Mac OS 9 Lives
Mac OS 9 Discussion => Hardware => Topic started by: Jubadub on November 27, 2025, 10:13:03 AM
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(And Mac OS 8!)
Hey, guys!
Surely y'all know and have enjoyed Mac OS 9.2.2 booting and beautifully-running on all four Mac mini G4 models for close to 8 years now. (Wow!)
Well, that was one massive revolution...
... But most of us did not think we would live to see the day New World ROM machines, even more so the likes of the Mac mini G4, to NATIVELY boot System 7:
(http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/ea941d2fe9ea40eda5ef21b98235a199.jpg)
(Gotta love it trying to display 1 GB RAM capacity.)
Before your eyeballs leave your eyesockets completely, I ought to warn that there's still much to be sorted out in this, especially sound, video and networking (the usual suspects). In other words, your mileage may vary, so keep expectations in check!
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OK, so HOW in the WORLD is any of this possible?
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It turned out "New World ROM" Macs had a cousin born out of the clone program (until the usual villain, Steve Jobs, came and killed it), which was an architecture called "CHRP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hardware_Reference_Platform)" (pronounced "chirp"). It was the successor to PReP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_Reference_Platform), but, unlike PReP, Mac OS was also going to be officially-bootable on it. Close to no CHRP machines ever saw the light of the day, thanks to Jobs' return. Nonetheless, Apple internally developed Mac OS 7.6 ~ 8.0 for CHRP systems before it got axed. It's just that they never released it, but the development was done regardless. On October 2025, it turned out someone preserved some of these Mac versions, which were then acquired and preserved and shared with the world. (Macintosh Garden link (http://www.macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-chrp-releases-powerpc-common-hardware-reference-platform), archive.org link (https://archive.org/details/apple-mac-os-for-CHRP-PowerPC-Common-Hardware-Reference-Platform-Systems-1997/).)
Although CHRP was left to die, the so-called "New World ROM" Macs inherited much of its architecture and design. As you probably know, these Macs rely on an extra system file called "Mac OS ROM", whereas "Old World ROM" Macs do not need it, and can use their own actual ROM to get Mac OS going. This meant any Mac OS version unaware of the concept of a Mac OS ROM file could not just simply boot in a New World ROM Mac normally. People were able to boot Mac OS versions as low as 8.1, but not any lower, and that too only for the very first few New World ROM Macs, but none of the later ones, which increasingly had a higher and higher minimum OS version.
But not anymore, as the following major events happened:
- The recent Mac OS 8.0 CHRP leaks provided an earlier ROM file that, it turns out, allows regular Mac OS 8.0 to boot, as well. Or, alternatively, the Mac OS ROM file that always worked with Mac OS 8.1 also worked on these Mac OS 8.0 CHRP releases. (Exact details are fuzzy in my memory by now, so someone else might want to correct me if I got something wrong.)
- The recent Mac OS 7.6 CHRP leak provided an additional System Enabler file, which could be exploited for loading Mac OS ROM files. I forget if that's how it worked out-of-the-box, or if a bit of hacking to the System Enabler was required for that, however what I do remember clearly is that, while the System Enabler was hardcoded so that artifically no OS earlier than 7.6 could use it, the OS version check could be patched out of it, so that System 7.5.x (and potentially earlier) can also use it.
In other words, this file is the reason that earlier Mac OS versions can make use of the Mac OS ROM file, thus bringing Mac OS 7.6.1 and earlier potentially to ALL New World ROM Macs!
(Trivia tidbit: Apparently this enabler was also present in certain archives of the Mac OS 8.0 betas from when it was still known as "Mac OS 7.7". Oops! This thing was right under our nose all this while!)
- Of course, as hinted at previously, a System Enabler _alone_ is NOT enough to boot System 7 and the like when even much newer systems that were already aware of the Mac OS ROM file could not boot. The newer the model of the New World ROM Mac, the less you could actually "go back". The reason is simple: Mac OS ROM files, over time through its various versions, would get new features added, BUT also would remove older ones which were required by older OS versions. The solution? Using ELN's great Mac OS ROM patching tools (https://github.com/elliotnunn/tbxi) (plus other tools of his own), "Rairii" AKA "Wack0", known for his amazing PPC Windows NT 3.51 / NT 4.0 project on PowerMacs (https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh) and the Nintendo GC / Wii / Wii U (https://github.com/Wack0/entii-for-workcubes), analyzed many of these Mac OS ROM files, and fixed + patched + stitched together new Mac OS ROM files that attempt to keep ALL the old features that were removed AND all the new features that were added. In other words, the ultimate Mac OS ROM file that boots everything and runs everything (roughly-speaking). He also is the one who figured out and hacked the System Enabler to also accept OSes earlier than Mac OS 7.6.
Keep in mind, however, that this effort essentially allows Macs that are already able to boot SOME version of Mac OS to ALSO boot older versions. But if a given machine cannot boot ANY Mac OS version, such as the two DLSD PowerBook G4s (15" (https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.67_15_hr.html), 17" (https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.67_17_hr.html)), these patches cannot do anything about that: Their incompatibilities need to be addressed first and separately.
One more interesting thing to note about the similarity between CHRP systems and New World ROM Macs: If you check ANY "Mac OS ROM" file to see its TYPE and CREATOR codes, you will see they are "tbxi" and, you guessed it, "chrp", respectively. I couldn't believe "chrp" was in ALL the Mac OS ROM files all these years!
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Where can I get ahold of this EPIC stuff ? ? ? ? ?
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Rairii's "super" ROMs are available on this GitHub repository (https://github.com/Wack0/universal-tbxi-patchset), under releases (https://github.com/Wack0/universal-tbxi-patchset/releases). You may also fetch the patched System Enabler for Mac OS 7.6.1 and earlier from there, and place it in the System Folder. Make sure to download the files from the latest release there.
Note that he applied his patches to 3 different versions of the (US) ROMs:
- 10.2.1 with CPU Software 5.9: The "latest and greatest" Mac OS ROM file of all Mac OS. For reference, this is also the ROM version that the 1.628 GB max RAM Mac OS ROM we have was based on (thus going beyond the 1.5 GB limit) (http://www.macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-9-roms-without-15-gb-limit), although do note that the RAM limit break patches are NOT included in this, at least not yet as of the time of writing.
- 2.5.1: A much earlier version of the ROM, but still new enough to support USB. See the GitHub page for details.
- 1.7.1: A very early ROM, which can be well-leveraged by very early New World ROM Macs. See the GitHub page for details.
Note you need ROM version 9.1 or higher to use ATA-6 AKA Ultra ATA/100 AKA Kauai drivers, which are essential on the likes of the Mac mini G4 and the MDD. Special notes for the Mac mini G4 are further down.
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What is the COMPLETE list of Mac OS versions that now boot?
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To be exact, this is the complete list of OSes I have attempted, all on the Mac mini G4 1.5GHz model, with the following results:
- System 6.0.8: No boot (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/eecf1c7de4ff43ca851785c566422bd4.jpg). You get a Happy Mac, followed by a blinking question mark in a floppy icon. (Note: Although this very attempt is UTTERLY insane for multiple technical reasons, it might be not AS seemingly-impossible as one may think, as the 68k emulator resides within the Mac OS ROM file.)
