• Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.

Has anyone been able to install MacOS 8.6 or 9.2.2 on a Mac II or Quadra with a PowerPC upgrade card?

If so, just wondering what the process was.

I recently picked up a DayStar PowerPC 100Mhz card for Mac IIci.

I use a ZuluSCSI on that computer.

I was able to boot the Apple Legacy Recovery CD ISO via the ZuluSCSI and install Mac OS 7.6.1 and 8.1 on separate drive images on the ZuluSCSI.

I'm wondering how to install Mac OS 8.6 and 9.2.2.

I've seen a few "toast" and "img" files posted online that contain newer Apple OS Recovery CDs. I haven't been able to get those images working with my ZuluSCSI. There's a process of coverting toast files to ISO. The ZuluSCSI "sees" the drive image but thinks there is no partition. Same goes for the IMG version of the image that's available.

Would I have to use a physical CD drive to install these? Or is it a compatibility issue with the IIci?
 
I got Mac OS 8.1 installed & running on to my IIfx but that did involve editting files with ResEdit as well as using a Gestalt-masking utility.
You will have to fool the Mac OS installer that your IIci is a PPC from Apple.
 
8.1 is easy, since it still contains all the 68k code to run on a 68030 or 68040. The CPU restrictions are software-based and artificial.

9+ is another story. Fooling the installer is the least of your worries... I haven’t even been able to get 9.2.2 to run on a 1400cs/133 or 6300/120, which are both native “G2” PPC machines from Apple. You can fool the installer via various means, but it will crash during boot with a bus error or similar.

You might be able to get 8.5 or 8.6 to run on it, but it’d probably be too slow for your liking.
 
I have 8.6 in a partition on my Quadra with a PowerPC card. Besides glacial boot times, it honestly doesn't run much worse than 8.1.

To get it on there you have to jump through a bunch of hoops with the Sonnet Presto enabler. Not sure that was ever supported for a Iici though.

I've read claims 9.1 works, but I'm not sure how they've done it because it certainly doesn't for me.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I was hoping 8.6 or 9.2.2 would detect the PowerPC card the way 8.1 did and "just work".

I'm not interested in hacking the installer so I'll just leave it at 7.6.1 and 8.1 and use 8.6 and 9.2.2 on my slightly newer PowerMacs.
 
My Quadra 950 with 100mhz PPC card runs 8.6 like a champ. I needed to use the "Wish I were" extension to trick the 8.6 installer by setting it to PM 6100.
 
If you're really wanting to try OS 9, aim for 9.0.4 -- the move from 9.0.4 to 9.1 stripped a bunch of hardware code, so you actually have to have the right hardware, not just CPU, for it to work. This was done again in 9.2, so there are some machines (and accelerators) that work with 9.1 that won't run 9.2+.

But 9.0.4 isn't all that different from 8.6, so if you can get something to run on 8.6, it should theoretically work on 9.0.4 too.
 
It would, but it would be interesting to see just for quirkiness.
Yes, it would be cool to see it work and take a snapshot, but any native OS 9 machines would blow it away and I am sure we all have at least one of those.

I remember stuffing 384MB of RAM into one of my Q950 machines (256MB of 16MB 30 pin SIMMs and 128MB on the Daystar 601-80 card) just to do it. After mucking around, I removed half the 30 pin RAM since I was never going to use it and kept it for other machines.
 
If you're really wanting to try OS 9, aim for 9.0.4 -- the move from 9.0.4 to 9.1 stripped a bunch of hardware code, so you actually have to have the right hardware, not just CPU, for it to work. This was done again in 9.2, so there are some machines (and accelerators) that work with 9.1 that won't run 9.2+.

But 9.0.4 isn't all that different from 8.6, so if you can get something to run on 8.6, it should theoretically work on 9.0.4 too.

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep it in mind.
 
Back
Top