I'm Stephan.

I spent most of my childhood on DOS and Windows and then switched to Linux for my main PC about a year into the Windows XP era, but the Mac SE with an AEK or AEK II that my father would bring home from work sometimes stuck in my mind. (I'm still trying to identify the trackball)

About two years ago, I got a Quicksilver 2002 on the KVM switch in my retro-hobby corner (and later picked up a, sadly currently out-of-order Mini G4 installed with Ross's CD v9 on the KVM switch on my main desk), and I can confirm that there's just something about the polish of classic Mac OS UI/UX that makes it special, above and beyond the elegance of things like resource forks. (And that Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (1992) is the most "embody what you're teaching" UI/UX book in existence. Anyone who's only ever seen the digital copies really need to hold the print version at least once for the full effect.)

(By contrast, OSX is not fit for purpose, being Apple's demonstration that they know how to make both Mac OS and UNIX boring in one fell swoop... which is why I rarely turn on the 2009 Macbook or the 2010 iMac I received as hand-me-downs.)

If I can get my hobby time in order, I have plans to learn Toolbox programming so I can extend my enjoyment of writing utilities to classic Mac OS. Maybe a sibling for my Linux equivalent to tools like WinSplit Revolution, Spectacle, and Rectangle. I have yet to find one of those for classic Mac OS.

I'd have showed up sooner, but the CHRP System 7 support for New World Macs was the kick in the butt I needed. (I'll be sharing my results so far with the QS2002 in a bit.)

EDIT: ...and yes, I recognize that I've never been good at introducing myself.

Quote from: fergycool on November 30, 2025, 07:07:48 AM

I'm afraid I can confirm, at least on a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini, the mouse freezing issue is still there. Oh well :-)

Y'know, I have to comment on this again: by now I must have rebooted the mini from 50 to 100 times since the new ROM, and the mouse freeze glitch bug did not happen even once.

But I think I'm closer to understanding what's going on: @fergycool, if you can and are willing to try, assuming from now on you only use the 10.2.1 ROM for the mini, can you zap the NVRAM and then see if you ever get it ever again?

Thank you. I will certainly do that and keep rebooting and see if it the frozen mouse issue has gone. Fingers crossed!

Just for general (helpful) and pertinent info...
What specific model of G4 is dkatz referring to?

And, how is it actually configured? Original CPU or upgraded,
total RAM, etc.? Twenty-one posts and no such info so far?

I’d suggest noting the specific G4 info under Profile Signature
in order to help others possibly assist with questions about
hardware limitations, printers, other configs, etc. 

Quote from: jjuran on December 04, 2025, 07:00:23 PM

I use Metrowerks C++ 2.4.1 from CodeWarrior Pro 6.3, by way of MPW's ToolServer, driven by Apple event from MacRelix.  Some of my code also builds with CW Pro 4 (the last version hosted on 68K).  I've written my own post-linkers (which run in MacRelix) to remove the dependency on StripAddress() in Metrowerks' runtime code.

Git 2.2.2 indeed ships with MacRelix.  I wouldn't recommend using it with massive repositories like metamage_1.git (except natively in Mac OS X), but it should be fine with small repos.

Hey, great to have you here as well, @jjuran! Thanks for porting Git to Mac OS 9 one way or another.

Just an idea, but do you think you could record a short video capture of this whole process? I would love to see it in action! I think it'd also encourage people to use Git and your other ideas on Mac OS more, that's an excellent workflow.

Two questions:  (a) How much of the process do you have in mind?  It's all very well to install MacRelix, run it, and even create a Git repo, but it's another thing entirely to set up the CodeWarrior/MPW environment that the build system depends on.  It really just needs to be automated...

Well, you did say "a short video", so I guess that's just watching the build happen.

(b) How do you recommend recording a video?  Back in 2012 when I made the FORGE demo[1], I ran SheepShaver in Debian and used ffmpeg with the x11grab input mode.  For the MacPaint screencast[2], I used my own recording facility built into xv68k and a tool to convert the result to MP4.

If I had a build of SheepShaver that could connect to an AMS front end, I'd use that.  Alternatively, I might write something that records from within Mac OS in a VBL task, and writes to a file on the extfs volume.  That won't happen right away, though.

FORGE:  Hello World
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgivHy-oC2g

MacPaint in Advanced Mac Substitute
[2] https://www.v68k.org/advanced-mac-substitute/video/MacPaint-in-AMS.mp4

@ELN replied from his GitHub. I will share the response here so that it can be read easily from a Mac OS computer:

Hi! No, I never did make a patch script for the RAM increase.

