh well.  I only have OS X systems... including this one I guess.  So close, considering the CD boots, as well.  I guess that's that.  Thanks for the input, though

E: Hold up!  I missed something at the end of this post https://www.thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?pid=4889#p4889
before rebooting.  Worth a shot...

[Cloudane]

It works!!!  Oh my!  I just had to read iMic's post properly over there (whoops) and trash the Multiprocessing folder from "HD > System Folder > Extensions" before rebooting from the installation CD.  I recovered it by booting from the CD and doing just that.

Things that don't work that I didn't expect to work anyway:
Airport
Sleep

LAN works, I just poked Google from IE5.  They must be shocked.

Great work iMic et al

[MacTron]

The CD ROM System Folder hasn't this Multiprocessing folder, if my memory serves.

BTW. What about Video Acceleration?. Maybe iMic have a updated ROM for this PowerBook.

[supernova777]

Great news Cloudane!! how about another success screenshot;)

The CD ROM System Folder hasn't this Multiprocessing folder, if my memory serves.

u mean it was already removed from the install cd?
probably that is for booting the installer...
but the process of doing the install adds the folder during the install perhaps?

[MacTron]

u mean it was already removed from the install cd?
probably that is for booting the installer...
but the process of doing the install adds the folder during the install perhaps?

Yes, you are right.

I don't have this CD. I only need the proper Mac Os ROM, you knows. LOL
But - if I'm not wrong - I have worked in to the startup System folder for this CD.

[Cloudane]

Posting from it now.  Whee, postception!

Only VGA mode - it's the oddball NVidia model so I'm not expecting much.  I did try an official NVidia OS 9 driver and it just said machine not supported.

[supernova777]

is it a 1.2 or 1.33 - did u overclock the cpu somehow?

[MacTron]

I just realized that this PowerBook have a NV35 video engine (the NVidia GeForce FX Go5200) so... I'm afraid that nobody knows how to make it to work in Mac Os 9 

[supernova777]

i know on windows 98 i was able to edit the .inf graphic file and literally just type in new entries for the video modes and it worked to enable 1680x1050 aspect ratio on my geforce 2..

i believe this card can work but someone has to figure it out..
so untill someone figures it out u are stuck with low color mode

[Cloudane]

1.33, no overclocking.  Yeah it's the go5200.  I remember from my Linux tinkering that it's a bit of a mystery card to support (in the case of Linux it worked, but no one knew how to make sleep work with it) so I don't hold out a lot of hope, will keep an eye open though!

[supernova777]

oh right. the 12 is the screen size .. my bad

[MacTron]

i know on windows 98 i was able to edit the .inf graphic file and literally just type in new entries for the video modes and it worked to enable 1680x1050 aspect ratio on my geforce 2..

i believe this card can work but someone has to figure it out..
so untill someone figures it out u are stuck with low color mode

Even if you could increase the resolution or the bit depth, without proper drivers support, the video card is in "compatibility mode" (no acceleration) and in this way the computer is barely usable.
We are figuring out now, that video card support is the main fault in some of this new unofficial "Mac Os 9" machines ...

[Ed Redfern]

If we could code drivers ourselves using previous drivers as templates and tune them to work for these particular cards, I think we could be on to a winner. yep, a lot of work but it's worth looking into. perhaps it's worth contacting developers like NVIDIA / ATI or whoever they are now (can't keep up with the changes lol)

ed

[cyberish]

I tried again with these hints and links but so far no luck with my 1,67 Ghz PowerBook 5,8 . When booting "ALT" to choose the boot-partition it sees the OS9 installer CD but then the computer shuts down. - Any ideas how to proceed?
I did apply the Open Firmware commands mentioned above:
https://www.thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?pid=4889#p4889