Mac OS 9 booting on: eMac G4 1.25 Ghz. (Detailed Posts)

[MacTron]

The eMac 1.25 and 1.42 can't officially boot into Mac Os 9. Unless an unofficial custom ROM is used:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2408.0;attach=5090
Furthermore, to allow full video support and video acceleration we need a mod video drivers:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4322.0;attach=5025

This was only tested in the 1.25 model but probably all of this works in to the 1.42 one too. Except video acceleration. The eMac 1.25 video is based on a Radeon 9200, but 1.42 is based on a Radeon 9600 wich havent Mac Os 9 support at this moment.



Everything works OK, but Apple DVD player and System deep sleep.

The display and system sleeps works, but when the System (the CPU) goes to sleep the computer can't wake up. To avoid this, the upper bar in Energy Saver should set to never:



But when you select "Sleep" from the Special menu, the issue persist, the CPU is forced to sleep and the computer can't wake up.
If we replace the Energy Saver control panel by Sleeper, this issue disappear:



Another issue is the startup freezing mouse, It occurs on 1/10 startups, the only solution know by now is to restart the eMac pressing the On/Off button.

The eMac 1.25 performs surprisingly well compared to a single 1.25 MDD:

[widdly]

nvm

[matthewcabor252]

How do I install the ROM?

[Daniel]

Stick it in the system folder you want to use. It replaces the Mac OS ROM file already there.

[matthewcabor252]

Ok, I put it into the "System Folder" but its not showing up when I  hold option at power up. I put "tbxi-enabler" in the Mac OS 9 System Folder. I have 1 partition with Mac OS Tiger installed.

-eMac USB 2.0 1.25GHz 1.5GB DDR SDRAM

[Daniel]

Does the system folder have the special icon indicating that it's a system folder? It's possible that it isn't "blessed" properly. Reblessing it could be as simple following these directions, or it could be a nightmare to do.

• Select the "System", "Finder", and "tbxi-enabler" files
• Drag them to the hard disk icon of the partition the system folder is in.
• Drag them to the system folder. If its icon changes, success!

By "1 partition with Mac OS Tiger", do you mean that you have Mac OS 9 on one partition and Tiger on the other? If you have that configuration, it should work. If you are trying to do this with only one partition, you are going to have a lot of trouble because OSX doesn't let you set the startup disk to a Mac OS 9 system folder if the machine isn't "supposed" to handle 9.

[macarone]

If you are able to boot the computer into OS X, running DiscWarrior on the partition containing OS 9 will "bless" the OS 9 System Folder, even when other methods failed.

I have never been able to figure out what makes a partition show up in Startup Manager (booting with Option held down).... Some show up and some do not, even when they DO show up in System Preferences/Startup Disk.

And, some partitions show up in Startup Manager but NOT Startup Disk.

I'd be grateful if someone explained it all.

[Astroman]

can't explain it in depth, but aside from disk partitioning/driver it's the content (!) of the MacRom which is checked during boot. If the requested resources are missing, the whole disk will be excluded from the list of bootable drives.

[darthnVader]

Does the system folder have the special icon indicating that it's a system folder? It's possible that it isn't "blessed" properly. Reblessing it could be as simple following these directions, or it could be a nightmare to do.

• Select the "System", "Finder", and "tbxi-enabler" files
• Drag them to the hard disk icon of the partition the system folder is in.
• Drag them to the system folder. If its icon changes, success!

By "1 partition with Mac OS Tiger", do you mean that you have Mac OS 9 on one partition and Tiger on the other? If you have that configuration, it should work. If you are trying to do this with only one partition, you are going to have a lot of trouble because OSX doesn't let you set the startup disk to a Mac OS 9 system folder if the machine isn't "supposed" to handle 9.

Code: [Select]

sudo bless --folder /path/to/the/OS9/System Folder
??

