Mac OS 9 Lives
General => Off Topic => Topic started by: DieHard on November 17, 2020, 08:51:10 AM
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Best use of a G4 Case (besides owning a G4)...
Here is the link for more pictures and the info:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/ju3mha/1999_apple_power_mac_g4_converted_into_a_gaming/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/postimages/G4GamerPC.png)
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Nice case. Though I admit I’m at the point where I don’t want to touch a computer unless it’s beige ;D
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Still Looking pretty!! ;D
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Best use of a G4 Case (besides owning a G4)...
I wish I could do the same easily on a MDD case.
I think I will put a RaspberryPI4 or something similar into that empty MDD. (Or maybe an Mac Mini M1 once they are useless for Hype in 2023-2024) and they become the Mac Mini Core Solo ;D in Apple ecosystem.
I have a G3 B&W than could accept a miniITX-miniATX board now that I accepted that the only good thing on G3B&W Rev.1 was the box.
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Wow!
Nice case. Though I admit I’m at the point where I don’t want to touch a computer unless it’s beige ;D
My 2 Gigabit Ethernet suddenly feel *beige*... :)
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I have to say, I'm really not fond of case mods or gutting old computers to just shove generic PC parts in them, and doing both compounds the feeling of disrespect.
If my Sawtooth's motherboard ever does stop booting, though, and there aren't any GigE motherboards left on the market, I might just shove a Blackbird in it to continue on the POWER legacy (even if it's not PowerPC). I don't anticipate that happening for at least another 10 years, though, even longer once I recap it, replace the power supply with an 80+ Gold (only the best after a long working life,) and switch out the fans, so who knows if the BB will even be still for sale then.
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I might just shove a Blackbird in it to continue on the POWER legacy (even if it's not PowerPC).
Oh, rest assured, POWER9 is PowerPC. Like, literally. There is indeed a separate POWER ISA, but the only processors that ever supported it were the original POWER (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER1), POWER2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER2) and POWER3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER3). From what I understand, POWER3 supported both POWER ISA and PowerPC ISA.
POWER4 onwards are all pure PowerPC processors, and are no longer POWER. This includes the POWER9 present in the Blackbird. What happened is that the PowerPC ISA got, confusingly, renamed to POWER ISA. But it's all the very same architecture, with new instructions making their way in newer ISA versions, but without kicking out older ones (AFAIK).
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I might just shove a Blackbird in it to continue on the POWER legacy (even if it's not PowerPC).
Oh, rest assured, POWER9 is PowerPC. Like, literally. ...
POWER4 onwards are all pure PowerPC processors, and are no longer POWER. This includes the POWER9 present in the Blackbird. What happened is that the PowerPC ISA got, confusingly, renamed to POWER ISA. But it's all the very same architecture, with new instructions making their way in newer ISA versions, but without kicking out older ones (AFAIK).
Interesting! And IIRC, 970 did kick out a few instructions, which is part of why OS 9 won't run on them. X throws them to an exception handler. This is what I heard from Cameron, anyway...
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I might just shove a Blackbird in it to continue on the POWER legacy (even if it's not PowerPC).
Oh, rest assured, POWER9 is PowerPC. Like, literally. ...
POWER4 onwards are all pure PowerPC processors, and are no longer POWER. This includes the POWER9 present in the Blackbird. What happened is that the PowerPC ISA got, confusingly, renamed to POWER ISA. But it's all the very same architecture, with new instructions making their way in newer ISA versions, but without kicking out older ones (AFAIK).
Interesting! And IIRC, 970 did kick out a few instructions, which is part of why OS 9 won't run on them. X throws them to an exception handler. This is what I heard from Cameron, anyway...
Hm, I think the processor differences that prevent OS 9 from booting out-of-the-box in G5s come from things other than the actual ISA (the mnemonics and opcodes) per se, but I could be wrong, especially since I'm no expert on the subject. Here (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,5531.msg41116.html#msg41116) we have a post that seems to show the probable actual reason, or one of the reasons.
As for the actual instructions in the ISA, if we look at v3.0B (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/w/images/c/cb/PowerISA_public.v3.0B.pdf) (POWER9, according to Raptor (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Power_ISA)), between pages 1237 and 1255 of the PDF file (between pages 1219 and 1237 of the actual document), we have the list of OpCodes (instructions), mnemonics and the version of the ISA that introduced the instruction. We even see some POWER1 and POWER2 inheritance, as expected, since PowerPC was born out of merging POWER, Motorola 88k and Apple requests (related to the 68k?). Anyway, if we do some cross-referencing of that between the equivalent in v2.01 (G5) and earlier versions of the ISA, then we will be able to know for sure if anything got left out or not, instruction-wise.
Sounds like something to be done on a rainy weekend...