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I managed to get Leopard to run on the machine using an image that @LightBulbFun made. It runs, but not very well.

29983591_1504150786377467_5310385192239668456_o.jpg
 
I'm actually working on that project... I have the 7448 soldered on, but the system will no longer POST. It needs a firmware update in order to properly work with the CPU. I'll be attempting updating the firmware very soon.

Interesting, a write up on how to extract, patch, and update the firmware would be nice, whenever you get around to it.

Did the tower G4's need a firmware patch for the 7448 cpu upgrade cards?
 
Interesting, a write up on how to extract, patch, and update the firmware would be nice, whenever you get around to it.

Did the tower G4's need a firmware patch for the 7448 cpu upgrade cards?
Yes, they did need firmware upgrades. Even CPU upgrades other than the 7448, like the Sonnet Encore G4 ST upgrade line and the FastMac G4 upgrade line, required firmware patches in order for the Mac to work at all. Now it's just a matter for @dosdude1 and @LightBulbFun to figure out what needs to be changed in the firmware to get a 7448 to work.
 
Yes, they did need firmware upgrades. Even CPU upgrades other than the 7448, like the Sonnet Encore G4 ST upgrade line and the FastMac G4 upgrade line, required firmware patches in order for the Mac to work at all. Now it's just a matter for @dosdude1 and @LightBulbFun to figure out what needs to be changed in the firmware to get a 7448 to work.

Thanks Dan, the old post @ xlr8yourmac seems to imply you are correct, that there was a firmware patch needed, as well as an nvram patch to boot the OS.

This answers something that has been puzzling me, I knew the 7448 was supported in OS X, I just didn't know the nvram patch was needed, I thought that was only needed for OS 9. Tho it seems it was needed for OS X too, however in Openbios/Qemu-System-PPC OS X ignores this patch to nvram and reads the correct PVR.

I'll have to check the bear metal, and see if patching the nvram works on a real Mac when booting OS X. It must, or we would need a patched mach_kernel to boot 7448 CPU's in system after 10.2.x.

As to the firmware patch, we'll have to get our hands on the patch used and run a hex compare to see if we can figure what the patch changes. Tho if the Mini won't POST, will it go into programmers mode?
 
As to the firmware patch, we'll have to get our hands on the patch used and run a hex compare to see if we can figure what the patch changes. Tho if the Mini won't POST, will it go into programmers mode?
No, but I think the idea is to use an external programmer to flash the firmware chip without needing the Mac to boot.
 
I just wanted to post that my TS-100 Soldering iron arrived a while ago and I have used it for a few Jobs and im pleased to say that it works very well

it works way better then my old 936 Clone, soldering iron :)

one word of warning with the TS-100 is that, it looks like it might take a regular Laptop barrel Jack but the diameter of the centre pin is larger then a typical Laptop charger, this caught me out but luckily the PSU to my first (long gone) broadband modem (a BT thing) had the correct Jack on the end so I cut the wire halfway on that and spliced it onto a typical 19V power brick I had lying around (sadly I dont have any suitable 24V bricks as of right now to use.) which works lovely :)

heres a picture of the nice clean pads on a 7410 im in the middle of reballing, which I used the TS-100 to clean up the pads on :) and despite the fact I was using my "bad" solder wick as I had run out of the Goot stuff (Pun intended) :p the pads still cleaned up quite nicely, having done this exact same thing before but using my 936 clone with the same wick I can say for sure that the TS-100 makes a world of difference (if anyones wondering, my BGA stencil has gone walkies so I have not yet been able to put the solder balls on this chip)

upload_2018-5-10_13-29-58.png



I would highly recommend that if your looking to get into this sort of work that you pick up a TS-100 soldering iron (or some sort of Soldering iron that is compatible with the Hakko T12/T15 bits) :)
 
I just wanted to post that my TS-100 Soldering iron arrived a while ago and I have used it for a few Jobs and im pleased to say that it works very well

Did you get stung for VAT and, if not, did they undervalue it on the customs label?

A couple of the Maplins near me still have the Hakko FX-888D but even with the firesale discount they still come to eBay prices.
 
Did you get stung for VAT and, if not, did they undervalue it on the customs label?