- System 7.0: No boot (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/b1fc8c2fe35d4cd4a5b3bf0047f9d7e2.jpg). You get a Happy Mac, but then a warning window pops up saying System 7.0 cannot boot on this computer.
- System 7.1.2: No boot (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/17bf3873e4c1477899938addae65ab8f.jpg). You get a Happy Mac, but then a warning window pops up saying System 7.1 cannot boot on this computer.
- System 7.5: BOOTS AND IS STABLE (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/ea941d2fe9ea40eda5ef21b98235a199.jpg). It requires you to hold shift to turn Extensions (and Control Panels / INITs) off, though, or to get rid of the "Mouse" Control Panel (and possibly more). The system is surprisingly stable! I tested the British version of this one, as Apple's Mac OS Anthology discs did not include the US installers, for some very slacker-y reason.
- System 7.5.2: Boots, but very broken, close to nothing works (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/0ba4006b498a47e78e44b63f51fb0e61.jpg). It could be because System 7.5.2 was always VERY machine-specific, and is apparently one of the most broken versions of Mac OS of ALL time, regardless. The machine-specific enablers, and other things, might be what is making it so unstable.
- System 7.5.3: BOOTS AND IS STABLE (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/f7727e4e760447f986ee90cf58e0052f.png). It requires you to hold shift to turn Extensions (and Control Panels / INITs) off, though, or to get rid of the "Mouse" Control Panel (and possibly more). The system is surprisingly stable!
- Mac OS 7.6: BOOTS AND IS STABLE (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/9bc2c9a93e9344aba07960841287a9ab.jpg). Holding shift is not required here. What else can I say? It "works".
- Mac OS 8.1: BOOTS AND IS STABLE (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/49fd379b1e014e24801968343b71d892.jpg). Holding shift is not required here, either. Behaves much the same as the others, except we now have HFS+ by default. Still, it did NOT like me having a 940 GB HFS+ partition, and prompted me to either eject it or format it. (To be fair, older OSes tried to do that, too, but Mac OS 8.1 was THE OS to _officially_ be able to handle HFS+ properly, so there are no excuses for it to fail here. Mac OS 9.2 ~ 9.2.2 all work perfectly with it.)
- Mac OS 8.5: No boot. Rather, it seems like it WOULD boot, but starting with Mac OS 8.5, Mac OS now always checks to see if the machine you are booting from is within a list of Apple-endorsed machine IDs for the given Mac OS version. In other words, Mac OS 8.5 does not know what the Mac mini G4 is, nor what a G4 Cube is (our Mac mini G4 ROM file makes the mini pretend to be the latter). It seems it should be possible to patch out the machine check. According to Rairii, this should be able to be patched out by disabling such a check on the "boot" resource in the Resource Fork of the System file, in ID 3 (also known as "boot3"). For Mac OS 8.6, it seems like this check happens at the end of boot3, wherever a check for machine ID 406 is located, in which after it's detected, the code checks to see if the exact Mac model is whitelisted or not.
- Mac OS 8.5.1: No boot (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/7502a600acc044069a280aa4b6bccc1c.jpg). All that applies to Mac OS 8.5 also applies to Mac OS 8.5.1.
- Mac OS 8.6: No boot (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/412760cddd8e4561aac7e16ca413cc04.jpg). It crashes during the start screen, when the loading bar appears, but before the first extension gets to load. See the top-left corner of the picture for a glitchy visual artifact. Same happens if you try to boot with Extensions off.
- Mac OS 9.0.4: No boot. It crashes during the start screen, when the loading bar appears, but before the first extension gets to load. Same happens if you try to boot with Extensions off. Exact same symptoms as when trying to boot Mac OS 8.6 at least on this mini model, including the visual artifact on the top-left corner.
- Mac OS 9.1: No boot (http://revontulet.org/2025/11/27/7765c9186c3a43549015719de3a26387.jpg). It crashes during the start screen, when the loading bar appears, but before the first extension gets to load. Same happens if you try to boot with Extensions off. Exact same symptoms as when trying to boot Mac OS 8.6 and Mac OS 9.0.4 at least on this mini model, including the visual artifact on the top-left corner.
- Mac OS 9.2 ~ 9.2.2: BEST OS EVER, BOOTS AND RUNS BEAUTIFULLY. 'Nuff said.
Note that, although I describe many of these as "stable", I mean you can use much of it normally (sound/video/networking aside) without it crashing or misbehaving, at least not too hard, but that is not to say everything works, because that is just not the case. For example, when present, avoid opening the Apple System Profiler, unless you want a massive crash as it struggles trying to profile and gather all the information about your system. Some other apps or Control Panels might either not work, or work up to a certain point, after which they might freeze, requiring you to Force Quit the Finder to keep on going. And so on.
As you can see, I did not yet try System 7.5.5, Mac OS 7.6.1 and Mac OS 8.0. That's because they all are most likely working exactly as their neighbouring versions. But feel free to confirm.
Most non-mini systems should be able to boot Mac OS 8.6 ~ Mac OS 9.1 just fine. A "Mac OS 8.6 Enabler", so to speak, by LightBulbFun, can be renamed as e.g. "Sawteeth" and put inside the System Folder for some machines that cannot boot Mac OS 8.6 normally, so that they can, then, boot it. It is actually a Mac OS ROM file, but can function as a complementary, helper file to aid the actual Mac OS ROM file in this case. If you'd like, check here (https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/mac-os-8-6-for-some-unsupported-g3s-and-g4s.46765/page-3#post-575895) for more info. I have attached "Sawteeth.bin" to this post for convenience. LightBulbFun first shared it on this post (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-os-8-6-findings-and-ramblings.2021922/), specifically through this MEGA link (https://mega.nz/file/VUgFAKZR#xXTi_4BK2wJHU8QYCoqyNIjq2aZFPFnM7B4JlmY1lRk).
Most non-mini systems should also be able to boot Mac OS 8.5 and 8.5.1, especially on G3s and earlier. Some G4 Macs might need to spoof the Mac model in Open Firmware (or some other Forth script added to ROM) to boot, though, or patch the check out like I mentioned for the mini earlier. The reason the mini doesn't have the spoofing as an option is that any spoofing in OF would be overwritten by its own specialized Mac OS ROM, which spoofs a G4 Cube, which is clearly not in the whitelist of supported machines for Mac OS 8.5 and 8.5.1.
Also note that the mini behaves as reported above with Mac OS 8.6 with or without this "8.6 enabler" file (and with or without the System Enabler for Mac OS 7.6.1 and earlier, both of which don't seem to get in the way of later, nor earlier, OSes).
Most importantly, I did not yet attempt to identify which are the latest versions of each Control Panel and Extension for each of these OSes. If I did, I'm sure it would help a lot, and perhaps address quite a number of these problems. The more people chime in on this effort, the better! Imagine if we had a proper "Mac mini G4 System 7.5.5" CD, then an "MDD Mac OS 8.5.1" CD, then an "iBook G3 Mac OS 7.6.1" CD, and so on. Everyone with a G3 or G4 Mac can help by trying things out!
Namely, something akin to MacTron's efforts highlighting the latest Extensions for Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS 8.6 like this, but also for every other Mac OS version:
(http://revontulet.org/2020/01/14/extensions.jpg)
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But how did you get the mini to boot? It requires its own special ROM!
