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

[IIO]

i just wanted to be helpful by setting deadlines.

i am the most important staff member - i am the scrum manager.

[IIO]

[ELN]

MacTron, I’ll cook something up for you.

[MacTron]

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?

this will be really great!
... but take into account that none the new Mac Mini ROMs boot the eMac, only the "normal mini with happymactron" from 2018-04-08, AFAIK

[SKYLANE]

Jubadub

Not selecting Millions in Color Depth does indeed allow my MacDraw to function properly on my Mac Mini 1.5 GHz machine!  Thanks!  BTW, as requested, I fired up the Wallstreet PDQ and set it to Millions, MacDraw does not work there at that Color Depth either.  I must have known that at one time and long forgotten about it!

Jeff

[Jubadub]

@SKYLANE

Great to hear OS 9 behaves equally across both machines! One more point goes to the Mac mini G4 under 9.2.2.

[wjefferson]

I have been using  ELN's new ROM for a couple of weeks now, but I'm afraid to say that the mouse still freezes occasionally at a startup. It may now freeze less often, say one in ten instead of one in five. I must have now started up my mini 50 times or more, and definitely remember a few times of freeze.

[IIO]

thanks for feedback. you also have switched back your mini OS  to original 2005 ati drivers?

[wjefferson]

Yes, I used the original drivers. With the modified drivers, the mac started up, but only with graphic acceleration turned off.

[mrhappy]

So I finally got around to 'OS9ing' my mini... It seemed to go well and booted but then I realized that there were no menus across the top of the screen (apple menu, special, etc.). Would this be a resolution issue, as in...  its there but I just can't see it??  Everything else looked normal to me. I feel like something like this happened a few years back but I don't remember any specifics.

[IIO]

that happens when your monitor prefs think it would be the second screen of two & positioned on the left.

[mrhappy]

that happens when your monitor prefs think it would be the second screen of two & positioned on the left.

*UPDATE*    'Slow Adult' ALERT!!!!  Just needed to restart after install ( it was late when I did it) ... all seems well! Time for some 'INSTANT DAW' action!!!

[IIO]

[Nymunariya]

after finally getting around to test some more of (pure) V8 (I don't know how to compile roms and didn't do anything with NDVR(?)) I realised that a few of my problems had simple workarounds.

Mouse: my problem was I that I was plugging my keyboard into a usb hub. Either the hub didn't get enough power, or the Mini just didn't know what to do with it. After getting a USB extension cable, and plugging my grape M2452 iMac keyboard and the USB mouse to that, I had maybe ... 15%ish mouse failure rate, where the mouse would click, but not move.  A restart fixed it. 

Sound: Alert sounds would not work, but normal sounds worked perfectly fine through the headphone out jack to my monitor. Though when playing Descent 3, whenever I get close to a robot that's exploding, my speakers sound like they're going to explode (just full on sound distortion/crackling), regardless of the volume level in Descent.  My speakers were less than 50% volume, but still sounded like the Mini was amplifying the sound to 200.

Graphics: mostly good.  I only really experimented with Descent 3, Riddle of the Sphinx, and The Crystal Key.  The latter two properly switched resolutions (DVI-VGA, though I ordered a DVI->HDMI cord which I want to try out this week), and looked great (probably 640x480), but Descent 3 would not change resolution and was in a tiny 640x480 box on my monitor.

I tried to apply the updates from V8 to my German install, because I would really like to use OS 9 in German.  Unfortunately it looks like the System suitcase has been modified and that dictates where items are found in German or English named system folders.  So after copying items over (to the German install) I realised that my German install is only 9.2.1.  The resolution was locked to a 4:3.  Sound did not even work over headphone jack. I don't remember if mouse work.  My temporary solution was to copy over the German finder, control panels, and a few "core" apps like Chooser.  But I'm not going to give up yet ... unless y'all have made drastic changes to the system suitcase ...

Also, does anybody have info on how to get the Tiger startup control panel to show OS9 on unsupported macs?

