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Wallstreet / PDQ installation operation

mectojic

mectojic

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 27, 2020
1,334
2,532
Sydney, Australia
Hi, I'm soon going to receive a 266 PDQ (Wallstreet II) Powerbook G3. I'm super excited to be getting up a sort of 'godfather' machine like this, and look forward to the hype of its excellent keyboard, chunky profile and rainbow logo :)

It doesn't have a HD or ram or any expansion bays, so all I know from ebay is that it turned on with no dead pixels!
Without the expansion bays however, I am left without a CD-ROM for installing an OS (from what I read, Lombard and Pismo modules are not compatible with the Wallstreets- is that true?)

I'll probably have a few questions about various hacks and things in this thread, as it's my first Old World Mac, and I'll probably do something wrong along the way. Here's my plan:

I'll attempt to clone OS X 10.4.11 from my Lombard Powerbook directly onto the first 7gb of a CF card, using a PCMCIA to CF adapter, and then use that as my main OS on the PDQ. I assume a CF-PCMCIA should work smoothly as the operating drive, as I think I've heard of a few people using old Macs without HDs/SSDs.

10.4.11 is my main goal, which I'll patch with some of those 10.2.8 kexts and optimisations to make it more performant. If that works, then I'll use some spare partitions of the CF card to install OS 9, and maybe OS 8 or 10.3.

Also, I have a USB 2.0 Cardbus I want to use with it for peripherals, but since the drivers come on a CD, I'll have to rip the drivers off and copy them over from the Lombard.

Any other details about the PDQ would be appreciated, as this is new territory for me.
 
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Others more knowledgeable than myself will advise whether OS 10.4 is possible, but I think not.
I seem to recall that on my WallStreet it failed to install. I believe I ended with 10.2 'Jaguar' which ran fine.
Some may recommend XpostFacto to install a later OS but I have no experience of this. Even if possible I guess that running OS 'Tiger' on the WallStreet would be a painful experience in terms of performance.
 
Last edited:
forums.macrumors.com

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet "PDQ" Appreciation

Macintosh PowerBook G3 Wallstreet "PDQ" What an absolute beauty of a Mac! I had a pleasant surprise in the mail on my Friday afternoon to find delivery of this near perfect example of a September 1998 Macintosh PowerBook G3 Wallstreet Series II or "PDQ". 233Mhz PowerPC 750 "G3" with 512K L2...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
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Amethyst1 said:
forums.macrumors.com

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet "PDQ" Appreciation

Macintosh PowerBook G3 Wallstreet "PDQ" What an absolute beauty of a Mac! I had a pleasant surprise in the mail on my Friday afternoon to find delivery of this near perfect example of a September 1998 Macintosh PowerBook G3 Wallstreet Series II or "PDQ". 233Mhz PowerPC 750 "G3" with 512K L2...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
Yes, I enjoyed that thread! And others.
 
I have a Wallstreet and run 9.2.2 and 10.4.11 on it, though it has been very heavily upgraded (466MHz G3, 512GB RAM, 128GB SSD, zip250, ls120, dvd-rw, usb2, mpeg2 accellerator, wifi cards).

As you mention, the CF to PC Card adapter is most likely the easiest way to quickly get started, but you'll need to install 9.1 on it first, and use OS9Helper to get the rest of the way up to 9.2.2 (if you so desire). I'd recommend starting with OS9, because you'll need XPostFacto to get 10.4 to boot and may even run into issues there.

I haven't been too successful getting OS9 to boot beyond 8GB myself, so I would recommend setting up 2 partitions: OSs (~7.9GB) and data (everything else). I have the 'System', 'Library' (OS X), and 'System Folder' (OS 9) folders on the OS partition and basically everything else on the second partition. You can set this up without too much hassle from another machine with symlinks (pointing OS/Users -> data/Users, OS/Applications -> data/Applications, etc).

One of the biggest hurdles to even get it booting is that the drive MUST be APM formatted with OS9, not OS X. From a comparison of the partition tables, it seems that when formatting with OS9, the driver partitions at the beginning are sized differently compared to when formatted from OS X (with OS9 drivers selected). I assume there was some change between when OS9's Drive Setup included the disk drivers to when OS X's Disk Utility was release to support dual-booting Macs.

