Some Success Details |
December, 10, 2002 9:59 PM |
mknagata |
After weeks of trying, I've finally gotten 10.2.2 (OS X) running on my PMAC 7600. I've posted some details elsewhere, but I figured I should also try to wrap everything up for others that are having problems... you may find some tidbits here that are useful. 1. System: PMAC 7600 (bought refurbished). Bought an XLR8 Carrier Card from Ebay. Added a 450 mhz G4 ZIF from Other World Computing. Used assorted old RAM I had from years passed to total 256 megs. Used original ATI Radeon card. Generic Firewire/USB card. Skyline/Proxim (used to be Farallon) PCI adapter for 802.11 wireless (Airport compatible under Mac OS 9... but Proxim still hasn't released OS X drivers... so I've mail ordered a MacSense USB 802.11 adapter that they've already released OS X compatible drivers for). 20 gigabyte SEAGATE Barracuda SCSI drive (7200 rpm, model ST318416N) loaded with Mac OS 9.2.2. Pioneer 304s SCSI internal DVD-ROM drive that I bought from an online discount store as a cheap, white-box drive about a year ago. Yes... a veritable gypsy caravan of a system. 2. When I bought the G4 ZIF from OWC, I also bought 2 new 128 megabyte DIMM cards to try and bulk up my system's memory for OS X. Bad move... for some reason, they crash my PMAC 7600 Big Time... so I dug around in my old drawers for a hodge-podge of old DIMM cards (16 meg, 32 meg, 64 meg, etc.). As mentioned above, they add up to 256 megs. I'm sending the 128 meg modules back to OWC. 3. As my other post described... I tried like hell for about a month to get OSX installed with XPostFacto. Over and over and over, I could not get the installation window to appear when I opened the application. I tried changing CD drivers, I tried changing CD drives (swapping out my Pioneer DVD-ROM for the two different Apple OEM CD-drives), I tried changing all my SCSI addresses... I was despairing of ever being able to install OSX. 4. Then, I tried a simple, obvious permutation. I have used Conflict Catcher for a long time... but I'd never thought of using it to reduce my startup set to the base 9.2.2 set. Well... it worked. First time. I had OS X 10.0.3 installed within an hour of trying it. I didn't even partition the drive (yes, I know that it's highly suggested... but I was too impatient to wait), I just installed it right on top of OS 9.2.2... and it worked!!!! 5. From there, I added updaters until I'd gotten all the way to 10.2.2. Adding the Cache enabler provided by the OWC website speeded up things phenomenally. I never tried the older XLR8 cache software... I figured that since XLR8 was now out of business, it would be wiser not to depend on their legacy software. 6. I am having to keep my SCSI chain connected to the "external" SCSI port on the motherboard... not the original "internal" chain. I wish I could figure out how to make it work on the internal chain since I've read that it's faster... but I've tried screwing around with SCSI addresses and drive termination, and I just can't make it work. The computer just can't see the Hard Drive in the boot sequence when connected to the internal chain. 7. What's really an unexpected treat is that I can now play fullscreen DVD movies on my ol' 7600! I had originally bought this Pioneer DVD-ROM drive over a year ago... hoping to make my legacy system play DVD's under OS 9... but had never gotten it to work despite using patched DVD drivers available at a couple of places around the 'net. Here's how I did it: a. First, I tried installing the DVD software I downloaded from Apple. No dice... the installer refused to work on my 7600 even though I was in OS X. b. So, I went to my "other G4"... my G4 Cube... and did a search for "DVD", and copied everything I found under OS X folders onto a CD-R. c. I then manually installed them on my 7600. Some I could manually copy while in OS X, others I had to switch over to OS 9 because certain folders were write protected as long as I was in OS X. Tedious, but only took about 20 minutes from start to finish. I copied DVD Player 3.2 from my Cube to my 7600. d. I then tried to play a DVD, but the player politely informed me that it didn't recognize my Pioneer drive as a valid DVD-ROM. But luckily for me, I found an OS X DVD Player patch at http://www.wormintheapple.gr/macdvd/ download.html. It is advertised as making EXTERNAL scsi DVD-ROM drives function... but I gave it a whirl anyways. It successfully patched my DVD player software... and I am now watching beautiful, glitch-free & smooth DVD playback from my ancient machine. Beautiful! e. By the way, my Pioneer 304s internal SCSI DVD-ROM drive is bootable under both OS X and OS 9. It works flawlessly under OS X with either CD's or DVD's. The only problem it has is with the OS 9 Apple driver... it only recognizes a CD if the computer is booted with the CD already inserted. So... I'm using InTech CD/DVD drivers when booted in OS 9. (Yes, I made sure that the InTech drivers WERE NOT the problem in the weeks when I couldn't get OS X to install... I only used the Apple driver during those horrible days.) 8. I've tried the Floppy disk enabler SWIM3 0.96 to get my internal floppy disk drive to function, but it doesn't seem to work. When I insert a disk, nothing happens. So, I've ordered an external USB floppy drive as a substitute. 9. The only other things I'm now waiting to try are 1) as I mentioned before, my MacSense USB wireless adapter so I get get this old machine back onto my Airport network, and 2) a USB-to-parallel-port printer cable so that I can try to take advantage of GIMP-print software's ability to drive my old Epson Color Stylus 800 inkjet printer. If both work as advertised, I will be popping a champagne cork over my souped-up 7600!!! |
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RE: Some Success Details |
December, 26, 2002 7:11 PM |
OSXGuru |
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Thanks for the report, mknagata. If you have time to figure out exactly which control panel or extension was causing XPostFacto to misbehave, I would be most interested--I may be able to fix the problem. |
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RE: Some Success Details |
December, 11, 2002 7:09 PM |
tempest |
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Thanks. I actually had that setup and while it worked for a monitor connected to the VGA connector, it doesn't work for monitors connected to the DVI connector. The result is the same under Mac OS 9, although the display turns on quicker than under Mac OS X (10.2.2). Forgot to include this important piece of info in my reply, sorry. |
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RE: Some Success Details-Getting the 7000 to work |
December, 11, 2002 5:05 PM |
egonzales21 |
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Had the same problem with the Radeon 7000 Because of the dual output you need to tell the system where the monitor is hooked up to. Reboot back into OS 9 and then using XPostFacto set the output to the match where your adapter is hooked. It will be something like A for the VGA and B for the DVI, etc. I forget the exact menu. I think it is the open firmware menu or such. Next to the throttle menu. Hope this helps. |
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RE: Some Success Details |
December, 11, 2002 2:54 PM |
tempest |
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Thanks for posting your experience since I'm beginning to look for a DVD drive for my 8500. Interesting insight about the video difference between the original Mac Radeon and 7000. Wonder if replacing the ROM on the 7000 with that of an original would work... |
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RE: Some Success Details |
December, 11, 2002 7:19 AM |
mknagata |
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One addendum to my report: I own both the original ATI Radeon and the more recent ATI Radeon 7000. Both work in my 7600 under OS X, and I've found no difference in performance (both allow me to play DVD movies). But there's one subtle distinction: When I boot OS X with the Radeon 7000, I don't get a display image on my monitor until about 2 minutes into the boot process. When using the original RADEON, I get an immediate image that shows me the "Apple" startup image with the animated circle below it. |
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