The reason is that I was never quite happy with that patch.

This would be the outline of a more elegant approach:

    1. Leave the fixed-address memory areas in place (they are all tied in with the NanoKernel and 68k Emulator).
    2. Create NanoKernel "areas" that fill all the unused address space ranges up to 2 GB.
    3. Make the Process Manager heap extend all the way to 2 GB.
    4. Carefully place a nonrelocatable heap block around each fixed-address memory area.

I agree with @ELN, there's definitely more room for us to try even better than last time... Of course, easier said than done, but as they say, "where there's a will, there's a way".

I wish I could personally contribute, but I (currently) utterly suck at disassembly, reverse engineering and such. (I will try to (slowly) make my way there nonetheless...)

In the past, I somehow made hard drives that were larger than system 9 would allow, but formatting them, on an X computer, into partitions that were small enoug.
This worked.
But, I just tried the same thing with a new drive I bought (ion box new G drive). It has 2 TB, so I divided it up into 8 partitions...but it won't show up on my G4 running 9. Anyone know how to get around this..there are a lot of formatting initializing options, and I'm not sure which is the best.

2 TB divided by 8 for 8 partitions total, if evenly-sized, means 256 GB per partition. But the absolute limit to boot a Mac OS 9.2.2 partition with the latest Mac OS 10.2.1 ROM file is 190 GB (or was it 189 GB? 180 GB? I get these 3 values mixed up.)

Just make sure to keep one of your 8 partitions a bit smaller to get under that limit. Personally, I use 30 GB as my Mac OS 9.2.2 booting partition, whereas ALL the rest goes into a 2nd partition containing any file that does not need to reside in the Mac OS partition. That 2nd partition can be ANY SIZE that is below 2 TB, Mac OS 9.2.2 can use it fully and perfectly once the OS is booted.

... Now this begs the question... How do we hack around the 10.2.1 ROM so that we can boot from partitions bigger than 190 GB... And from drives whose partition map is bigger than 2 TB...? It must be rather an attainable goal, probably much easier than reaching 2 GB max RAM...

Method #1…

1) From the HP support site, get the "generic Postscript driver" and install it into the printer.
2) Load up the Mac Laserwriter 8 driver into the computer. If you don't have it, get it from MacGarden.
3) Now, connect the computer to the printer with a USB cable. Sorry, no EZ Wi-Fi printing in OS9.
*Since you didn't specify exactly which G4 you have, you might not have a USB port on the G4. If so: Find (on ebay probably) a USB2 PCI card to add one. Note it will be seen as and will operate at USB1 speed only in OS9.
4) Spit into the wind, chant Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and see if it works.

Method #2

1) Add OSX to the G4… either 10.4 or 10.5
2) Do steps #1 and #2 above.
3a) If you don't have an Airport card, find one and install it in the G4. (That would be the original Airport - may be hard to find). OR……
3b) If it's not already, connect the G4 to your router with an Ethernet cable. (Much easier)
Now you can print anything from either OS using OSX. Yes, OS9 printing will require a reboot. No big deal if it's only occasional printing. If you need it a lot, Method #1 is the better way to go.

Disclaimer: It's late and I'm still up. I'm 90% sure I got all of the above correct……

I have a newer printer, that I use with myMac Studio.
HP M501.
When I've tried to add to my 9.2 running G4, it won't show up at all.
Is there some way to get around to this.
I still have my HP 5100 that runs in 9, and it's great, but it was built in 2007 and I worry about wearing it out. I would love to be able to use it for only when I'm printing scores on 11 X 17 paper, which I only do a little of, and doing everything else on the newer printer, as to avoid putting too much wear and tear on the old one.

In the past, I somehow made hard drives that were larger than system 9 would allow, but formatting them, on an X computer, into partitions that were small enoug.
This worked.
But, I just tried the same thing with a new drive I bought (ion box new G drive). It has 2 TB, so I divided it up into 8 partitions...but it won't show up on my G4 running 9. Anyone know how to get around this..there are a lot of formatting initializing options, and I'm not sure which is the best.

@Steve_W

You’re having us on just a bit about “sunny” Margate? (I checked current weather.)

Appreciate you documenting your upcoming journey with the 1.33 GHz Mac mini.
(Hope that it works out, as it could be quite interesting.)

And, btw nice to see that avi of yours popping up again after so long.
(Last post from you was September of 2022.)

Laissez les bons temps rouler!