While you can do all this with just the CF card and pccard adapter, part of what makes the Wallstreet/PDQ so fun is those swappable bays, so I'd recommend looking for at least a DVD drive and get an SSD inside so you can use both card slots for expansion (usb card, wifi card, etc)
 
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mectojic said:
...from what I read, Lombard and Pismo modules are not compatible with the Wallstreets- is that true?
Click to expand...
This is correct. They will not physically fit. Compare the ZIP drives for the Wallstreet/PDQ to that of Lombard/Pismo:
Both the size and connectors are different, though I assume they are using the same ATA standard for communication.
a1b7a2311cf8a8e4ad02a85ed0d80ae9.jpg
c85752ed2034671588007b3da1321c93.jpg
 
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reukiodo said:
I have a Wallstreet and run 9.2.2 and 10.4.11 on it, though it has been very heavily upgraded (466MHz G3, 512GB RAM, 128GB SSD, zip250, ls120, dvd-rw, usb2, mpeg2 accellerator, wifi cards).

As you mention, the CF to PC Card adapter is most likely the easiest way to quickly get started, but you'll need to install 9.1 on it first, and use OS9Helper to get the rest of the way up to 9.2.2 (if you so desire). I'd recommend starting with OS9, because you'll need XPostFacto to get 10.4 to boot and may even run into issues there.

I haven't been too successful getting OS9 to boot beyond 8GB myself, so I would recommend setting up 2 partitions: OSs (~7.9GB) and data (everything else). I have the 'System', 'Library' (OS X), and 'System Folder' (OS 9) folders on the OS partition and basically everything else on the second partition. You can set this up without too much hassle from another machine with symlinks (pointing OS/Users -> data/Users, OS/Applications -> data/Applications, etc).

One of the biggest hurdles to even get it booting is that the drive MUST be APM formatted with OS9, not OS X. From a comparison of the partition tables, it seems that when formatting with OS9, the driver partitions at the beginning are sized differently compared to when formatted from OS X (with OS9 drivers selected). I assume there was some change between when OS9's Drive Setup included the disk drivers to when OS X's Disk Utility was release to support dual-booting Macs.

While you can do all this with just the CF card and pccard adapter, part of what makes the Wallstreet/PDQ so fun is those swappable bays, so I'd recommend looking for at least a DVD drive and get an SSD inside so you can use both card slots for expansion (usb card, wifi card, etc)
Click to expand...
Do you mean that OS X and OS 9 should both be ideally installed within the first 7.9 GB? Could you also have them on two smaller partitions (eg 3.9GB each) within the 7.9? I’m just nervous when I have the two in the one partition, in case of a booting problem.

I‘ll remember to partition the CF card in OS 9, thanks for the tip!

Unfortunately it seems that getting any swappable bays for the Wallstreet are extremely rare now, or expensive.

But with two cardbus slots, I assume I can fit one with the CF card, and the second with a USB 2.0 cardbus. Then I’ll have two USB slots, one for accessories, and the other to power my Vonets wifi adapter, which needs USB for power and plugs into the WS Ethernet port.

Could you explain symlink to me? I’ve never tried something like that, may be helpful.
 
OS 9 sytem will use a lot less space than OS X system, so if you want to separate the partitions, you should make the OS 9 partition a LOT smaller, maybe 500MB is even too big. Remember that you should be putting all your applications and documents on the data partition beyond 8GB. So in your case maybe format in OS 9 Drive Setup with partitions:
  • 500MB OS 9
  • 7.5GB OS X
  • rest data (apps, docs, etc)
symlink is just short for symbolic link. It's kind of like an Alias in classic Mac OS. You can probably read a lot more details on wikipedia.
 
reukiodo said:
OS 9 sytem will use a lot less space than OS X system, so if you want to separate the partitions, you should make the OS 9 partition a LOT smaller, maybe 500MB is even too big. Remember that you should be putting all your applications and documents on the data partition beyond 8GB. So in your case maybe format in OS 9 Drive Setup with partitions:
  • 500MB OS 9
  • 7.5GB OS X
  • rest data (apps, docs, etc)
symlink is just short for symbolic link. It's kind of like an Alias in classic Mac OS. You can probably read a lot more details on wikipedia.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this.

If I also wanted to boot into more OS, e.g. 10.2, 8.6, 10.3, would they also need to be in the first 8GB?
 
