I'm posting this on all 3 Mac communities I put the original post in, because it's that much of a big deal.
Many of us know System 7.1.2 was the first ever version of Mac OS to support PowerPC-based Macintoshes...
... Yet we couldn't go below System 7.5. Until a day ago:
Rairii just released not only an update to his System Enabler for System 7.5 ~ Mac OS 7.6.1, but also a separate patching effort of the same System Enabler to get System 7.1.x booting.
So this achievement alone is BEYOND newsworthy...
... But it doesn't stop there. No.
You'd think a PURE 68k OS wouldn't boot in PowerPC in bare-metal:
System 7.1.1...
... And System 7.1.
"To boldly go where no PowerMac has ever gone before."
This is precisely what we theorized earlier, and the thoughts we entertained: with Apple's 68k emulator residing in the Mac OS ROM file, we now have the LATEST version of said 68k-to-PPC CPU instruction converter, making ALL OF 68k run as if it was no different than a Java runtime, with "68k bytecode", if you will.
A whole OS done that way.And guess what? System 7.1 is so light, so fast, I cannot even SEE the "Welcome to Power Macintosh" screen or any of the Extensions loading, because they all just load INSTANTLY. If you blink for even a moment, you WILL miss all of it.
It got to the point that the OS is so light, what takes the "longest" to load is the Mac OS ROM itself! You know that finished loading after you are past the Happy Mac part.
Anyway... There some points about these achievements I'd like to clarify:
- The OSes seem to pair with the Finder as follows: System 7.1 Finder 7.1, System 7.1.1 Finder 7.1.3, System 7.1.2 (and 7.1.2P) Finder 7.1.4. Note that System 7.5 is also paired with Finder 7.1.4;
- Systems 7.1.1 ~ 7.1.2P aren't able to run their Finders (crash+reopen Finder eternal loop), but if we swap them in with Finder 7.1, it all works, which is how I took those screenshots (Rairii figured this out first, as well);
- Systems 7.1.1 comes with its various own "System Enablers". You must delete them first so they don't intervene with Rairii's Enabler, as it's all System 7.1.1 needs. If you don't, you will see this instead. If you do, and please correct me if I'm mistaken, it seems like Rairii's Enabler gets its Resource Fork updated to also error out like this even after you got rid of the other, pesky enablers (I did an MD5 check for both forks to confirm). So if that happens, unpack Rairii's Enabler anew and discard the old one;
- System 7.1.2 (7.1.2P untested) is just like 7.1.1 in that it comes with its own Enabler that you need to get rid of first, in order not to face the same issue. In this case, it's called the "PowerPC Enabler";
- I could boot all these OSes with all Extensions on. I did get this and this as warning messages, though, after boot, at least with System 7.1.2;
- Funnily enough, System 7.5 has the same Finder 7.1.4 as System 7.1.2(P), but there are no issues with it there. Likewise, System 7.1.2(P) is fine with a different Finder. The problem only materializes when both are present simultaneously, but not individually. Incidentally, Finder 7.1.3 on System 7.1.2(P) will also have the same issue, as will the Finder that came with System 7.5, hence why we settle for Finder 7.1 (there are no Finder version 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 that I could find).
I think that's about it. So to highlight one of the interesting features of e.g. System 7.1.2P, it is the latest version of the OS that is still able to format disks as MFS. Nearly all of the later System 7 versions can both read from and write to existing MFS disks, but not format one anew. (So a Mac mini G4 CD for 7.1.2P could, one day, be theoretically cool to have. It is also a relatively popular System 7 version choice by many.)
There's also one more thing: Personally, I never really coexisted much with Mac OS before the System 7.5.x era. So I can't say what should be or should not be working at this point anymore... And I could use more people exploring this together with me. But what I can say is that System 7.1.x was almost as stable as the 7.5 and later counterparts on the Mac mini G4 1.5 GHz model (this hardware is so overkill). Most apps ran, but some, such as "The Teleporting Inchworm" (my personal choice of basic System features benchmark in this project) no longer runs (and freezes the OS). But maybe it was never meant to run on System 7.1 to begin with?
Some might now be wondering, "What about System 7.0 and 7.0.1?". From what I understood, System 7.1.x used a different "format" for its System Enablers compared to 7.5.x and 7.6.x, which is why we now have 2 different Enablers, but it seems no version of Mac OS before 7.1 is even aware of System Enabler files at all! (So-called "gibblies" or "gbly" type.)
So... yeah. Only time can tell what happens or not after this!
As always, many thanks to Rairii for yet another groundbreaking update! The latest enablers can be found in his GitHub project page, as per usual, which are also mirrored here in the Garden for both archival and easier access from Mac OS itself. Make sure to check the release notes for details. This time around, the Mac OS ROMs are the same as the previous release, so nothing new there to think about.
