Amiga OS4 on old (PPC) Macs

[giZmo350]

This is amazing to watch develope all over the web! Mac Mini's are flying out of ebay like "Pigs In A Floyd Dream!"
Peeps on Amiga boards all over the world are posting links to MacMini's that are for sale! LOL...  And soon as they get this running I'll be buying OS4 for sure - if there's any left on the shelves!!

Where can I download the OS4 loader ISO? Seems to be gone from the English Amiga Board... and I can't read Italian over IKSNET! Oh wait...  BABELFISH! hahahaha

[giZmo350]

@AeroMan

There's no way to update a PPC macmini. It's a bummer! But I'll bet someone will get it working on the 1.42ghz machine sooner or later.

Mac Mini forum HERE....

[giZmo350]

OK, The installer got pretty far copying files. It stopped at "About to build the copy of the OF tree - press any key"

Is this going to screw up my MAC OS installation that's already on the mini HDD if I continue? I don't want to do that!

 :-?

[giZmo350]

OK, well the routine says that it's copying a bunch of stuff and I got worried! SO, if all goes well I should get the requesting workbench screen right? I simply pressed option 1 and enter. Should I select some other option (1 thru 6) to get the "Amiga Early Startup Control" screen? Do I need to then select "BOOT" to go on from there? Do I need the OS4 CD to get to the floppy animation screen?

[giZmo350]

OK, I have the 4.2GHz machine with 32MB of VRAM and just get the black screen. I must mention that even 6 months ago (I read this somewhere on the net that long ago), the Moana files where proved on only mini machines with a certain amount vram. From the get go it was said that vram was the whole problem. The whole 32MB of VRAM from Apple was a joke anyway! What can you run with that small amount of vram? I got Lego Star Wars II for xmas and can't even run it 'cause it requires 64MB vram!  :madashell:  What that has to do with the OS4 loader is probably just a matter of vram addressing (needs to start in a different location than the 64MB vram model.

Using option 4 on the loader cd, I did however, manage to get the the 32MB VRAM to initialize to some sort of video mode (white background with blue character font) so something is failing to continue right after video init on the 32MB VRAM model. HINT!

Alex, could you post a thread listing all the different startup commands that you have received from various folks? I will try each of them here on my 32MB VRAM machine.  :-)

Also, someone may want to try to modify vram addressing in the actual loader routines....   :crazy:

[giZmo350]

Yea, the whole "silent" upgrade from Apple really chapped my thighs! Shortly after getting my Mini with 256MB of system RAM I realized that I better get cracking on a 1GB stick. It took me a year to get a decent price on ebay. Sure, I could have bought straight from Apple or Kingston, but at a hefty price. You may all want to start looking for 1GB sticks too.

Anyone remember back on 9/12/2005 that I was the first on A.O to ask about OS4 on the MacMini? LOL

Will OS4 run on the MacMini?

I also inquired about the final of OS4 running on machines that would require an accelerator (because there just aren't enough Blizzards to go around and that the price of a Blizzard would skyrocket and that it would hurt sales of OS4!). I was told "No, OS4 final will NOT require an accelerator". RIGHT! Well, over two years later, here we are clammoring for hardware!  :lol:  I knew this would happen!

@Alex, I too went to bed late and got up first thing I woke up to check this thread! I'm still in my robe, had 3 ciggys, 3 cups of java and need a shower! HAHAHAHA!

[giZmo350]

@Alex....

My machine being Boot ROM Version: 4.8.9f1 stops the loader because it can't find devs\usb\hcd\ohci.usbhcd_deb

And that would make sense as there is no file devs\usb\hcd\ohci.usbhcd_deb

Just,

devs\usb\hcd\ohci.usbhcd
devs\usb\hcd\ohci.usbhcd_safe

Any ideas?

It then trys to start the Exec at address 00000000

Unable to load kernal
Exiting second level booter

[giZmo350]

@BooBoo1200

Well, I copied the files back from the CD that I created the ISO from, to a folder on my desktop. Then copied devs\usb\hcd\ohci.usbhcd to my desktop, added the extension to create devs\usb\hcd\ohci.usbhcd_deb (I left _safe and .usbhcd there and just added _deb - cause I want to try both and the loader might need both the old ones).

I then simply burned another CD from the folder but now the loader won't even load and says that the environment is to too small. Do I need to create another ISO from the newly created folder then reburn that ISO to CD to get it to work? Are there some hidden files that I can't see? (Yes, I have "see all hidden files" turned on in WinXP.

Anyhoo....  I'm done messing with this today to get ready for the New Year's festivities!  :-D  I'll report back more tomorrow (or the next day - depending on how I feel tomorrow! hahahahahaha!

Happy New Year all!   :-)