IIRR, OS9 will be fine on a PCMCIA/CF card but OS X of any flavour will run like a dog. I think somewhere in the bowels of this forum were posts to that effect.
 
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weckart said:
IIRR, OS9 will be fine on a PCMCIA/CF card but OS X of any flavour will run like a dog. I think somewhere in the bowels of this forum were posts to that effect.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what to do then. The Wallstreet I have got has no hard drive, and no hard drive connector, so even if I got a HD or SSD, I wouldn't be able to connect it to the logic board.
 
mectojic said:
The Wallstreet I have got has no hard drive, and no hard drive connector
Click to expand...
Maybe you can find the connector part? Or buy another Wallstreet for spares/parts?
Failing that, the CF-to-PCMCIA route sounds feasible for classic Mac OS.
Or hook up a SCSI hard drive in an enclosure to the external SCSI port.
 
mectojic said:
I'm not sure what to do then. The Wallstreet I have got has no hard drive, and no hard drive connector, so even if I got a HD or SSD, I wouldn't be able to connect it to the logic board.
Click to expand...
It's PCHUB and their shipping times are dire but in the absence of anyone else, they actually have the part you need at a reasonable price.

pchub.com

Apple Macintosh PowerBook G3 233-12 HDD Caddy / Adapter 820-1009-A, IDE Connector

IDE Connector 820-1009-A Apple Macintosh PowerBook G3 233-12 HDD Caddy / Adapter
pchub.com pchub.com

Alternative is the PowerBookMedic in the US but OOS at the moment.

Powerbook G3 Wallstreet Hard Drive Connector - 922-3354

This is a hard drive connector for the Wallstreet. Mac Parts and send in Mac Repair service for your Apple Macbook, Macbook Pro, iMac, iPhone or iPad.
www.powerbookmedic.com www.powerbookmedic.com

Ditto the Bookyard in the UK

PowerBook G3 Hard Drive Connection Board (Wallstreet, PDQ) 922-3354 820-1009

www.thebookyard.com www.thebookyard.com

The PBM also has quite a few spare parts, including an optical drive. You will have to do the maths as to what is the most economic route for you. My guess is getting a dead Wallstreet/PDQ locally if you can and scavenging what you can from that.
 
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Congrats on the WallStreet! I have a 233mhz PDQ one myself that I run 8.6 on. I know from experience with my own that it will boot OS 9.2.1/9.2.2 without needing OS 9 Helper, if you want to install OS 9. My installs of OS 9 were done using a CD-ROM module and a retail 9.2.1 CD. If you don't want to go that route, you can try the images that are available online and restore one of them to a CF card and put that card in one adapter and use another CF card + adapter to install the OS onto. One adapter in the upper slot and one in the lower. I haven't tried this method, but it might be worth a shot. I would avoid using the Netboot OS 9 image on the WallStreet/PDQ as that one tends to freeze up on my PDQ. If you have a CF card reader and a Mac that can natively boot OS 9, you may be able to run the installer on that Mac and have it install OS 9 onto the CF card and not need a separate "installer" CF card. Haven't tried it myself, but thought it might be worth trying out. As others have said, running classic Mac OS from a CF card should work. I have done this myself with OS 8.
 
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MacFoxG4 said:
Congrats on the WallStreet! I have a 233mhz PDQ one myself that I run 8.6 on. I know from experience with my own that it will boot OS 9.2.1/9.2.2 without needing OS 9 Helper, if you want to install OS 9. My installs of OS 9 were done using a CD-ROM module and a retail 9.2.1 CD. If you don't want to go that route, you can try the images that are available online and restore one of them to a CF card and put that card in one adapter and use another CF card + adapter to install the OS onto. One adapter in the upper slot and one in the lower. I haven't tried this method, but it might be worth a shot. I would avoid using the Netboot OS 9 image on the WallStreet/PDQ as that one tends to freeze up on my PDQ. If you have a CF card reader and a Mac that can natively boot OS 9, you may be able to run the installer on that Mac and have it install OS 9 onto the CF card and not need a separate "installer" CF card. Haven't tried it myself, but thought it might be worth trying out. As others have said, running classic Mac OS from a CF card should work. I have done this myself with OS 8.
Click to expand...
Hadn't thought of the double CF card solution, that is a creative one indeed!

