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

[Astroman]

Yes, to install the Transit software was once (not too long ago) posted by a user here as a working remedy for the OS9 soundmanager failure on a Mini G4.
It may not work in every case, as XR-Lane just wrote. Sad, but guessing from my own experience with OS9 sound (before I had a Transit interface) not that surprising either.
I got it kind of working (using an external line amplifier) but results flipped from great to plain failure in a very unpredictable way.

Sidenote: I'm not interested in any system/entertainment/multi-media sound and didn't spend a single minute on such topics.
Bias Peak, SonicWorx, Tokyo and similiar apps are my only interest in OS9 audio.

@XR-Lane I didn't want you to read even more pages - that was kind of a joke
I assumed you may gave missed some points (possibly mentioned in other threads).

The Mini G4 was never intended to run OS9 software. Never.
That smart folks of this board got it running is one of the greatest hacks ever, but it remains... a hack.
To have OS9 boot at all, the soundmanager needs (at least) a dummy device to not break the startup process. It was clear that this fake woudn't work, but a possible fix might be applied later.
It's not a simple fix because hardware isn't documented and one would have to reverse engineer the software from OSX test results.

I never measured the G4 specs, but onboard audio from that time NEVER was great.
(it's probably similiar to those current $10 USB audio devices mentioned earlier)
There's a wide variety of audio interfaces (2nd hand) with OS9 drivers, up to Tascam FW mixers featuring motor faders for $200.
ALL these devices perform much better than the built in G4 audio hardware and for that reason it's a waste of time to rebuild the missing OS9 part.

[drzeissler]

Ok, your perspective are audio-apps that are os9 only. My perspective are games that are os9 only.

If the built-in audio in the mini is not good, no problem, let's go for something else,
but USB and Firewire Devices with no hardware-volume-control do fail too in g4-os9.

So choosing something wich is good, cheap and small for both (OS9/OSX) is the target for me.

Any suggestions for my target? (I do have LaCie FW/USB Speakers, but they fail to 100% maxvol on OS9)

[Jubadub]

The Mini G4 was never intended to run OS9 software. Never.
That smart folks of this board got it running is one of the greatest hacks ever, but it remains... a hack.

The way you are putting it, you seem to be underestimating how OS-9-compatible the mini really is. The hack isn't such that it's putting together some frankenstein monster, but rather, for the most part, it was "simply" getting past errors that halted the boot process. Although the ROM is hacked (and nothing else-- it's literally just that one file), Mac mini OS 9.2.2 behaves and works as expected of any OS 9.2.2 machine that we all know and love.

In the end, the hardware is so compatible, it's as if it was intended to be an OS 9 machine all along. And it very well could have been. But politics arose, as by 2005 Apple not only wanted people to forget about OS 9, they were even migrating from PowerPC to Intel.

By the way, maybe I missed something, but I was confused about you bringing up that "Transit driver" audio fix, because I don't remember seeing mention of that in this thread's previous pages as a potential fix for the built-in audio. Was it a fix for one of the G4 laptops?
The only real fix I have seen, and that does fix the problem, is to use a separate USB audio adapter, and appropriate speakers (I went for "medium quality" ones, as opposed to cheap ones that had a lot of noise in the middle, which is what I initially had).

[FdB]

Don’t know if simply having the “Transit driver” installed alone actually “fixes” the
"sound problem" as reported here earlier… but if someone can further substantiate
this, that would be swell. (Do please be descriptive.)

If not, I’ve a Transit acquired for just that purpose and will test the above report,
before actually installing and using this Transit… (soon?).

Well, this Transit has been sitting here for well over a month,
so it seems that there’s no real hurry to test it.

Supporting comment(s)?

[XR-Lane]

Hello again, Just wanted to report that I found M-Audio usb driver for the Transit. As far as I can tell, it has had no effect on sound manager. Thanks for the tip.

Don't understand that. You installed a M-Audio-USB-Driver but do not use the M-Audio-Device?

Read previous comments, I was instructed to...........

Thanks

[XR-Lane]

Anyways, thanks for the further comments regarding the sound issues. I, myself was hoping to use this as a os9 game machine as I never used os9 growing up. I just want to experience something I missed out on so to speak. I am not put off, I may try to source a usb device I can plug in for sound. Its still a great project, hope a fix is worked out someday.

Thanks again

[XR-Lane]

Sorry, me again. I did find a thread talking about 3 USB sound devices that did not work on the mini. I hate to be "that guy" but does anyone know what USB audio devices are working with the os9 mini project?