A couple of the Maplins near me still have the Hakko FX-888D but even with the firesale discount they still come to eBay prices.

this is the ebay listing I bought mine from https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183128069307 I was not even thinking about VAT/Customs value, I just avoided the ones from China to avoid the stupidly long shipping times, as they say "slow boat from china" :D

(mod note: not my ebay listing)
 
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this is the ebay listing I bought mine from https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183128069307 I was not even thinking about VAT/Customs value, I just avoided the ones from China to avoid the stupidly long shipping times, as they say "slow boat from china" :D

(mod note: not my ebay listing)

Interesting! I see these are also shown on the local Amazon site priced with postage just a fraction less than your indicated EB seller - who has very positive feedback. The seller on the Amazon site HERE is based in Schenzen, China.
Which, as I prefer to make purchases via Amazon and not eBay (I don't use PayPal), got me wondering. Do you think these are Chinese knock-off's being sold with TS100 markings? I'm not a penny-pincher, and if necessary would willingly pay a little more to ensure getting a genuine unit.
 
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the TS-100 soldering iron is open source, its not made by one specific person AFAIK, from what I have seen it looks like there all more or less the same no matter where you get them from (of course this could change)

I did have a quick sleuth around french amazon for you, and this looks like a good listing: https://www.amazon.fr/souder-Greencolourful-Intelligent-programmable-électrique/dp/B076CDJD5W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1526030568&sr=8-2&keywords=ts+100+fer+a+souder&th=1 but I have never used french amazon before so I dont know what shipping costs or other pitfalls may be present.

(the only thing I have to say about this listing is it does not include my favoured general purpose tip which is the C4 tip but the D24 is a good substitute, the "I" conicial tip they also include, is pretty useless however)

if you do pick it up I would recommend getting the C4 tip, but also remember what tip works best for you, can also come down to just the feel of it. (and also remember when looking for tips, the TS-100 is also compatible with Hakko T12/T15 tips they just stick out quite a bit more then usual)
 
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Interesting! I see these are also shown on the local Amazon site priced with postage just a fraction less than your indicated EB seller - who has very positive feedback. The seller on the Amazon site HERE is based in Schenzen, China.
Which, as I prefer to make purchases via Amazon and not eBay (I don't use PayPal), got me wondering. Do you think these are Chinese knock-off's being sold with TS100 markings? I'm not a penny-pincher, and if necessary would willingly pay a little more to ensure getting a genuine unit.
See post #50.
[doublepost=1527879490][/doublepost]
I managed to get Leopard to run on the machine using an image that @LightBulbFun made. It runs, but not very well.

View attachment 758442
Is this a revision A or B? I read that the revision B can take 2x 256MB RAM, maybe that would help. (Not that it would probably change a lot, but the revision B also has an ATI Rage Pro Turbo graphics with 6 MB instead of an ATI Rage IIc graphics with 2 MB, or does it?)
 
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I managed to get Leopard to run on the machine using an image that @LightBulbFun made. It runs, but not very well.

View attachment 758442

I'm not even going to make that attempt on my Bondi. Tiger with 6mb of video RAM and 512mb of system RAM drags pretty badly, even with a 400mhz G4 upgrade. With the View script and mplayer from a different thread, I can watch some video, but Coreplayer just crashes due to the lack of video RAM. OS 9 flies, though, and the Bondi is a screaming console and arcade emulation machine with the G4. I'm curious whether 3D games' performance have improved, but those are more GPU- dependent than anything else. Regardless, I'm glad I made the investment.
 
Leopard can actually run suprisingly well on such "low end" hardware :)

after talking to @dosdude1 for a bit we got leopard running quite a bit better on his iMac G3, turned out some files got corrupted during the OS clone which messed some things up (on top of that there was some dodgy RAM that needed swapping out IIRC)

if anyone wants to give the image a spin you may or may not find it here... :D: https://mega.nz/#!ZNJzRR4A!mA1svzvbBzWa7dJwH8XlWUjJ-3xiSBAxzeHlWaKgSP4 (the password to the user account in the image may or may not be: leo)

this image should work on any* Pre uninorth machine as long as it has a G4 (however if your doing this on a Beige machine make sure to run xpostfacto 4 "install everything" option from the menu bar. during development of this image the PowerSurge platform expert went walkies and I only noticed it after packing the image up, and that kext is vital for booting Leopard on PowerSurge machines ie 7300-9600s, running "install everything" will stick this kext back :) )

