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

[RossDarker]

The prim-info property does not change after boot. It just tells the OS how to behave under certain conditions.

Try this one. I have unset the "open case prevent machine from sleeping" bit.

By the way, does anyone have trouble with the mini fans running loud?

I haven't really noticed a loud fan,  lots of heat coming out the back, the fan seems pretty quite.

Yes that is a better description. It does sounds louder than normal, do you notice this or sounds normal to you?

[RossDarker]

Ah now the fans are normal, quiet for me, after a restart, could be because I added a few more extensions in.

[MacOS Plus]

  I just tried the latest ROM from post 256.  This finally allowed a complete boot without the need for a force-quit when the Finder loads.  This was with all normal extensions loaded but still minus Apple Audio Extension and the Energy Saver control panel.  With the exception of sleep not working, everything else seems to be normal.

  Given this result, and that the machine is no longer declared to be an iBook, I put the remaining extension and control panel back in.  It was also able to boot right through to the desktop without error or hang, and no sign yet of the prior "battery warning shutdown".  I set the display sleep time to the minimum to see if it would blank the display, but it didn't do it.  Seeing as I avoid sleeping any of my OS 9-and-earlier machines, I'm not much concerned about that.  Fan is also showing no change in behavior.

  With the audio extension back in place, the Sound control panel actually detects the built-in sound as an output device.  The volume slider stays pinned at zero though.  It's part-way there but isn't being handled properly yet.  Also, the way we're running now, setting the "screamer" property on the sound device actually causes it not to show up in the Sound control panel at all.  It's really nice that at this point I don't have to do anything in OF to get a smooth boot every time, even if certain things aren't working yet.

  Nice progress!  Would you do a version of the current ROM without the logging enabled?  My Mini is working well-enough right now that it could be assigned to real tasks, so I'd like to not have the window popping up in the way.  I'd be quite satisfied without sound if we can just work out the final glitches in the video driver so I can run full-res and hopefully on DVI instead of just VGA.

[MacOS Plus]

  I was becoming suspicious that the issues I've been having with video on the Mini with the new drivers is a problem with correct detection of the monitor modes.  It turns out DVI does work - I booted to a black screen on my 1920x1080 monitor and then switched the connector to a different monitor that is 1280x1024.  Well, gee, there's the desktop now.  The monitor name and proper resolution choices appear in the Monitors control panel.

  Here's where the weirdness comes in - I have SwitchRes running, and it holds onto the original settings that were detected by the system during boot when the first monitor was attached.  I've never seen settings like this before.  Here's what it listed:

- 32 x 32
- 640 x 480 ~1Hz
- 800 x 600 ~1Hz
- Black & White
(graphics acceleration fails also due to this faulty detection mode)

  Obviously this explains the problem with my higher resolution monitor.  There's some issue with the EDID handling just after the happy Mac shows up, presumably as the extensions start loading and it tries to automatically switch to another resolution.  Even on the monitor that will detect good resolutions, if you switch the control panel list to "All" it shows some very strange options with 60.01974Hz refresh rates and options for stretched proportioning which don't apply to this 4:3 LCD.

  If we can sort out why this is happening then we'll probably have a perfect driver.

[RossDarker]

My Aluminium 20" Cinema Display uses DVI, I do get Finder icons repeated on the screen, "Mac OS Default" instead of just pure purply/blue desktop background. Seems all good from the beginning of testing. 1680x1050 runs and that is the displays full resolution, directly to the DVI.

[darthnVader]

  I was becoming suspicious that the issues I've been having with video on the Mini with the new drivers is a problem with correct detection of the monitor modes.  It turns out DVI does work - I booted to a black screen on my 1920x1080 monitor and then switched the connector to a different monitor that is 1280x1024.  Well, gee, there's the desktop now.  The monitor name and proper resolution choices appear in the Monitors control panel.

  Here's where the weirdness comes in - I have SwitchRes running, and it holds onto the original settings that were detected by the system during boot when the first monitor was attached.  I've never seen settings like this before.  Here's what it listed:

- 32 x 32
- 640 x 480 ~1Hz
- 800 x 600 ~1Hz
- Black & White
(graphics acceleration fails also due to this faulty detection mode)

  Obviously this explains the problem with my higher resolution monitor.  There's some issue with the EDID handling just after the happy Mac shows up, presumably as the extensions start loading and it tries to automatically switch to another resolution.  Even on the monitor that will detect good resolutions, if you switch the control panel list to "All" it shows some very strange options with 60.01974Hz refresh rates and options for stretched proportioning which don't apply to this 4:3 LCD.

