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[indibil]

Hi, I have a question for OS9 library experts. I have a Pismo that I swapped from a G3 to a G4 7410@500MHz CPU. I was recently reviewing some Sonnet PDFs, and the CPU upgrades for Power Mac 7600s are listed as follows:

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/crescendo_pci_g3_or_g4_manual.pdf


2. Install Sonnet Software
Insert the Crescendo/Encore Install diskette into
the floppy disk drive drive. Double click the
Crescendo/Encore Install icon. By default, with
“Easy Install” selected from the pop-up menu,
the required software will be installed into the
active System Folder on the boot drive. If this is
ok, click the Install button; otherwise, select
“Custom Install” from the pop-up menu for
more options or select another drive to install
the software. The installer will install the appro-
priate software into the System Folder of your
computer. If the installation was successful, a
dialog box will appear. Click Quit to leave the
installer and shut down your computer.
3. Install Crescendo/PCI G4
Remove the current processor card from your
computer’s Processor Card Slot and install the
Crescendo/PCI G4 processor upgrade card.
4. Rerun the Mac OS 9.x Install
Application
The Mac OS 9.x Install application will only
install AltiVec libraries into your System Folder if
a G4 processor is present in your computer dur-
ing the Mac OS installation process. As a result,
you will need to rerun the installer to install the
AltiVec libraries.

From this, I deduce that to take advantage of the Altivec on the 7410, I'd have to reinstall OS9, but if I knew what those libraries were, simply adding them would work. Is that correct? What extensions should I copy from the Power Mac G4 installation and add to the Pismo to save myself the reinstallation?

Thanks.

[indibil]

up!

[Mat]

I am sorry, I cannot help.

Just wanted to leave a message that I read your posting, and I am as well interrested what the exact answer is. For example I alsothink there are "special" mobile stuff that is installed - corresponding to your hardware.

In the end it might be the case that someone would have to install twice freshly, once with the original G3, once with the G4 upgrade and compare the fresh installations, …

[laulandn]

I have such a G4 card in my 7600, and the manual states exactly what you mentioned:  If you already have MacOS 9 installed, you must install it AGAIN after you've installed the card, because the Altivec libraries only install if a G4 is present.

I don't know exactly which files these are, or if it might be possible to find them on an existing copy of MacOS 9 installed on a G4 and copy them over or not.  Because I didn't want to bother figuring this out, I just did what the manual said, just to be safe.

I just took a look at the System Folder on a actual graphite G4 running 9.2.2, and didn't see anything in Extensions that looked likely, but it's possible with 9.2.2 the libraries are built into either the rom or the System file, and not separate like they might be on 9.0 or 9.1.

[Knezzen]

I've never heard of specific G4 Altivec extensions for Mac OS. The only thing that comes to mind is LibMoto, the "optimized" floating-point library for Motorola PowerPC CPUs , but after 1997 or so, the major compilers (CodeWarrior, GCC, etc.) and the "standard libraries" caught up performance-wise, so it's not really applicable for anything past Mac OS 8.1 or so.


LIBMOTO for PowerPC

[robespierre]

Any operating system running on a G4 needs to have code to save and restore the vector register file when it is being used by a task. It's not just a matter of "libraries".

[Knezzen]

Well, that's not a file as a file on your desktop, more of a register. And that register is used by the compiler to optimize the code on compilation if you're writing stuff in high-lever languages (anything other than assembly, more or less).

So any OS running on a G4 doesn't *need* to be able to "understand" the specific G4 (Altivec) or any other SMID. But if it does (as in, it has been compiled to use the "faster" SMID registers), it will run faster.

There's always (more or less at least) a set of "standard" routines for any given architecture that makes them backwards compatible. You can choose to omit them of course (like Apple did with OSX Leopard since it requires Altivec to even boot), but it's always done when developing and compiling the specific application.

[Windoze]

That is not true. The registers need to be saved and restored on every task switch.
If the OS doesn't understand the Altivec registers the applications would crash pretty fast.

[Knezzen]

Aha. I always thought it was agnostic in terms of AltiVecs be or not be, since a G4 runs system 7 just fine given you have a supported machine with a G4 upgrade. Same with the ”accelerated for G4” branded applications that where released shortly after the introduction of the G4 (the AltiVec extension for Photoshop 5.5 comes to mind).

I guess you learn something new every day

[robespierre]

Yes, of course. The sizes of the task/process structures and interrupt contexts must also be enlarged, to have somewhere to save it to. I wouldn't be surprised if the changes are to the NuKernel itself.

[laulandn]

Yeah, something must exist, since the manual explicitly mentions it, and, as correctly pointed out, maintaining thread, task, and interrupt state requires it.  Even if you don't care about MultiProcessing (ie what little multitasking exists on MacOS 9), interrupts need to save and restore the cpu state properly.

Since we can't find files, it must either be in the ROM file or in System or hidden away in some other file.  On a beige (aka old world) Mac, the ROM file isn't used, so it is most likely inside System, etc.  robespierre is right, the nanokernel is likely patched, I'd be shocked if it wasn't.

Regardless, not worth the trouble of trying to find and "copy it", you are far safer just doing a reinstall on top of your existing MacOS 9 as the manual suggests.

[indibil]

Thanks for the replies, so I gather Sonnet simplified it by talking about libraries, but it's a bit more complex, so when I have time I'll reinstall OS9.