*sadly I dont own any PowerSurge (PowerSurge are the Power Macintosh 7300 through to 9600) machines to properly test this image on so I have only been able to test it on machines as old as my G3 beige. but in theory as said it should boot on a PowerSurge machine as long as it has a G4
 
Leopard can actually run suprisingly well on such "low end" hardware :)

after talking to @dosdude1 for a bit we got leopard running quite a bit better on his iMac G3, turned out some files got corrupted during the OS clone which messed some things up (on top of that there was some dodgy RAM that needed swapping out IIRC)

if anyone wants to give the image a spin you may or may not find it here... :D: https://mega.nz/#!ZNJzRR4A!mA1svzvbBzWa7dJwH8XlWUjJ-3xiSBAxzeHlWaKgSP4 (the password to the user account in the image may or may not be: leo)

this image should work on any* Pre uninorth machine as long as it has a G4 (however if your doing this on a Beige machine make sure to run xpostfacto 4 "install everything" option from the menu bar. during development of this image the PowerSurge platform expert went walkies and I only noticed it after packing the image up, and that kext is vital for booting Leopard on PowerSurge machines ie 7300-9600s, running "install everything" will stick this kext back :) )

*sadly I dont own any PowerSurge (PowerSurge are the Power Macintosh 7300 through to 9600) machines to properly test this image on so I have only been able to test it on machines as old as my G3 beige. but in theory as said it should boot on a PowerSurge machine as long as it has a G4

I think I might try a clean install of Tiger to see if that improves things. The G4 is definitely an improvement in performance over the G3, but my install may just be borked from years of use.
 
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Tiger...drags pretty badly, even with a 400mhz G4 upgrade

Are you getting any kind of graphics acceleration or is it entirely CPU based?

(See if the ATIRagePro.kext is loaded with kextstat or in System profiler)

On my PDQ, the 4MB RageLTPro only appears to accelerate window redraws when operating in Thousands of colors (not millions). but unfortunately the colors are all wrong on the PDQ, so it’s not usable (at this time) with GPU Accel.
 
Leopard can actually run suprisingly well on such "low end" hardware :)

after talking to @dosdude1 for a bit we got leopard running quite a bit better on his iMac G3, turned out some files got corrupted during the OS clone which messed some things up (on top of that there was some dodgy RAM that needed swapping out IIRC)

if anyone wants to give the image a spin you may or may not find it here... :D: https://mega.nz/#!ZNJzRR4A!mA1svzvbBzWa7dJwH8XlWUjJ-3xiSBAxzeHlWaKgSP4 (the password to the user account in the image may or may not be: leo)

this image should work on any* Pre uninorth machine as long as it has a G4 (however if your doing this on a Beige machine make sure to run xpostfacto 4 "install everything" option from the menu bar. during development of this image the PowerSurge platform expert went walkies and I only noticed it after packing the image up, and that kext is vital for booting Leopard on PowerSurge machines ie 7300-9600s, running "install everything" will stick this kext back :) )

*sadly I dont own any PowerSurge (PowerSurge are the Power Macintosh 7300 through to 9600) machines to properly test this image on so I have only been able to test it on machines as old as my G3 beige. but in theory as said it should boot on a PowerSurge machine as long as it has a G4

I took the plunge and restored the Leopard image that you supplied (thank you) to a spare 7200 rpm drive that I had laying around. It boots to the desktop, but I get no USB love. I tried resetting the PRAM and pressed the CUDA switch, but still, no USB. Any ideas?
[doublepost=1528237595][/doublepost]
Are you getting any kind of graphics acceleration or is it entirely CPU based?

(See if the ATIRagePro.kext is loaded with kextstat or in System profiler)

On my PDQ, the 4MB RageLTPro only appears to accelerate window redraws when operating in Thousands of colors (not millions). but unfortunately the colors are all wrong on the PDQ, so it’s not usable (at this time) with GPU Accel.

We addressed this in your PDQ thread. I wonder if this would work in the Leopard image that @LightBulbFun supplied. I guess we can test that theory when I get USB working in Leopard on the Bondi...
 