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Indeed it does! All credit goes to ELN and all of those who helped him on Mac OS 9 Lives!: you can simply use his tooling (which was also very useful for Rairii) to re-apply the Mac-mini-G4-specific ROM patches to Rairii's latest 10.2.1 ROM, and voila! It works as well as you would hope it to!
You can even use the resulting ROM for Mac OS 9.2.2, as well, even though you don't have to: Originally, the Mac mini G4 ROM as we see them in RossDarker's Mac mini G4 CDs version 8 and 9 (AKA v8 and v9), as well as in all the previous versions, were based on the US ROM v9.6.1. I could not find an explanation as to why ROM v10.2.1 wasn't used in the end, even when digging the old Mac mini G4 thread again that started it all. Perhaps because we already had a working ROM with v9.6.1 and did not want to risk breaking anything, or who knows. However, I have thoroughly tested Mac OS 9.2.2 with this new ROM combination (latest Rairii 10.2.1 + latest Mac mini G4 patches AKA v9 patches), and from what I could tell, everything behaves exactly the same as with the previous ROM we always used. Except now we have the ability to use the same ROM to also boot System 7.5 (I still can't believe this, even though it is true).
(For the record, while the 9.6.1 ROM was also modified to spoof the Mac mini G4 model identifier as a G4 Cube, we also tried to spoof it as a QuickSilver 2002 at one point, but someone reported sound issues with that, and so it was quickly changed back to a G4 Cube and such a change never made it into one of RossDarker's CDs. So just about everyone using Mac OS on the mini for all these years has had a ROM reporting to the OS as a G4 Cube, exclusively.)
To apply the Mac mini G4 patches, I used ELN's tbxi (https://github.com/elliotnunn/tbxi) and tbxi-patches (https://github.com/elliotnunn/tbxi-patches) to apply his "macmini.py" script. You can follow the instructions as per the tbxi-patches page, which you should not let intimidate you even if you are not used to this kind of thing. It's quick and easy, and the scripts are also fully-commentated very nicely by ELN if you are curious about what it is doing and why.
In my case, first I tried using the latest Python 3.13.9 both from Windows 7 (bad idea due to resource fork loss) and macOS 10.14.6 Mojave, but neither worked: it seems like that version of Python was just too new. I then retried with Python 3.8.10 instead (which I chose thinking it might be more period-appropriate for the script's age) on Mojave, which worked flawlessly. I didn't try it, but perhaps an older Python version might work on PowerPC OS X, as well.
I used the Python installer from the official website (https://www.python.org/downloads/macos/), and I also used an "official" Git installer from here (https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/git-osx-installer/git-2.33.0-intel-universal-mavericks.dmg) (thus avoiding any package manager headache... man, how I hate non-Mac-OS systems, including OS X, and package managers in general...)
If somehow someone with plenty of Python knowledge and the willingness to put enough time into it wished to, both tbxi and tbxi-tools could, perhaps, be ported to MacPython 2.3.5 (http://www.macintoshgarden.org/apps/macpython-233), so that we could do all this patching from Mac OS 9.2.2 directly and natively without leaving our main OS. That would also be awesome! (Of course, it helps that this is also available on more recent systems nonetheless, because then everyone gets to join in on the fun with all kinds of different backgrounds and setups.)
For convenience, I attached the final patched ROM to this post, so that anyone can go wild on their minis right away!
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Why should I care when Mac OS 9.2.2 already boots, and runs better?
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It is also my opinion Mac OS 9.2.2 is the greatest OS, and Mac OS, ever, but not everything that is possible in earlier Mac OS versions is possible in Mac OS 9.2.2. For example, some software requires Mac OS 9.0.4 or earlier to work. A lot of software is System-7-exclusive.
Some people also just prefer the likes of System 7 for its even-lighter memory footprint, lack of mandated Appearance Manager and the like. Mac OS 9.2.2 is already overkill-fast on the mini, and on most New World ROM Macs, but the likes of System 7.5 are just RIDICULOUSLY fast. Even more ridiculously. I still am trying to come into terms with how indescribably fast using it on the mini was. It got even faster when I thought there was no way to get "faster than instantaneous", as Mac OS 9.2.2 always felt instantaneous like no other system already!
People might also have some other kind of reason and/or special attachment to an earlier OS version. Or maybe people want to explore older OS APIs and behaviors, perhaps even make a new application they want to know how it will behave on bare-metal not just on Mac OS 9, but also System 7 etc..
The value is in opening up the doors that give us, the users, more options that help us all out. :)
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Final remarks
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Above all, thank you to everyone that made this possible. But I wanted to emphasize and give special thanks to Rairii for engineering all these ROMs, Mac84 for archiving and sharing all the CHRP discs, ELN for engineering all the Mac mini G4 ROM compatibility scripts and creating all the ROM and other Mac OS tooling, and to the Mac community at large everywhere that assisted in all of this into becoming reality. There's honestly many, many people to thank we owe over this one way or another, both in small and big ways.
I can't wait to see what people will do with all these new Mac OS versions on their New World ROM systems over the course of time!
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For the record, I posted this on all these 3 places for greater reach:
- Here (where the Mac mini G4 ROM is);
- Macintosh Garden (http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/system-7-natively-boots-the-mac-mini-g4);
- System 7 Today (http://system7today.com/forums/index.php?topic=4125).
These posts were also linked to from the following places, with discussions of their own:
- MacRumors PPC (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/system-7-natively-boots-on-the-mac-mini-g4.2472110/);
- 68kMLA (https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/system-7-and-os-8-natively-boots-on-the-mac-mini-g4.51119/).
I'm mentioning this here in case anyone wants to quickly jump to discussions happening on either side of the isle. :)
EDIT: For some reason I seem unable to make posts with attachments (they just erase my message and prompt me to start a new topic), so I'm trying to see what file upload service I should use for the Mac mini G4 ROM that boots System 7 (and the "Sawtooth.bin" file).
I'd rather not create a Garden page just for this just yet as this project is still in its infancy, so any Mac-friendly file upload service recommendations would be appreciated.
EDIT 2: Ah, I got it figured out: Attachments cannot be ".bin" nor ".hqx"... This should change... I repackaged the contents as ".sit" for now and put them up in the first post, as intended.
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I have thoroughly tested Mac OS 9.2.2 with this new ROM combination (latest Rairii 10.2.1 + latest Mac mini G4 patches AKA v9 patches), and from what I could tell, everything behaves exactly the same as with the previous ROM we always used.
Long shot, but, is the mouse-freezing bug still present?
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I have thoroughly tested Mac OS 9.2.2 with this new ROM combination (latest Rairii 10.2.1 + latest Mac mini G4 patches AKA v9 patches), and from what I could tell, everything behaves exactly the same as with the previous ROM we always used.
Long shot, but, is the mouse-freezing bug still present?
You know... Now that you mention it, I don't think I encountered it. But maybe I was just "lucky": even with the previous ROM, it was not THAT common for me to encounter it (but at the same time, it wasn't exactly very rare).
If you have a mini, are you able to check it on your end, as well? The more people we have trying this out, the more likely we are to truly find out.
I suspect the mouse glitch probably remains, since as far as we know it's a shortcoming to be addressed in our patches for the mini rather than Apple's own code, but... who knows?
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@Jubadub, thank you for writing all this! I will need to re-read it several times to fully grasp what's going on there.
This is EPIC!
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Great Post!
This is EPIC!
