Mac OS 9 booting on: Mac mini G4 (Detailed Posts)

[FdB]

Sacré bleu!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVExlaxaweo

[ELN]

Sorry guys, I’ve been vague. Nano, can you tell androda how to change the CPU version and compatible fields? Then the machine will boot to the point of showing a log on screen, like Nano’s previous posts.

[androda]

ELN, are these the sequence of commands you're talking about?

I tried both of these settings:

Code: [Select]

" MacRISC" encode-string " MacRISC2" encode-string encode+ " Power Macintosh" encode-string encode+ " compatible" property


Code: [Select]

" PowerMac 10,1" encode-string " MacRISC3" encode-string encode+ " MacRISC" encode-string encode+ " Power Macintosh" encode-string encode+ " compatibility" property

Notably, these use different names for the property.  One of them uses " compatible" and other one uses " compatibility".  Which one is correct?

Code: [Select]

dev /
<compatibility property from the above two options>

dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4
80010201 encode-int " cpu-version" property
boot

I ran these commands in Open Firmware

mini-stack-log-rom.hqx : Frozen at the same place as before

mini-stack-patch-rom.hqx : Frozen at the same place as before

[nanopico]

ELN, are these the sequence of commands you're talking about?

I tried both of these settings:

Code: [Select]

" MacRISC" encode-string " MacRISC2" encode-string encode+ " Power Macintosh" encode-string encode+ " compatible" property


Code: [Select]

" PowerMac 10,1" encode-string " MacRISC3" encode-string encode+ " MacRISC" encode-string encode+ " Power Macintosh" encode-string encode+ " compatibility" property

Notably, these use different names for the property.  One of them uses " compatible" and other one uses " compatibility".  Which one is correct?

Code: [Select]

dev /
<compatibility property from the above two options>

dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4
80010201 encode-int " cpu-version" property
boot

I ran these commands in Open Firmware

mini-stack-log-rom.hqx : Frozen at the same place as before

mini-stack-patch-rom.hqx : Frozen at the same place as before

compatible is the correct one. When you say it freezes, it's at the same point as what is in your picture? 

[androda]

Yes, frozen after 'Pushing on with InterC_2560 (no more log messages)'

[ELN]

May we have pictures or both ROMs? I packed in a few useful stack-related log messages.

[androda]

This imgur link is where I posted the images of the debug output:

https://imgur.com/a/fX9PE

[ELN]

Looking for this?

https://github.com/elliotnunn/toolboxtoolbox/wiki/Custom-IC-Chips-Used-in-G3's-and-G4's

Anyone keen to test this ROM build out? It will tell us where the mini is crashing with better resolution than before. I want to know this before I take a deep dive into the Expansion Bus Mgr. Some reference output:

Code: [Select]

Reset system - Into the 68K fire: 0002d032 6806c9e8
 VMAllocateMemory - creating area at 0x69000000 00080000
 CreateArea [ 69000000 6907ffff ] ID 00170001 placed ... created
*68k: EXPANSIONBUSMGRFIRSTFUNC
*68k: InterC_2560
*68k: InterC_2090_PowerMgr


Thanks, Androda. That is actually a mysterious result, considering where Nanopico’S crash occurred. Mind running this one I built a few months ago?

[nanopico]

I haven't gotten to the latest ROM's you built yet.  Come this weekend I am off work for two weeks so I will be able to put a little time into this (and a few other things I think I promised others on here).

[androda]

Tried ELN's 'Detailed mini rom' file from that post, and this is the result on screen:
https://imgur.com/a/dxwqU

Then I realized I hadn't changed the compatible property or opened a telnet debug socket, so I started again and ran these commands in open firmware:

Code: [Select]

dev /
 " MacRISC" encode-string " MacRISC2" encode-string encode+ " Power Macintosh" encode-string encode+ " compatible" property
dev /
1303ffff encode-int " AAPL,debug" property
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4
80010201 encode-int " cpu-version" property
boot

Changing the debug property to '1303ffff encode-int " AAPL,debug" property' removes the 'stop at end of fcode' (I want the system to keep trying to boot, of course).  Here's the debug output after that:
https://pastebin.com/4AtK1xp9

The imgur link above contains both attempts.  First, without debug properties set, and second with them set.