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I took the plunge and restored the Leopard image that you supplied (thank you) to a spare 7200 rpm drive that I had laying around. It boots to the desktop, but I get no USB love. I tried resetting the PRAM and pressed the CUDA switch, but still, no USB. Any ideas?
[doublepost=1528237595][/doublepost]

We addressed this in your PDQ thread. I wonder if this would work in the Leopard image that @LightBulbFun supplied. I guess we can test that theory when I get USB working in Leopard on the Bondi...

ok interesting your iMac G3 probably has the USB controller I originally thought all Tray-loaders have, which is the same as whats in the G3 BW, I still need to work on getting that USB controller working in Leopard. however the leopard image does have Screen sharing and file sharing enabled and the ethernet should work, so you should be able to remote in via screen sharing etc :) (but expect it to be a bit more sluggish then normal)

( @dosdude1 tray loader has a diffrent USB controller then i was expecting which works fine in Leopard)
 
ok interesting your iMac G3 probably has the USB controller I originally thought all Tray-loaders have, which is the same as whats in the G3 BW, I still need to work on getting that USB controller working in Leopard. however the leopard image does have Screen sharing and file sharing enabled and the ethernet should work, so you should be able to remote in via screen sharing etc :) (but expect it to be a bit more sluggish then normal)

( @dosdude1 tray loader has a diffrent USB controller then i was expecting which works fine in Leopard)

Ah ok. What's the password to screen share? :)

Also, I'll assume that any fix that you come up with will be able to be done via kext replacement, right? So no need to pull the drive to restore a new image to it once you get that controller working?
 
Ah ok. What's the password to screen share? :)

should be: leo

(I really need to get an iMac G3 tray-loader etc so I can vet the images myself and make sure everything is working before pushing it to the public... my only Pre uninorth machines which currently have a G4 are my G3 beige and G3 BW I dont own anything else pre-uninorth and with a G4 sadly)
 
should be: leo

(I really need to get an iMac G3 tray-loader etc so I can vet the images myself and make sure everything is working before pushing it to the public... my only Pre uninorth machines which currently have a G4 are my G3 beige and G3 BW I dont own anything else pre-uninorth and with a G4 sadly)

Well, you've now got two guinea pig machines; albeit remotely; to run your tests on :)
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ok thats annoying, @dosdude1 had the same issue...

yet when I fired up the image my self I could login fine with the same details... :confused:

ill have to look into this...

I could always boot into single user mode and just create a new account and (perhaps; never tried it this way) set up SSH. I have USB and keyboard control until Leopard gets to the kext loading. There's most likely a command line way to enable screen and file sharing, I would think...

EDIT: Scratch that. No USB love in single user mode either....
[doublepost=1528240256][/doublepost]I'll hook the drive up to my Sawtooth and play around a bit (create a new account, etc). Would the Tiger USB kexts work or would it be some other hacking that needs to be done?
 
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Just a thought; can you trash the boot caches and let it rebuild? One of my G5s has experienced “Leopard Sudden USB Loss Syndrome” and rebuilding the boot caches resolved it. It could be a long shot, but worth a try?
 
Just a thought; can you trash the boot caches and let it rebuild? One of my G5s has experienced “Leopard Sudden USB Loss Syndrome” and rebuilding the boot caches resolved it. It could be a long shot, but worth a try?

I tried it, and no go. I tried to remotely create a new user by hooking the drive to my Sawtooth and via Firewire connection to my 12" Powerbook G4 and Terminal but the commands just freeze the Terminal and I have to restart. It seems that the dscl commands only work for local drives. I removed .applesetupdone to get Leopard to allow me to create a new user but I get a "keyboard not connected" error upon rebooting, which was to be expected. The password @LightBulbFun supplied still doesn't work. I'll have to await his next bit of advice...

For the record, this install of Leopard panics on anything post-UniNorth, so hooking it to a more modern machine doesn't work.
 
I'll upgrade your CPU card if you're located in the US. I have plenty of G4 CPUs available.
I'm in the Seattle area with a PDQ that could use a good G4. Maybe one that can undervolt to run cooler? 🤷‍♂️

I also have the clamshell and a few others if you're swimming in G4 chips and free time, though I would say let others come first as these are all low priority.
 
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