Agree!
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BRAVO Jubadub!
Had been wondering about your absence ‘round here lately.
Now that’s evident, considering what you’ve been working on.
Extremely well done and VERY highly commendable.
Not everyone is capable of pulling all of that information together
and then presenting it in such a concise, yet clearly written manner.
Kudos!
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In the words of the late great Ozzy "Never say Die..."
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BRAVO Jubadub!
Had been wondering about your absence ‘round here lately.
Now that’s evident, considering what you’ve been working on.
Extremely well done and VERY highly commendable.
Not everyone is capable of pulling all of that information together
and then presenting it in such a concise, yet clearly written manner.
Kudos!
I'm glad you like the post! Indeed, gathering all the information so that everyone's on the same page was one of my main goals with all this. :)
But, just to be sure there's no risk of any misunderstanding, I'm just the messenger in all this: we all owe it to Rairii, who is the sole owner of this project that made all this possible. All I did was to combine it with @ELN's mac mini scripts and tools, then share the result of that with everyone along with the story and all the information. :)
My overall "Mac absence" for the year was mostly due to having to take care of personal matters to get things in due order. But after I saw these crazy new developments brewing, I sure took the time to take a dive and share whatever I could!
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Excellent work!
I switched from Python to Go in large part for the compatibility guarantee. https://go.dev/doc/go1compat
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Hey, it's great to see you return here, @ELN! Your scripts and tools really saved the Mac-day here! :)
I wasn't sure about Go, but yeah, Python doesn't usually leave me with the best impression with lack of forward compatibility among even minor versions... I thought the infamous Python 2 to 3 migration was going to be the last time it would have issues like this, but I guess not. However, I'm just glad your tools work with most Python 3.x versions still! They made all the difference, and they were very easy to use thanks to the lengths you went through to keep it as heavily-commentated and easy-to-use as possible for a CLI app. I see why you would favor Go nowadays, though, as they reassure to do better to devs. (What about good ol' Perl?)
By the way, in case it might interest you, you can interact with Rairii directly through this Discord server of his (https://discord.gg/S8jWsc4SAq) (listed in his Nintendo PPC NT GitHub page (https://github.com/Wack0/entii-for-workcubes), which currently accomodates PowerPC/MIPS WinNT + Mac discussions/developments in particular).
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Congratulations all involved! That's quite the hack and definitely something that brings excitement to the whole space. Great write up and it was cool to see how the efforts of multiple individuals came together.
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It was Mac84, not "someone"... just give credit where credit is do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbIoaulKYJY&pp=ygUFbWFjODQ%3D
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It was Mac84, not "someone"... just give credit where credit is do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbIoaulKYJY&pp=ygUFbWFjODQ%3D
I have, especially in the "Final Remarks" section with special emphasis on the archival and sharing of all the CHRP releases. I guess it is easy to miss because it's such a big post, but it's right over there:
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Final remarks
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Above all, thank you to everyone that made this possible. But I wanted to emphasize and give special thanks to Rairii for engineering all these ROMs, Mac84 for archiving and sharing all the CHRP discs, ELN for engineering all the Mac mini G4 ROM compatibility scripts and creating all the ROM and other Mac OS tooling, and to the Mac community at large everywhere that assisted in all of this into becoming reality. There's honestly many, many people to thank we owe over this one way or another, both in small and big ways.
The exact quote you highighted was meant to credit and cover at least two different people in one go:
- Someone who is not Mac84, who is the person (people?) who kept those CDs recorded and intact for all these decades, and who decided to let them go to different hands;
- Mac84 himself, for generously and selflessly going after these releases, securing them, archiving them and sharing them with the world and the community at large, while simultaneously making an incredibly helpful and educational video about it.
In other words, I wanted to credit everyone down the chain: the public archivist (Mac84) and the decades-long preservationist(s) who had the CDs all along (unknown/ undisclosed person or people), while also getting the whole information / story across with as much brevity (as much as I could without cutting info out) to everyone by relying on hyperlinks plus a "Final Remarks" section so that there would be no misgivings about who did what. (I hyperlinked to both the Macintosh Garden and archive.org pages, as both lead to Mac84 as the public archivist of CHRP, which also contains the YouTube video link, for that very reason.)
To be even more precise:
- The "someone" in what you highlighted refers specifically to the decades-long preservationist(s): "someone preserved some of these Mac versions, [...]";
- The part that follows immediately after is Mac84: "[...] which were then acquired and preserved and shared with the world".
So you are not exactly right about your attribution, if we are to be pedantic... But moving on.
I hope this thoroughly suffices to clear up your misunderstanding. I commend your willingness to stand up for what is right, but it is equally important to be careful to go through the whole thing first before pointing fingers...
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What super work this is! My brain is hurting from reading your post a few times :) With great timing I just got a few Firewire drives to back up my Mac Mini, but I think these are now going to be used for a System 7 partition!
I have thoroughly tested Mac OS 9.2.2 with this new ROM combination (latest Rairii 10.2.1 + latest Mac mini G4 patches AKA v9 patches), and from what I could tell, everything behaves exactly the same as with the previous ROM we always used.
Long shot, but, is the mouse-freezing bug still present?
You know... Now that you mention it, I don't think I encountered it. But maybe I was just "lucky": even with the previous ROM, it was not THAT common for me to encounter it (but at the same time, it wasn't exactly very rare).
If you have a mini, are you able to check it on your end, as well? The more people we have trying this out, the more likely we are to truly find out.
I suspect the mouse glitch probably remains, since as far as we know it's a shortcoming to be addressed in our patches for the mini rather than Apple's own code, but... who knows?
I'm afraid I can confirm, at least on a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini, the mouse freezing issue is still there. Oh well :-)
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is there traces of ADB still on the mobo? maybe we can solder a ADB cable to that and then use WOMBAT to convert back to usb
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Great work!
Yesterday, I used this ROM to put together a bootable Mac OS 7.6 Install CD for the Mac mini.
Currently it can restore a system based on that from the “Mac OS 7.6 for CHRP” CD.
I hear this system is a little different to the retail version of Mac OS 7.6.
Would such disc be better right now if it installed a patched version of 7.6 retail?
Or rather a different version of System 7 altogether?
This would be largely experimental for now, and just an initial release where others could try out different extensions etc.
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Hey, @RossDarker! So good to have even more people back seeing this. :)
From what others reported, the 7.6 install of the CHRP discs is indeed a bit different, and not working as often as the full retail release of 7.6. So yes, to create a 7.6 install disc, be it for the mini or almost any other device, I think we should avoid the 7.6 CHRP release.
From what I gather, Mac OS 7.6.1 is the most popular version of System 7 on PowerPC across all our Mac communities, so it's probably best for us to start with that. We can always follow it up later with different versions of Mac OS for different CDs, when the time comes. What do you say?
