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

[IIO]

oh and one should of course not have more than 25 volumes all together, because - in case you need them all together from time to time - otherwise they wont automount after reboot.

[DieHard]

oh and one should of course not have more than 25 volumes all together, because - in case you need them all together from time to time - otherwise they wont automount after reboot.

Yes, I forgot to mention that which can be an issue for those that have many volumes

[IIO]

last year i have said goodbye to all external IDE disks and now i only have a maximum of 28 volumes required, it is already planned to limit the number further. (the orange ones are optional disks and not part of any workflow)

imagine such a desktop in a mac mini G4 with a single built-in 40 TB SSD, that´s the future.

[Shocklance]

I just want to thank all of the people who's hard work went into this project.

I purchased a G4 mini (A1103) and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it after I maxed out the memory and added a M.2 SSD to IDE card.
I also have an iMac G4 1.25 17" with USB 2.0 that's also in the works for upgrades that I planned on running 10.4 on.

And then I found this project, and got the mini all installed and operational. (Now to figure out all the nuances of OS9, and what else I want/can do with the machine, now that it has a purpose).

So, again - thanks. I appreciate your dedication to keeping old hardware usable even in 2020.

[jmsq]

I recently bought a Mini specifically because of this work, and I have to say the end result is very impressive. Here are some notes from my experience with a from-scratch Ross v9 install.

The initial install process was slightly tricky on v9, specifically because for whatever reason with my setup, the mouse would get stuck on the edge of the screen after a few seconds. I worked around this by unplugging/plugging the mouse repeatedly and doing as much as I could in the two seconds after plug that the mouse would work. Thankfully the install process is simple enough that there's not a whole lot that needs to be done in that environment, and if I were to guess it was probably due to the monitor I was using being finicky with the install image.

However once the install was done and I was running off the hard disk the mouse worked normally. Honestly everything runs extremely well for my purposes short of sound. I also had some interesting experiences with monitors that I thought would be of wider benefit.

I didn't want to dedicate desk space for an older monitor specifically for the Mini, so I tried it with the monitors I already had hooked up for my primary system; since they're all >1080p, the Mini was connected via a DVI->HDMI adapter. The monitor I was initially running with was an Acer X27, specifically because I couldn't get a signal at all from the Mini on an LG 24UD58-B. On the X27 however, the Mini would only sync at 1024x768 maximum. Based on reading other posts here, I was concerned it'd be nearly impossible to get 1920x1080 over DVI on OS 9, especially with the HDMI adapter. Regardless, I tried with an LG 27GL850 and to my surprise, it connected at 1920x1080 60hz immediately with no issues. So long story short, the Mini is _really_ picky about what monitors it'll work properly with, but it is possible with certain models to get 1080p 60hz out of it, even on displays with greater than 1080p native resolution.

Another fun thing to note: the Dual Shock 4 works natively with Input Sprocket games on OS 9 over USB 

[pixlgeek]

Great News!

As context I am running the Mac Mini G4 1.5 Ghz. For those that are using a DVI to HDMI adapter and are unable to achieve full resolution (1920x1080 @ 60Hz), I was able to get a working combination of display drivers that both allow me to get full resolution (on a BenQ PD2700U 4K monitor) and have working 2D/3D hardware acceleration.

With v9 of the OS 9 build for the Mac Mini G4, I was getting 2D/3D hardware acceleration but was unable to change resolutions above 1280x1024 without my display doing weird things. I am using a DVI to HDMI converter which may be part of the problem.

After experimenting with various driver combinations found in various posts, I was able to get a working combination (on v9) that both gives me full 1920x1080 @ 60Hz resolution as well as hardware acceleration for 2D/3D gaming.

I am using SwitchRes to manage the resolutions and color depth, and generally scale down the resolution for gaming.

The following (attached) driver combination seems to allow my Mac Mini G4 to run, fully hardware accelerated, at 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. The experimental RockHopper driver seems to make your machine think its' using a VGA monitor, which unlocks many more resolutions than what is available with the native DVI implementation.

I am running the v9 build of the Mac Mini G4 OS 9 from this thread:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2408.1050.html

The base set of extensions comes from this thread:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4277.msg29392.html#msg29392

and the modified RockHopper driver comes from this thread:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,5009.0.html

To install, just replace your existing drivers in the Extensions folder (I recommend putting your existing drivers in the "Extensions (Disabled)" folder so you can revert if you need to.

