Author Topic: Mac Os 9 booting on: G4 Tower MDD FW800 (Detailed Posts)  (Read 241895 times)

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #75 on: April 01, 2014, 05:18:37 AM »
according to this site http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/clfs/view/svn/ppc/appendices/macmiscellany.html open firmware can be changed by an install of osx. so maybe we just have to find the right osx version that lets us boot os9?
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Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #76 on: April 01, 2014, 08:10:04 AM »
also apparently any linux install will install yaboot (boot loader) into open firmware as well. maybe we can try to install linux on a fw800 and from yaboot we get the option to boot os9?

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Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #77 on: April 01, 2014, 10:28:05 AM »
also apparently any linux install will install yaboot (boot loader) into open firmware as well. maybe we can try to install linux on a fw800 and from yaboot we get the option to boot os9?
Yaboot is installed on the hard disk not in firmware and it can't load Mac Os 9 AFAIK :(
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supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #78 on: April 01, 2014, 10:48:44 AM »
also apparently any linux install will install yaboot (boot loader) into open firmware as well. maybe we can try to install linux on a fw800 and from yaboot we get the option to boot os9?
Yaboot is installed on the hard disk not in firmware and it can't load Mac Os 9 AFAIK :(


Quote
packages: deblocker, disk-label, obp-tftp, telnet, mac-parts, mac-files, hfs-plus-files, fat-files, iso-9660-files, bootinfo-loader, xcoff-loader, pre-loader, elf-loader, usb-his-class, usb-ms-class, usb-audio-class, sbp2-disk, ata-disk, atapi-disk, bootpath-search, terminal-emulator
if u look carefully it seems the rom has a "toolkit" of certain software packages built into itself..
this yaboot seems to be one of them, it would have to be independant of the disk because u can stilll
use this command to boot from a usb drive with no hard drive or mac os 9 "install" installed
these packages seem to be neccessary to be independant of the drives contents and
barebones essentials for being able to function and access files + boot

we know aliases is a section with keynames referring to hardware devices for easy reference in typed commands
but what about "options" ?  i wonder what is stored there.. or if theres a way to list these options the same way that you would list the aliases with the "Devalias" command that was referred to in the usb article..  heres another one

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060301112336384

maybe this "Bootinfo-loader" package simply was altered to remove the code that boots mac os 9.
its probably a simple 1 line of code that is disabling it from working .. thats all that would be necessary to "disable" the boot

lokki: check this out for a bit more info:
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEcQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeople.ffii.org%2F~zoobab%2Fbh.udev.org%2Ffilez%2Fapple%2Fmac6100%2FBootX.pdf&ei=Yv06U8akB4Kj2QXe54CACA&usg=AFQjCNGpzbOkWJT-alUgTOqtxsdflzwsKg&sig2=P8AvZQFALaj58djJ0ijZUg
Quote

The Macintosh has used a more or less unchanged boot mechanism for over a decade. Even
with initial introduction of OpenFirmware, little changed. The advent of the iMac, and later Mac OS
X, has altered the boot sequence significantly. This paper contains a cursory look at OpenFirmware,
the booting mechanisms used by various operating systems that run on the Power Macintosh (such
as Linux, NetBSD and OpenBSD), as well as the different booting mechanics of several generations
of Macintosh hardware. Particular emphasis will be paid to the boot process of Mac OS X (from the
firmware up to early kernel initialization) and its bootloader, BootX.

http://www.dialectronics.com/Words/OF_Part_I.shtml
http://www.dialectronics.com/Words/OF_Part_II.shtml
Quote
The child nodes under /packages are specific support packages necessary for bootstrapping an operating system.

http://www.openfirmware.org/1275/mejohnson/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware
from a quick read it seems to code openfirmware u need to be familiar with
a language called Forth.. "Open Firmware may be accessed through its Forth language shell interface"

and or perhaps its subdivision called "macforth"
http://www.amazon.com/MacFORTH-Programming-hands-introduction-programming/dp/B00071QF1K
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 09:23:01 AM by chrisNova777 »

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #79 on: April 01, 2014, 12:23:21 PM »
also apparently any linux install will install yaboot (boot loader) into open firmware as well. maybe we can try to install linux on a fw800 and from yaboot we get the option to boot os9?

but if the linux installation process is somehow able to modify the openfirmare rom there must be a way to give it the normal "mac os 9 booting" version of the rom aswell.
if the rom is indeed a normal bios chip.. there should be a way to flash it like any other computer..

perhaps if Linux was installed on BOTH machines, we could use some type of linux program to copy the rom contents to a file..
and then copy the rom to the fw800 machine and use the same rom linux utility to flash the rom!!!!!!

we know the rom is flashable.. or apple would never have released firmware updates!!!!
first step
we need to find a program capable of copying the contents of the rom to a file
whether this app is in osx or linux.. is the question

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #80 on: April 01, 2014, 01:04:06 PM »
The linux way goes to nowhere. Yaboot is chained to BootX.
BootX instead of load Mac Os ROM it load Yaboot, and Yaboot load Linux or Mac Os X but no Mac Os 9.

This is a summary of the classic Mac OS boot process for New World machines. ( all the G4 family and others...)

1. Machine runs low level initialization

(Boot chime)

2. OpenFirmware is started (built the device tree)

3. OpenFirmware looks for a "boot-device" (a default is stored in the firmware)

4. OpenFirmware loads a file of type ’tbxi’ "Mac OS Rom" from the partition (in a blessed System Folder)

5. Mac OS Rom is started
6. Mac OS Rom starts Mac OS

So the key point is 4.
The first thing to check is boot-device command to see if a boot path is correct.
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Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #81 on: April 01, 2014, 01:14:45 PM »
i already did point 4. changed boot-device manually (in openfirmware) to point to the os9 partition. no luck so far.
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supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #82 on: April 01, 2014, 02:42:53 PM »
http://www.firmworks.com/QuickRef.html

i really think even if we type the command right and do everything right with openfirmware
as outlined here: https://sites.google.com/site/shawnhcorey/howto-boot-apple-powerpcs-from-a-usb-drive-in-open-firmware
its just gonna "not work" because at a core lower level they have disabled this.. like a lamp thats been unplugged from the wall
it COULD work.. if we could just plug it in.. but we dont know how;) so its almost easier to worry about reading the contents of the rom to a file
if we could at least get a hex dump of the rom we could see about flashing the fw400 firmware onto the fw800..
guaranteed thats where this "disable" code is.. the only other palce it could be is actually embedded into a secondary bios chip but i think we
would know about any hardware differences beetween the two models.. and there are none? except for the fw800 port..
guaranteed these machines are capable of booting os9 with the right rom file flashed!!!!!!
when i enter openfirmware on my powermac g3 it says:
Code: [Select]
openfirmware 3.1.1what does your mac say for
Code: [Select]
dev /rom/boot-rom .properties
my powermac g3 450mhz says: (partial result i didnt type it all out)
Code: [Select]
name boot-rom
write-characteristic flash
model powermac1,1 version 1.1f4 built on 04/09/99 @ time
BootROM-version
BootROM-build-date
result
info

but right there.. to me the fact it says "write-characteristic : Flash" means this can be backed up, copied + overwritten same as any other bios chip on a pc

this page has some more examples on booting:
http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi/man?ofwboot+8.macppc+NetBSD-current

Quote
boot [boot-device [boot-file]] [options]
boot-device  primary bootloader location
boot-file    kernel location
options      flags passed to the kernel (see below)

so u can specify the "boot-file" on which "boot-device" and also give additional "options"
has anyone tried
Code: [Select]
boot hd:,macos.rom \\:tbxiwith the macos.rom on the hard drive , i guess in the root?
if the macos.rom is even the boot-file
if it is the boot-file perhaps u would write:
Code: [Select]
boot hd:,\System Folder\Mac OS ROM \\:tbxiand see if it boots normally

i just tried this.. and got an error saying "cant open macos.rom" obviously because i dont have the file on my hard drive.
can someone try this?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_ROM
Quote
New World ROM Macs are the first Macs where direct usage of the Open Firmware (OF) subsystem is encouraged. Previous PCI Power Macs used Open Firmware for booting, but the implementation was not complete; in these machines OF was only expected to probe PCI devices, then immediately hand control over to the Mac OS ROM. Because of this, versions 1.0.5 and 2.x had several serious bugs, as well as missing functionality (such as being able to load files from a HFS partition or a TFTP server). Apple also set the default input and output devices to ttya (the modem port on beige Macs), which made it difficult for normal users to get to Open Firmware; to do so it was necessary to either hook up a terminal, or change the Open Firmware settings from inside Mac OS using a tool such as Boot Variables or Apple's System Disk.

