Poll, who wants a install CD for Early iBook G4's?

[darthnVader]

I've asked RossDarker to put us together an install CD/DVD for OS 9 on the Early iBook G4's.

If you'd like to see such a thing, please chime in here so we can gage interest in the project.

For those that don't know Ross maintains the install CD for OS 9 on the Mini, and it's a great success, and I think Ross would do one for the early iBook G4's if he knew people would find it useful.

Maybe, we could put together a group of people willing to make a small donation so that we can buy and ship an early iBook G4 to Ross for testing, these things can normally be had for $35 or less, plus the costs of shipping.

So, who is in?

I'm in, and would be willing to purchase, or donate to the purchase of an iBook for Ross, if we can get some other small donations to cover the costs of shipping.

[DieHard]

I'm in...

[Eason85]

What's the difference between an "early" iBook g4 vs the mid 2005 iBook? I just bought a mid-2005 to give it a try.

[DracheMitch]

Is this to make it for the 7455 or the 7447a? I have a 7447a I can’t get 9 to boot on that I really want to use as my portable 9 machine.

[darthnVader]

What's the difference between an "early" iBook g4 vs the mid 2005 iBook? I just bought a mid-2005 to give it a try.

The Early iBook G4's (2003/Early 2004/Late 2004) Range from 800Mhz/933Mhz/1.0Ghz G4 7457( 2003 ) 1.0ghz/1.2Ghz G4 7447a( Early 2004 ) 1.2Ghz/1.33ghz G4 7447a( late 2004 ) and all share the Radeon 9200 Mobility graphics, supported by OS 9 with our hacked drivers. Where as the mid 2005 uses the Radeon 9550 graphics and can only be used in 'NDRV'( screen resolution and bit depth changing only ).

Technically, the R9200 is the same GPU as the Radeon 8500/9000 when it comes to driver support, it's just a binary patch to add device ID's to the OS 9 drivers and a special 'NDRV' we took from OS X and packaged for OS 9.

The 9550 is of the family of the R9600/R9700 and there were never any OS 9 driver for us to hack, so no 2D/3D graphics acceleration is ever going to be written for OS 9 without a complete rewrite of OS 9's graphics stack. Never likely to happen, because Apple won't share the documentation.

The other major difference between the Early iBook G4's and the Mid 2005 is the ADB trackpad vs the USB Trackpad. The USB trackpad is a non standard HID device and has no OS 9 drivers, and no OS X drivers in versions of OS X that shipped before mid 2005. It does have linux drivers, so it would be relatively trivial to write an OS 9 driver for it. The USB Trackpad will work by removing USB drivers, but then you lose USB functionality, and the trackpad still tracks the screen way too slow to be used.

BlueTooth and Wifi don't work on either model, no drivers.

Sleep doesn't work on either model, no documentation on Apple's K2 chipset, and no documentation on OS 9's Power Stack, tho I think we can get Hibernation to file to work in lieu of proper sleep under OS 9.

USB only works in USB1.1 mode, no driver for USB2 under OS 9. Again, relatively trivial to write driver for OS 9.

[darthnVader]

I've been working on a ROM for @RossDarker to compile us a new install/restore CD/DVD for the Early iBook G4's. I've run into a bit of a pickle, the 7457 that came in the Original iBook G4 doesn't support DFS, so the script I use for the 7447a iBooks to set-dfs-high will cause the Original iBook G4 with the 7457 to stop executing the ROM.

Can I use a Bootscript in the Mac OS ROM to check the model and make an if case for the 7447a without effecting the 7455?

Basically I need to check if we are running on PowerBook6,3 then do nothing with DFS, but if we are running on PowerBook6,5 then set-dfs-high. I could also check the cpu-version property, but I'd need the same if cases.

Maybe if I gave one ROM the PowerBook6,3 compatible property and another ROM the PowerBook6,5 compatible property, and we put both in the System Folder of our boot/install CD/DVD, Open Firmware would pick the correct one?

That really doesn't seem like a good solution, nor does making a separate install DISC for the Original iBook G4, as that's twice as much work on Ross.

The last alternative would be to do nothing with DFS, and just add a user's note to set-dis-high in Open Firmware before booting when they want to run the CPU at full speed, or just leave them the option to install the Mac OS ROM that set-dis-high?

 

[darthnVader]

https://youtu.be/9SGUteOKrE8

[DieHard]

https://youtu.be/9SGUteOKrE8

1st: thanks for the "Diehard" reference

2nd: that is so weird you included the Bill Paxton scene that I play at least once a month and still get a laugh out of it,
"That's just fu%kin great man, now WTF are we we supposed to do" I remember to repeat this mantra every time I break a component off a logic board

[darthnVader]

Seems Ross ended up with the PowerBook,6,3, that would be the original iBook G4 with the 7457 CPU.

The ROM I've been using on my iBook G4( PowerBook6,5 ) doesn't seem to work on the 6,3, I suspect that I was using the Mac mini branch with the patches for the Mini with a 7447a with a custom prim_info string and the THERM register patch.

I think the 7457 likely doesn't need that THREM register patch, and maybe preventing booting.

iMac really started all this ROM hacking and OS 9 booting on unsupported systems with a iBook, and I think that was the 6,3, so we may end up with needing two install discs, not my preferred solution, but I doubt we can make an if case for a patch like the THERM register patch.