Just for reference, there's enough to eventually justify a Mac OS CD for each of these:
- Mac OS 9.0.4: Only if one day someone figures out how to make it work on the mini...;
- Mac OS 8.6: Only if one day someone figures out how to make it work on the mini...;
- Mac OS 8.5.1: Latest Mac OS (other than 9.2.x) that we know how to make bootable on the Mac mini G4 (just have to patch system checks out of System file, or spoof the mini to something other than a Cube that also works that is also whitelisted in the System file). It is a decent choice for running apps that Mac OS 9.2.x might not be able to. It is also the latest version of all Mac OS to use the original PowerPC nanokernel (nk v1);
- Mac OS 8.1: Latest Mac OS (other than 9.2.x) that we can already, today, right now, boot on the Mac mini G4. It is also the latest version of Mac OS to run on 68040 Macs (and 68030 Macs with some dedication), which might be potentially relevant for any mini owners that also have later 68k hardware lying around (or Basilisk ][ etc.). Also the earliest version to support HFS+, but we can bring that as far back as at least System 7.5.5 if we want to;
- Mac OS 7.6.1: Latest version with MFS read support. The most popular among PowerPC System 7 users that we know of;
- Mac OS 7.6: latest version with MFS write support, although the 7.6.1 changelog suggests it had regressions that had been addressed in System 7.5.5 previously, re-applied again later only for Mac OS 7.6.1;
- System 7.5.5: latest version with MFS write support without 7.6's regressions, also is the latest version of Mac OS to boot on just about ANY PPC/68k Mac ever made as long as it has enough RAM to boot it, making it the most desirable "universal Mac OS version", which might be relevant to owners of various Macs;
- System 7.5.3: Some people swear it's even more stable than 7.5.5, at least on certain machines (hard to say, personally, especially in the case of PPC Macs and the mini G4);
- System 7.1.2P: Only if one day someone figures out how to make it work on the mini... (and on any New World ROM machine, for that matter).
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wow thats pretty sick 8)
good job ;D
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Thanks Jubadub, Mac OS 7.6.1 it is!
I’ve put together an experimental Mac OS 7.6.1 Restore CD for the Mac mini if anyone would like to try this out.
See my post (#25) at https://system7today.com/forums/index.php?topic=4125.msg19998;topicseen#msg19996 for more info.
0.1 iso: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u936FucCak17UsFCR_CYd-CQonXUyRcI
In short, burn this to a CD, then hold C at start-up to boot the disc. After installation, eject the disc with the mouse button when restarting.
Thanks to everyone who has made this possible! :)
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Awesome, @RossDarker! :) Just like with Mac OS 9.2.2, now it feels like the mini has officially stepped into Mac OS 7.6.1 territory!
Many thanks for getting this ready and set up!
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OK, this came out sooner than expected... Or should I say, this was never truly expected.
I'm posting this on all 3 Mac communities I put the original post in, because it's that much of a big deal.
Many of us know System 7.1.2 was the first ever version of Mac OS to support PowerPC-based Macintoshes...
... Yet we couldn't go below System 7.5. Until a day ago:
(http://revontulet.org/2025/12/04/728169f1b30e4a629308c728fbe40a56.jpg)
Rairii just released not only an update to his System Enabler for System 7.5 ~ Mac OS 7.6.1, but also a separate patching effort of the same System Enabler to get System 7.1.x booting.
So this achievement alone is BEYOND newsworthy...
... But it doesn't stop there. No.
You'd think a PURE 68k OS wouldn't boot in PowerPC in bare-metal:
(http://revontulet.org/2025/12/04/dd1f97c7831b4aae999eb43e19aee4e4.png)
System 7.1.1...
(http://revontulet.org/2025/12/04/56bbe94625c34d10ba74db17d68178b7.jpg)
... And System 7.1.
"To boldly go where no PowerMac has ever gone before."
This is precisely what we theorized earlier, and the thoughts we entertained: with Apple's 68k emulator residing in the Mac OS ROM file, we now have the LATEST version of said 68k-to-PPC CPU instruction converter, making ALL OF 68k run as if it was no different than a Java runtime, with "68k bytecode", if you will. :) A whole OS done that way.
And guess what? System 7.1 is so light, so fast, I cannot even SEE the "Welcome to Power Macintosh" screen or any of the Extensions loading, because they all just load INSTANTLY. If you blink for even a moment, you WILL miss all of it.
It got to the point that the OS is so light, what takes the "longest" to load is the Mac OS ROM itself! You know that finished loading after you are past the Happy Mac part.
Anyway... There some points about these achievements I'd like to clarify:
- The OSes seem to pair with the Finder as follows: System 7.1 Finder 7.1, System 7.1.1 Finder 7.1.3, System 7.1.2 (and 7.1.2P) Finder 7.1.4. Note that System 7.5 is also paired with Finder 7.1.4;
- Systems 7.1.1 ~ 7.1.2P aren't able to run their Finders (crash+reopen Finder eternal loop), but if we swap them in with Finder 7.1, it all works, which is how I took those screenshots (Rairii figured this out first, as well);
- Systems 7.1.1 comes with its various own "System Enablers". You must delete them first so they don't intervene with Rairii's Enabler, as it's all System 7.1.1 needs. If you don't, you will see this (http://revontulet.org/2025/12/04/683af29619734d989030240d90152719.jpg) instead. If you do, and please correct me if I'm mistaken, it seems like Rairii's Enabler gets its Resource Fork updated to also error out like this even after you got rid of the other, pesky enablers (I did an MD5 check for both forks to confirm). So if that happens, unpack Rairii's Enabler anew and discard the old one;
- System 7.1.2 (7.1.2P untested) is just like 7.1.1 in that it comes with its own Enabler that you need to get rid of first, in order not to face the same issue. In this case, it's called the "PowerPC Enabler";
- I could boot all these OSes with all Extensions on. I did get this (http://revontulet.org/2025/12/04/55817e28a0804b46bcf7c28b73f78d4c.jpg) and this (http://revontulet.org/2025/12/04/2945204268bb43aa8dc588bf2080e387.jpg) as warning messages, though, after boot, at least with System 7.1.2;
- Funnily enough, System 7.5 has the same Finder 7.1.4 as System 7.1.2(P), but there are no issues with it there. Likewise, System 7.1.2(P) is fine with a different Finder. The problem only materializes when both are present simultaneously, but not individually. Incidentally, Finder 7.1.3 on System 7.1.2(P) will also have the same issue, as will the Finder that came with System 7.5, hence why we settle for Finder 7.1 (there are no Finder version 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 that I could find).
I think that's about it. So to highlight one of the interesting features of e.g. System 7.1.2P, it is the latest version of the OS that is still able to format disks as MFS. Nearly all of the later System 7 versions can both read from and write to existing MFS disks, but not format one anew. (So a Mac mini G4 CD for 7.1.2P could, one day, be theoretically cool to have. It is also a relatively popular System 7 version choice by many.)
There's also one more thing: Personally, I never really coexisted much with Mac OS before the System 7.5.x era. So I can't say what should be or should not be working at this point anymore... And I could use more people exploring this together with me. But what I can say is that System 7.1.x was almost as stable as the 7.5 and later counterparts on the Mac mini G4 1.5 GHz model (this hardware is so overkill). Most apps ran, but some, such as "The Teleporting Inchworm" (my personal choice of basic System features benchmark in this project) no longer runs (and freezes the OS). But maybe it was never meant to run on System 7.1 to begin with?
Some might now be wondering, "What about System 7.0 and 7.0.1?". From what I understood, System 7.1.x used a different "format" for its System Enablers compared to 7.5.x and 7.6.x, which is why we now have 2 different Enablers, but it seems no version of Mac OS before 7.1 is even aware of System Enabler files at all! (So-called "gibblies" or "gbly" type.)
So... yeah. Only time can tell what happens or not after this!