The New World ROM introduced a much-improved version of the Open Firmware interpreter, version 3.0, which added many missing features, fixed most of the bugs from earlier versions, and had the capability to run CHRP boot scripts. The Toolbox ROM was embedded inside a CHRP script in the System Folder called "Mac OS ROM", along with a short loader stub and a copy of the Happy Mac icon suitable for display from Open Firmware. Once the ROM was loaded from disk, the Mac boot sequence continued as usual. As before, Open Firmware could also run a binary boot loader, and version 3.0 added support for ELF objects as well as the XCOFF files versions 1.0.5 and 2.0 supported. Also, version 3.0 (as well as some of the last releases of version 2.x, starting with the PowerBook 3400) officially supported direct access to the Open Firmware command prompt from the console (by setting the auto-boot? variable to false from Mac OS, or by holding down Command-Option-O-F at boot).

One major difference between Old World ROM Macs and New World ROM Macs, at least in classic Mac OS, is that the Gestalt selector for the machine type is no longer usable; all New World ROM Macs use the same mach ID, 406 decimal, and the actual machine ID is encoded in the "model" and "compatible" properties of the root node of the Open Firmware device tree. The New World ROM also sets the "compatible" property of the root node to "MacRISC2" (machines that can boot classic Mac OS using "Mac OS ROM") or "MacRISC3" (machines that can only boot OS X or another Unix-like system).

It is somewhat easier to boot a non-Mac-OS operating system on a New World system, and indeed OpenBSD's bootloader only works on a New World system.

The simplest way to distinguish a New World ROM Mac is that it will have a factory built-in USB port. No Old World ROM Mac had a USB port as factory equipment; instead, they used ADB for keyboard and mouse, and mini-DIN-8 "modem" and "printer" serial ports for other peripherals. Also, New World ROM Macs generally do not have a built-in floppy drive.

CHRP boot scripts?
https://www.google.ca/search?q=CHRP+boot+scripts&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb&gfe_rd=ctrl&ei=jzg7U-SQNYfAqAX084CYAQ&gws_rd=cr

booting with yaboot:
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/doc/yaboot-howto.html/index.en.html#contents

also note: there are two versions of 'bootX', one only compatible with oldworld macs, and one for macosx, two programs, with same name
http://penguinppc.org/bootloaders/
Quote
BootX

BootX is a Mac OS-based bootloader which is only usable on Old World Power Macs. It requires a bootable Mac OS installation.
The Mac OS X bootloader is also called BootX. These are very different programs written by different people, with an unfortunate namespace collision.

also:
http://www.downtowndougbrown.com/category/mac-rom-hacking/
this guy was able to hack the rom somehow to change the start up sound ..
if hes able to do that..

http://www.gla.ac.uk/~gwm1h/macos9/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/~gwm1h/macos9/Z-G4_FirmwareUpdate_2.4.smi.hqx

so what is it that this file updates when run?
does it update just the macos.rom part?
or the entire /rom portion of openfirmware?
is it:
a) openfirmware version itself
b) the boot-rom within the openfirmware rom
c) the macos rom within the openfirmware rom
or
d) the mac os rom within the harddrive


« Last Edit: April 01, 2014, 06:29:10 PM by chrisNova777 »

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #83 on: April 01, 2014, 04:52:15 PM »
i guess if i want to explore reading the rom to a file somehow..
im going to have to install linux.. not sure if my powermac g3 will be able to handle ubuntu but giving it a shot now.. latest version is 14.x
http://mirror.vorboss.net/ubuntu-releases//trusty/ but theres no powerpc image there so

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/release/ubuntu-12.04-desktop-powerpc.iso
apparently u can boot up with just this cd without actually writing the os to your drive
maybe thats enough to try to download a utility to read the rom file?


supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #84 on: April 01, 2014, 05:23:22 PM »
i inserted ubuntu cd, typed this into openfirmware:
Code: [Select]
boot cd:,\install\yabootand its booting;)

i did notice it said "Loading ELF" aswell

now i bet it takes 3 hrs to load off the cd;) lol
but its booting ubuntu 12.04! on my g3 450mhz

update:its *REAL* slow running off the cd tho..
probably better to install it to a compact flash or ssd
but it looks pretty freaking cool! :)

update:im trying v5.x of ubuntu now to see if its a leaner + liter version 12.04 had alot
of ui + "eye candy" efects that were too much for my
radeon 7000 + g3;)

update: 5.x ubuntu version didnt boot up correctly.. left me at a black screen with a pointer + seems hung now..
so dont use ubuntu 5

update: trying version 10
http://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/ubuntu-dvd/ports/releases/10.04/release/ubuntu-10.04-desktop-powerpc.iso

update: version 10 appears to boot up nicely... its alot more responsive + usable on the g3 450mhz then 12 was.. its probably alot better when installed off a compact flash or ssd or even a hard drive (not booting from cd)

re: flashing the bios
apparently u can install FREEDOS fromwithin linux
and use updflash.exe to read + write bios updates
at least u can on a normal pc..
wouldnt that be cool if it works;)
seeing windows help mac os out via linux LOL

would be alot simpler if anyone knew of a utility for OSX that could read/write to the flash rom
maybe it might be possible to do all of this via nvram command directly in openfirmware interface if we knew how to write a script to do this

Quote
"Other Open Firmware settings can be changed using the nvram command while the system software is running." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware
if this lets u write to the flash ram to save settings then maybe its possible to open a file on the harddrive and load it as a new version of the rom... first step would be figuring out how to save the current rom as a file tho
« Last Edit: April 01, 2014, 08:18:06 PM by chrisNova777 »

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #85 on: April 02, 2014, 12:31:16 AM »
try this site to choose a distro:

http://penguinppc.org/about-2/distributions/

the most performance can be gained by running a self-compiled linux i.e. gentoo :-) but that will take literally days on a g3.
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Offline Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #86 on: April 02, 2014, 04:11:20 AM »
The linux way goes to nowhere. Yaboot is chained to BootX.
BootX instead of load Mac Os ROM it load Yaboot, and Yaboot load Linux or Mac Os X but no Mac Os 9.

From PPC luddite guide to debian part 5:
"One bug that qualifies as having been around long before is the infamous disappearing partition bug. Every time you run through the Debian installer, it somehow messes up your Mac OS 9 drivers making any OS 9 partition unbootable. It was a nasty surprise for me, but let me take away all the suspense. Simply boot with your Mac OS install CD, launch Drive Setup, highlight your hard drive from the list, and from the Functions menu select Update Driver. Problem solved. You will now be able to boot into OS 9."
"Another thing you should know about OS 9, never use the Startup Disk control panel to choose a startup disk. It'll mess up yaboot and you won't be able to boot into Linux. If this should happen to you, reset the pram (hold down command + option + p + r keys on startup) and yaboot will be restored.

Dual booting between Linux and OS 9 also has an issue with system clocks. While your Debian system is set to UTC time, your Mac system is set to local time, so though your Linux time may be correct, you Mac clock can be several hours off. Solve this with:

sudo nano /etc/default/rcS

and change UTC=yes to UTC=no. Now when you boot into OS 9, the time should display correctly. Also, if you ever need to change timezones in Debian, you can use:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata"
Looking for MacOS 9.2.4

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #87 on: April 02, 2014, 08:07:37 AM »
The linux way goes to nowhere. Yaboot is chained to BootX.
BootX instead of load Mac Os ROM it load Yaboot, and Yaboot load Linux or Mac Os X but no Mac Os 9.

From PPC luddite guide to debian part 5:
"One bug that qualifies as having been around long before is the infamous disappearing partition bug. Every time you run through the Debian installer, it somehow messes up your Mac OS 9 drivers making any OS 9 partition unbootable. It was a nasty surprise for me, but let me take away all the suspense. Simply boot with your Mac OS install CD, launch Drive Setup, highlight your hard drive from the list, and from the Functions menu select Update Driver. Problem solved. You will now be able to boot into OS 9."
"Another thing you should know about OS 9, never use the Startup Disk control panel to choose a startup disk. It'll mess up yaboot and you won't be able to boot into Linux. If this should happen to you, reset the pram (hold down command + option + p + r keys on startup) and yaboot will be restored.