[Daniel]

Does the system folder have the special icon indicating that it's a system folder? It's possible that it isn't "blessed" properly. Reblessing it could be as simple following these directions, or it could be a nightmare to do.

• Select the "System", "Finder", and "tbxi-enabler" files
• Drag them to the hard disk icon of the partition the system folder is in.
• Drag them to the system folder. If its icon changes, success!

By "1 partition with Mac OS Tiger", do you mean that you have Mac OS 9 on one partition and Tiger on the other? If you have that configuration, it should work. If you are trying to do this with only one partition, you are going to have a lot of trouble because OSX doesn't let you set the startup disk to a Mac OS 9 system folder if the machine isn't "supposed" to handle 9.

Code: [Select]

sudo bless --folder /path/to/the/OS9/System Folder
??

That works too. I just have never done this stuff from OSX.

[torvan]

Well, despite hours of trying, four CDRs, and even attempting just "Drag and Drop", in no way can I get OS9 to boot at all. I even tried the "boot an OS9 machine and use Firewire Disk mode" trick. Yes, I used the drivers and the tbxi-enabler. Terminal blessed the drive too. But noting appears in an Option boot and neither in Tiger's Startup Disk preferences.

Perhaps it is because mine is the 1.42Ghz 7447a with the Radeon 9600 (which has no OS9 drivers).

Sigh.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Torvan. That eMac is better with leopard (Full Core Image) than with 9....

[eMacg4125]

Hi all,

First up, I'm a newb to all things Mac ... I rescued an eMac and wanted to have a play with MacOS, had a muck about with OSX so now want to try 9

I've downloaded the specially created 9.2.2 ISO for the eMac but cannot get it to boot?  I've even completed formatted the HDD to MacOS format (not journalled), after clicking on the disc from the boot > option key menu the screen goes grey and nothing happens after that

Completely assuming I've missed something?

Cheers

[KiritoSwordArtONLINEfan]

this works great now! one question though, is there a way to get the machine to boot into OS 9 by default? I always have to hold down the option key and wait to select OS 9 which is kind of annoying. even when I go into the startup disk settings, choose OS 9 and click restart it just goes into OS X...

[torvan]

Torvan. That eMac is better with leopard (Full Core Image) than with 9....

Granted it is, but I still wanted to give this a try given it might have worked. Too much fun to tinker around with and it is not something mission critical or anything.

[superlions16]

The eMac 1.25 and 1.42 can't officially boot into Mac Os 9. Unless an unofficial custom ROM is used:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2408.0;attach=5090
Furthermore, to allow full video support and video acceleration we need a mod video drivers:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4322.0;attach=5025

This was only tested in the 1.25 model but probably all of this works in to the 1.42 one too. Except video acceleration. The eMac 1.25 video is based on a Radeon 9200, but 1.42 is based on a Radeon 9600 wich havent Mac Os 9 support at this moment.



Everything works OK, but Apple DVD player and System deep sleep.

The display and system sleeps works, but when the System (the CPU) goes to sleep the computer can't wake up. To avoid this, the upper bar in Energy Saver should set to never:



But when you select "Sleep" from the Special menu, the issue persist, the CPU is forced to sleep and the computer can't wake up.
If we replace the Energy Saver control panel by Sleeper, this issue disappear:



Another issue is the startup freezing mouse, It occurs on 1/10 startups, the only solution know by now is to restart the eMac pressing the On/Off button.

The eMac 1.25 performs surprisingly well compared to a single 1.25 MDD:

Okay, how did you even install this? and how in the world are you supposed to get the Mac OS ROM replaced without having to use the bless command?? 

[superlions16]

Can someone PLEASE help me out here? I'm getting a frozen cursor after restoring the unsupported G4s image to my eMac.
UPDATE: Got it working. Please delete my post from 10/31/18. In order to do so, fake out the CPU as a 7445 in OF and install the Unsupported G4s ISO, then delete the multiprocessing folder, THEN install tbxi-enabler and the video drivers.

