Amiga OS4 on old (PPC) Macs

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arnljot wrote:

Methuselas wrote:
I'd almost be tempted to start a bounty for some code guru to "liberate" OS4 from its hardware dependencies......  :roll:

If there was a bounty: Are there coders with the skills? Most of the good ones are maybe busy with Aros, and we'd want to keep it that way?

And the OS4 skilled coders would maybe betray their relationship with Hyperion if they solved such a bounty...

But I'd sponsor this bounty with a few coins... And surely if I knew that it wouldn't detract skills from the Aros pool

A better, simpler, idea would be to modify PearPC to run AOS4... :-)

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Two days ago I inherited an old PowerMAC 7600/132 with a 400MHz Sonnet G3 and what looks like 256meg of ram (it was an old CAD machine) with a 10gig SCSI HD.

Two problems... I have no ADB Mouse/Keyboard and no 15pin Apple compatible monitor...

What the hell can I do with this lump? :-)

I'm loathed to bin it... since I rescued it in the frist place... but I really can't do anything with it...

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Tron2k2 wrote:
This is slightly OT, but I'd love to get my hands on the CAD software on that Mac!  I periodically do file conversion on ancient Mac CAD files (think OS 8.x era) and have a lot of trouble reading them properly with modern CAD software for the Mac, even in Classic mode.  So, I hope you didn't erase that old copy of CADintosh yet!

Can you PM me with any software availability?  And before the  anti-piracy crowd chimes in-the companies that made these old softwares don't exist anymore for the most part, and those who do don't support their ancient software or offer it for sale, believe me I've tried!  You can't even find it on eBay..

Have no way of interfacing with the HD other than the machine itself... The CAD software installed is Vector works 8.5 (apparently there are other CAD packages on there too, but that was the main program used)... So nothing has been wiped yet...

I've looked around the computer junk stores here in London and nothing with ADB or Apple monitor adaptors (I'm not having another monitor in this place).

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motorollin wrote:
@bloodline
Email me if you want to give Moana a try on that PowerMac (and don't already have it)

What do you think? ;-) The idea of setting up a PPC box for whatever-os-might-come-my-way is what made me agree to take the thing in the first place... Since I'm Keeping my PowerBook G4 with OSX as they way it remains useful...

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Tron2k2 wrote:
Here's an eBay auction with what you need..

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEC-MUILTSYNC-15-PIN-MAC-TO-15-PIN-VGA-GENDER-CHANGER_W0QQitemZ5137317595QQihZ018QQcategoryZ171QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

That way you can use your normal VGA monitor with the Mac, there are similar cheap ADB keyboards and mice available on eBay as well.  I'm kind of surprised that no computer places around you have any ADB stuff, most of them around here do.  There are recycling places here that sell the nicer stuff they get in to be recycled, and they always keep some mac stuff around as well.

I'm not falling into the old computer trap with this one... if I can't get everything I need for free or as close as... it's not worth my time :-)

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motorollin wrote:
Is this the VGA adapter you need?

--
moto

yup and I'm not paying £5 for it :-)

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motorollin wrote:
Cheapskate :-P

--
moto

No... I just been down that path before... Does anyone know if I would be able to network boot it?

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I've plug the old machine in powered it up... beeped a few times... and connected it to my MBP via ethernet... I can ping it fine... but I can't SSH or telnet... not AFP either... I have no idea what I else I can do...

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motorollin wrote:
Can those old machines do target disk mode or anything similar?

--
moto

Maybe... but I don't have a keyboard to hold any keys down :-)

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motorollin wrote:
Oh yeah... off to eBay then...

--
moto

Hmmm... running a portscan now... looks like all the ports are closed :-(

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motorollin wrote:
Bummer... can you take the disk out and put it in a caddy? Might enable you to edit some BSD config file to enable telnet or AFP.

--
moto

The Hard disk is SCSI... I have nothing here that can interface with it other than my Roland W-30... and that would just erase the disk and use the first 50meg for storing sound samples :-)

Remember that this machine is running Mac OS8... it's got no BSD heritage...

-Edit- I have noticed that the CD drive is IDE... and there is a spare IDE port on the MOBO... I wonder what I can do with that?

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motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:
The Hard disk is SCSI...

I wonder if an Amiga could access it through ShapeShifter?

Yeah... if I had a SCSI interface on any of my Amigas...

bloodline wrote:
Remember that this machine is running Mac OS8... it's got no BSD heritage...

I didn't know there was a PPC version of OS8. No idea how to do anything in that case!

Apple went PPC with OS7.3.x...

bloodline wrote:
-Edit- I have noticed that the CD drive is IDE... and there is a spare IDE port on the MOBO... I wonder what I can do with that?

Connect IDE devices to it? ;-)

Hmmm... but to what end?

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motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:

motorollin wrote:
I wonder if an Amiga could access it through ShapeShifter?

Yeah... if I had a SCSI interface on any of my Amigas...

I have... ;-)

Well I'm not posting this one to you... it weighs the same as an old russian tank...

bloodline wrote:

motorollin wrote:
Connect IDE devices to it? ;-)

Hmmm... but to what end?

I know it would be pretty pointless in this case - I was just being facetious :-D
 

But there are two ports I can interface with on this machine... the IDE and the Ethernet... somehow I must be able to get this machine to do something?!!?

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ncafferkey wrote:
You should be able to get an Open Firmware interface on the serial port, but you might need to hold down a keyboard combination to get to it.

It has no serial port... well it's got a "phone" port which is probably a serial port but it's a DIN socket...

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niklasni1 wrote:
A 7600 is not going to have any networking servers running by default. The only FTP/HTTP servers were 3rd party, too.

It has got two serial ports (on mini-DIN socets), marked modem and printer. Both can be connected to PC serial ports (both 9 and 25 pin) with a simple mechanical adaptor.

But even if you got into OpenFirmware via serial, the only thing you would be able to do was boot it into MacOS 8.6 or whatever's on it and there's no way to interact with that over serial line.

Basically, no keyboard and monitor == useless Mac. It will boot up without a keyboard attached, though (no need to Press F1 to Resume), but you can do fuck all with it unless it's been configured first.

I might pay you for the RAM and G3 card, though..

Yup, I guessed it basically a brick...

You can buy the CPU card new from Sonnet for $50 (http://store1.sonnettech.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_32&products_id=44)  and I'm pretty sure the ram would cost more to send than you could pick up from you local junk store... :-/

The SCSI HD is a bit more interesting...