I don't have a CD-rom with the Wallstreet, nor a second CF card at the moment. But I do have a PB G3 Lombard with a CD-rom, so I'm planning on either installing a fresh OS 9 installation onto the CF card there, or simply clone my existing setup right onto it. I suspect either will work just fine, but the direct clone is the only way I can think of to get 10.4 installed quickly.

Of course, as others have mentioned, OS X will probably run poorly on a CF-PCMCIA setup, but I'll give it a shot before giving up.
 
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Ok, it’s time for the result (and failure) report (it's not all bad news!):

Firstly, I’ll mention for posterity that it’s not just the OS X installation that must be on the first 8GB: It’s EVERY installation. I first tried installing OS 9 onto the CF-PCMCIA partition past the 8GB mark, and the PDQ would not see it.

Therefore if you’re trying to do some wacky Wallstreet installation (e.g. OS 8.6, 9, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4), you need to be able to squeeze them all onto the first 8GB (it’s possible, just squished). All other files can then be stored after that 8GB point.

Another discovery (as confirmed in some other forum): the Lombard PB cannot boot from any PCMCIA card. Apparently this is due to limitation of it being New World Rom, as well as the fact that the Lombard is a very, very weird machine.
In other words, I could not test any CF-PCMCIA installation I did on the Lombard in advance. I had to rely on the results I got from the Wallstreet.


1) Having read that you MUST format the CF card within OS 9 to work with a Wallstreet, I used Drive Setup on my Lombard to initialise and partition my 16GB CF card into 3 partitions, OS 9 (3.5GB), OS X (3.9GB) and a spare partition (~8GB).

2) I ran an OS 9.0.4 CD on the Lombard, and tried to install that direct onto the CF card. Got an Installer Tome error. I always seem to have problems with CDs, no idea why.

And a problem: I read online that, for some reason, you cannot install OS 9 onto a CF card UNLESS you’re doing it from a booted CD-Rom. I can’t confirm if this is always true, but it seemed to be true for me. (See https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...treet-pdq-g3-hard-drive.2264477/post-29242920)

3) Because of the problem with step 2), I copied onto my Lombard SSD the Mac OS 9.2.2 Universal Install .iso. I then BOOTED os 9.0.4 from the CD-Rom, but used the Universal Install .iso on the SSD as the installer for the CF card. This seemed to work, until I got a number of “the given source is not a valid image file” errors for a number of .img components. No idea what that was about. (Apparently it might’ve been a Stuffit Expander conflict?)

Anyways, the point was that it worked!! I managed to get a clean OS 9.2.2 install onto the CF card, which was able to boot on the PDQ.


4) With OS 9.2.2 installed, I next tried to clone my working OS X 10.4.11 from the Lombard onto the CF card (2nd partition within 8GB limit), using SuperDuper. No problems with cloning as usual, but would it be able to boot on the Wallstreet?
When I changed the Startup Disk to my 10.4 partition and restarted, it refused to do it, and just rebooted to OS 9.

This is where I’m currently at. Also, within OS 9 I desperately want my USB cardbus to work. The OS picks it up and shows it in the desktop, and it is able to power my Vonets wifi, but it can’t see any other USB device (mice, USB drives etc). Also, the Vonets could receive power, but for some reason it couldn’t detect the Wallstreet ethernet port, so I can’t get internet yet either.

At the very least, I have proven that my untested PDQ can in fact boot into OS 9, and that its ram and PCMCIA slots are functional!
I've ordered a hard drive connector (thanks @weckart ) and will wait a few weeks for it to arrive. Will probably just keep the same CF card I've already tested, and get an IDE 44 – CF adapter.
 
mectojic said:
Ok, it’s time for the result (and failure) report (it's not all bad news!):

Firstly, I’ll mention for posterity that it’s not just the OS X installation that must be on the first 8GB: It’s EVERY installation. I first tried installing OS 9 onto the CF-PCMCIA partition past the 8GB mark, and the PDQ would not see it.

Therefore if you’re trying to do some wacky Wallstreet installation (e.g. OS 8.6, 9, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4), you need to be able to squeeze them all onto the first 8GB (it’s possible, just squished). All other files can then be stored after that 8GB point.