Dual booting between Linux and OS 9 also has an issue with system clocks. While your Debian system is set to UTC time, your Mac system is set to local time, so though your Linux time may be correct, you Mac clock can be several hours off. Solve this with:

sudo nano /etc/default/rcS

and change UTC=yes to UTC=no. Now when you boot into OS 9, the time should display correctly. Also, if you ever need to change timezones in Debian, you can use:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata"

Everything is OK. But Yaboot can't boot Mac Os 9. This doesn't mean that a Mac can't do dual or triple boot with Mac Os 9 or  Linux and/or Mac Os X.
Just different bootloaders chained to a main one.
Please don't PM about things that are not private.

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #88 on: April 02, 2014, 08:47:04 AM »
mactron: the goal of putting linux on the mac is not to boot os9 with yaboot.. its to try to first read the rom file contents to a file.. and once thats done see if it can FLASH the rom of the openfirmware... why? because i believe that this is the place where this has been disabled, inside the openfirmware programming itself.. thats why noone has ever fixed this before because the code is in a place u cant touch.. on the firmware/bios chip itself, if we can find a way to read from the chip to a a file (to backup the rom) from inside linux then u can copy the fw400's openfirmware rom to the fw800. i only say linux because mac os x  may have protective programming to not let u do this..whereas linux may allow for more raw access to the hardware. doing this in 9 is possible too. but it wouldnt be possible on the fw800 obviously it cant boot to 9, but it can boot linux + X.

but, while on the topic:
Quote
If you are using the computer in a multi-user environment and the other users prefer Mac OS X you can (easily) configure yaboot to automatically load Mac OS X or OS 9 instead of Ubuntu. -- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/YabootConfigurationForMacintoshPowerPCsDualBoot

http://lowendmac.com/2010/create-a-triple-boot-mac-with-os-9-os-x-and-linux/

this page makes reference to booting mac os with yaboot but of course this doesnt mean this will work on a fw800 mac  BUT THIS ALL REQUIRES A REAL HARDWARE INSTALL OF LINUX WHICH IM NOT DOING if someone else wants to try to get yaboot to boot 9. feel free. but this would only probably work on a machine that already boots 9 to begin with.

protoolsle5guy: i was using ubuntu not debian, and im not actually installing the linux distro but just booting into it off the cd.. i am not writing anything to do with linux to the hard drive at all. version 10.04 lucid lynx works well for this purpose. im just booting into the live cd to try to get an app to try to access the flash rom inside the mac.

« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 09:50:50 AM by chrisNova777 »

Offline Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #89 on: April 02, 2014, 09:02:21 AM »
Ubuntu is debian with eyecandy and non free soft.
Looking for MacOS 9.2.4

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #90 on: April 02, 2014, 09:33:48 AM »
Yes, I've misunderstand the whole thing...
... no offense but read/write the Mac Os firmware with linux is the most crazy idea I ever heard. You can be sure that I wish to be wrong...
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supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #91 on: April 02, 2014, 10:34:37 AM »
ha! i am posting now from inside firefox v3.6.3 on ubuntu 10.04 booted from live cd;)
it works suprisingly well! on this old powermac g3 450mhz;) i am amazed!

i have found this app:
https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/lucid/flashrom/
but i need to update my repositories or figure out how to download install without apt
because its not working so far to install. probably because the info for this distro on the cd
is outdated... if i was to do a proper install to a harddrive it would update this info i think
and the apt-get links would work but they do not because i am in trial mode on the cd only

Quote
It supports a wide range of DIP32, PLCC32, DIP8, SO8/SOIC8, TSOP32, and TSOP40 chips, which use various protocols such as LPC, FWH, parallel flash, or SPI.

The tool can be used to flash BIOS/firmware images for example -- be it proprietary BIOS images or coreboot (previously known as LinuxBIOS) images.

i think this app might able to see the chip.. maybe not. but maybe it will;)

http://flashrom.org/Downloads (maybe this link is the same app?)
of course a powermac is not listed under http://flashrom.org/Supported_hardware
so maybe this is a crazy idea? but sometimes crazy ideas end up working! :D
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 10:47:28 AM by chrisNova777 »

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #92 on: April 02, 2014, 10:50:00 AM »
you cannot install anything on a live cd!
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #93 on: April 02, 2014, 10:51:56 AM »
but i think there would be another path to go, regarding booting os9. we could try to implement a mac boot rom (for os9) that looks like one for osx. so open firmware thinks it is booting osx when in reality it is booting os9.
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #94 on: April 02, 2014, 10:58:07 AM »
you cannot install anything on a live cd!
sure u can -- it just wont be there if u reboot ..
i have downloaded flashrom but icant compile it because im missing some packages. pciutils-devel + the like. the real problem is im using 10.04 and the repositories are not linking properly so aptitude installer is useless

i need to find teh right repository url and then update it under "software sources" in "ubuntu software center"

update: using the software center in ubuntu im trying to instlal the pre-requisite developer tools for compiling the flashrom app i just installed the 'pciutils development package' (which i found in software center by searching for pciutils) theres a few more listed at http://flashrom.org/Downloads#Releases that i need to install before im able to do a proper "make" + "make install"

update: that may have been all it needed.. i just did a "make" command and it seems to be compiling !!!!!!

the binary is now in the directory on my desktop and can be run by typing  './flashrom' to execute but its asking me to "select a programmer" -- ok here it says "to choose the mainboard of this computer use the parameter 'internal'.. other valid choices are dummy, gfxnvidia,drkaiser, satasii, serprog, buspirate_spi, pony_spi, nicintel, nicintel_spi, ogp_spi, linux_spi

Quote
Usage: ./flashrom [-h|-R|-L|-p <programmername>[:<parameters>] [-c <chipname>]
[-E|(-r|-w|-v) <file>] [-l <layoutfile> [-i <imagename>]...] [-n] [-f]]
[-V[V[V]]] [-o <logfile>]

 -h | --help                        print this help text
 -R | --version                     print version (release)
 -r | --read <file>                 read flash and save to <file>
 -w | --write <file>                write <file> to flash
 -v | --verify <file>               verify flash against <file>
 -E | --erase                       erase flash memory
 -V | --verbose                     more verbose output
 -c | --chip <chipname>             probe only for specified flash chip
 -f | --force                       force specific operations (see man page)
 -n | --noverify                    don't auto-verify
 -l | --layout <layoutfile>         read ROM layout from <layoutfile>
 -i | --image <name>                only flash image <name> from flash layout
 -o | --output <logfile>            log output to <logfile>
 -L | --list-supported              print supported devices
 -p | --programmer <name>[:<param>] specify the programmer device. One of
    internal, dummy, gfxnvidia, drkaiser, satasii, serprog, buspirate_spi,
    pony_spi, nicintel, nicintel_spi, ogp_spi, linux_spi.

You can specify one of -h, -R, -L, -E, -r, -w, -v or no operation.
If no operation is specified, flashrom will only probe for flash chips.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Desktop/flashrom-0.9.7$

ok i see .. i have to type:
./flashrom -p internal

It attemped to start:

Quote
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Desktop/flashrom-0.9.7$ ./flashrom -p internal
flashrom v0.9.7-r1711 on Linux 2.6.32-21-powerpc (ppc)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Processor detection/init failed.
Aborting.
Error: Programmer initialization failed.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Desktop/flashrom-0.9.7$

this is probably due to the differences between pc motherboads + the powerpc hardware:( it could probably work but would need to be recoded by the software developers i bet to be able to find the chips on a powerpc system.. so this probably the end of the road for this idea;(

Quote
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/Desktop/flashrom-0.9.7$ ./flashrom -p dummy
flashrom v0.9.7-r1711 on Linux 2.6.32-21-powerpc (ppc)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
No EEPROM/flash device found.
Note: flashrom can never write if the flash chip isn't found automatically.

well maybe this app will only work on a amd/intel pc motherboards... it was worth a try.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 12:24:25 PM by chrisNova777 »

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #95 on: April 02, 2014, 12:35:04 PM »
but i think there would be another path to go, regarding booting os9. we could try to implement a mac boot rom (for os9) that looks like one for osx. so open firmware thinks it is booting osx when in reality it is booting os9.

