Archaic Apple Adventures
A couple weeks ago I discovered a hidden cache of Macintosh Powerbooks sitting unused at work, and managed to take possession of one of them. I figured these are good machines and it shouldn't be too hard to bring them up to date for use in our current environment (a mix of MacOS X, Linux, and Windows).
I was wrong.
(Aside: I'm no stranger to Macs, but I'm also no expert on them. I started getting familiar with Macs back in the System 6 days of the late 80s, later spent a lot of time with System 7 when I worked on a student newspaper at Ohio State, and after that I even did a year of phone consultation helping both Mac and Windows people connect to the net by modem. But Macs have always been a third platform for me at best.)
The label on the bottom of the machine said: Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series
14.1TFT/266MHz-1MB/64MB/4GB HD/4MB video/CD/Modem
(c) 1998 Apple Computer Inc.
The 64MB RAM is a bit disappointing, considering that OpenOffice.org tends to want 128MB all by itself. The 14" screen is nice, though it makes for a bigger heavier machine than I normally like.
The 266MHz processor speed gave me an important clue about which of the various PowerBook G3 machines this is; it's apparently a "PDQ" model, a slightly faster version of the "WallStreet" model.
Unfortunately there's no USB on this thing (much less FireWire), just the traditional Mac ADB port and a squarish SCSI port like no other I've ever seen. (And I've seen a lot of SCSI.)
Turning the machine on quickly reveals two things. First, that it takes a very long time between the traditional Mac startup chord and any other indication that the machine is actually doing anything; the way I was rebooting, I started to wonder if it was actually a shutdown chord on this machine. Second, the machine is running MacOS 9.2.
The first thing I did was clean up the environment a bit, removing lots of old and/or useless extensions, including some that appeared to be holdovers from the monochrome days. Microsoft Office was installed on the machine, and a few minutes with that reminded me that somehow Microsoft's Mac programmers always managed to be better than their Windows programmers. Internet Explorer was there too, but I soon added a version of Mozilla 1.3, the latest I could find for OS 9.
I looked for the button to open the CD drive, and at first only found what I later realized was the battery. What I also realized was that the battery was dead, though occasionally the test (not eject) button would make the indicator lights dance a bit.
I finally found the CD drive. I wanted to remove it from the machine to look at its label and see what its capabilities are. I couldn't figure out how, until I finally found the lever on the front corner of the machine.
My initial goal was to install OS X on the machine, and I had some CDs for that purpose. I also had a bootable PowerPC Linux CD to try out. I remembered from the last Mac I messed with that holding C during boot was supposed to make it boot from CD, but it seemed to ignore me when I tried it with my CDs. Then I tried inserting my CDs while OS 9 was running; it wanted to format them. (Good luck with that.)
Then I noticed that the fine print on my OS X disc said it was actually a DVD, not a CD, which meant this 1998 computer was unlikely to be able to read it at all. I checked Apple's OS X site and discovered that OS X doesn't support this machine anyway. So much for that plan.
But what about the Gentoo live Linux CD? Nope, that won't work either, because it requires a "NewWorld" Mac, and this is apparently one of the last of the "OldWorld" Macs. (NewWorld pretty much started with the original iMac. Everything is easier with NewWorld.)
Next I thought it might be good to check out the OpenFirmware (equivalent of a PC's BIOS settings interface). I read somewhere that holding option-option-O-F on bootup will take me to the OpenFirmware, but that doesn't appear to do anything.... Does this mean the machine predates OpenFirmware?! Then I find a comment somewhere that getting into OpenFirmware requires having the floppy drive installed. So I went searching for the floppy drive at the office, pulled out the useless battery, and put the floppy drive in. Option-option-O-F still doesn't work, but now I find something saying I should hit command-option-O-F while booting. This works.
It's OpenFirmware 2.0.1. I realized I'd never actually gone into OpenFirmware on a Mac; I'd done so many times on Suns (which also have OpenFirmware), but that was over four years ago. The NetBSD people give some guidance though. NetBSD also suggested using System Disk to make it easier to access OpenFirmware settings and change the boot device. So I installed SystemDisk.
Now I looked at the disk space. It's only a 4GB disk, and it has 1.72GB available. Is it better to leave MacOS 9.2, completely replace it, or figure out a way to repartition and have both? Not sure yet.
I decided to try booting the Debian/powerpc Linux installer and just go as far as the partition question. I never got that far. The boot.img disk gives a penguin/Mac icon while it loads, then just sits there not doing anything after the load finishes. Uh oh, the power button doesn't even work, so I pull the plug. I tried again, same thing. The floppy won't eject either. Then I discover that shift-fn-control-option-command-power will force the machine to turn off. But I still can't eject the floppy. A manual I have for the PowerMac 9600 tells me to try holding the mouse button on bootup to eject the disk. Doesn't work. So I forced-off the machine and got out a paperclip. (Somewhere in my desk drawer I have some already bent for the purpose.) OK, floppy out.
I tried a disk image called "ofonlyboot.img". Same penguin/Mac icon as it loads. Same sitting there showing that icon and nothing else after it loads. Force-off and paperclip-eject once again.
