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

[IIO]

This didn't work for me, no matter what I try. The mini would always boot back to OS X.

(if i am not lost this time) this is a known issue of the mini OS.

so either you have to use two disks when you want to boot both OSes, or you have to use the bootmanager.

[ELN]

I think that if you can get Mac OS 9 booting by default, then you can hold “X” at boot to switch OS temporarily.

[ELN]

We ran into the mouse stuck on the Apple logo, but it did register clicks, on the emulated Rage 128 Pro in Qemu, after we got the 'NDRV' working for the  Mac OS.

Zoltan made a patch, and that fixed the issue with OS 9, but broke OS X booting with the 'NDRV'.

As I took the 'NDRV' we use from 10.3.7, I wouldn't rule out the 'NDRV' as the root of the mouse freeze issue.......

Fascinating! It looks like you’ve cracked it. Mind forwarding me the details?

[SKYLANE]

I have a Wallstreet PDQ with OS 9.2.2 on it.  I have several files on it that I would like to print and manage a bit, perhaps play with some old programs while I am at it.  I wished I could run OS9 from a faster platform and larger screen.  When I stumbled onto this site after watching the YouTube installation, I had found the perfect use for my trusty ol' MacMini 1.5 GHz G4, this is the one with all the silent upgrades.  I blew the dust off of is and downloaded the Bootable ISO v8 and followed the instructions to install on my MacMini with success!  I performed the installation around the end of 2018 (I think), I had to put playing around with it down until a later date which is now SEP 2019.

Last night, I had both my MacMini and Wallstreet PDQ on my current existing home network via ethernet.  Started File Sharing after setting it up, and with great success was able to move my files and apps from the Wallstreet PDQ over to the MacMini.  Everything seems to be running OK except MacDraw II 1.1, runs ok on my Wallstreet PDQ but looks weird when launched on MacMini.  I would love to figure out this issue as this was one of the main programs that I like to play with.

My files for Word, Excel, PowerPoint 2001 seem to all work fine.

I was never able to get the resolution to setup right with my 1920x1080 Samsung Monitor/TV.  Once I set the Samsung to 4:3 resolution and set up a corresponding resolution (4:3) in monitors, the OS 9 desktop looks terrific.

[SKYLANE]

Regarding my post above, why would MacDraw II (1.1) work on the Wallstreet PDQ but not on the Mac Mini G4?  Does any one have MacDraw working on their Mac 9.2.2 in an unsupported machine?  If so, what version?

I do have MacDraw Pro that works, but I can open the older MacDraw files with it.

[IIO]

i dont know macdraw, but you might have forgotten to move required drivers, libraries, or simply its preference file from the systemfolder.

[Jubadub]

@SKYLANE
I got acquainted with MacDraw and its entire history just for the sake of seeing how well it fares with 9.2.2 on the Mac mini G4 1.5GHz. Results:

Everything works perfectly with MacDraw II 1.1v2 on Mac OS 9.2.2 on the Mac mini G4 1.5GHz. But under one condition: color depth needs to be anything other than set to Millions of Colors, else it looks funky, and/or the program destabilizes. Using Thousands of Colors or 256 Colors for color depth resulted in the program being 100% functional.
The issue with Millions of Colors quite possibly would also be there on the Wallstreet G3 (wish mine still worked to actually test it out). Can you check if it actually handles MacDraw II properly on your WallStreet with Millions of Colors for color depth selected?
In any case, looks like it works just fine! Just need to use the proper color depth.

Regardless, I thought the latest version of MacDraw (ClarisDraw 1.0v4) could handle all MacDraw files of any previous version perfectly? Apparently MacDraw II is from 1989, while ClarisDraw is from 1994. Can't it handle your needs? (Note: MacDraw Pro is stuck between those two versions in the timeline. So if that can't do something, perhaps ClarisDraw can?)

If desired, the latest version can be found here.

Hope any of this helps.

[ELN]

I have fixed the frozen mouse bug!

It was, as darthnVader hinted earlier, caused by the ATI extensions. So I took a deep dive into the ATI driver architecture. This is the typical "life cycle" of an ATI card in a NewWorld Mac:

• If the card firmware lacks an ndrv (e.g. the Radeon 9200 in the mini), the MacOS uses its generic "COFB" ndrv to get basic video.
• Extensions are loaded from disk. The ATI ROM Xtender or iMic's hacked "ATI Via Driver" extension can replace the previously loaded ndrv. No graphical acceleration yet.
• The complex array of ATI extensions steps in, asks the loaded ndrv about the card using some private Status calls, and loads some acceleration code if the card is recognised. Accelerated 2D requires "ATI Resource Manager" and "ATI Graphics Accelerator" at minimum.

This was darthnVader's solution to get graphics acceleration working:

• Insert a Mac OS X ndrv into iMic "ATI Via Driver" (better called "ATI RockHopper2 Driver" after the change).
• Replace all or most occurrences of the 5961 device ID in the other extensions with 5962. Both IDs refer to the Radeon 9200, but the extensions only knew about the 5961 ID. (Occurrences of 5960 were also replaced -- see below.)