As always, many thanks to Rairii for yet another groundbreaking update! The latest enablers can be found in his GitHub project page (https://github.com/Wack0/universal-tbxi-patchset/releases), as per usual, which are also mirrored here in the Garden (http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/universal-tbxi-patchset) for both archival and easier access from Mac OS itself. Make sure to check the release notes for details. This time around, the Mac OS ROMs are the same as the previous release, so nothing new there to think about.
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So to highlight one of the interesting features of e.g. System 7.1.2P, it is the latest version of the OS that is still able to format disks as MFS. Nearly all of the later System 7 versions can both read from and write to existing MFS disks, but not format one anew. (So a Mac mini G4 CD for 7.1.2P could, one day, be theoretically cool to have. It is also a relatively popular System 7 version choice by many.)
MFS floppy disks are formatted with Apple's proprietary GCR encoding, which can only be written or read on Apple floppy drives connected to an IWM or SWIM controller chip. No computer since the "Gossamer" G3 desktop or "PDQ" notebook is able to use these disks, since they are unreadable in all USB floppy drives. MFS was normally only used on single-sided double density (SSDD 400KB) floppy disks, but there were ways to prepare double-sided (DSDD 800KB) disks as MFS instead of HFS. Both use GCR encoding, not industry-standard MFM.
A Mac Mini G4 cannot read, write, or format 400/800KB disks at all. It is a hardware limitation, not a missing driver or software issue.
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So to highlight one of the interesting features of e.g. System 7.1.2P, it is the latest version of the OS that is still able to format disks as MFS. Nearly all of the later System 7 versions can both read from and write to existing MFS disks, but not format one anew. (So a Mac mini G4 CD for 7.1.2P could, one day, be theoretically cool to have. It is also a relatively popular System 7 version choice by many.)
MFS floppy disks are formatted with Apple's proprietary GCR encoding, which can only be written or read on Apple floppy drives connected to an IWM or SWIM controller chip. No computer since the "Gossamer" G3 desktop or "PDQ" notebook is able to use these disks, since they are unreadable in all USB floppy drives. MFS was normally only used on single-sided double density (SSDD 400KB) floppy disks, but there were ways to prepare double-sided (DSDD 800KB) disks as MFS instead of HFS. Both use GCR encoding, not industry-standard MFM.
A Mac Mini G4 cannot read, write, or format 400/800KB disks at all. It is a hardware limitation, not a missing driver or software issue.
Physical disks, yes, but there are also disk images.
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not an issue these days with ZULUScisi, BlueSCSI, AppleSauce etc
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Physical disks, yes, but there are also disk images.
For making MFS disk images you can use MinivMac (http://"https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/extras/blanks/index.html"):
% dd if=/dev/zero of=400kb.image count=800and drag that file into MinivMac, select single-sided.
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Mac7News again!
Rairii figured out all that System 7.0.x needed in order to fully use and acknowledge the existence of the Enablers, more appropriately-called "Gibblies", which is to take the boot 2 (and optionally boot 3) resources from System 7.1 and put them on System 7.0.x! So I went ahead and tried exactly that, on the Mac mini G4 as always:
7.0.1 (International English):
(http://revontulet.org/2025/12/08/6e5503572a804f9aad5b2736f5e48656.jpg)
7.0 (International English):
(http://revontulet.org/2025/12/08/1b6fad33426d47ac9481584c520c3aab.jpg)
Well, that's it. It's completely CRAZY all of this got this far. Incidentally, this patching might also assist older 68k Macs that required an Enabler to boot System 7.1 in a way so that they also boot 7.0.x (at least in theory).
Oh yeah, and it's incredibly stable, too. Played and completed a game of Shanghai II on these. Ran Glider flawlessly (lack of sound aside), too. Things just... work. Smoother than butter, it's playing with lightning!
Anyone can replicate this with easy ResEdit (http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/resedit) copy + paste, but just in case anyone wants an ever bigger shortcut, I attached a patch for 7.0 and 7.0.1 to this post, which I created with ResCompare 2.6 (http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/rescompare-v26). You double-click it, then click on the button to patch, then select your System 7.0 or 7.0.1 file accordingly. It may or may not require the "International English" version for my patches, though, but I'm not sure. The patches do work on the International English release, though, that much I can say. Also note that the patches create an unmodified backup file called "System (original)", just in case, but make sure you don't leave the backup inside your System Folder by accident.
This was my first time actually using ResEdit OR ResCompare in all my life. But wow, they are easy and nice. (Had to increase allocated memory on Get Info to both, though, which you must if you do any of this patching by hand!)
One way or another, we got ALL versions of System 7 now covered. Insane. Rairii also intends to look into the lack of audio one day, so this might not be over yet from his side.
Just to address our next natural expectation: "WHAT ABOUT SYSTEM 6?"
This one seems like it won't be easy (not that most of this was, as extremely few people on Earth have the ability + interest to do what Rairii did up until this point). Rairii is working on this, but there can't be any guarantees. It seems that even Macsbug is not working in this case? System 6 is just too much of a departure from System 7 and later. Code only present in Old World ROMs will be needed this time around, one way or another.
Now only time can tell what will or will not happen!
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Holy mackerel! 8)
This was my first time actually using ResEdit OR ResCompare in all my life. But wow, they are easy and nice.
WHAAT? And you call yourself a Mac user?
Kiddin', just kiddin' ;D
Anyway, your ResCompare patch on System might work or it might not. For it to work, somebody else's System file (before applying a patch) should be bit for bit identical to your System file at the moment of creating ResCompare patch.
IIRC, there were several resources inside System file, that were created/modified by various NIC installers. Possibly others too. I also know of one audio software company that created its own resource inside System file for copy protection purposes.
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Anyway, your ResCompare patch on System might work and it might not. For it to work, somebody else's System file before applying a patch should be bit for bit identical to your System file at the moment of creating ResCompare patch.
IIRC, there were several resources inside System file, that were created/modified by various NIC installers. Possibly others too. I also know of one audio software company that created its own resource inside System file for copy protection purposes.
Ah, good point. To be fully sure, people ought to consider respatching in boot 2 and 3 themselves (literal copy+paste) if the patch complains with an error message.
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i would never try to patch a system releated file while it is beeing loaded, it seems more safe to patch a copy, then switch files, then reboot.
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I'm afraid I can confirm, at least on a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini, the mouse freezing issue is still there. Oh well :-)
Y'know, I have to comment on this again: by now I must have rebooted the mini from 50 to 100 times since the new ROM, and the mouse freeze glitch bug did not happen even once.
But I think I'm closer to understanding what's going on: @fergycool, if you can and are willing to try, assuming from now on you only use the 10.2.1 ROM for the mini, can you zap the NVRAM and then see if you ever get it ever again?
Basically, something BIZARRE happened when I was using Mac OS 9.2.2 recently, which made many pieces click together: I got System Sounds and FULL volume control e.g. on the Control Strip for me to adjust on the mini. "Suddenly". This is completely unprecedented to ALL of us Mac OS users on the mini.
I go through the findings a bit more in detail on this post (https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/system-7-natively-boots-the-mac-mini-g4#comment-115225). (Recommended read for any Mac OS 9.2.2 user on the mini.)
This is / these are a bizarre and unexpected positive side-effect of this project (or of the stock 10.2.1 ROM itself once it has the mini patches). But I very much welcome it!