this book reviews a bunch of the things mactron was saying about tbxi
perhaps it has a bit more info for you
http://tinyurl.com/pcup93k (preview)
http://venom630.free.fr/pdf/OSXInternals.pdf (full book)
this book has alot of specific info on openfirmware + bootloading etc! take a look!


i dont have a fw800 mac to try to test with... but what i do have is an 867 mdd, that will not boot from the mac os 9 install cd..
do u think that there is some similarities between these two scenarios? i mean, do u think they (apple) would have disabled the booting of the mac os 9 retail cd on the mdd series... in the same fashion or technique that they have disabled booting Mac OS 9 altogether on the fw800?
where would this modification take place? if not in the open firmware itself???
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 06:08:25 PM by chrisNova777 »

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #96 on: April 02, 2014, 02:40:47 PM »
Quote
sure u can -- it just wont be there if u reboot ..

well technically you install to ram then :-) but as you said, it will be gone after a reboot.

i don't know what they did to disable booting of retail os9 on mdd's. in fact i think it just did not work they did not make it not work intentionally.
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #97 on: April 02, 2014, 03:51:17 PM »
to Lokki or Jakl
try this:
use a fresh 20gb-40gb-80gb hd
install into the fw400 mac
install both osx and os9 onto the same partition (yes we all know this isnt the best idea to do usualy but this is for testing purposes)
make sure u can boot to both os'es
take that same hard drive out and insert it into the fw800
boot the mdd fw800 up in OSX
and open a terminal
and try:
Code: [Select]
bless -info /and see if it says
finderinfo[0]: => Blessed System Folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
finderinfo[3]: => OS 9 blessed folder is /System Folder"

this bless command line tool can recognize mac os 9 blessed folder..

im betting it will see it just fine, and like i said it is not a problem of it "just not working" but its been disabled by apple on purpose when it could have worked all along.

if u already have os9 + osx already installed on seperate drives maybe u can use:
bless -info /PathToDrive/ etc

heres my output when i run the command on my powermac g3 B&W:
Quote
$ bless -info /
finderinfo[0]:   7244 => Blessed System Folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
finderinfo[1]:      0 => No Startup App folder (ignored anyway)
finderinfo[2]:      0 => Open-folder linked list empty
finderinfo[3]:     31 => OS 9 blessed folder is /System Folder
finderinfo[4]:      0 => Unused field unset
finderinfo[5]:   7244 => OS X blessed folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
64-bit VSDB volume id:  0x174C8C1A011D70E1
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 05:24:24 PM by chrisNova777 »

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #98 on: April 02, 2014, 08:31:50 PM »
Okay Chris did what you asked - First of all this is a fresh install from
the fw400 DVD which installed 10.2.6 as well as macos9 start up and classic - same system folder.

Here is what "bless -info /" got.

finderinfo[0]:      2455 => Blessed System Folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
finderinfo[1]:            0 => Startup App folder is
finderinfo[2]:            0 => 1st dir in open-folder list is
finderinfo[3]:     33368 => Classic blessed folder is /System Folder
finderinfo[4]:            0 => Thought-to-be-unused field points to
finderinfo[5]:       2455 => OS X blessed folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
64-bit VSDB volume id: 0xB31A58CB04FC560C
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 08:41:44 PM by chrisNova777 »

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #99 on: April 02, 2014, 08:44:49 PM »
are u running mac os x leopard? my output was from tiger... seems they changed the language a bit

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #100 on: April 02, 2014, 08:57:37 PM »
As you can see the version it's the original DVD for the fw400 which has 10.2.6 and macos9.2.2

And yes I have taken out the HD out of fw800 and put it back into the fw400 and it all worked again
beautifully.

By the way 10.2.6 version was called Jaguar I think.

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #101 on: April 02, 2014, 09:03:32 PM »
yeah see they've purposefully just unhooked it and made it work this way.. its the rom chip itself.. i bet if u could physically find the chip on the board..
and desolder each chip and swap them (obviously your not goign to do that) but if u could i bet it would boot right up.
to fix it u would have to reprogram the chip somehow.. its the only way it would make it work.. i think we should probably just give up on this;)

u should try out installing ubuntu tho! it works amazing.. i was really impressed.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/13.10/release/lubuntu-13.10-desktop-powerpc.iso (v13)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/daily-live/pending/trusty-desktop-powerpc.iso (v14)
these are the latest images.. i havent tried them yet but 10 worked great on a powermac g3 + 12 booted fine aswell
download the cd + try it out! im going to check out 14.04

oops these are Lubuntu not ubuntu.. different distro.

update: i was ablet o get v5 to boot by specifying a different image (they are listed if u press TAB at the yaboot prompt (black screen))
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 09:33:44 PM by chrisNova777 »

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #102 on: April 02, 2014, 09:19:04 PM »
Okay Chris this now is a different reading when I started the fw800 mdd on an external HD with 10.4.11 off a seritek sata card.

Here is what "bless -info /" got.

finderinfo[0]:   569847 => Blessed System Folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
finderinfo[1]:            0 => No Blessed System File
finderinfo[2]:            0 => Open-folder linked list empty
finderinfo[3]:   664541 => OS 9 blessed folder is <missing>
finderinfo[4]:            0 => Unused field unset
finderinfo[5]:   569847 => OS X blessed folder is /System/Library/CoreServices
64-bit VSDB volume id: 0xEF98368E5548CB79

While it says <missing> I think because there isn't
a macos9 system folder on the boot disk - it just has 10.4.11 installed -
However there are 2 different disks with os9 installed one external and one internal
that the computer is not recognizing at all.

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #103 on: April 02, 2014, 09:29:29 PM »
well the "/" means whatever drive u booted with
and the fact that it says the first line is what it is, means that this drive is selected as the default to boot from
(thats why the osx one is there twice..)

u might try experimenting with giving it different paths to try to get it to check another drive
maybe u have to map thru the /Volumes mount point

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #104 on: April 02, 2014, 09:35:35 PM »
I mean as startup disks when I go into start up disks.

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #105 on: April 04, 2014, 09:22:37 AM »
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/YabootConfigurationForMacintoshPowerPCsDualBoot

in case u guys missed it..
this page claims yaboot *CAN* boot mac os 9.

2:12,\\:tbxi
the : colon character delimits between object/property, for disk it delimits partition
for filename it delimits type, the \\:tbxi means find the file with the type "tbxi"
(which are the only files that "bless -info /" shows..) so this would mean, 'on disk 2, on partition 12, find the file of tbxi type'

i was asking earlier in the thread if anyones tried to MANUALLY SPECIFY the actual filename of the mac os rom file by typing \System Folder\Mac OS ROM:tbxi
not sure if thats correct syntax, but the comma seems to delimit between disk + filename and im pretty sure the two slashes mean "look for file of type tbxi in any root level or one level down folder" because there is only 1 file per os installation with this type

anyways it seems u guys are giving up on this..
so i will too.

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #106 on: April 04, 2014, 10:11:01 AM »
i have not given up for one... but time does not permit me to "work" on it right now. but i will definitely get back to it.
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline blitter

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #107 on: April 29, 2014, 11:36:30 PM »
Created an account here just to pop in and say that I have just solved this problem on my own retail MDD G4 FW800. My G4 now dual-boots between OS X Tiger and Mac OS 9.2.2, and both systems are recognized by the Startup Disk control panel. I had formatted its internal drive by using a surrogate iBook + USB enclosure and OS X Jaguar, allocating 1GB at the beginning of the drive for an OS 9 partition, leaving the rest for OS X. I also checked the "Install OS 9 drivers" box in Disk Utility so that the drive could be booted later on. I then installed OS X Tiger first as an escape hatch in case of OS 9 instability, though so far with the exception of a third-party SCSI card preventing it from booting, it has been running without any problems.