Well, if all else fails, read the manual for how to install Debian/powerpc. But by this point I'm ready to give up and leave MacOS 9.2. At least for now.
I was wrong.
(Aside: I'm no stranger to Macs, but I'm also no expert on them. I started getting familiar with Macs back in the System 6 days of the late 80s, later spent a lot of time with System 7 when I worked on a student newspaper at Ohio State, and after that I even did a year of phone consultation helping both Mac and Windows people connect to the net by modem. But Macs have always been a third platform for me at best.)
The label on the bottom of the machine said: Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series
14.1TFT/266MHz-1MB/64MB/4GB HD/4MB video/CD/Modem
(c) 1998 Apple Computer Inc.
The 64MB RAM is a bit disappointing, considering that OpenOffice.org tends to want 128MB all by itself. The 14" screen is nice, though it makes for a bigger heavier machine than I normally like.
The 266MHz processor speed gave me an important clue about which of the various PowerBook G3 machines this is; it's apparently a "PDQ" model, a slightly faster version of the "WallStreet" model.
Unfortunately there's no USB on this thing (much less FireWire), just the traditional Mac ADB port and a squarish SCSI port like no other I've ever seen. (And I've seen a lot of SCSI.)
Turning the machine on quickly reveals two things. First, that it takes a very long time between the traditional Mac startup chord and any other indication that the machine is actually doing anything; the way I was rebooting, I started to wonder if it was actually a shutdown chord on this machine. Second, the machine is running MacOS 9.2.
The first thing I did was clean up the environment a bit, removing lots of old and/or useless extensions, including some that appeared to be holdovers from the monochrome days. Microsoft Office was installed on the machine, and a few minutes with that reminded me that somehow Microsoft's Mac programmers always managed to be better than their Windows programmers. Internet Explorer was there too, but I soon added a version of Mozilla 1.3, the latest I could find for OS 9.
I looked for the button to open the CD drive, and at first only found what I later realized was the battery. What I also realized was that the battery was dead, though occasionally the test (not eject) button would make the indicator lights dance a bit.
I finally found the CD drive. I wanted to remove it from the machine to look at its label and see what its capabilities are. I couldn't figure out how, until I finally found the lever on the front corner of the machine.
My initial goal was to install OS X on the machine, and I had some CDs for that purpose. I also had a bootable PowerPC Linux CD to try out. I remembered from the last Mac I messed with that holding C during boot was supposed to make it boot from CD, but it seemed to ignore me when I tried it with my CDs. Then I tried inserting my CDs while OS 9 was running; it wanted to format them. (Good luck with that.)
Then I noticed that the fine print on my OS X disc said it was actually a DVD, not a CD, which meant this 1998 computer was unlikely to be able to read it at all. I checked Apple's OS X site and discovered that OS X doesn't support this machine anyway. So much for that plan.
But what about the Gentoo live Linux CD? Nope, that won't work either, because it requires a "NewWorld" Mac, and this is apparently one of the last of the "OldWorld" Macs. (NewWorld pretty much started with the original iMac. Everything is easier with NewWorld.)
Next I thought it might be good to check out the OpenFirmware (equivalent of a PC's BIOS settings interface). I read somewhere that holding option-option-O-F on bootup will take me to the OpenFirmware, but that doesn't appear to do anything.... Does this mean the machine predates OpenFirmware?! Then I find a comment somewhere that getting into OpenFirmware requires having the floppy drive installed. So I went searching for the floppy drive at the office, pulled out the useless battery, and put the floppy drive in. Option-option-O-F still doesn't work, but now I find something saying I should hit command-option-O-F while booting. This works.
It's OpenFirmware 2.0.1. I realized I'd never actually gone into OpenFirmware on a Mac; I'd done so many times on Suns (which also have OpenFirmware), but that was over four years ago. The NetBSD people give some guidance though. NetBSD also suggested using System Disk to make it easier to access OpenFirmware settings and change the boot device. So I installed SystemDisk.
Now I looked at the disk space. It's only a 4GB disk, and it has 1.72GB available. Is it better to leave MacOS 9.2, completely replace it, or figure out a way to repartition and have both? Not sure yet.
I decided to try booting the Debian/powerpc Linux installer and just go as far as the partition question. I never got that far. The boot.img disk gives a penguin/Mac icon while it loads, then just sits there not doing anything after the load finishes. Uh oh, the power button doesn't even work, so I pull the plug. I tried again, same thing. The floppy won't eject either. Then I discover that shift-fn-control-option-command-power will force the machine to turn off. But I still can't eject the floppy. A manual I have for the PowerMac 9600 tells me to try holding the mouse button on bootup to eject the disk. Doesn't work. So I forced-off the machine and got out a paperclip. (Somewhere in my desk drawer I have some already bent for the purpose.) OK, floppy out.
I tried a disk image called "ofonlyboot.img". Same penguin/Mac icon as it loads. Same sitting there showing that icon and nothing else after it loads. Force-off and paperclip-eject once again.
Well, if all else fails, read the manual for how to install Debian/powerpc. But by this point I'm ready to give up and leave MacOS 9.2. At least for now.