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

[IIO]

not sure if it releated, but the core team recently has fixed the videodriver vs. USB bug for the mac mini OS - by patching the ROM - so you should just wait for a new ROM for the emac to appear.

mneanwhile see if you can another mouse - or deinstall usb overdrive and the mouse controlpanel. (with my very fiurst non-apple mouse i also just removed the mouse control panel totally to enable proper speed settings from the decives controlpanel)

[jdaviddean]

Any time I try this method the os 9 install goes fine, the os x install appears to go fine, but when I reboot the machine, even if I specifically *pick* the OS X partition to boot in, I get the circle with a slash through it even though it's 10.4....

[SnakeCoils]

After reading various posts here and other threads I have purchased an eMac 1.25 (promptly overclocked to 1.50 GHz) but I disagree about the working audio under OS9: the problem is not the output coming from a single speaker (the same happens thru earphone socket and from what I have seen is a mainly matter of lacking the left-right balance setting in the control panel) but the persistence of the audio output itself.
Let's try the Bernie To The Rescue emulator and you will see that audio stops working quite quickly, even after closing the emulator. Maybe the emulator do some bad low level access to the hardware but this means that audio handling is far from being reliable under OS9. It is not a criticism, I really appriciate the hard work from the team in making those machines fully usable under OS9 but in the main page of eMac profile the status of AUDIO should be changed from WORKING to PARTIALLY WORKING, just to let other users to be aware that more works is still needed to have a perfectly working machine. I know that USB audio cards are a workaround for this issue but from what I read in the summary it seems that embedded audio would work out-of-the-box and this is not entirely correct IMHO.

[MacTron]

Do you have any other audio issues with other apps?
If not, this is probably a "Bernie II The Rescue" issue.
Emulators (and Games) aren't the more reliable apps out there.

[SnakeCoils]

At present I have not deeply tested other apps because my interest is mainly in emulators, however I made some progress.
Today I received my Sabrent AU-MMSA USB audio adapter (I ordered it from Amazon after reading in another thread it was fully supported under OS9) and I am totally amazed how well it works!
First, in Sound panel it takes entirely place (without additional settings) of the internal speakers and it show itself as "internal" with no other devices listed.
Second, the "Speakers" tab is no more ghosted and I can tune the Left-Right level correctly and yes, also the Volume setting works as expected.
Third, the Sabrent device physical dimensions are absolutely compatible with the eMac side vane so no need to put an extension cable to plug it, it fits well and firmly in the USB port.
Until a patched device extension will be found to use again the internal speakers the main issue (for me) is happily solved.
For reference I choose to not use the MacOS9lives install because I like to have the System in my language so I have restored the OS9General.dmg from my MDD2003 install disks, added the tbxi-enabler and 9200 Merlin drivers, deleted the Multiprocessing folder, bleessed the partition and I was ready to go. The mouse freeze sometimes occour but now I am really happy about the performances of this little white devil :-)

[SnakeCoils]

I noticed that the link to tbxi-enabler is for a modded 9.6.1 MacROM, do also exist one for the 10.2.1 Universal?

[alexfree]

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.

Thanks this is perfect for my Mac Mini.

[Messij]

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.

Thank for your but I don't understand step 3 ?
Is :
" /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0" find-package if drop " /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0" find-device 80010201 encode-int " cpu-version" property then
one line to write ? Because when I type /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0 my eMAc 1.25 send me unknown word
Thanks

[spicybeef]

Hey everyone! I've managed to get MacOS 9.2.2 for unsupported G4s installed and running on my 1.25 GHz eMac using the wonderful instructions in this thread with one exception: no graphics acceleration. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong - I took the extensions from the ATI,Merlin.sit archive and replaced the ones in the extensions folder with no luck. Does anyone know what I might be missing?

[MacTron]

...I took the extensions from the ATI,Merlin.sit archive and replaced the ones in the extensions folder with no luck. Does anyone know what I might be missing?

You should keep all the original ATI extensions, and add the "ATI Merlin" to them.

[spicybeef]

Figured it out! I needed to unstuff the .sit archive locally. I had unstuffed the files directly on my NAS was transferring over the extensions instead of the .sit archive; I believe this removed the resource fork of the extension files. What tipped me off was the missing icons from the extensions.

Thanks for the help regardless

[ltpitt]

Hi all,

Thanks for the amazing information available in this thread.

I downloaded os9lives CD and burnt it.
I already had a os x install that I didnt want to lose so I started emac in target mode and installed os9lives using a g3 imac from os 9 on that machine.

All went smooth so, to double check, I booted the iMac from that new installed partition via firewire.
The fact that it booted just fine should confirm (at least i hope) that the disk has is 9 drivers and partitioning is just fine.
So far so good!

So I get ready to boot the emac from it and download and copy the extensions and put the tbxi-enabler (I didn't rename it) in the system folder and delete mac rom as suggested.

If I press alt at boot I get the possibility to click on os9lives but then I get a floppy with question mark.

If I try once again to put the eMac in target mode and start the iMac using the os9lives partition it won't boot anymore.
I think this is related to the now missing mac rom.
In fact, if I restore it then the iMac boots again without issues.

My partition is hfs+ journal end was created and formatted with ipartition.
If I look at the system folder in os9lives partition (if I boot OS X from from the eMac the folder has a 9 on it and should be correctly blessed).

What am I doing wrong?
I'd be very happy to boot the eMac with OS 9

Thanks!

[ltpitt]

Hi all!

I just wanted to say that even if my iMac g3 was able to boot from the OS 9 installed on my eMac via firewire still...
The drivers for os 9 were not installed on that drive!

I backed useful osx partition with carbon copy cloner, initialized disk again this time with OS 9 drivers and...
Now it works like a champ

Deeply thanks for this amazing result

[Angelgreat]

Anyone made custom drives for the Radeon 9600?

[zulc22]

(snip)

i tried this, and it did mostly work, but after restoring OS 9 and patching it, my system completely refuses to boot, with or without extensions.
it gets to the end of the 'starting up' progress bar and just hardlocks

[Lark456]

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.

Tried this and I get :
“, checksum error
Loading ELF

DO-QUIESCE finished”
If anyone can help I rly wanna get this working

[Cashed]

Hi Lark456 and welcome.

Please have a seat until a technician replies. If you would like something to read while waiting then,
there are two mentions of this found here:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=762.150
Search that post but without the " "

Did you hit return at the end of each line?

[Lark456]

Yeah I did, cd drive seems to work fine, and the disc I burned works fine in a b&w g3. Any ideas?

[Lark456]

ended up figuring it out, MAKE SURE THE BURNED COPY YOU USE WORKS. I ended up using one i burned in my emac to be extra safe and that worked fine!

[ltpitt]

Hi all,

I wanted to report after some time off use that this just rocks, I am the happiest running os 9 and sorbet leopard on my 1.25.
Ssd, maxed ram...
It is a rocket

My audio, strangely, is mono.
Does anyone have the same? Is it fixable?

Thanks