Essentially what locks native OS 9 support out of these machines, as has been suggested above, is that Open Firmware does not recognize "Mac OS ROM" as a valid tbxi file as of at least version 4.6.0, which is what the FW800 ships with. Since the FW800 and the earlier FW400 are so close in spec, I suspected that an earlier version of Open Firmware from the FW400 model would be close enough to at least boot the FW800 into OS X. Fortunately a firmware update is available from Apple for the FW400 models to fix a fan issue, bringing their firmware to version 4.4.8f2. However, Apple's firmware updaters refuse to flash the Boot ROM unless the current version is older than the desired upgrade. So, I worked around that by forcing an upgrade through Open Firmware itself. Here's how to do it on a FW800 with OS X already installed on a second partition:

- Download and install the 4.4.8f2 updater from https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10773/apple-g4-firmware-updater-x
- Open the bundle by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on the PMG4FirmwareUpdate.app file inside /Applications/Utilities and choosing "Show Package Contents."
- Navigate to Contents/Resources and drag the "Firmware" file to the root of your startup disk.
- Make note of the partition number of your startup disk-- this is important for the next steps. On a freshly-formatted drive with OS 9 drivers, the first visible partition is 9, which in my case meant my second visible partition with OS X installed was partition number 10.
- Reboot the Mac and hold down Command-Option-O-F to boot to Open Firmware.
- Enter the following two commands, substituting your partition number after the "hd:"
    load hd:10,Firmware
    go
- With luck, the white Open Firmware prompt will disappear and you'll soon see an OS 9-style progress bar at the bottom of the screen as the Boot ROM is being flashed.
- After the Mac automatically restarts, install OS 9 using the special version for the MDD FW400 (OS9General.dmg). The OS 9 System Folder should be visible and selectable using the Startup Disk preference pane.
- Enjoy. :)

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #108 on: April 30, 2014, 04:31:39 AM »
very good news! will try this and report back!

thanks for sharing!
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #109 on: April 30, 2014, 07:59:55 AM »
Thank You blitter for sharing this... and welcome to Mac Os 9 Lives! Despite we are Mac Os 9 Digital Audio centric, We hope you'll stay around here...
« Last Edit: April 30, 2014, 09:23:42 AM by MacTron »
Please don't PM about things that are not private.

Offline blitter

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #110 on: April 30, 2014, 01:21:06 PM »
One more thing: I have no idea how to restore the original 4.6.0 firmware, as it's not available for download as an updater or anything else that I can find. So if you try this and something goes wrong... you're a little stuck. Caveat emptor.

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #111 on: April 30, 2014, 02:32:21 PM »
the benefit is more available machines to run os9 on :-)
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #112 on: May 01, 2014, 08:32:01 AM »
Blitter... Awesome job !

2 Quick Questions...

1) Does the FW800 Port work at all under OS 9 ?

2) Did the FW800 port suffer any quirks in OS X ?

I would assume that the FW800 port is dead in OS9 and that the forced burnt Boot ROM did not effect it in OS X... but I am curious since the "alt" boot option to boot to FW (Both 400 and 800) is burnt into the Boot ROM... so I was wondering if it will still boot to a FW800 external HD with "alt" key selected since the FW400 updated Boot ROM had no code for the 800 port.

Offline blitter

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #113 on: May 01, 2014, 06:24:07 PM »
1) I don't have any FW800 equipment to test.
2) See #1. ;)

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #114 on: May 02, 2014, 04:59:27 AM »
in response to the question of re-updating the firmware. i think osx will do this when it installs automatically, at least that's what i read somewhere. or maybe osx now also thinks it's a fw400 mdd and does not update.
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #115 on: May 03, 2014, 02:53:09 AM »
It does not worked in my FW800 with firmware 4.6.0f1 and OSX 10.5.6 installed. I have followed carefully the described procedure and in response to the command

load:hd (x),Firmware

the Mac reply with

load-size=fbc70 adler 32=c6c28472

then at command

go

the Mac reply with

evaluating Forth source

then CD tray is opened, the Mac reboots with black screen but no progress bar is displayed, instead the grey Apple logo appears and OSX starts to load. In the meantime the CD tray closed.
At System Information panel the firmware is still 4.6.0f1 so no success here.
Maybe we are close as never before to reflash a FW800 to have OS9 bootability but the feel is that some steps are missing... blitter, how your G4 were configured when you do the downgrade? OSX, graphic card, memory, PCI cards installed... every parameter could be important.

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #116 on: May 03, 2014, 03:19:17 AM »
i would first try to install tiger on it. osx can install firmware when installed so maybe it does not work with the "leopard" version.
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #117 on: May 03, 2014, 04:20:05 AM »
I have done the same procedure on a MDD FW400 also where 10.4 and 10.5 (and OS 9.2 too) are installed, in this case a reflash (of the same firmware) should be happened but again, no luck. I suspect that OS is not important, at worse a blank HD with only the Firmware file could serve the task because if this procedure is running entirely on Open Firmware it does not need to boot from a volume to be succesful but only a place where the Firmware file can be loaded.
My thoughts are that if the procedure worked then some parameters are missing (like a script or a specific sequence of commands to prepare the machine to flash) that are (maybe) performed by the Apple Installer after the machine check.
A thing I have noticed is that partitions numbers are not consecutive (as blitter said in his example) but jumps by 2, in my system I have "10" for the blank partition where OS9 will be installed and "12" where resides OSX 10.5 (I am speaking about the FW800 machine with only 2 partitions, the first blank and the second with OS 10.5 installed, both of them formatted in HFS+ Journaled but I have alse tried with a non-journaling partition with same results)

Update: I noticed that just before the screen goes blank and Mac reboot there were some text strings in output, but they apperared and disappeared too much quickly so I have made a movie with my camera and noted the lines that were:

erasing fff04000 of Micron B1 part
 flashing fff04000 of Micron B1 part


then screen goes black and reboot. So some flashing is happened but seems that changes are discarded...


Offline blitter

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #118 on: May 06, 2014, 03:51:59 AM »
I had prepped an 80GB hard drive with a 1GB partition at the beginning, and the rest allocated for OS X Tiger 10.4.11, with OS 9 drivers also installed on the drive. I have a GeForce 4 Ti, I believe my MDD has 1GB of RAM installed, the DVD/CDRW combo drive, and the only other thing I had in the machine when doing the upgrade was a third-party PCI SCSI card (Advansys?) that prevented OS 9 from booting until I took it out.

BTW the command is not "load:hd (x),Firmware" it's "load hd:(x),Firmware"
Might want to try it a second time. It took me a couple of tries before it finally decided it wanted to work.

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #119 on: May 06, 2014, 01:22:07 PM »
Prepared the machine as you described: not working again but... googling around I have found that instead of

load hd:xx,Firmware
go


you can type

boot hd:xx,Firmware

with the same results. Again I believe that some steps, maybe a command line parameter, is missing. Lokki, have you tried on your machine?

Offline lokki

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #120 on: May 06, 2014, 02:11:55 PM »
not yet, sorry i've been busy with life  -afro-
MDD Dual @1.42Ghz, Powerbook TI @1Ghz

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #121 on: May 07, 2014, 02:42:18 AM »
I get the same result as you Snakecoil.
Tried with the 10.4.11 first.
Then wiped HD and installed 10.2.8 in the FW800 and still the
same result with the cd drive opening and closing after the
load hd:(),Firmware and go commands.

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #122 on: May 07, 2014, 09:17:17 AM »
Maybe we can ship machines to Blitter and he can burn them for a small fee, LOL... The firmware God smiles upon him...

Just a suggestion, maybe you guys should compare the exact part number of Blitter's Logic Board to your own :)

Blitter, Can you please post your MB info. ?

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #123 on: May 07, 2014, 12:57:52 PM »
Success! :-) GREAT SUCCESS! :-)

I have found the way to start the firmware downgrade: I were right when I said a step was missing, I found the answer reading this page on Apple site

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1175

If you look at point 3 of the article it say:

Press and hold in the Power button until you hear a long tone or see the Power button light flashing repeatedly. Release the Power button when you hear the tone or see the Power button light flashing. The update starts automatically.

