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Backporting HFS+ to Mac OS 8.0 and earlier

Hi all,

I have had some success with adding HFS+ support to previously unsupported System versions. Briefly, Mac OS 7.6 and 8.0 on PowerPC work well, and I have managed to get 68k versions working with a rather inelegant hack. Here is a longer writeup:

https://github.com/elliotnunn/HFSPlusBackport

Hacking on the project yourself should be pretty easy. I am hoping that somebody with a bit of 68k-foo can help me dig deeper. I hope to add support for as many Mac OS versions as possible, and give users the option of installing an INIT or patching their System resources directly.

Happy hacking,

Elliot

 

Byrd

Well-known member
Love to see this up and running - getting HFS+ support on a bootable 68K Mac can take an age when you install OS 8 (as HFS), upgrade to 8.1 (HD remains at HFS, need to copy over to another drive, reformat and copy it back).  I still prefer OS 8.1 over any Classic OS on a '040 with decent RAM and HD.

 

KnobsNSwitches

Well-known member
Love this idea. Been trying to get it working on my Color Classic but no luck so far. After getting the right version of python installed I've run the makefile, and i have the exported Testimages directory, but trying to copy the various system folders to an actual Mac OS Standard partition hangs my G4 cube every time. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the output, I admit I am not clear on what the .idump and .rdump files are.

 
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Love this idea. Been trying to get it working on my Color Classic but no luck so far. After getting the right version of python installed I've run the makefile, and i have the exported Testimages directory, but trying to copy the various system folders to an actual Mac OS Standard partition hangs my G4 cube every time. 

 Maybe I'm misunderstanding the output, I admit I am not clear on what the .idump and .rdump files are.
Ship your Cube to me and I'll sort it out. ;)

You can use one of the whole bootable .dsk files from TestImages.tmp, and mount it using Disk Copy (I think -- perhaps the type/creator needs to be set).

The .rdump files store resource fork data (in a format compatible with Apple's Rez utility), and the .idump files store the type/creator code (in the same format as the PkgInfo file inside a Mac OS X .app bundle). I settled on this scheme after struggling to preserve and manipulate this old-fashioned metadata on my macOS 10 machines.

 

CyberXZT

Member
I modified and used Elliot's script and his RezHex tool to copy a modified (without the 68k stuff) 7.6.1 system file onto my PowerBook 1400. I have been using it for a few days with a 128GB SD card and have only run into one issue (which was entirely my fault).

The issue was forgetting to copy the 'Text Encoding Converter' extension to the finished install. This led to some applications failing to work properly and pretty quickly resulted in the creation of files without a name field. While I didn't spend much time on it, I wasn't able to use, modify, or delete these files (even with the extension installed) and resorted to reformatting. So don't forget to always run this extension.

 

KnobsNSwitches

Well-known member
Progress! Kind of. Moving past my (unreleated) issues w/ copying on the Cube, I have gotten the script-generated 7.6.1 image to boot my color classic, but an HFS+ partition on the same SD card still has "where_have_all_my_files_gone". The 7.5.5 image I have not gotten to get to boot yet, just a Sad Mac. 

 

LarBob

Well-known member
Progress! Kind of. Moving past my (unreleated) issues w/ copying on the Cube, I have gotten the script-generated 7.6.1 image to boot my color classic, but an HFS+ partition on the same SD card still has "where_have_all_my_files_gone". The 7.5.5 image I have not gotten to get to boot yet, just a Sad Mac. 
I can confirm I also get a Sad Mac trying the generated 7.5.5 on my SE/30.

EDIT: 7.6.1 boots on my SE/30 but still just has "where_have_all_my_files_gone?"/is unable to read the HFS+ partition.

 
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Yes, this will fail on 68k machines except the Quadra 900 (and possibly similar Quadras). I apologise for not making this clearer -- I documented it poorly, then forgot about it myself.

The reason is that 8.1 introduces a required patch via the "gusd/gtbl/gpch" mechanism. I have narrowed down the resources required by crudely swapping them in from 8.1, but I have only done this on the Q900 emulated by Basilisk II. The purpose and function of the underlying patch are not yet clear.

There seems to be some interest now, so I'll get back to work on it.

 

KnobsNSwitches

Well-known member
In searching for threads lost in the great crash, I was reminded of this one.
Any progress ever in getting 68k System 7 to read HFS+ ?
 

soviet

Active member
This is very cool, but don't get how this works?.
What I need to do to get system 7.6.1 patched ?.
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
Love to see this up and running - getting HFS+ support on a bootable 68K Mac can take an age when you install OS 8 (as HFS), upgrade to 8.1 (HD remains at HFS, need to copy over to another drive, reformat and copy it back). I still prefer OS 8.1 over any Classic OS on a '040 with decent RAM and HD.

Wasn't there a utility that would do the upgrade without having to go through all of that? Alsoft's PlusMaker, if I am not mistaken.
 
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Hi! Sorry, none just yet. If you're still interested, I can send you a few pre-built System files to try out? Might take me a week or so.
 
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