OS9 Booted on 867Mhz Powerbook G4 (unsupported) 12"

[stumingg]

... yes I have the Aluminium 12" PB G4 867Mhz and it doesn't have a PCMCIA slot no.

So, basically, there's no way I can use a "normal" Airport (not extreme) card (which slides into a slot in the battery bay) with this machine an OS 9? Is this right?

I have had this booted up with OS X 10.3 which had "Classic" and that worked fine obviously, but not what I wanted.

If the airport card wont work are there any other ways to get wifi working?

Thanks for all your help so far.

Stuart

[stumingg]

... ah, I see. So the Airport card is PCMCIA type and won't fit into a G4 PB.

So no wifi then.

Stuart

[Protools5LEGuy]

There was a Ethernet dongle that took voltage from the USB ports that used wifi but the computer believed it were a direct connection. It was OS9 compatible. They are called wifi extenders too IIRC.

It would shine on a Gigabit ethernet connection, but your 10/100 port should do OK.

[DieHard]

We really have to make a section and post all real world results of all "un-supported" G4s.

iMic and I did get some notes together, these are from our public download page...

Model Specific Hardware Notes:
1. Apple Power Macintosh G4 1.25 DP (FW 800) (Identifiers: M8570, M8840LL/A, Firewire 800, PowerMac3,6)
Firewire 800 ports are seen as FW400 ports are FW400 ports are Not recognized, all other hardware functions as normal

2. Apple Power Macintosh G4 1.42 DP (FW 800) (Identifiers: M8570, M8840LL/A, Firewire 800, PowerMac3,6)
Firewire 800 ports are seen as FW400 ports are FW400 ports are Not recognized, all other hardware functions as normal

3. Apple PowerBook G4 867 12" (Al) (Identifiers: A1010, M8760LL/A, PowerBook6,1)
Sound comes thru headphones, but not speakers

But we really need a consolidated Sticky Note Post with all the key info. for each model.

The Holy Grail of unsupported PowerBooks, Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 17":
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.0_17.html
has some notes from members, but unfortunately, I no longer have one of these around to really put to the test with Audio and Video apps.  IMO, this unit is the most amazing portable asset under OS9 if Video acceleration proves to work and is documented and it is a full 17", much bigger than the 12" that started this thread.

UPDATE: (From Fizzgig on 05/03/2016)

Okay, updates!   
"Let 1k Windows Bloom" took 3 seconds. I was rather baffled by it until I got the results and realized what all those flickering windows were about!  This is with 512 MB of RAM, which is what the machine came to me with (and more than I've ever needed pre-OS-X, honestly… though sticking in 2 GB at some point does sound fun!). Virtual memory is off and I've already tweaked my extensions and such a fair bit—one of my favorite ways to streamline and/or customize! Maybe I should post a list at some point.

No sign of the ambient light sensor or keyboard backlight working, alas. I don't think I actually own any Firewire devices, so someone else will have to test that, sorry!

It's Obvious that the Graphics drivers for the 17" 1 ghz. model under OS 9 work as expected NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go (4X AGP) on the 17" AL, Acceleration Lives !, this is awesome; it is truly the BEST portable OS 9 device, De-throwning the beloved TI 1 Ghz.

[Protools5LEGuy]

This has the NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go (4X AGP) graphics with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM in an attractive aluminum alloy case with a 12.1" TFT XGA display (1024x768 native resolution).

This is the most compact OS9 portable. It has less Geekbench than the 867 TI PB. But it can handle more than 1 Gig of RAM (1152 MB adding a 1 Gig module)

[stumingg]

There was a Ethernet dongle that took voltage from the USB ports that used wifi but the computer believed it were a direct connection. It was OS9 compatible. They are called wifi extenders too IIRC.

It would shine on a Gigabit ethernet connection, but your 10/100 port should do OK.

... thanks for this. Time for a bit of Google I think.

Stuart

[stumingg]

... just to round off the wifi angle of this thread, I just ordered one of these for delivery tonight:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005OIB6XI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Not the prettiest of things but I think it'll do the job. Thanks for all the help once again.

Stuart

[stumingg]

... well it works, but what an absolute PITA it was to configure. Japanese "manual" so basically just ended up with a bit of trial and error and Google. The key is to configure it against your wifi network, then turn off the hotspot feature (wifi extending) and then unplug the thing. Sounds simple but took 3 hours!

Still. Good fun.

Cheers

[Protools5LEGuy]

Hi all

I have an interesting evening. My unsupported Powerbook G4 is just fine, and I took apart my old Motu 828mk2 and replaced the LED in it. I also installed Logic 4.7 and downloaded from an archive the Motu Firewire install stuff.

So Now i've got a working 828mk2, plus a working Motu Firewire CueMix Console, which shoes input to the mic I've plugged into the mic/guitar in 1 port on the front of the motto. All good.

Firewire is working!

[ssp3]

Testing Al 867Mhz Powerbook G4 with 9.2.2 right now..

I've installed a mSATA + JM20330 green adapter combo - no problems so far and getting speeds in 78-82 MB/sec range.
At first I used ROM file from "Unsupported ..." CD, then changed it to my own version (similar to one I made for 17" 1GHz machine).

The strange thing is that mine runs at 533 MHz (!) instead of 867 MHz, no matter which ROM I use.
Apple System Profiler, PowerLogix CPU Director and NewerTech Gauge PRO all report the same, slower than it has to be, speed. Norton System Info test confirms it - this machine scores lower than PowerMac G4 400MHz.
The "feel" using it, especially with processor intensive applications, is similar. Seems to be slower than TiBook 667.

EDIT. I don't know what I did, I think I switched from Apple CPU Plugins 4.0.1 to version 3.5 and suddenly the machine runs at 867 MHz, as expected. Disk transfer speeds also went up a bit.

I've been copying contents of this 9.2.2 installation from one SSD to the next one all the time. I might have mixed something or picked up the wrong Apple CPU Plugins during my experiments. I'll investigate and report back. Stay tuned..

[smilesdavis]

Cant wait to bulk up on
Al powerbooks

As soon as we have figured them out