Thanks

[Astroman]

Don’t know if simply having the “Transit driver” installed alone actually “fixes” the
"sound problem" as reported here earlier… but if someone can further substantiate
this, that would be swell. (Do please be descriptive.)

looks like I interpreted too much into this response from 2018
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2408.msg34125.html#msg34125
The poster wrote that the presence of the drivers prevented the crash when setting a checkbox in sound control, so I assumed the panel and sound would work after that.
But he actually did NOT confirm operation - sorry for my confusing info.

ps: I couldn't try the 'only driver' as my Mini had already 'seen' the interface and this will most likely be remembered by the machine. As mentioned I found a way for 'my' apps to work reliably without external hardware, but this included to never ever call up any soundmanager control panel. Once the panel appeared things went down the drain with either no sound at all and/or crashes. I've learned this by reinstalling the OS a couple of times...

[Jubadub]

Sorry, me again. I did find a thread talking about 3 USB sound devices that did not work on the mini. I hate to be "that guy" but does anyone know what USB audio devices are working with the os9 mini project?

Thanks

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRVQ0F8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_SdSTBbD8T28YY

This is an USB adapter for audio rather than a "USB audio device", but this is what you are looking for. I bought them. They were cheap. They worked flawlessly. You just cannot go wrong with this.

In advance, I wish you happy gaming. If you need gaming suggestions, I have them. If you want to look further, there's Macintosh Garden dot org, Vintage Apple Mac dot com and others.
Games are by far the kind of software I run the most under Mac OS 9. All emulation options are, by far, not as good, and the Mac mini fills the gap better than no other Mac computer IMHO.

[Jubadub]

Random feedback, to everyone: when I used the Quicksilver-2002-based modified ROM for the Mac mini, I noticed the "freezing mouse" bug was completely gone. More precisely, what happened was that during boot, the mouse would freeze, but also unfreeze as soon as the system fully finished booting. Each time. The original purpose behind trying out that ROM back when ELN compiled it was to precisely fix the freezing mouse issue, and it looks like it did. It was switched back to the G4 Cube, because Ross reported he had sound issues he didn't have before.

In any case, that's something for us to keep in mind for later.


Also, for anyone interested in MorphOS, I wish to report I had the same problem with my internal SSD under it and, unlike with OS 9's case, I have no solution for it, roundabout or not.
If it's anything like the symptom I had with OS 9, the problem may go away if I don't boot from CD, but instead USB, which, for MorphOS, has to be done with OF. So maybe I can install it that way. But even if I do install it if it shows up then, it's still no guarantee it will actually boot from my drive.

[ELN]

Ahh, sweet vindication.

It’ll be a little while before I can revisit this issue, but I suspect that it is a straightforward fix. Jubadub, can you do a few (dozen) reboots to confirm your findings?

[Jubadub]

Sure, absolutely no problem. Is there some extra, specific instruction/procedure I should follow, or something specific to look for or confirm?

As for my findings, I think I literally rebooted the mini around 70+ times over the past week and, actually, there's a bit more to the things I wrote down here (for instance, USB booting becomes more of a headache if I connect it not directly to the mini's USB port, but to a USB hub). But overall, as far as I could tell, it is exactly as I laid it all down here.

What I can say 100% for sure though is that when booting from my 1TB FW device with a valid install, it fails, the FW drive gets unmounted, but whatever was loaded from it into the RAM remains there (parts of the ROM or whole ROM), and then it "borrows" the rest of the necessary data for a complete boot from another valid install location, such as the internal IDE SSD 512 GB drive or even the USB drive (I later tested things with a 16GB USB Flash Drive, as well, and had the exact same results). But sometimes that isn't enough to boot depending on specific conditions, such as whether or not a CD was already inserted beforehand (it seems to have the effect of "hiding" my IDE drive if it is scanned before the other devices), or if I try to boot from the FireWire partition using "alt-boot" (case in which, the trick, for some reason, doesn't work for the internal drive).

Since I don't know the inner workings of what is really going on, it's all weird to me, but the results are quite consistent.