  If we can sort out why this is happening then we'll probably have a perfect driver.

I don't know, the Mini itself seems to have trouble with 1080p/i.

I have a TV that the native res is 1366x768, that also supports 1080i. The Mini works fine for the native res, and all the lower resolutions, but no signal for 1080i.

When I connect to a 1080p TV, I get no signal at boot, which leads me to believe it's a problem with the 9200's in boot rom Fcode driver. As at bootup it normally reads the EDID of a digital display and tries to set the native res of an LCD display.

I just get no display at all from the 1080p TV.

I may have to install Timbuktu  and see if I can remote into the Mini with the 1080p display connected and see if I can select a lower res.

[MacOS Plus]

  I'm still confused about what's going on though because the computer successfully starts up to the initial OS load screen or OF perfectly fine at 1920x1080p.  It's only once the OS gets involved that it tries to switch modes even though it shouldn't and gets black screen from there on.

  I just tried it with an older LCD TV which maxes out at 1920x1080i, much like the one you describe, using a DVI-to-HDMI adapter.  This produced no valid output at all at any stage of boot.

[ELN]

Sorry about the log!

[darthnVader]

Sorry about the log!

Thanks ELN, that seems to work well, tho I now get a bunch of NTSC TV resolutions.

I know the 9200 has a TV encoder, somehow you must have ticked it on in this latest Rom.

However now I'm able to use the Apple Audio and CD/DVD extensions. I'll have to check de-interlacing of a DVD and see if that function works without the ATI Video Accelerator.

[MacOS Plus]

  It's amusing how the file name keeps growing longer and longer!  It's well past the point where the name cuts off during saving on OS 9 though, not that it matters much.

  I didn't get any changes to the available resolutions on my Mini.  However, without the log in the way I'm back to maximizing my windows, so posting this from Classilla on the Mini again!  As far as I can tell, I have a fully stable system (other than weirdness with highest video resolutions/EDID).

  The optical drive in my Mini is model CW-8123-C, which is supposed to be CDRW/DVD-ROM.  It accessed a CDR and a DVD+R disc fine in OS 9.  The hilarious part is, because I have the cover off the Mini, when the disc ejects there's no friction so it fires the disc right out onto the desk like an over-sprung toaster!

  Aside from lack of sleep ability, which I don't care about anyway, the only remaining issues for me are slightly wonky video support at highest resolutions, and no sound.  For a single-screen system I'd prefer to have the maximum resolution available, which if I've read correctly in specs is 1920x1200 for DVI and 1920x1080 for VGA on this 9200 variant.  I'll be sticking with 1280x1024 for now until we can resolve the detection/timing problems, if they are fixable on this 9200 at all.  I've read online about numerous issues with the Mini's DVI, issues that were resolved via ROM update on other 9200 cards but never updated on the Mini in ROM.  The ROM version in the Mini is 116.

  The sound part I'm getting the impression may need more than simple fixes.  OS 9 knows the device is present, but this may be only due to a basic declaration of the device in OF, and no indication of what is required to actually send data to it.  I read in a Linux forum that the "Toonie" i2s device in the Mini has no internal mixer nor much else as an interpretive mechanism.  Software has to do all the work to feed it the necessary signal.  This may require more than just a driver - it may require a new layer of software to work.  This is just my best guess given what I've read.  I'll leave it to the members more versed in the underlying coding to comment.  Will this be helped by stealing more code from OS X?  I don't know.

  Overall, great work!  I'm extremely pleased with what's been accomplished.

[darthnVader]

  The optical drive in my Mini is model CW-8123-C, which is supposed to be CDRW/DVD-ROM.  It accessed a CDR and a DVD+R disc fine in OS 9.  The hilarious part is, because I have the cover off the Mini, when the disc ejects there's no friction so it fires the disc right out onto the desk like an over-sprung toaster!

 

That made my day, very funny.

I can envision a caseless Mini conected to a home alarm system firing saw blades from it's CD drive at wouldbe intruders.