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Exciting development. It sounds like we're getting near to a v10 of the mini CD.
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you guys rock, cant waint for the installer for the rest of us
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In my case, first I tried using the latest Python 3.13.9 both from Windows 7 (bad idea due to resource fork loss) and macOS 10.14.6 Mojave, but neither worked: it seems like that version of Python was just too new. I then retried with Python 3.8.10 instead (which I chose thinking it might be more period-appropriate for the script's age) on Mojave, which worked flawlessly.
FYI. I use one specific software for programming HAM radios that relies heavily on Python. The consensus there is that one has to use nothing newer than Python 3.10, because later versions have bugs/compatibility problems.
I'm using MacPorts version 3.10.5 on Yosemite.
As to the mouse and sound issues, did you try to zap PRAM, remove battery and also press the CUDA button? Is everything OK after these procedures too?
EDIT. Another question. Does your ROM file have ATI Via driver integrated into it?
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Basically, something BIZARRE happened when I was using Mac OS 9.2.2 recently, which made many pieces click together: I got System Sounds and FULL volume control e.g. on the Control Strip for me to adjust on the mini. "Suddenly". This is completely unprecedented to ALL of us Mac OS users on the mini.
Interesting! So far I haven't been able to reproduce this.
To confirm, do you have sound coming from the Mac mini's internal speaker?
My attempts involved:
- Switching to the 10.2.1 ROM on Mac OS 9.2.2
- Installing System 7.0 (with System Enabler 356 71x from v20251203; boot 2 and 3 copied from System 7.1)
- Experimenting with both leaving the NVRAM alone (after booting 7.0) and resetting NVRAM on different occasions.
So far no luck with changes to the onboard audio on Mac OS 9.
On the other hand, I haven't had any more stuck mouse cursors after any of my numerous restarts today with the 10.2.1 ROM, so that either looks promising or I've been exceptionally lucky.
Exciting development. It sounds like we're getting near to a v10 of the mini CD.
Yes indeed, this would certainly call for a new disc!
For the next CD, I’m hoping there can be a big upgrade, such as onboard audio functionality. The progress being made some time ago looked to be going in the right direction. It’d be great if it’s successful, but still worth investigating nonetheless.
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I'm afraid I can confirm, at least on a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini, the mouse freezing issue is still there. Oh well :-)
Y'know, I have to comment on this again: by now I must have rebooted the mini from 50 to 100 times since the new ROM, and the mouse freeze glitch bug did not happen even once.
But I think I'm closer to understanding what's going on: @fergycool, if you can and are willing to try, assuming from now on you only use the 10.2.1 ROM for the mini, can you zap the NVRAM and then see if you ever get it ever again?
Thank you. I will certainly do that and keep rebooting and see if it the frozen mouse issue has gone. Fingers crossed!
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I'm afraid I can confirm, at least on a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini, the mouse freezing issue is still there. Oh well :-)
Y'know, I have to comment on this again: by now I must have rebooted the mini from 50 to 100 times since the new ROM, and the mouse freeze glitch bug did not happen even once.
But I think I'm closer to understanding what's going on: @fergycool, if you can and are willing to try, assuming from now on you only use the 10.2.1 ROM for the mini, can you zap the NVRAM and then see if you ever get it ever again?
Thank you. I will certainly do that and keep rebooting and see if it the frozen mouse issue has gone. Fingers crossed!
I'm afraid that I've done that. Subjectively the mouse freezing issue seems to occur less often. I rebooted 15 times after I reset the NVRAM before it happened. But it did happen.
Also the sound is still muted. I even rebooted into 7.6, changed the volume via the Monitors and Sound control panel, then rebooted into 9.2.2. Still the same. But if you have another tests to do then let me know and I will. Thanks!
BTW I did notice that in the Sound control panel in the INPUT tab if I toggle on SIGNAL METER it locks solid. Not sure if that is new.
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FYI. I use one specific software for programming HAM radios that relies heavily on Python. The consensus there is that one has to use nothing newer than Python 3.10, because later versions have bugs/compatibility problems.
I'm using MacPorts version 3.10.5 on Yosemite.
As to the mouse and sound issues, did you try to zap PRAM, remove battery and also press the CUDA button? Is everything OK after these procedures too?
EDIT. Another question. Does your ROM file have ATI Via driver integrated into it?
It seems they removed some HQX-related tooling in such later Python versions, yeah. Perhaps others things, too. Can't say I'm a fan of Python and nor of their decision-making, both recent and old.
I zapped NVRAM with the "PRAM" keyboard shortcut, only. Although from other people's testings, it seems zapping isn't really a requirement to reproduce the system sounds and volume control afterall. Something else triggered it (although still NVRAM-related). Some System 7.5.x installer I ran previously, I think from another System 7 system, seems to be what has set it off and enabled it, from what I could tell.
I intend to figure out how to dump my current NVRAM state so that we can get to see what exactly is allowing these to work. Then, perhaps, we might get something closer to being worthy of a "v10" Mac OS 9.2.2 disc for the minis.
About the ATI Via driver, AFAIK, it doesn't come integrated into the ROM. As a ROM that has the patches seen in the "v9" disc, though, it does contain some ATI-related patching (the NDRV?). The exact ATI patching present is in the end of the "macmini.py" Python script: https://github.com/elliotnunn/tbxi-patches/blob/master/macmini.py
Interesting! So far I haven't been able to reproduce this.
To confirm, do you have sound coming from the Mac mini's internal speaker?
Oh, no, sadly, I did not get that to work. To be sure, I just retested that with the mini's USB audio adapter, that I always have, unplugged before booting it fresh, and the internal speaker is still completely mute.
What I meant was 2 sound-related things started working:
- System Sounds: For example, when you get an alert window, if you click outside its window, a regular Mac OS system will beep at you if it's not on mute, with whatever you have configured as your system sound ("Indigo", "Sosumi", "Beep", "ChuToy" etc.). Likewise, if you get an oldschool file select prompt, and you decide to click outside, some programs are coded to beep at you if you do, and that's exactly what we also get now on the mini. There is one exception to this, though: There's also supposed to be a beep when an alert window itself pops up, but that still won't play, curiously enough.
- Overall volume control (via the Control Strip and Sound Control Panel): Before, moving the volume slider did not save its position in the slider, and the top-bar menus would flash blue for a moment, which is what Mac OS does when a system sound is supposed to play, but the system is on mute, as if we had just selected mute each time (despite the slider bar remaining in the middle in the Control Strip IIRC). This is no longer happening: Now I pick a volume via the slider, the system then beeps accordingly with a loudness matching the volume setting (or it doesn't beep at all, if I chose the lowest setting, which mutes the OS), then, in the case of the Control Strip, when I reopen the slider, we see the current volume slider position is still in the position we previously chose. ALL sound output is now louder/quieter accordingly, as it should be.
(Then there's the mouse freeze bug during boot, which I still have to encounter since.)
To get the internal speakers working, we will have to tweak the ROM scripting further, so that we either tweak Apple's sound drivers to somehow cooperate with the existing speakers in the mini, OR write brand new drivers for it at worst, I'd suspect. I think we cannot unfortunately dodge meeting one of these requirements with Rairii's patching alone.
I'm afraid that I've done that. Subjectively the mouse freezing issue seems to occur less often. I rebooted 15 times after I reset the NVRAM before it happened. But it did happen.