[kgllewellyn]

Okay, so seeing that it took me a good deal of time to get this working on my eMac 1.25 piecing together various instructions on here and ThinkClassic, here's a step by step to get a working install of OS 9 on the eMac that I did.

1. Download and burn the Mac OS 9.2.2 for Unsupported G4s from here: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2143.0.html
2. Insert the burned CD into your eMac and boot holding down Cmd+Opt+O+F. This enters Open Firmware.
3. In Open Firmware enter the following - (this spoofs your eMac's CPU into one recognized by OS 9) - Hit return at the end of each line.

" /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0" find-package if drop " /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0" find-device 80010201 encode-int " cpu-version" property then
device-end \ PLX-OS9-PATCH
boot cd:,\\:tbxi

4. Your eMac should now proceed to boot up from the Mac OS 9 CD.
5. Before doing anything. Partition your drive using Drive Setup.
6. Click on Initialize and then 'Options'
7. Create a 1GB Partition for OS 9, a 8GB Partition for Tiger and the remaining for Leopard. Or if you just want one version of OS X, then 1GB for OS 9 and the remainder for Leopard/Tiger.
8. Now run the Apple Software Restore and target the 1GB Partition, this carries out your OS 9 install.
9. Now go ahead and install Tiger and/or Leopard on the remaining partitions. Make sure not to erase/change your partitions from the OS X installer.
10. Once you have OS X set up, download tbxi-enabler and the ATI,Merlin patches that MacTron uploaded at the top of this Thread on your eMac.
11. Copy all the ATI/OpenGL extensions to the Extensions Folder, overwriting the older versions.
12. Copy tbxi-enabler to the System Folder. *do not rename it*.
13. Remove Mac OS ROM.
14. You should now be able to boot up with OS 9 holding Option during boot.

P.S. The logic I do with the partitions is that I create the smallest partitions for the Older OS's and then have the newest OS on the largest partition. All the applications are then located on the largest partition. 1GB for OS 9 should leave about 575MB free for Control Panels, Extensions and so forth you want to install, which should be plenty, but feel free to make a larger OS 9 partition if you wish. 

Please let me know how you get on.

[kgllewellyn]

So. One issue I've noticed is that on the eMac 1.25Ghz is that audio appears to only come out of one speaker either with internal speakers and headphones. Not sure if anyone has a fix for that?

Also, if you want OS 9 to be available via the Startup Disk PrefPane in OS X run the following script with Terminal. This was adapted from Blemk's script on ThinkClassic.

Code: [Select]

#!/bin/sh
echo Enabling OS 9 booting...
echo "You may have to enter your password"
# Use nvram command to setup nvramrc with script to make open firmware changes
sudo nvram nvramrc='" /" select-dev
" PowerMac4,4" encode-string " model" property
" PowerMac4,4" encode-string " MacRISC" encode-string encode+ " MacRISC2" encode-string encode+ " MacRISC3" encode-string encode+ " Power Macintosh" encode-string encode+ " compatible" property
unselect
'
# Enable use of nvramrc on boot. Change to "false" if you want to disable again. Or just clear/reset nvram.
sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=true
echo done.

Ensure you have a good PRAM battery, otherwise you'll have to re-run this every time you pull the power.

[Halian]

Please let me know how you get on.

The install stick boots, but once Drive Setup and SimpleText have loaded (they're apparently set to open on startup), I can no longer move the mouse cursor. My mouse is a Logitech MX Master 1st gen. It works fine when booting with extensions off; the culprit appears to be one or more of the USB Overdrive control panel and the USB extension.

When booting with extensions off, attempting to partition my 180 GB hard drive in Drive Setup results in a crash with Drive Setup error type 10.

When booting with extensions on, partitioning works fine, but restoring the image fails at the very end with a checksum error followed by a crash with Apple Software Restore error type 41.