[ELN]

I think that the mini's inability to sleep, and the high heat output from the CPU, are both due to the unavailability of the CPU-specific power management calls in a CPU plugin. Working on it…

[MacOS Plus]

  Now that the machine is running as well as it is, I'm turning my attention to weeding out the 'mysterious' detected serial port.  First bet I'm making is that it's a debug port buried in the modem connector, as with so many other machines.  Going on this assumption, I'm trying to see how much of the modem board connector pinout I can map.

  If you remove the board and turn it upside down, you can see the connector is numbered 1 through 30 starting from the screw-hole end.  I may not be much good at tracing logic but I can get started with ground and power lines.  Process of elimination should allow me to get to the point where, if it looks promising, I can safely attempt patching in a stealth port or similar without causing a shower of sparks.

  My initial poking around indicates ground is connected at pins 2/3/8/15/19/20/28, and 3.3V power at 6/14/17.  Also, 24/26 are tied together on the motherboard.  If anyone here has a logic probe and a Mini, I'd appreciate some help in identifying the other pins.  I find it hard to believe that an I2S modem would require all of the remaining 20 pins.

  Going by the illustrations of the Jamport development on Alex Hixon's website, only seven wires are required to feed a serial port 'stealth' board.  If you factor in that 5 volt power is not available on the Mini's modem connector, that takes the requirement down to six on the connector (5 volts can be patched from elsewhere).  Power and ground are easy, leaving only five logic wires to get right.  Would this connector be the "MicroDash" type mentioned on Mr. Hixon's site?

  Alternatively, I'd like to know where the debug port chip itself is.  Mr. Hixon's website notes there is a 2x5-pin debug chip in the Powerbook G4 15" and 17" models.  I see a chip fitting that description near the rear-left of the motherboard next to the PATA riser connector.  Is that what I'm looking for?

[darthnVader]

Oddly, I don't get any serial port detected.

[ELN]

I have cracked the NanoKernel's mechanism to "upcall" a CPU plugin. This has given me some insight into the structure of the CPU plugins. More to come.

[MacOS Plus]

Oddly, I don't get any serial port detected.

  I triple-checked to see if somehow I'd missed leaving the Stealth Port driver in the Extensions folder from when this drive was used on another machine, but no, it's not there.  It's not even on this drive at all.  AppleTalk is detecting what it thinks is a serial port and not erroring if I select it and save the setting.  This should not be possible without a device present that AppleTalk can communicate with.  It also can't appear as a device because of a saved preference, especially considering this setting is lost with a PRAM reset.  I'm very curious as to why it's showing on mine and not yours.

I have cracked the NanoKernel's mechanism to "upcall" a CPU plugin. This has given me some insight into the structure of the CPU plugins. More to come.

  Awesome.  This information should come in handy for a number of other things later.  Perhaps we'll finally understand what the single-character hack in the CPU Plugins file actually does in regards to enabling multiprocessing on the Sonnet CPU upgrades.  It would also be terrific if we could eventually do away with the need for many of the PRAM/firmware patches normally required for the various upgrade CPUs.

[DieHard]

I thought I was tenacious... you guys have me beat by a mile; this was started as a suggestion from Mactron in April 2015... and now will quite possibly be ready by April 2018 !   Let's get Audio going

Now since Mactron started this, he might have to put a "Mac Mini" sparse system together, and myself (or Someone with a mini) will have to inject all the necessary stuff into our current universal "unsupposted" image... Thus creating, a new ASR version of a self installing ASR full 9.2.2 system designed just for the Mini and wrap it all up in an ISO. 

Of course, you guys (the developers) will have to draw straws and let the other forums know of the Mac Mini success.. but let me get a cheap one on ebay first, before the bidding frenzy of OS 9 holdouts kicks in.

Lastly, please post summary list of the exact steps to get a virgin Mini up and running with proper Video, but no sound.  This may help other testers cause this is way too long to read thru even though it is awesome

[MacOS Plus]

...Lastly, please post summary list of the exact steps to get a virgin Mini up and running with proper Video, but no sound.  This may help other testers cause this is way too long to read thru even though it is awesome

  Since I seem to have had the least trouble with my particular Mini, a 1.42GHz model with 1GB of RAM, I'll state exactly what my setup is and the sequence to get there.