[DieHard]

Thank you pixlgeek, I am sure this will be useful to many

[arnyekveto]

Hi,

I recently got from flea market a silent upgrade mini G4, that is the machine with 1.5 GHz CPU and 64 MB instead of 32 MB video RAM, I replaced the quite fast!! HDD with my usual msata-to-2,5ide 128 GB drive, it has DWD-RW superdrive instead of the ususal  combo drive, otherwise totally identical to other G4 mini's except the last thing it has bluetooth 2.0 instead of v1.

I burned OS9 v9 installer found here (my last try was v8 on a regular 1,25 GHz Mini quite a long time ago). Against the advice I used digital DVI cable with my Samsung syncmaster A450 1680x1050 TFT. The very same cable with this mini works OOB with 10.4 and 10.5, properly giving 1680x1050@60Hz resolution under OSX.

While booting the CD I got extremely confusing visuals that stayed during the install. The image was there, but it was garbled somewhat, I quickly got into the Samsung internal menu in the monitor and the info section revealed the mini is sending 840x1050 pixel resolution @60 Hz. Instead of 1680 pixels witdh I got half, 840 px. Althought it was barely readable (as every second column of pixels were missing from the vision, I installed v9 from muscle memory).

After reboot I got the same 840x1050px resolution (based on monitor's internal menu) with full ATI acceleration. I launched Monitors control panel, where I started to lower the resolution, until I reached 832x624@75Hz, where I got a clear image...

... I did not tried yet the modified rockhopper2 drivers.

What I found weird is that the picture is almost there, I mean number of pixels divided by two is the only issue I have with this monitor...
Cheers!
Modify message

[SabithaSuki]

Please excuse the necrobump, but is there a standalone upgrade from V8 To v9 I can do without having to wipe my ssd with a fresh reinstall?

[IIO]

there was one. it is probably about 2-3 pages back

[AlpineRaven]

Hi all, I went to try download  Ross's Mac mini OS 9 CD v9.iso

But I seem cannot download it as the file is missing - where can I download it?
Cheers
AP

[IIO]

tried here already? http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4365.0.html

the links from the discussion thread are probably gone.

[AlpineRaven]

tried here already? http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4365.0.html

the links from the discussion thread are probably gone.

The link to download is unknown/doesnt work.
Cheers
AP

[IIO]

dont try from OS9, classilla wont display the log/pass page.

[AlpineRaven]

Does anyone have a link for the Ross's Mac Mini OS 9 CD v9 iso image?

That link on that original page is broken/not working
Cheers
Tristan

[Jubadub]

Does anyone have a link for the Ross's Mac Mini OS 9 CD v9 iso image?

That link on that original page is broken/not working
Cheers
Tristan

Just tested it now, it works for me. Downloaded the v9 image just fine. Within the link you provided, there's a download link, which will ask for a password. The password is provided in the page you linked to. After that, you just selected the v9 disc image. Tested on Google Chrome, though I'm confident it will work on most browsers, like TenFourFox (but maybe not on Classilla, as noted above).

[eastone]

......Tested on Google Chrome, ......

Chrome 85.0.4183.83 - does not work

[IIO]

hm, your location / ip adress?

[eastone]

hm, your location / ip adress?

Finland/85.76.2.79

[SKYLANE]

I have the following system:
     Mac Mini G4:  1.5 GHz (with the silent upgrades)
     RAM:  1GB
     HD:  Original stock drive (I think 80GB, partitioned into two equal pieces). 

I loaded the v8 disk on to it with great success at the end of 2019.  Then loaded all my files from a Wallstreet that I had so that I could pass that PowerBook G3 to someone else.

Just this past weekend, I used RossDarker's .sit v9 updater file to update from v8 to v9.  I can now get 1920x1080@60Hz just fine with correct looking graphics over VGA (DVI/VGA adapter).  Not tried using the DVI yet.  Will do that and report back later.

Couple of questions:

(1)  I saw a recent post here of someone looking for the latest ROM version (?).  Is that taken care of when loading v9 either from the CD installation or from the .sit updater file?

(2)  I am not sure what "accelerated graphics" means.  I also do not know what the feature selections mean in the ATI drop down menu.  Is there information explaining the menu options within this topic? 

Jeff