[ELN]

Well diagnosed. The Mac OS ROM file brings the machine from Open Firmware to something resembling a freshly booted Power Mac 6100/7100/8100. The PowerPC NanoKernel and the 68k emulator run their initialisation code, resulting in an environment resembling a freshly-booted late-model Quadra. Then the 68k ROM image is executed (specifically a procedure called StartInit), and it brings up the high-level MacOS environment. (At some point this environment makes special called back up into the emulator and kernel to run PowerPC code and even preemptive MTasks.) Importantly, StartInit repeats the whole 68k boot process, including finding a drive with a System Folder.

It is described in this patent doc: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6434695B1

[IIO]

well if it is really so easy then i´ll buy two.

[XR-Lane]

Sorry, me again. I did find a thread talking about 3 USB sound devices that did not work on the mini. I hate to be "that guy" but does anyone know what USB audio devices are working with the os9 mini project?

Thanks

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRVQ0F8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_SdSTBbD8T28YY

This is an USB adapter for audio rather than a "USB audio device", but this is what you are looking for. I bought them. They were cheap. They worked flawlessly. You just cannot go wrong with this.

In advance, I wish you happy gaming. If you need gaming suggestions, I have them. If you want to look further, there's Macintosh Garden dot org, Vintage Apple Mac dot com and others.
Games are by far the kind of software I run the most under Mac OS 9. All emulation options are, by far, not as good, and the Mac mini fills the gap better than no other Mac computer IMHO.

Yeah thanks for that, cheap and easy. I will pick one up soon and try it out. I wouldn't mind some suggestions, but may be a little off topic in here. If you want to send me a message, that should work.

Cheers.

[ELN]

What I can say 100% for sure though is that when booting from my 1TB FW device with a valid install, it fails, the FW drive gets unmounted, but whatever was loaded from it into the RAM remains there (parts of the ROM or whole ROM), and then it "borrows" the rest of the necessary data for a complete boot from another valid install location, such as the internal IDE SSD 512 GB drive or even the USB drive (I later tested things with a 16GB USB Flash Drive, as well, and had the exact same results).

Shot in the dark. Does this file help with the FireWire problem you describe? It removes a single optimisation that can prevent the FireWire driver from being loaded in early boot.

[Jubadub]

What I can say 100% for sure though is that when booting from my 1TB FW device with a valid install, it fails, the FW drive gets unmounted, but whatever was loaded from it into the RAM remains there (parts of the ROM or whole ROM), and then it "borrows" the rest of the necessary data for a complete boot from another valid install location, such as the internal IDE SSD 512 GB drive or even the USB drive (I later tested things with a 16GB USB Flash Drive, as well, and had the exact same results).

Shot in the dark. Does this file help with the FireWire problem you describe? It removes a single optimisation that can prevent the FireWire driver from being loaded in early boot.

"The FireWire problem" I describe, as in, not being able to boot from FireWire? Well, I just tried out the ROM, and booting from FireWire didn't happen. And I was still able to exploit its lack of bootability to get it to boot my internal 512 GB SSD instead, like before. So this ROM file worked just like the one found in the v8 disc, for me, meaning there was no difference that I could tell.

By the way, just for me to be sure I don't confuse anyone, the only way I can currently boot into Mac OS 9 from my internal IDE SSD is to rely on the fact my FW drive can't boot into Mac OS 9, failing mid process, leaving some of the boot data behind in the RAM. The next boot device that is found "picks up" from that point on and finishes the boot (which, otherwise, by itself, it would not be able to do).

Thanks for giving it a shot, though. I have been slowly inspecting all the reverse engineered files from your repos (even though I'm still trying to set up a build environment), and I found amazing just how many comments are left there by previous Apple employees. They really, REALLY help one understand what's going on, to a degree. I'm paying extra attention to the 68k ROM files because of StartInit.a, which you had mentioned, and which really looks like it should be the first place to look into, alongside perhaps StartBoot.a?

[Roman78]

Is there a possibility to change the Language or to make a own installation CD in another Language?

I ask this for possible entry for my blog in German.

[Daniel]

Get the Mac OS ROM file from the mini install cd, and delete all the resources in it except for 'cfrg' resources.
Copy into all the resources that aren't 'cfrg' from a Mac OS ROM file in the language you want.

The other mini-specific files (I think just ATI drivers) can just be copied over (the file names can be changed if needed)., as they don't control major parts of the user interface.

Anything I missed or got wrong? I am only somewhat involved in this particular project.

[IIO]

Is there a possibility to change the Language or to make a own installation CD in another Language?

I ask this for possible entry for my blog in German.

most people should be ok with an US system but you can take a german 9.2.2. and replace the modified components (a few things will remain english in this case.)