WORKING: PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz/A1106/PowerBook 5,6!

[lartch]

I used ELN's ROM from post #143 of the Mac Mini thread along with the Screamer fix and CPU-version patch from http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2727.msg20806.html#msg 20806 to get OS 9 to get past the starting up screen on my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz/A1106/PowerBook 5,6. It reaches the desktop and then crashes. I removed ATI extensions, the Sound Manager, and maybe Open Transport to make it work. Does anybody have an idea of how to make it work and not crash?

Photos coming later

[lartch]

Here are photos. The keyboard didn't work in MacsBug. https://imgur.com/a/zCBgd

[darthnVader]

Try and disable the Apple CD/DVD driver, if you have it enabled.

Otherwise for first boot I like to just use the Mac OS ROM, System Suitcase, and Finder.

[lartch]

It works! However Open-Transport causes it to hang .
Also, the trackpad doesn't work, but an external mouse will!
https://imgur.com/a/r9Ml2
Now this is probably one of the fastest (if not THE fastest) OS 9 macs—also it's similar to the 1.67 model!
@ELN How do I disable the Nanokernel Log?

[darthnVader]

Are you using the 'boot 3' resource in the system suitcase?

ELN is still working on a Mac OS ROM with the log disabled, you can make it go away, temporarily by hitting command+F2, but it will come back from time to time.

I think you PowerBook is a 6,8, not 5,6.

Does you Powerbook have a Radeon 9700?

I think I can make an 'NDRV' for it, so you can select the proper screen resolutions and color bit depth. I'll just need to know the "  compatible" property of your card.

Boot into Open Firmware, then:

Code: [Select]

dev agp/@10/@0 .properties

Look for the compatible property.

Then to exit:

Code: [Select]

bye

[lartch]

The compatible property is 'ATY,Jasper'. It is a PowerBook5,6 for sure—Open Firmware says so! https://imgur.com/a/4q10M
I am using the boot 3 resource, and yes, Everymac says it has a Radeon 9700.
Thanks!

Ethernet works, but is slow. Open Transport usually hangs startup at LOOP_SNOOP.

[lartch]

It's not OT that hangs it, but OT adsm libraries or smth like that.

[darthnVader]

Sorry, I can't help with the OT issue, requires low level debugging of system extensions.

However, here is an 'NDRV' that may allow correct screen resolutions and bit depth selection.

Give it a try and let us know how it works, sometimes I have to try older versions before we find one that works.

This driver won't give graphics acceleration, that would require a complete driver stack from the ground up for R3xx chips.

  Unstuff and place the driver into the Extensions folder and reboot.

[lartch]

The NDRV causes the screen to go black during startup .
Perhaps an older version would work better?

Thanks

[darthnVader]

The NDRV causes the screen to go black during startup .
Perhaps an older version would work better?

Thanks

Try this one from 10.3.7.

If you still have the black screen issue, you may want to trash the preferences folder and reset the pram.

[lartch]

That works, but there's no backlight/brightness.
How do I change brightness in OS 9—it's not in the monitors control panel?
I zapped PRAM—but now it hangs as it's loading the desktop (even the CD boot)

[lartch]

The Zapped PRAM hang can be fixed by force-quitting Finder.

[darthnVader]

That works, but there's no backlight/brightness.
How do I change brightness in OS 9—it's not in the monitors control panel?
I zapped PRAM—but now it hangs as it's loading the desktop (even the CD boot)

There is a small hack to the Mac OS ROM needed to control the backlight with the screen control keys.

Backlight Control
The iBook G4 now has full backlight controller support under Mac OS 9.2. The solution was found in the Open Firmware device tree, at the following branch:
/pci@f2000000/mac-io@17/backlight@f300
The backlight-control property carried the value 6d6e6361 00, which is the string mnca in hex. I compared this to an iBook G3 Clamshell, which has a backlight-control property with the value 61746900, which is the string ati in hex. Changing mnca in Open Firmware to ati restored the backlight functionality on the iBook G4.
However, Mac OS 9 already has support for backlight controllers of the type mnca in the Mac OS ROM, as evidenced by the presence of this data at data fork offset 0x20D4AD:

Code: [Select]

panel-family DFP,EDID ATY NVDA driver-ref backlight-control ati pmu mnca
All I did was reverse the order of ati and mnca in the ROM:

Code: [Select]

panel-family DFP,EDID ATY NVDA driver-ref backlight-control mnca pmu ati
Now, I can control the internal display brightness with the brightness keys and from within the Monitors control panel. This does require another revision of the Mac OS ROM for the iBook G4. An ideal scenario would be to somehow write the revised backlight driver into an extension (which may not be possible) that is loaded alongside the standard 10.2.1 Generic ROM, but this is still a reasonable solution.