[MacOS Plus]

  As with the Xserve, there is a lot of seemingly successful hardware enumeration/initialization going on, but it would appear the sound device is unknown to OS 9:

Code: [Select]

-- Initializing Sound information.
---- No Sound (of some sort) detected!
  I'm not sure from what it's actually hanging on though.  Very interesting to see that whole massive device table all listed out.  What it made it through looks surprisingly error-free.

[ELN]

Androda, your mini has me feeling quite confused. It flies through all my debug code with nary a care. I will produce another ROM for you to test soon.

I have read through the trampoline log. It is likely that whatever problem we identify in 68k code, there will be corresponding complaints from the trampoline.

[Daniel]

Perhaps we should patch the 68k emulator to keep saving the instruction address somewhere and have a MPTask that prints the value if it hasn't changed in a while?

[androda]

How are you making these changes to the ROM files, ELN? Do you have a development environment set up to make the ROMs? Or are you using some PPC/68k disassembler/re-assembler?

[Daniel]

The ROM files are in several Github repositories. They are built using MPW. ELN builds the custom ROMs by making a branch on the repository and modifying the source code on that branch. There are branches called minitest, minitest2, and minitest3, in addition to the master branch.

[androda]

Are they public GitHub repos? I'd like to take a look if they are.

[Daniel]

Here you go: https://github.com/elliotnunn?tab=repositories. mac-rom is the 68k rom code. powermac-rom is the NK, 68k emulator, and NewWorld stuff such as boot scripts and the Trampoline. wedge is the custom c code ELN made that sits between the Trampoline and the NK. empw is ELN's custom tool to do MPW builds on modern machines. The other repos are obsolete and/or not relevent to booting a Mac Mini.

[ELN]

I feel like my dirty laundry has been aired in public.

The only thing I'd add is that the powermac-rom repo does not build the NewWorld boot image, only a 4 MB Power Mac ROM. I am currently using my crusty old Python scripts to do this. I will try to move this over to an MPW-based solution, perhaps borrowing from our abandoned CDG5 code on GitLab.

[Jubadub]

Damn, I came here eager to try out all this and hopefully be of some help with my newly-acquired PPC Mac Mini 1.5GHz, only to see I missed this key part in bold letters:

Can you guide me a little bit how i can do that?
I have an mini mac at work and could bring another mac laptop if its needed for the remote console output.

Have a second Mac that can boot OS 9.
Start the mini in target disc mode.
Connect to second mac.
Download this http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2143.0.html and run from the second Mac, but use the mini's disc as the install location.
Remove the installed ROM from the mini and replace with the special one provided here.
Reboot the mini into open firmware.
I don't know if all the right OF commands are in this ROM to enable boot so you might need to change the compatibility property at the root of the device tree and the cpu version in the cpu node of the device tree.
Then just type boot.

The problem I have is, while I do have 2 Macs that can run Mac OS 9, neither of them have FireWire 400 (or even 800): one is a PowerBook Wallstreet G3 266MHz (which lacks even USB), and the other one is an iMac G3 333MHz that only has USB 1.0 connectors.
Aside them and the Mini, my only other Mac is the G5 Quad-Core, so...

I tried checking if there were ways to somehow use Target Disk Mode with just USB, but apparently not. (Only booting directly from USB seems to be possible, but that's not enough.)

I will see if I can borrow a Firewire and Mac-OS-9-capable Mac from a local shop (or order a PC Card with Firewire for the Wallstreet), but until then, I'm sorry to let you guys (ELN and Nanopico especially) down on this one for now. :/

[androda]

I've found that wallstreets are just so hard to interface with modem systems now, given they lack even USB.

Another idea would be to use one of those cd-bay-to-hard-drive adapters. Take the mini apart, pull the hard drive out, stick that into the wallstreet in the CD bay adapter, and then do the install and file copying. G4 minis use the same kind of hard drive as a wallstreet (I think).

Of course, this is harder than getting one of those FireWire cards for the laptop and just using that. But it's at least another option if you can't find a compatible card.

I'm lucky to have my old beige g3 with a FireWire card.