It should also be noted that bbraun created the amazing ROM disk driver that makes it all work, and olePigeon designed the ROM disk icon and the jolly roger logo on the SIMM and programmer board.
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Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.
Booting 7.0.1 From:ROM (Mac IIsi) /W Apps! My New Toaster:-)
- Thread starter uniserver
- Start date
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Good points, I thought he meant the BigSIMM that holds all that cool stuff . . .
. . . that bbraun got running.
I'm still diggin' the DigitalBuccaneer logo as well. :approve:
. . . that bbraun got running.
I'm still diggin' the DigitalBuccaneer logo as well. :approve:
zuiko21
Well-known member
AMAZING! We already knew it was possible, but seeing it actually running is just great
If I understand it correctly, if no key is pressed upon power-up, the machine will try to boot from an ordinary disk, right? Could that be modified in order to make the Copy ROM to RAMdisk boot option the default, leaving some key for the disk boot mode?
If I understand it correctly, if no key is pressed upon power-up, the machine will try to boot from an ordinary disk, right? Could that be modified in order to make the Copy ROM to RAMdisk boot option the default, leaving some key for the disk boot mode?
register
Well-known member
A behaviour according to existing standards would be most preferable, like firstly check for some Alt-key depressed to invoke a custom boot drive selection and (if that is not the case) secondly look up boot disk settings stored in PRAM. Probably one could allow to optionally directly address a boot partition like with HDT formatted drives, or even better pick a System Folder from a selection of disks or partitions }
Formerly used shortcuts to influence the boot drive selection should work, still. It is always nice to allow experienced users to utilize their knowledge in evolving systems, still.
Are there any chances to make this hack available for other machines, like a PowerBook?
Formerly used shortcuts to influence the boot drive selection should work, still. It is always nice to allow experienced users to utilize their knowledge in evolving systems, still.
Are there any chances to make this hack available for other machines, like a PowerBook?
The PPC ROMs use Color QuickDraw to draw the color icons, which are stored as 'cicn' resources in the ROM's resource map. I believe adopting this approach would work for anything that has Color QuickDraw support (such as the IIsi ROM already being used), regardless of what the current monitor settings support (Color QuickDraw figures it all out for you). The PPC ROMs use the following cicn resource ids:
-20020 for happy mac
-20021 for "empty" floppy icon
-20022 for '?'
-20023 for 'X'
Backporting the code to do this to the IIsi ROM doesn't seem too bad. When adding new code to the ROM I've been reusing the space from the RAM test functions, which have been disabled, then bsr.l to it, using a hand calculated offset.
The more interesting aspect is modifying the ROM's resource map to accommodate the new 'cicn' color icon resources. The IIsi ROM's resource map header lives after the resources, and before the declrom. So, the resource map can't grow without displacing the Slot 0 declrom.
Basically the ROM looks like this:
header information
code
last resource entry (which happens to be the .netBOOT driver)
last-1 resource entry
...
first resource entry
resource map header
Slot 0 declaration ROM w/video drivers, etc.
The most scalable approach would be to move the declaration ROM out, figure out all the things that refer to it (hopefully just located via looking at the ROM length field in the ROM header), update those, move the resource map header out, update the offset to that, then add the icons, then add the color icon drawing routines, and make the system try calling those first, and if they fail, fall back to the current B&W icons. Growing the resource map will be necessary eventually anyway for adding other things in the future (drivers, cursors, fonts, whatever).
Or just put stuff in the framebuffer and hope it works.
-20020 for happy mac
-20021 for "empty" floppy icon
-20022 for '?'
-20023 for 'X'
Backporting the code to do this to the IIsi ROM doesn't seem too bad. When adding new code to the ROM I've been reusing the space from the RAM test functions, which have been disabled, then bsr.l to it, using a hand calculated offset.
The more interesting aspect is modifying the ROM's resource map to accommodate the new 'cicn' color icon resources. The IIsi ROM's resource map header lives after the resources, and before the declrom. So, the resource map can't grow without displacing the Slot 0 declrom.
Basically the ROM looks like this:
header information
code
last resource entry (which happens to be the .netBOOT driver)
last-1 resource entry
...
first resource entry
resource map header
Slot 0 declaration ROM w/video drivers, etc.
The most scalable approach would be to move the declaration ROM out, figure out all the things that refer to it (hopefully just located via looking at the ROM length field in the ROM header), update those, move the resource map header out, update the offset to that, then add the icons, then add the color icon drawing routines, and make the system try calling those first, and if they fail, fall back to the current B&W icons. Growing the resource map will be necessary eventually anyway for adding other things in the future (drivers, cursors, fonts, whatever).
Or just put stuff in the framebuffer and hope it works.
uniserver
Well-known member
My next machine is going to be a IIci, I am trying hard to find one. Found a guy from ebay.
His name is captinbob, he has a MASSIVE apple collection, pretty much a 3 story house FULL
I personally feel it would be the ultimate machine that works with dougg3's ROM SIMM.
The IIci /w Cache card sounds like a fairly beastly 030 machine.
His name is captinbob, he has a MASSIVE apple collection, pretty much a 3 story house FULL
I personally feel it would be the ultimate machine that works with dougg3's ROM SIMM.
The IIci /w Cache card sounds like a fairly beastly 030 machine.
MinerAl
Well-known member
Could this idea of having the OS and applications on ROM be used on the ROM chips in original 128k and 512k Macs? It would be mighty nice to have System 4.1 and MacWrite on a 512k Mac without needing a floppy (except to save to).
(If this can be done, I'm sure it has. Anybody got a thread link I could go check out? My search-fu is weak today.)
(If this can be done, I'm sure it has. Anybody got a thread link I could go check out? My search-fu is weak today.)
No idea on what it would take to do a ROM disk on the older classic Macs. The ROM SIMM slot makes it easy to add extra ROM. Without that slot you'd probably have to hack onto certain address lines elsewhere on the logic board. I have no idea if any more space is even available through all the PALs and stuff on the logic board...
uniserver, I'm pretty sure the ROM SIMM should work fine on a IIcx. This picture implies it has a ROM SIMM slot:
I can't seem to tell if it has a ROM enable/disable jumper like the IIci has though. Have you tried it in a IIcx by any chance? It's a machine that the SIMM is thus far untested in.
uniserver, I'm pretty sure the ROM SIMM should work fine on a IIcx. This picture implies it has a ROM SIMM slot:
I can't seem to tell if it has a ROM enable/disable jumper like the IIci has though. Have you tried it in a IIcx by any chance? It's a machine that the SIMM is thus far untested in.