And this is exactly what is needed to do: starting the Mac keeping pressed the power button! :-)

In brief here are the steps to follow:

1) Copy the Firmware file extracted in the way Blitter has said some posts ago, no matter about the OSX installed, a blank initialized partition is good. If the partition is the first in Disk Utility list its number should be 10

2) Shut off the Mac and be prepared to do the following steps as quick as possible

3) Press and keep pressed the front Power Button until it flashes, or until you hear a continuous tone

4) Release the Power Button and be prepared to press the key combination to enter Open Firmware (Cmd + Alt + O + F)

5) When you hear the Boing sound of reboot keep pressed the Open Firmware keys until the prompt comes out

6) At the prompt enter the following line

load hd:xx,Firmware

where, of course, the "xx" is the number of the partition where the "Firmware" file is

7) At the next prompt digit

go

8) The screen becomes black, the progress bar appear and the CD tray is ejected

9) When progress bar has reached the end the Mac reboots, the CD tray close and you have an OS9 bootable FW800 PowerMac :-)

The Info panel reports correctly 4.4.8f2 as firmware version and the OS9 boot is available as option in Startup Disk preference panel. I used the OS9General.dmg extracted from the Install disks of my other FW400 MDD.
OS9 boot went fine, I skipped the annoying registration screen pressing CMD + Q and everithing seems ok.
For who is interested in the FW800 port I can confirm it works well under OS9 but I don't know about its speed in this environment if someone has some disk benchmark tool to suggest I will be happy to do some test. In OSX 10.4 the speed is full 80 Mb/s, I have tested it with Xbench and obtained 76 Mb/s with an old 320 Gb Seagate Freeagent powered directly from Firewire 800 port.
I don't know anything about the Bluetooth and Airport Extreme functionality since I haven't these devices.
I will perform further tests in the days to come but until now I am really really happy! :-)

About the firmware upgrade back to 4.6.0f1 I don't know... I accepted the risk of downgrade because this FW800 machine was abandoned in my Mac stuff from long time but if the MDD is a tool of your job I can't reccomend to do this step until you are absolutely sure that none of the functionality is missed or altered.

If Blitter has performed this modification long time ago maybe he can share with us his experience. Here all seems to work very well! :-)

Enjoy!

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #124 on: May 07, 2014, 01:43:42 PM »
Congratulations !!  ;D ;D :D ;D ;D

To test the Firewire speed (and others hard disks) you can use:

https://www.adrive.com/public/hpY8s3/QuickBench.sit
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Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #125 on: May 07, 2014, 02:36:18 PM »
Thanks MacTron, but the most part of congratulations must go to Blitter first, without his input we would still dream of an OS9 bootable FW800 machine :-D
I have just done some benchmarks under OS9 using QuickBench and the maximum I have read is 34.42 Mb/s so I can confirm that FW800 devices runs at FW400 speed (but under OSX they run back at their full FW800 speed).
Just for fun I have tried to launch Quickbench in Classic under 10.4.11 too but in this way the volume drag'n'drop is not supported so Quickbench can't lock a drive to perform the speed tests.
In the next days I will re-install OS9 / OSX 10.4 / OSX 10.5 from scratch and if all will go as I hope I will migrate my FW400 system to the new one :-)

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #126 on: May 07, 2014, 08:25:48 PM »
Now we're ready for a G5 Macos9 on Steroids... :D

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #127 on: May 07, 2014, 09:14:37 PM »
Thank you blitter and SnakeCoil for the hard work to realize many of our dreams come true finally.

I am still in the process of reinstalling and testing but it looks good for the moment.

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #128 on: May 07, 2014, 10:13:26 PM »
Quote
This is like an old wound that never heals...

Finally... it heals with confirmed success :)

No more vague stories of a friend who knows a friend that is running 9.2.2 on FW800... real facts !

Wow, tests are just like I expected.. FW800 runs at 400 Speed in OS 9 and 800 in X... The last test is to try to boot to external FW hard drive via the 800 Port by holding "alt" at bootup...

I am guessing the hard drive won't be seen on the 800 port until OS is loaded (Since firmware is from a FW400), but I am curious.

Offline Syntho

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #129 on: May 07, 2014, 10:18:45 PM »
Would it be worth it to get a 1.42ghz FW800 model to have a faster CPU running OS9 now?

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #130 on: May 07, 2014, 10:37:54 PM »
Since you already have a FW400... you can buy a 1.42 Processor board and simply install that

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #131 on: May 07, 2014, 10:49:25 PM »
Quote
This is like an old wound that never heals...

Finally... it heals with confirmed success :)

No more vague stories of a friend who knows a friend that is running 9.2.2 on FW800... real facts !

Wow, tests are just like I expected.. FW800 runs at 400 Speed in OS 9 and 800 in X... The last test is to try to boot to external FW hard drive via the 800 Port by holding "alt" at bootup...

I am guessing the hard drive won't be seen on the 800 port until OS is loaded (Since firmware is from a FW400), but I am curious.

Well Diehard I'm happy to announce that it does boot on firewire800 from pressing 'alt' at startup. I have an old rockstor enclosure that has fw800, esata and usb 2.0 ports and it functions well. Booted into macos9 and 10.4.11 but must test further - tried to copy a file from a usb stick but crashed in 10.4.11.

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #132 on: May 08, 2014, 04:44:41 PM »
Hello again, I have done further experiments and I discovered a really funny thing: this firmware downgrade unlocked the USB 2.0 speed of the integrated MDD ports... I noticed that because after installing TechTool 6 under OSX 10.5 the USB speed indicator reaches the 480 Mbit/s and I had no USB2 card installed yet...
Quickly connecting the same Seagate Freeagent of previous test to its USB2 side (it is a double interface model) reveal I were right: the measured speed with Xbench was about 24 Mb/s so the port were effectively running in USB 2.0 mode.
The bad news is that under OS9 seems to be a bad idea to connect USB storage devices to the integrated ports because the system tends to freeze and, when it happen to function, the maximum speed is in the USB 1.1 range, as confirmed by Quickbench test I have performed where the peak trasfer were no higher than 1 Mb/s.
So under OS9 don't connect storage USB devices (like HDD and PenDrives) to integrated ports but ONLY input devices like mouse and keyboard. Of course when you install a PCI card with dedicated USB 2.0 ports you can connect to it whatever you want, they are on a separate bus and works well under OS9 too (at USB 1.1 speed, since OS9 drivers does not support higher speed).
On OSX side the USB 2.0 mode seems much more stable but I have to made further experiments to determine if it is also enough safe.
In the meantime I found this article that explain the embedded USB 2.0 chips in some MDD models:

http://www.cnet.com/news/usb-2-0-in-some-power-mac-g4-mdds-update-apple-replies/

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #133 on: May 08, 2014, 09:44:24 PM »
You guys rock :)  I don't think any of this detailed info. is anywhere else... thanks again

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #134 on: May 09, 2014, 05:14:50 PM »
After spending a considerable amount of time in testing I cant tell that "unlocked" USB2 mode on integrated MDD port is safe and does not freeze the machine under heavy load under OSX. For OS9 remains true what I wrote in the last post: better to not use these ports for storage devices.
First let me describe the FW800 machine I am using for testing:

PowerMac MDD "FW800" Dual G4 @ 1.25 GHz flashed with MDD FW400 firmware (version 4.4.8f2)
2 Gb of CL3 PC2700 RAM (30330 timings on System Profiler)
Radeon 9000 Pro graphic board VRAM 64 Mb (firmware version 113-99702-131 Apple OEM)
ATTO PSC Scsi Board with firmware 1.6.6f0 (latest)
D-Link USB2 PCI board with 4+1 ports (Nec chipset)
Hard Drive Seagate 120 Gb model ST3120024A (Apple OEM)
SuperDrive Pioneer DVR-105 (Apple OEM)

The hard drive is splitted in 3 partitions named as follow:

Boot_C9 (4Gb) with OS 9.2.2 from OS9General.dmg (Italian version) + Quicktime 6.0.3 + Classic extensions
Boot_X4 (12Gb) with OSX 10.4.11 to latest Apple updates
Boot_X5 (95 Gb) with OSX 10.5.8 to latest Apple updates + Quicktime 7.7

Additionally I have plugged to the PSC board a Wide SCSI LaCie disk at 10.000 RPM used as source for file testing, both under OSX 10.4 and 10.5 have been installed the latest ATTO drivers for this board. No drivers needed under OS9.

Since I want to test the USB2 realiability on MDD ports I have moved keyboard and mouse to the USB port of the D-Link card leaving the internal ports free for connecting the followinge devices:

TDK 8 GB USB2 pen drive
Seagate portable HD FreeAgent GO plugged to USB port and powered by an external PSU so the connection to the Mac was in the realm of data I/O only, no current drained from the weak computer's PSU.

