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TattleTech & System 7.6.1 on Macintosh IIfx crashes

Aektann

Well-known member
Hi all,
I’ve experienced an unexpected end on Error 1 when TattleTech tries to guess an information about network. It happens straight on Macintosh IIfx under System 7.6.1 only. On System 7.5.5 the same TattleTech app displays network information smoothly. I tried this on the freshly installed System 7.6.1 and have got the same program crash again. I guess the reason of this misbehavior is the combination of System 7.6 and Macintosh IIfx hardware itself. So, now I’m just curious if other owners of Macintosh IIfx could reproduce the same bug to be sure of it.
 

Aektann

Well-known member
It is strange however that they’re crashing only then one switches to network section of the main window.I’ve successfully produced a text report with the network info without crashing.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Not to be a wet blanket here, but isn't 7.6.1 well beyond the IIfx/68030 purview? IIRC 7.5.3 was the last OS freely released for everything pre-PPC, no? Might have been 7.5.5, dunno, I'm really tired ATM. But everything thereafter was aimed at PPC with Fat Binaries included so as to support older 68K machines in the Quadra class I think, but could be wrong in that assessment?

The pet IIfx is running the freely released version and I'd never think of running any newer OS infected with PPC code on a 68030 machine, but that's just my take on it.

Might could be why you're having problems with 7.6.1?
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Not to be a wet blanket here, but isn't 7.6.1 well beyond the IIfx/68030 purview? IIRC 7.5.3 was the last OS freely released for everything pre-PPC, no?

7.6.1 runs on and officially supported by anything with an '030 CPU and ~5 megs of RAM or so or better.

I've got 7.6.1 on a Classic II and it's fine. Should run great on a IIfx.

In terms of the free thing: A full 7.6 installer was never posted on Apple's download web site but that's a separate issue from the system requirements.

Apple had been selling new '030s into mid 1996, under a year before the launch of 7.6.
 

Aektann

Well-known member
Macintosh IIfx has a 32bit-clear ROM and m68030 CPU and thus it can run anything from System 6.0.5 to 7.6.1. I have 32MB RAM onboard so it’s sufficient to run System 7.6 pretty good.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Is it Open Transport doing it? Check whether your 7.5.x is using OT; if not, try enabling it, and see if that crashes TT
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Where did the Fat Binary thing rear its ugly head?

In what sense?

Fat binaries became a thing the very instant PowerMacs launched in 1994 so 7.0.1 or perhaps non-pro 7.1 is probably the last release of the OS prior to the launch of PPC CPUs. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that even the 630's install CD has fat binaries on it.

They stayed a thing through the entire duration of the Classic Mac OS and even Mac OS 9 still has 68k code running around. You could still run 68k apps on any PPC machine running up to 10.4.11 which was the last release that had Classic Mode.

"Fat" binaries came in again at the Intel switch, and once again for the Apple Silicon switch, but fat binaries themselves are arguably a good thing because in general they offer the best available performance on both/all platforms they support. The problem, say, 7.1/7.5 in particular have on PPC macs is that core parts of the OS are run in emulation even when application software was PPC native.

Is it Open Transport doing it?

Seconding this, give it a go with networking turned off and/or perhaps with appletalk turned off or pointed at a different interface.

I believe 7.6's extension manager has a package view, if so you can just change to packages and then uncheck everything related to OpenTransport. (Although I'd need to check this, I don't have a 7.6 machine running right now -- my apologies if I'm misremembering that.)
 

CC_333

Well-known member
@Cory5412 To elaborate on your explanation to @Trash80toHP_Mini , 8.0 was the first Mac OS to require an '040 as a minimum, but could be patched to run on some of the fastest '030s, such as the IIfx.

Mac OS 8.5 was the first to drop support for booting on 68k (but as Cory later pointed out, bits and pieces of 68k code were floating around the codebase long after 8.5 (right on up to the very latest release of 9.2.2), so the running of 68k software was unaffected by this PPC requirement; If anything, said 68k software was able to run faster, because by the time of 8.5's release, most of the then-current Power Macs were pretty speedy, especially the G3-based ones.

c
 

Aektann

Well-known member
Is it Open Transport doing it? Check whether your 7.5.x is using OT; if not, try enabling it, and see if that crashes TT
I've checked TattleTech on 7.5.5 under OT, worked perfectly. In fact, System 7.6 has a bug, it cannot switch to classic AppleTalk mode.
 

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Aektann

Well-known member
Is that a known bug in 7.6.1? Dialog box reads to me as a 68040 requirement for full support of 7.6.1 features?
Perhaps the bug is known. I can reproduce it either on real IIfx, or on Basilisk emulator. However System 7.6 just refuses to switch back from OT mode, which is in fact functioning pretty well.
 

Aektann

Well-known member
Well, I found that the CPU alert does not prevent system to switch network settings from OT to classic MacIP. However TattleTech still crashes on network info after restart. Disabling AppleTalk doesn’t help either. Could some other owner of Macintosh IIfx reproduce this please?
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
I don't recall if it does network spelunking offhand, but I've always used TechTool Pro as well as the Gauge series and TattleTech. Maybe give those a try if applicable?
 
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