DarthnVader effectively turned our minis into Mac OS 9 gaming rigs! Unfortunately, one of the binary patches intermittently broke hardware cursor support. It might be due to the way that the PowerPC compiler optimised select/case blocks. Sometimes I also experienced a black screen when the ATI extensions loaded, which I think was related.

This is my solution:

• Insert the same Mac OS X ndrv (ATY,RockHopper2 v1.0.1f63, from Mac OS X 10.3.6) into the Mac OS ROM as an ndrv parcel, to mimic a firmware driver.
• Patch that ndrv to replace 5962 with 5961 whenever it reads from PCI Configuration Space.
  • To achieve this, I got sidetracked and wrote a single-file PowerPC assembler script (ppcasm.py) and PEF dump/rebuild script (cfmtool.py): https://github.com/elliotnunn/tbxi-patches/
• Use the unmodified ATI extensions from January 2005.
  
  • The extensions that we host in "9200os9.sit", supposedly from the rare July 2005 release, do not work.
  • I think that they were binary-patched to enable support for the DVI-I Radeon 9200 card, ID 5960. Specifically, the accl 4 resource of the "ATI Graphics Accelerator" is an identical build to January 2005, including the build date, but has 2/2 occurrences of 5961 replaced with 5960. It would be good to find the originals.

So here is my first ROM release of the year. It was derived from the "OS9General" Mac OS ROM (v9.6.1) using my portable Mac mini patching system: https://github.com/elliotnunn/tbxi-patches/blob/7a5d179/macmini.py

My ATALoad patch has also been applied, to allow Mac OS 9 to boot from volumes that were formatted for Mac OS X, without first wiping the disk with "Mac OS 9 Drivers". I think that this is especially useful on machines that were formerly Mac OS X-only.

I recommend that this ROM be included in a new release of the Mac mini ISO. It should be combined with the unmodified ATI extensions from January 2005.

[IIO]

we really need to have "like" buttons here.

[DieHard]

I recommend that this ROM be included in a new release of the Mac mini ISO. It should be combined with the unmodified ATI extensions from January 2005.

ELN, your post was like a tall glass of fresh spring water after a long drought; we have been quiet here, but that is to be expected with some topics and downloads at over 100K 200K views we may have tapped out all the interested users, which is amazing in itself.  The details were fascinating and I appreciate all the time it took to created the new ROM and explain the process.

My personal mini has been in a storage unit for 6 months,  After closing my retail computer store, having surgery, and re-opening a new office for computer consulting, I am  finally back in the mode and getting back to macs and music.  I will breakout the mini and try the new ROM this week.  I am hoping that Ross reads all of this and has the time and energy to create a v9 mini Install and I will post it.

[Jubadub]

I loved that write-up, ELN. It's both concisely written and incredibly useful. Well done for both troubleshooting the issue and patching it!

I have one question, though: is there something users of the 1.5GHz version of the mini should look out for in regards to the fact the included Radeon 6200 chip is the 64MB VRAM version instead of the 32MB version present on the other 3 mini models? (1.25GHz, 1.33GHz and 1.42GHz.) I wondered if that posed any relevance regarding all the NDRVs and whatnot.

[ELN]

Thanks!

I don’t think that this means any change for the super-mini. The ATI software checks the amount of VRAM present and behaves appropriately.

[RossDarker]

Just had a read of everything - great work! I’ll make a v9 iso.

[FdB]

YAY!!!

[IIO]

2020/2: mini audio issue

2020/7: usb 2 driver

....: G5?

[MacTron]

Congratulations! Really awesome work! (Again!  )

As you know I'm using some of your stuff in the unsupported eMac 1.25. Even through the machine works really well with Mac Os 9, it still suffer the frozen mouse bug. Can you please replicate this procedure for the eMac.
I'm using the "normal mini with happymactron" ROM (from  2018-04-08) and the ATI,Merlin video drivers ( by darthnVader).

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4361.0.html

[darthnVader]

You know, it maybe worth trying to get the ATI Video extension working with this new patched ROM.

Maybe it won't hang the system anymore and we could get DVD playback?

[Jubadub]

2020/2: mini audio issue

2020/7: usb 2 driver

....: G5?

https://i.chzbgr.com/full/5244308992/h9C2D39EE/

[DieHard]

2020/2: mini audio issue

2020/7: usb 2 driver

....: G5?

LOL, What ungrateful lads... ELN please ignore all of us, we are a bunch of greedy members that are drunk with power...from your hard work

The USB2 Driver is doomed and hence FW 4Ever !

The Mini audio issue still has the jury out, maybe there's hope

The G5.... load Tiger and classic, cause that is very doubtful from our previous discussions guys

We appreciate your efforts and we are all extremely happy that you also "never give up"; It seems to be a trend here, the last holdout of tenacious "old School" programmers who just make it happen.  The newbies would have given up long ago with excuses and claiming... "it is not possible"

[DieHard]

Just had a read of everything - great work! I’ll make a v9 iso.

I just renewed and expanded the Online storage, so V9 has a home for a while