I have done almost the same test under OS9, 10.4 and 10.5 and performed quite well, here are my results:

OS 9.2.2
Here the USB environment is 1.1 only, maximum transfer rate of 1.2 MB/sec so the main focus were on stability on intense I/O activity.
From the SCSI disk I copied a 650 Mb single file (an MKV movie) both to pen drive and to the Seagate Hard Drive at the same moment, obtained dragging the source file from the SCSI drive to pen drive and quickly after from SCSI drive to USB drive. Two progress bar windows opens and I observed the copy operation was going on, slowly but without troubles, same speed for both streams.
In the meantime I have launched the complete demostration of Graphic Calculator app and while it was running I have done an access to my remote Qnap server to download some files I needed to install later. I also have opened a couple of time the System Profiler and then doing some surfing with Classilla browser.
Well, the experience was something like to live in a slow motion movie but the copy on both devices went fine and system does not crash until... I opened System Profiler once time more and this freezed the desktop, all opened windows and ongoing processes went locked but mouse pointer was still live.
I had to manually shut down the system and then reboot to OS9 again but looking in the destination devices I discovered the files were completed so the copy was succesful, only the desktop was freezed. For completeness I have made a further experiment: unplug the Seagate drive from USB and reconnect it to Firewire 800 port then repeat the procedure above to see if the speed were different and, yes it changed but not very good: the copy stream on the Firewire dropped to 1/3 of the speed of USB stream (no other programs was running for this test) so the copy on USB side was already finished while on the Firewire side it was still at half way. It is like the USB operation steal resources to the Firewire operation but when I tried to connect to the Firewire 400 port I discovered a terrible reality:

In OS9 the stock Firewire 400 ports does not work anymore! Only the FW800 does! :-(

A quick test under OSX prove it happens on OS9 only, the two FW400 ports works well both under 10.4 and 10.5 so this could be only a driver issue, maybe in OS9 the drivers are rigidly mapped to hardware resources and if the phisical address is changed (like flashing a machine with a different machine firmware) they do not found their way anymore. So this is the first serious problem of this firmware downgrade but if you add a combo PCI card USB/Firewire this issue can be less problematic as it could seem in first place.

OSX 10.4.11 / 10.5.8

Here the MDD's USB rear ports gain back their new speed because of direct drive support, again two streams of a single large file source are copied at the same time on two different destination, in the meantime I opened Grapher (the equivalent in OSX to Graphic Calculator in OS9) and launched all the available 3D functions demonstrations: about eight different windows each with a realtime animation inside), doing a bit of net surfing, connected again to my Qnap TS-412 and all went absolutely smooth. I also have done some copy test between the two USB devices and no problems at all.

At this point I am very satisfied about the downgrade but I really would like to know if the Airport slot and Bluetooth module are working again after this modifications.

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #135 on: May 09, 2014, 06:56:49 PM »
Thank You for the detailed explanation.


In OS9 the stock Firewire 400 ports does not work anymore! Only the FW800 does! :-(

A quick test under OSX prove it happens on OS9 only, the two FW400 ports works well both under 10.4 and 10.5 so this could be only a driver issue, maybe in OS9 the drivers are rigidly mapped to hardware resources and if the phisical address is changed (like flashing a machine with a different machine firmware) they do not found their way anymore. So this is the first serious problem of this firmware downgrade but if you add a combo PCI card USB/Firewire this issue can be less problematic as it could seem in first place.

May be the only explanation to this is that the FW400 are subsystems of the FW800 that the firmware don't know about it. In the MDD FW400 both ports are at the same "direct level", so the this firmware don't know nothing about FW on subsystems, once flashed on a MDD FW800 whith FW ports organized in very different way.

So the FW800 at first level works at FW400 speed, but the FW400 ports are ignored for being subsystems of the main FW800.

We have to wait to DieHard opinion, he knows about this...
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Offline Protools5LEGuy

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #136 on: May 09, 2014, 07:22:09 PM »
After spending a considerable amount of time in testing I cant tell that "unlocked" USB2 mode on integrated MDD port is safe and does not freeze the machine under heavy load under OSX. For OS9 remains true what I wrote in the last post: better to not use these ports for storage devices.
OS 9.2.2
In OS9 the stock Firewire 400 ports does not work anymore! Only the FW800 does! :-(

A quick test under OSX prove it happens on OS9 only, the two FW400 ports works well both under 10.4 and 10.5 so this could be only a driver issue, maybe in OS9 the drivers are rigidly mapped to hardware resources and if the phisical address is changed (like flashing a machine with a different machine firmware) they do not found their way anymore. So this is the first serious problem of this firmware downgrade but if you add a combo PCI card USB/Firewire this issue can be less problematic as it could seem in first place.

At this point I am very satisfied about the downgrade but I really would like to know if the Airport slot and Bluetooth module are working again after this modifications.


Great! Good news! Maybe to loose the FW-400 ports on OS9 is not a loose when you can run MacOS9 on a FW-800 !!!!!.


I think a lot of FW-800 users will love to find this unbelieble info about  booting OS9!


MORE MACOS9 MACHINES !!!!!!!

I am with Jakl
Quote
Now we're ready for a G5 Macos9 on Steroids...

 ;D :o ;D :o ;D






 
Looking for MacOS 9.2.4

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #137 on: May 09, 2014, 07:31:28 PM »
I had originally suspected there would be an issue with One or more of the FW ports... put I had originally expected the 800 ports not working at all; perhaps the the physical hardware address on the MB of the FW800 ports on a FW800 G4 might be the same as the hardware address of the FW400 ports on a FW400 G4... that is why the firmware thinks the 800 ports are the 400 ports in OS9...I also suspect that that is why the FW800 ports are still bootable with a FW External drive (yet the 400s are dead). 

However... it is amazing that under OSX all ports work... I would have suspected an issue in OS X also, but the drivers must be written to communicate thru a hardware abstract layer that communicates differently with the firmware... the firmware does not even know the unit has FW800 ports, yet they work.... so there is obviously more here that we do not know about in the coding... maybe there is some mutual code in the firmware (for both models) that got left in there that is benefiting us...who knows...

At any rate, if these are the only issues, Blitter's work around is still 100% success :)

SnakeCoils your approach is perfect... test and log results... I am sure we have out-foxed even the designers this time.  I don't think the G4 development team would even have anticipated Blitter's approach... so all we have is Trial and Error... Definitely, this opens the door for more G4s that can run Mac OS 9... and calls for a "Holy Grail" re-write of the best Stock G4 that runs OS 9.  Prior to this discovery, the best we could hope for was "stealing" dual 1.42 and putting them in FW400 MDDs... Now we can get the whole units and re-burn firmware.   I don't think we will ever get this lucky in the G5 arena... and the hardware on the G5 is so fickle that it is better we stop here anyway.

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #138 on: May 09, 2014, 08:17:02 PM »
So from what you said Diehard then at the open firmware level everything is opened up at startup - then it's at the startup of the Mac Operating System that depends whether the ports are used or not?

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #139 on: May 10, 2014, 02:22:11 AM »
Thank you very much for your feedback :-) I think it is really really important to do very quickly all the possible experiments on this hybrid Mac born FW800 flashed with MDD2003 firmware because sooner the word will be widely spread and since the process is not reversible (as far as we know) I want the people that decide for this modification will know for sure what they are going to have, just to not discover bitter surprises too much late... we can only warn about the risks, but once the risk is assumed the responsabilty is entirely on the user.
Also, the research for a "soft boot" of OS9 must not to be abandoned because there are many G4 machines that are not "blessed" by an alternative firmware (later eMacs, iMacs, Powerbooks, MacMinis) so for those computer the only chance is a modified resource to cheat the system in booting the classic OS.
I suspect that the clever programmers at MorphOS Project could have some ideas about the steps to do, if someone nowadays is still digging in the G4 and G5 secrets they are for sure the right people to ask ;-)
Alternatively one could trying to do a really crazy thing: if no other checks are performed by the flasher then could be possible, at theoretical level, to flash everything has a G4 heart with the MDD 4.4.8 firmware and seeing what happens... but this has nothing of scientific, it is more or less a blind try so be prepared to brick your Mac forever.
The right way would be to make a dump of original machine firmware, make the MINIMAL necessary modification to allow the OS9 boot (without touching anything else) and then flash it back to the Mac, it could be a good idea for a Kickstarter project :-)

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #140 on: May 10, 2014, 03:58:01 AM »
From this page then some of the older powerbooks and ibooks maybe able to be flashed back to macos9 using
downloadable Firmware.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1395

Offline SnakeCoils

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #141 on: May 10, 2014, 10:39:24 AM »
For Jakl: I think that a decisive step in the direction of OS9 bootability of all G4 machines is to have a ROM dumper utility first, something that permit to read the firmware of our machines and make a copy on a file we can inspect at byte level. The idea is to do a thing similar to what has already done many years ago to unlock the CD drives to be usable from Mac even if they had not Apple firmware, in that case it was only a matter to edit some datas with ResEdit in the Apple CD/DVD extension of OS9 and every optical drive magically went welcomed by Mac without installing third party drivers.