[IIO]

the latter isnt supported on the mini, you´d need to put either OS on another disk or use the startup manager.

[Nymunariya]

so I've apparently got the German version of OS 9 booting up fine, 5:4 resolution is looking good.  I'll try it on my 16:9 monitor next. I think I mistakenly took a D-9.2.1 suitcase yesterday.

Everything looks fine.  16:9 boots up properly.  It's just a regular(?) D-9.2.2 install, with the files from the V8 update, minus the suitcase and testfile.  However it does have the problem that my iBook has where I need a moment before I can use the finder.  The EN V8 9.2.2 does not have that problem.

I do have a separate partition for OS9, so I can boot into it while holding down option. But it would be nice if Tiger played nice with it.  There's got to be a defaults flag that one can set.

[ximiimx]

About the USB fix....
I take what? And add it to where?
I’m not a programmer, and get lost in some of these discussions....
But I’m thrilled and fascinated by the work being done.
I’m still looking forward to the V 8.1 Installer of this. (Or whichever number it gets)
Thank you.

[IIO]

v 8.0 + new ROM file + regular ATI drivers instead of the ones from v 8.0

or wait

[Jubadub]

@Nymunariya

Nothing but the ROM file has been modified (and ATI drivers, if on v8 and earlier). As such, a lot of the problems you detected are unrelated to any of this (like the suitcase issue you had).

Any language OS 9.2.2 installation will also work fine, as long as it doesn't require different assets located in the ROM file. But if it does, that has been done before: Some pages back, there was someone who was instructed on how to "merge" the ROM with a Chinese ROM via IIRC ResEdit, for example, so even such cases are doable, and, if ever needed, you may consult that for help.

Sound works perfectly via a USB audio adapter (mentioned and linked to many times by now).

Graphics work as perfectly as they do on any other Mac with that GPU or an equivalent GPU.

A USB hub works fine for the task (and what you used seemed like just another USB hub, with less ports), as long as it's externally powered, as well. The "mouse bug" is, as far as we know, completely unrelated to the usage or lack thereof of USB hubs. (It happens with or without them. A restart sometimes will and sometimes will not fix the issue. Most of the times, it does.)

Getting OS 9 recognized on OS X has indeed been asked about before, too, and that requires either spoofing the machine ID to something OS X acknowledges as a Mac-OS-9-compatible Mac, or hacking the Startup Disk module of OS X (maybe editing .plist files could do it?), so as it is, alt/option-booting is the only currently-available option to switch between them.
For the record, all Mac mini G4s are also technically 10.2.8 Jaguar compatible (no GPU acceleration) and 10.3.4+ Panther, besides 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard. (The switching issue persists across all of them.)

[DieHard]

For the record, all Mac mini G4s are also technically 10.2.8 Jaguar compatible (no GPU acceleration) and 10.3.4+ Panther, besides 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard. (The switching issue persists across all of them.)

The Mini has always been an absolute snail under OS X anyway, IMO that is what made this whole undertaking worthwhile, it absolutely shines as an OS9 machine. 

There have been many changes for me over the last year... a painful operation, closing my retail PC store (over 20 years of stuff to move) and my brother/business partner moved out of liberal CA to conservative Florida because of his beliefs. But nothing gets Diehard down, I am finally getting back to moving all the site archives to my external RAIDs and getting back to playing with the mini again.  It will now become the main unit for the site to test OS9 software.  I am feeling optimistic toward 2020.  I now have moved the business to an office environment which may even give me the extra time to archive many CDs and DVDs that never made it to the download section.

I know many core users have been quiet, but I don't think it's a lack of interest, I think it's just life... we are all getting older and we have already accomplished so much with the old macs that the breakthroughs for 2020 may be very limited. I hope we are still getting some youthful members that will carry on the torch.  We will keep the ball rolling for as long as the info. here is needed and relevant; hopefully until the last member kicks the bucket in 2110.