[darthnVader]

Ross, give this ROM a try:

[RossDarker]

Ross, give this ROM a try:

This one doesn't seem to boot for me, and another odd thing is that it doesn't show up when holding the option key as previous one did after I made that little edit, even though both have PowerBook6,3 in now.

[darthnVader]

Something gone wrong with my build env, you'll have to load the :tbxi from Open Firmware by providing the absolute path. IE:

Code: [Select]

boot hd:9,\System%20Folder\tbxi29

[RossDarker]

Working pretty good!

Originally still didn't like to boot from the internal HD, so I decided to try it on a CD-RW which was definitely formatted properly and that did work, and that also meant I was finally able to format the internal HD with drive setup and this time not over firewire from a different Mac.

Volume's all working, and after I put the graphics drivers in Extensions, the desktop background now shows the proper pattern and Bugdom starts (didn't before I put the drivers in), however Bugdom does say that no 3D accelerator was found.
And then yeah there's the brightness slider which seems to be stuck.

Another question though, should I be including the Sleeper extension and control panel on this CD like I do for the mini or is this one okay without.

[darthnVader]

Working pretty good!

Originally still didn't like to boot from the internal HD, so I decided to try it on a CD-RW which was definitely formatted properly and that did work, and that also meant I was finally able to format the internal HD with drive setup and this time not over firewire from a different Mac.

Volume's all working, and after I put the graphics drivers in Extensions, the desktop background now shows the proper pattern and Bugdom starts (didn't before I put the drivers in), however Bugdom does say that no 3D accelerator was found.
And then yeah there's the brightness slider which seems to be stuck.

Another question though, should I be including the Sleeper extension and control panel on this CD like I do for the mini or is this one okay without.

Now that you are sure you have proper OS 9 drivers, you may want to try tbxi18, as it's a better branch I've been maintaining than tbxi29.

I have big news on Sleep, I have successfully entered sleep to ram on my iBook G4( iBook6,5 )Sleeps on lid closed, sleeps on menu command, and sleeps on Energy Saver preferences.

I'm crashing on wake, but I've got some other things to try, and I'm sure one of the issues is the dodgy hack I'm using for the backlight. System enters sleep, sleep light on the front comes on and pulsates like it should, however the backlight comes back on when system enters sleep, and goes back off when we thy to enter wake.

I'd really like someone with the Mini to try this, I sold mine on some while back, we're pretty close to cracking the sleep to ram nut, as I suspected, it's USB2 and the Airport Extreme card crashing the iBook when we try to enter sleep, both can be disabled with the proper "pic-probe-mask" in Open Firmware, without disabling USB1.1.

I'll start a new thread on the sleep issues soon.

As before, you need to provide the absolute path to tbxi18.

Also, if you have OS X, I need the prim-info from you iBook G4( 6,3 )

Code: [Select]

ioreg -l | grep prim-info
If you don't have OS X installed you can get it from OF but not OS 9 as my tbxi is setting the prim-info to what works on the 6,5.

 

[RossDarker]

With tbxi18, I'm left at:

Code: [Select]

set-dfs-high, unknown word
 ok
0 >
For the prim info from the iBook:

Code: [Select]

"prim-info" = <000000ff0000006000003e8000017fb50202d607000000000001130046000220101400>

[darthnVader]

With tbxi18, I'm left at:

Code: [Select]

set-dfs-high, unknown word
 ok
0 >
For the prim info from the iBook:

Code: [Select]

"prim-info" = <000000ff0000006000003e8000017fb50202d607000000000001130046000220101400>

Looks like we have the same prim-info, so that's good, now if we can just get on the some ROM file, try this one, it should have the backlight enabled, tho for me it's inverted, you may boot up to your backlight being all the way down if your's is inverted, just try the brightness down key if you can't see anything.

[RossDarker]

This 18b one is working good, the backlight wasn't inverted as well, with the brightness keys working as normal.
Another thing, DVD player is working too with the usual patch.

[darthnVader]

This 18b one is working good, the backlight wasn't inverted as well, with the brightness keys working as normal.
Another thing, DVD player is working too with the usual patch.

That's good news, now we are using the same branch with my 6,5 and your 6,3, I just need to fix my build env so our ROM is a valid :tbxi.

If you have a chance, checkout sleep, and see if that works any better for you. You must have the latest Apple CPU Plugin in the /Extensions/Multiprocessor folder( 4.0 I think ).

And boot with this "pci-probe-mask".

Code: [Select]

setenv pci-probe-mask 0xf8fbffff
reset-all
If something goes wrong and the iBook won't boot, hold Command+Power at startup, keep holding, wait for the  Programers tone, keep holding, wait for the boot chime, keep holding, the system will enter OF with the defaults loaded.

Reset the pci-probe-mask:

Code: [Select]

setenv pci-probe-mask 0xfffffff
reset-all
Also check the device ID of your R9200, mine is 5c63, just want to make sure it's the same.

[darthnVader]

Ross,

Make sure you don't have a conflict between the R8500 3D driver, the I changed the name of the 8500 3D Driver to 9200.

If you have both in your System Folder, delete the 8500 3D driver.

[darthnVader]

Ross, is your iBook 12" or 14"?