For DieHard: I have made a screenshot of System Profiler in OS9 that show how the Firewire 800 resource is seen by the system. Here it is.

As you can see the system don't even assign the "Hard Disk" label ("Disco Rigido", in Italian) to the resource but luckily it is correctly recognized as storage and as it is used. Maybe a ResEdit trick could fix the name.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 10:49:31 AM by SnakeCoils »

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #142 on: May 10, 2014, 10:54:39 AM »
Quote
So from what you said Diehard then at the open firmware level everything is opened up at startup - then it's at the startup of the Mac Operating System that depends whether the ports are used or not?

No, I am NOT saying that... Let's NOT confuse Open firmware with SMC Firmware Updates

Quote
Apple's Open Firmware is part of their ROM-in-RAM design approach originally used in the first iMac systems. The approach uses a small ROM that contains sufficient code to initialize the hardware and load an operating system. The rest of the system code, that on previous Mac systems (old world) resided on a physical ROM (chip) is now loaded from disk or from network into RAM. Open Firmware is part of this "New World" boot system.

So as my understanding is... open firmware is at a higher level than the actual SMC firmware... and thus you can use Open firmware commands to re-burn read only hardware updates into SMC firmware and NOT effect the Open Firmware itself.

Any experts that can better explain the relationship between the SMC / Firmware and OS ROM... please "chime" in...

Startup Sequence... As explained by apple... in the simplest way...
1. Turn on the computer.
2. Hardware self-test.
3. Mac OS starts up.
4. Search for a startup disk.
5. System file is found and opens.
6. System extensions load.
7. Finder opens.
8. Startup Items open.

#2 & #3 are obviously more involved, and where most of our discussion comes from.  We have all heard of "Resetting the SMC" on a G4.
Quote
The SMC (System Management Controller) controls a number of the Mac's core functions. The SMC is a chunk of hardware incorporated into the Mac's motherboard. Its purpose is to free the Mac's processor from having to actively take care of rudimentary hardware functions.
So basically this "Chunk of Hardware" is obviously a chip or series of chips that are physically located on the MB, and some values that these chips hold can be cleared (By hitting the SMC" reset button and giving a small voltage zap) and thus new "correct" values will be re-read and re-written into the SMC upon power on and the SMC will see everything peachy and BAM... a familiar C Chord Chime will be heard.

Quote
Depending on your Mac model, the SMC performs the following functions:     
Responds to the press of the power button, including deciding whether the press is for a power off, sleep
Detects and responds to the opening or closing of the lid of a portable Mac.
Manages a portable's battery performance, including charging, calibration, and displaying remaining battery time.
Thermal management of your Mac's interior. This is primarily accomplished by sensing temperature at various places inside your Mac, and then adjusting fan speed to create or reduce airflow.
And... a whole bunch of other stuff :)

Quote
Step 2: Hardware Self-Test
After the computer is turned on, different "managers" in the computer's read-only memory begin to function. The first is the Start Manager. It makes sure that certain hardware components on the computer's logic board are working, including the microprocessor, read-only memory, drives, ports, expansion slots, and memory (RAM).
The startup sound you hear when you turn on the computer indicates that the Start Manager has successfully completed its tests. You will also see the raster (gray desktop) on the screen, along with the pointer.
If one of the Start Manager tests fails, you may hear a series of tones (sometimes called "error tones" or "death chimes") see a "sad Macintosh" icon on the screen The kind of tones you hear will vary depending on the Macintosh model, and on the kind of component(s) that failed the test.

So when we talk about updating firmware... I believe we are talking about updating SMC firmware or more exactly updating the read only executable code that communicates directly with the SMC chips (or series of chips).  In our experiment the system management controller hardware on the MDD FW400 and MDD FW800 are obviously close enough that the Startup manager sees all values from the SMC as cool and chimes (if not, Blitter would have gotten error beeps and no Chime after the force burn)... and thus a "dead" MDD.

Since the SMC communicates directly with the hardware on the MB at a very basic level... I am guessing it is seeing the FW800 ports as FW400 Ports upon boot sequence (and does NOT look for 800 ports, since a FW400 MDD does not have any)... after boot sequence in OS X... I can only guess that OS X drivers get some values from the SMC (temperature and other stuff) but access the FW ports directly and ignore where the SMC says they are... where as OS 9 may rely more on what the SMC says and not look for something the SMC does not see.

- Diehard

PS: I could be 100% wrong with this post...hehehe
« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 11:13:08 AM by DieHard »

Offline DieHard

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #143 on: May 10, 2014, 11:10:12 AM »
Quote
In OS9 the stock Firewire 400 ports does not work anymore! Only the FW800 does! :-(

To further support the theory....

Quote
fw6093, 10483

Is the exact value I get under OS 9.2.2 with FW400; and thus it does appear that OS 9 is assuming (and mapping) the FW800 port to the FW400 Port.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2014, 11:38:15 AM by DieHard »

Offline MacTron

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #144 on: May 10, 2014, 12:49:34 PM »
I insist on my theory:

On a MDD FW400 the branch of Firewire is:

U2 -------->FW400(1)

U2 -------->FW400(2)

On a MDD FW800 the branch of Firewire is:

U2 -------->FW800(1)

U2 -------->FW800(2)-------->FW400(2)
                              -------->FW400(3)

As we are using Mac Os 9 on this unsupported mac,  Mac Os 9 uses his drivers to FW800(1) and fortunately  it works, but a FW400 speed.
Mac os 9 do the same to FW800(2) but unfortunately it drivers can't understand the branch of FW400(2) and FW400(3) and that's why it can't work.

Mac Os X Fw800 drivers understand this very well so no problems.


PS: I could be 150% wrong with this post... 50% more wrong than DieHard LOL
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Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #145 on: May 11, 2014, 01:18:23 AM »
Booted into MacOS9 - have FW800 HD plugged in and turned on -
my reading on System Profiler is:

Firewire 2.8.7 - fw609e, 10483

Firewire 800 HD reading correctly. 2 partitions - 1 Leopard and 1 Tiger.

Have a USB stick on MDD Motherboard USB port - Detected correctly naming it USB 5
because I have a 3 port USB card installed as well.
However USB 4 is being called Hub in my Studio Display. and runs the mouse and keyboard.
I have a EyeTV USB stick in the 3 Port USB card which is detected alright. Namely USB 0 Port.
(This card works well in 10.4.11)
I have 3 spare ports.

Now here are some things I've never seen before;

The USB stick I mentioned on the MDD Motherboard USB port - named USB 5 is showing up
also on my Internal ATA 3(ATA100) bus with my main Partitioned Hard Drive(OSX and OS9).

My Hard Drive Icon for MacOS9 is a folder with an image of a Mac(Never seen it before).

Attached an image for you to see. It's a bit of a pizza image i.e. 3 photo images joined together.

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #146 on: May 11, 2014, 03:55:57 PM »
As I retrace my steps concerning my previous post I maybe able to explain the
icon for the HD - if it is right?

Before I did the Open Firmware downgrade I did a Norton Utilities(NU) Disk Doctor(DD)
check and also NU Speed Disk(SD) to get everything nice before I took the image of the HD.
NU had many minor errors about bundle bits for icons which I think I corrected - maybe
it put that icon itself - don't know, but I have never seen that icon before even though I have
used NU DD many times before correcting similar minor errors.

In booting into Macos9 on that HD that icon is what represents my HD.

Can't explain the misinterpretation of the USB and ATA100 buses by the System Profiler though.

supernova777

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #147 on: May 20, 2014, 08:51:18 AM »
Amazingly glad you got sorted Jakl;)   -afro- way cool dude

Offline Jakl

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #148 on: May 24, 2014, 12:54:57 AM »
Thanks Chris

Offline IIO

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Re: Downgrade firmware of FW800 for OS9 comp.
« Reply #149 on: May 27, 2014, 05:40:26 PM »

netpresenz is a killer app.

if you want something ultra easy, try the hotline ftp server, which has literally no other preferences to set than the folder which should be shared. :)
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