1. Use a known bootable 9.2.2 machine to create a new 9.2.2 drive from the Unsupported G4's ASR ISO image downloadable here:

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2143.0.html
(The details of burning this CD image and working with it should already be understood.  I won't explain it here because the process is not specific to any one machine type.  Use of any other OS 9.x installer or copying an existing System folder in whole or in part may not work properly.  Stick with this one - it's just about the only one you're ever going to need for any machine anyway.  Otherwise you'll just be pulling out your hair for no good reason, and I know many of you guys are old enough that you can't afford to do that. Trust me, I still have a full head of hair...)

  I did this to a separate firewire-attached drive first for testing before eventually opening the Mini and swapping out the stock internal OS X drive for the one from the firewire enclosure.  Alternatively you can boot the Mini in firewire target disk mode by holding "t" at power-up and then mounting the internal drive on another machine via firewire cable to do the ASR process.  I went with a Kingspec PATA SSD rather than the original mechanical drive since I've had great luck and performance with these in Macs.

2. Remove the "Multiprocessing" folder from the System folder.  I did this as a precaution, perhaps not a necessity, but obviously you're not going to need it on this machine.  There's no sense chasing ghosts if you have a problem because of it.

3. Download the ROM in ELN's post #267 in this topic.  Un-stuff it with StuffIt Expander - this will extract a file called "Mac OS ROM".  Copy this to the System folder and let it replace the existing one.  (If you want to keep this installation usable outside of the Mini, keep a backup copy of the original file somewhere outside of the System folder.)

4. Delete or remove all ATI extensions from the "Extensions" folder in the System folder.  Download the hacked ATI extensions from darthnVader's post #1 in the topic "Modified RockHopper2 ATI drivers for Mac Mini( OS 9 )" here:

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4277.msg29392.html#msg29392

  The extracted files are as follows:

ATI 3D Accelerator              7.0.4
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator         7.1
ATI Extension                   2.9
ATI Graphics Accelerator        5.7
ATI Monitor                     3.2.1
ATI Radeon 3D Accelerator       6.4.7
ATI Rage 128 3D Accelerator     6.4.7
ATI Resource Manager            3.2.1
ATI Via Driver                  1.0
ATI Video Digitizer             4.3.7
OpenGLRendererATI               1.3.5

  I also left in these other files that were not duplicates of the above hacked ones:

ATI Driver Update               2.4.4
ATI MPP Manager                 1.2
ATI ROM Xtender                 1.2
ATI Video Accelerator           4.9.1

  I've had no problems with the additional files present, but it may depend on exactly what application types you're running.  I also have the "ATI Displays" 3.2.1 control panel installed so I can have a clear indication in the ATI menu that acceleration is in fact enabled.  This file was retrieved from one of the ATI retail installers.  I believe it was from "ATI OS 9 Mac Software Update January 2005", available for download here:

http://www.macintoshrepository.org/1357-ati-os-9-drivers-january-2005-

5. Boot up your Mini!  If you are testing with an external firewire drive you will need to hold the Option key at power up to access the graphical boot selector menu where you can pick the 9.2.2 system drive.  If you don't want to have to do that every time, bite the bullet and either install permanently to the internal HDD, or pry open your Mini (not so easy a task - it took nine guitar picks at once on mine!) and swap your 9.2.2 drive in.

  Keep in mind that 3D software works but may be crash-prone, according to darthnVader.  Also note that I've had issues with proper monitor detection and/or sync timing at 1920x1080 on DVI and VGA.  Lower resolutions seem to be fine but may depend on your particular monitor.  If you run into problems with black screen during boot, be sure to try each port type and other monitors with lower native resolution if necessary.  I'm currently running rock-stable with an Acer AL1716 on DVI at native 1280x1024 @60Hz resolution.  Avoid the nearly-always-troublesome 1366x768 native res LCDs.

  Everything else critical should work except sound and any form of sleep mode.  I shouldn't have to say it because it should be well understood by now, but if your Mini has AirPort Extreme and/or bluetooth, neither is supported in OS 9.  I also presume no one has any interest in the modem - it doesn't work either.

  Enjoy!

[RossDarker]

Can I just say that sound is coming out of speakers connected to my Mac mini using headphone jack, perfectly, but not through the internal speaker. Don't really use the internal one anyway. Like everything seems to be working now, just not internal speaker and the sleep.

[RossDarker]

accidentally quoted my post.