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Author Topic: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?  (Read 11548 times)

nanopico

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Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« on: October 21, 2015, 06:37:44 AM »

In my attempt to strip apart the Mac OS ROM and System Suitcase I've stumbled across some interesting things.
One of them is that a chunk of code dealing with power management has some checks and associated string messages alerting users to a failing redundant power supply.  I found this odd as I was not aware of any mac's that had redundant power supplies until the Intel Xserve.

So does any one know if there were any PowerPC Mac's that would have possibly been supported under OS 9 or lower that contained redundant power supplies.

Side note - After digging through all this stuff I fully understand why Apple was so desperately trying to replace the Classic Mac OS.  Things are all over in that thing, with chunks of core system code in multiple places.
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Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2015, 07:45:23 AM »

There were Powerbooks that could handle 2 battery packs if you empty a CD/hard disk bay for a battery.
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nanopico

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2015, 09:06:23 AM »

That's probably what it is. I guess I haven't really seen batteries refereed to as redundant power supplies so I didn't think of them.
Though I did find a whole chunk of data referring to batteries and this redundant power supply references where in an entirely different code fragment.  That isn't surprising though as I found related code fragments in different unrelated areas.
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VictualSliver

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2015, 09:07:29 AM »

It was more then likely the apple network server it was refering to.

Http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Network_Server
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nanopico

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2015, 11:46:58 AM »

That's interesting as only AIX was supported on those machines.
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VictualSliver

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2015, 04:04:54 PM »

Maybe at one time they intended for Mac OS to run on it. Or it's there for classic mode when run on an Xserve g4.
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GaryN

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2015, 05:54:53 PM »

According to WikiP:
"As an alternative to AIX it is possible, though complicated,[5] to install PowerPC Linux or NetBSD on the ANS. It is possible, with prototype Macintosh ROMs, to boot an Apple Network Server 500 or 700 into Mac OS 7.5 or later, however Ethernet support was not complete. No reliable sources for the procedure or requirements exist."

There was evidently a LOT of leftover trash in those latter-day ROMs…
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nanopico

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2015, 07:03:31 AM »

This is becoming apparent as I'm digging through it.
The System Folder that ships with 9.2.2  contains the video drivers for the LC II still in it.  The LC II being 68k was never supported on OS 9.
I have to say the ROM and System file are littered with all sorts of code that won't ever be read/reached.  It's definitely an interesting dig.
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nanopico

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2015, 07:04:22 AM »

Also I understand the Xserve G4's did not have redundant power supplies.
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Mat

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2015, 09:59:31 AM »

associated string messages alerting users to a failing redundant power supply.
I own a G4 server, that gives me exactly this warning at every bootup. As I do not use it, I didn´t care about it much. I simply thought there must have been some BTO option or similar for such a power supply. Don´t know what it was originally as a Sonnet 1,2 GHz is inside at the moment.
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IIO

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2015, 07:43:31 PM »

thats right, there were some "server" desktops, too, like a 9600 and a 500 Mhz digital-audio-like G4, but i´ve never hard of an option to add a redundant PSU - is there even enough space in the cases?
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nanopico

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2015, 10:05:27 AM »

I'm guessing it may have been early code that was abandoned for the AIX back from the System 7 days.  There are a lot of resources in there for that kind of stuff.
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mattgert

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2016, 09:04:57 PM »

I just got a Power Macintosh Server G4 (400MHz) a couple days back.  It has a redundant power supply.  It has an output of 155W.  If you look past the fan there is a green LED that is lit - I assume it either goes out or turns red if there is an issue with one side.  Apparently if there is a failure it reports the error to the console in Mac OS X server.  It is a Delta with a green label - 614-0096 DTPS-155AB A REV00
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MacOS Plus

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2016, 09:50:18 PM »

  Wow, that's a weird one!  I'd never heard about that for the G4 tower.  The strangest thing about it is that it's all in one permanent casing.  Every redundant supply I've ever seen had physically separate supplies which could be swapped out independently.  It seems kind of goofy to have a redundant power supply that has to be replaced completely if half of it fails, nor can it be hot-swapped in the event of a failure.  How exactly would it communicate its status to the operating system though?

  Which version of the G4 motherboard is this power supply for?  I need a power supply for a Gigabit Ethernet board, so it would be kinda cool to get such a beast for it.
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IIO

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Re: Any one know of a PowerPC Mac with redundant power supplies?
« Reply #14 on: December 30, 2016, 12:18:43 PM »

This is becoming apparent as I'm digging through it.
The System Folder that ships with 9.2.2  contains the video drivers for the LC II still in it.  The LC II being 68k was never supported on OS 9.
I have to say the ROM and System file are littered with all sorts of code that won't ever be read/reached.  It's definitely an interesting dig.

it makes MacOS9 the perfect companion for Cubase^^
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