Also the sound is still muted. I even rebooted into 7.6, changed the volume via the Monitors and Sound control panel, then rebooted into 9.2.2. Still the same. But if you have another tests to do then let me know and I will. Thanks!
Thanks for checking all that again. I guess there's still some step of the puzzle I missed out on documenting... When I think back to the things I did up until the point I noticed I had system sounds suddenly, I remember I was installing various System 7.5 ~ 7.5.3 versions, then booting into them, and perhaps even installing them at one point from within another System 7 instance? Or... did I always install from Mac OS 9?
So, I really ought to capture the state of my NVRAM somehow while it lasts... This way whatever it is doing right, it can be transferred. (E.g. specific values for sound-related varibles stored in it.)
The hard way would be to get System 7.5.x installs / booting to trigger these sound features again, and pin down which install and install procedure exactly did it. That will be the last resort.
Same for the mouse freeze... There is something preventing it from happening in my machine entirely now, it would seem... (Could the mouse freeze bug, all along, have a correlation with the other sound bugs I described? Meaning that if those sound features are in order, so is the mouse movement...?)
BTW I did notice that in the Sound control panel in the INPUT tab if I toggle on SIGNAL METER it locks solid. Not sure if that is new.
I can guarantee this was always the case: anything involving a microphone / sound input has always caused a hard crash or failed to work on the mini under Mac OS 9.2.2, for all 4 mini models, documented in the vastness of the original Mac mini thread somewhere.
I just rechecked it on my mini in its current state, and I can see that behavior remains unchan--- WTH?! It's actually working now on my end! What the?!
On the "Input" tab, I see I have an "External Mic" option whose device is marked as "USB Audio", which I can click on to be my input source, and if I click on "Check signal level", it doesn't freeze, but actually does as it advertises. (Meanwhile, "Play sound through output device" is greyed out, which I guess makes sense?)
So I went ahead and started digging through my old stuff to see if I had an old style microphone I could plug into the USB audio adapter and... it... works? As in, the OS didn't crash, the "Sound" Control Panel didn't crash, and when I picked the "Alerts" tab and then clicked on "New Sound" and then recorded new audio, it actually captured the sound input! All of this would previously freeze or crash the OS, as far as I'm aware!
Thing is, however, the volume of the sound was extremely low, even if I was extremely loud (being loud helped a bit, though). So I decided to search for another microphone candidate I'd have immediate access to...
... which I did. At first, it seemed to take no sound, so I rebooted. After that, it'd register the audio, but... the audio was just some random kind of static! Still "worked" in that nothing crashed and a sound file generated, but that wasn't sound from the outside per se like that...
So now I ordered in an ultra cheap microphone that should be a bit more appropriate for the task. Once it arrives, I will try again later, to see if any of them will record audio properly.
I really would love to figure out how exactly this "sound features medicine" was set up in my mini (almost guaranteed to be NVRAM, as I touched nothing in my Mac OS 9 install). Or, at the very least, how I can "capture its state" so that we can manually set it on any Mac we want (e.g. NVRAM script).
Oh, for the record, I also went ahead and retested the "External Mic" option of the "Built-in" type, and that doesn't get to record any audio at all, still. So just how the internal speakers still don't work, the internal mic also doesn't. At least there are no crashes normally if I try using them, though at one point I got the Control Panel to crash the Finder in a way I had to reboot, and an actual bomb which also required a reboot. (But I never got any of these with the "USB Audio" source for the mic, now that is stable OS-wise.)
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you guys are my heroes. just let the rest of us know once there is an easy method to bless our mac mini g4s with system 7/8/9 multiboot with an easy iso install :)
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I've updated the Mac mini 7.6.1 CD to Test Version 0.2.
You can download the iso from the Macintosh Garden if you want to try it out:
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-mini-g4-system-7
CD 0.1 had some incorrect icons; the System itself is unchanged from 0.1.
Also now just a 43 MB download.
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Hey Jubadub,
Whatever image host you used to attach the screenshot is no longer working, and the photo of your screen is gone. Did you set the image to never expire? Note: I'm not in the UK or any other territory with those silly age verification laws.
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It's not loading because the site's HTTPS certificate expired on Dec 18. Hopefully the move to shorter certificates in a few years will force people to automate their cert renewal and make problems like this a thing of the past.
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Same here. I've contacted the image hosting sites owner fogWraith (who I run Macintosh Garden with) and he's on it :)
EDIT: Seems to be working now!
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Has there been any progress with getting audio working... or compiling the most recent PPC compatible extensions and control panels into versions of 7.x?
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I've updated the Mac mini 7.6.1 CD to Test Version 0.2.
You can download the iso from the Macintosh Garden if you want to try it out:
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-mini-g4-system-7
CD 0.1 had some incorrect icons; the System itself is unchanged from 0.1.
Also now just a 43 MB download.
I tried installing on my mac mini on a partition - have OS9 and OSX already and used the Apple System Restore on the cd in mac os 9 to install on to a spare partition.
OS7.6.1 is seen on the boot menu (when hold down option key at startup) but trying to boot just gives the floppy icon with a "?"
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I should say it boots fine from the CD but the disk initializer shows the hard drive as empty and ready to initialize so I assume system 7 cant cope with the more modern partition table?
Guess I'd have to wipe my whole drive to install and it would have to exist on it's own?
I had formatted the spare partition (800mb) to HFS not HFS+ using the terminal in OSX
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I should say it boots fine from the CD but the disk initializer shows the hard drive as empty and ready to initialize so I assume system 7 cant cope with the more modern partition table?
Guess I'd have to wipe my whole drive to install and it would have to exist on it's own?
I had formatted the spare partition (800mb) to HFS not HFS+ using the terminal in OSX
What do you mean "more modern partition" table? Your disk is formatted with Apple Partition Map, not GPT, correct? GPT is supported on Intel Macs and maybe Power PC Macs after July 2005. I don't have firmware dumps between April and June 2005 to check those. If you have a Mac or firmware version not listed in the "List of Open Firmware versions" at
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/question-how-powerful-of-a-graphics-card-will-work-in-a-beige-power-macintosh-g3.2303689/
then I would like a firmware dump to compare.
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Just supposition on my part - relatively new to old macs.
Using a PPC mac mini G4 1.25GHz and yes, formatted with APM not GPT
OSX and OS9 partitions in HFS+ and the partition I was trying to get system 7 to run on formatted in HFS+ initially, but when that didnt work, tried HFS
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Well you made the right call going to HFS since HFS+ was only introduced with Mac OS 8.1. Also, be sure your HFS partition is bootable and less than 4 GB.
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I am not sure why it isnt booting unless it needs to be the only OS on the drive.
The system folder has the system folder icon so I assume it has been correctly 'blessed', and it is recognised as bootable on the boot option screen
The disk initializer does see the HDD as an ATA device when I boot from CD but doesnt see any partitions and doesnt mount any of them on the desktop either.
They all appear fine in system 9.2.2 and OSX
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You probably should partition the drive using the System 7 utility, to make sure it creates something it can understand, and most importantly installs the drivers.
I used it and made two (hfs) ones, installed System 7.6, then booted into Tiger and reformatted the second partition hfs+ and restored tiger on it, so I can dual boot. It defaults to 7, and I hold down option to get to Tiger.