Another discovery (as confirmed in some other forum): the Lombard PB cannot boot from any PCMCIA card. Apparently this is due to limitation of it being New World Rom, as well as the fact that the Lombard is a very, very weird machine.
In other words, I could not test any CF-PCMCIA installation I did on the Lombard in advance. I had to rely on the results I got from the Wallstreet.


1) Having read that you MUST format the CF card within OS 9 to work with a Wallstreet, I used Drive Setup on my Lombard to initialise and partition my 16GB CF card into 3 partitions, OS 9 (3.5GB), OS X (3.9GB) and a spare partition (~8GB).

2) I ran an OS 9.0.4 CD on the Lombard, and tried to install that direct onto the CF card. Got an Installer Tome error. I always seem to have problems with CDs, no idea why.

And a problem: I read online that, for some reason, you cannot install OS 9 onto a CF card UNLESS you’re doing it from a booted CD-Rom. I can’t confirm if this is always true, but it seemed to be true for me. (See https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...treet-pdq-g3-hard-drive.2264477/post-29242920)

3) Because of the problem with step 2), I copied onto my Lombard SSD the Mac OS 9.2.2 Universal Install .iso. I then BOOTED os 9.0.4 from the CD-Rom, but used the Universal Install .iso on the SSD as the installer for the CF card. This seemed to work, until I got a number of “the given source is not a valid image file” errors for a number of .img components. No idea what that was about. (Apparently it might’ve been a Stuffit Expander conflict?)

Anyways, the point was that it worked!! I managed to get a clean OS 9.2.2 install onto the CF card, which was able to boot on the PDQ.


4) With OS 9.2.2 installed, I next tried to clone my working OS X 10.4.11 from the Lombard onto the CF card (2nd partition within 8GB limit), using SuperDuper. No problems with cloning as usual, but would it be able to boot on the Wallstreet?
When I changed the Startup Disk to my 10.4 partition and restarted, it refused to do it, and just rebooted to OS 9.

This is where I’m currently at. Also, within OS 9 I desperately want my USB cardbus to work. The OS picks it up and shows it in the desktop, and it is able to power my Vonets wifi, but it can’t see any other USB device (mice, USB drives etc). Also, the Vonets could receive power, but for some reason it couldn’t detect the Wallstreet ethernet port, so I can’t get internet yet either.

At the very least, I have proven that my untested PDQ can in fact boot into OS 9, and that its ram and PCMCIA slots are functional!
I've ordered a hard drive connector (thanks @weckart ) and will wait a few weeks for it to arrive. Will probably just keep the same CF card I've already tested, and get an IDE 44 – CF adapter.
Click to expand...
The Wallstreet, I think, tops out at Jaguar so if you want to boot Tiger, you must use XPostFacto. Mac OS9 should contain USB mass storage device extensions and those for peripherals like mice. You could try looking in the Extensions Manager to see whether those have been activated or not.
 
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Ok, I tried cloning both Jaguar and Tiger onto the CF card, and I used XPostFacto and messed around with the settings, but nothing would work. It would get stuck in the boot loader on restart with XPF settings; when just using the Startup Disk app to select OS X, it would restart but would return to OS 9.

I read that the OS X partition should be the FIRST on the drive, not just any spot within the 8GB. Well, I tried that too, but still no luck. All I have gotten booted from the PCMCIA-CF card is OS 9.2.2 universal.

I'll be ordering an IDE-CF adapter, and hopefully I'll have more luck with that.
 
I have not tried booting from a PCCard, but I do have a MicroDrive around somewhere... If I can find that and get time away from wife/kids, I can try to clone my existing 10.4.11 PDQ install over to the MicroDrive and see if I can coax it to boot.

My PDQ requires the settings to show boot console, otherwise the OS X boot will just hang (same boot screen for hours overnight) vs pause and continue (~5min boot). If your boot seems stuck, try different settings in XPostFacto.
 
reukiodo said:
I have not tried booting from a PCCard, but I do have a MicroDrive around somewhere... If I can find that and get time away from wife/kids, I can try to clone my existing 10.4.11 PDQ install over to the MicroDrive and see if I can coax it to boot.
Click to expand...
I have Microdrives, too, and they are finnicky little things. Sometimes they work and sometimes they won't - and this is on Thinkpads. It will be interesting to see how yours fares.
 
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