• 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.

Getting G3 Whisper Perch USB working

just.in.time

Well-known member
Images of Wings AV Card 820-0971-A below. Looks like this one could support the USB controller and a single USB port.
820-0971-A-1.jpeg

820-0971-A-2.jpeg
 

croissantking

Well-known member
It should be possible to add USB support by porting the USB code from newer Open Firmware to older Open Firmware, add some patches, load the blob from a supported ATA or SCSI disk partition (if not modifying the actual ROM), and execute it to make the patches. I would need to update my fcode tokenizer to handle some Mac stuff.
Thinking about this. Could we produce a G3 ‘Rominator’ that has built-in USB support and other improvements, like holding down option at startup to choose a boot device?
 

joevt

Well-known member
Thinking about this. Could we produce a G3 ‘Rominator’ that has built-in USB support and other improvements, like holding down option at startup to choose a boot device?
Depends on how much space is free in the ROM compared to how much code is required for USB support and Startup Manager (boot picker). First thing to do is extract the code from New World Open Firmware and get it to work in Old World Open Firmware. Then we can see if it will fit. If it can't fit, then the Rominator idea can still work to store a small amount of code that can load more code from an Open Firmware accessible disk.

The Open Firmware part is probably the easiest and would probably be sufficient for OS X. I don't know anything about the non-Open Firmware parts or if some non-Open Firmware code is required to select a OS 9 boot device. Can Old Word Open Firmware be used to change the OS 9 boot device? As far as I know, the only thing it will boot is /AAPL,ROM. Maybe there's a PRAM value that can be modified. @elliotnunn's GitHub projects deal with New World ROM files (tbxi) but I don't think they're applicable to Old World ROMs?

The Startup Manager is mostly handled by the multiboot package in Open Firmware and there's a multi-boot word. Open Firmware of the B&W G3 looks for the option key but then it ignores the result and skips booting from multiboot. Maybe Apple skipped that code because it wasn't working well enough in that version of Open Firmware (3.1.1) or maybe I'm misinterpreting the code? Maybe the Yikes G4 has newer Open Firmware? I don't have a ROM dump from Yikes so I can't check that. The earliest post B&W G3 Open Firmware dump I have is for 4.1.9f1 from an iMac. That version appears to correctly call multi-boot when the Option key is held down.
 

croissantking

Well-known member
Thank you, @just.in.time . As I suspected part of the footprint to be populated is on the backside of the card. It should be easy enough to use the schematic I made for the Whisper card and apply it to this one.

B4618505-A6B1-47CD-80A9-C1418180C042.jpeg
 

croissantking

Well-known member

Article has gone up on Hackaday! (I didn’t know about it, someone here mentioned it to me). As it’s April 1st, maybe people are going to think it’s a joke :)

This mod certainly has gathered some interest!
 

CC_333

Well-known member
This mod certainly has gathered some interest!
And now throngs of deep-pocketed collectors and hackers are going to buy up the world's supply of Whisper cards!

All of my G3s (not sure about the AIO, though; I'll have to check) have at least a Wings card. Is internal USB possible on those? From what I've read in this thread so far, there are two revisions of the Wings card, and only one of them can do internal USB.

Also, would this be possible on the apparently quite uncommon Bordeaux card? Does anyone even have a Bordeaux card??

c
 

croissantking

Well-known member
And now throngs of deep-pocketed collectors and hackers are going to buy up the world's supply of Whisper cards!
The prototype with USB port might come down in price though, since it’s been demystified a bit 🙃

All of my G3s (not sure about the AIO, though; I'll have to check) have at least a Wings card. Is internal USB possible on those? From what I've read in this thread so far, there are two revisions of the Wings card, and only one of them can do internal USB.
Two revisions of the Whisper card exist too. The later one is needed in both cases.

Also, would this be possible on the apparently quite uncommon Bordeaux card? Does anyone even have a Bordeaux card??
Looking at photos of it, it does appear to have the footprint.
 

CC_333

Well-known member
The prototype with USB port might come down in price though, lol
Yeah, good point, since it won't be quite as "R@RE!!!" anymore with all these "copies" floating around.

Two revisions of the Whisper card exist too. The later one is needed in both cases.
OK, sort of implies that Apple was considering releasing an enhanced Beige G3 (or maybe something else altogether?), perhaps as a stopgap while production of the B&W ramped up, but then decided not to, yes?

Looking at photos of it, it does appear to have the footprint.
Neat! Is it as hard to find as I think it is?

c
 

croissantking

Well-known member
Yeah, good point, since it won't be quite as "R@RE!!!" anymore with all these "copies" floating around.
Let’s see how many people decide to do the mod, probably just a handful. At the end of the day, it’s a curiosity/bit of fun more than anything because you can just use a PCI card to get USB - although it would afford you an extra slot for something else e.g. the late 90s microscope controller card that was mentioned earlier 😄

OK, sort of implies that Apple was considering releasing an enhanced Beige G3 (or maybe something else altogether?), perhaps as a stopgap while production of the B&W ramped up, but then decided not to, yes?
Although we don’t really know for sure, this explanation makes sense in my mind.
Seems like the revised personality cards may have started to ship with beige G3s around the same time as the iMac was released.
Alternatively, the revised layout could have been included just for prototyping purposes.

Neat! Is it as hard to find as I think it is?

c
I do believe it is pretty rare - I haven’t seen many beiges with a stock DVD-ROM drive, which I guess is how you’d identify that a machine had one of these.
 

CC_333

Well-known member
Let’s see how many people decide to do the mod, probably just a handful. At the end of the day, it’s a curiosity/bit of fun more than anything because you can just use a PCI card to get USB - although it would afford you an extra slot for something else e.g. the late 90s microscope controller card that was mentioned earlier 😄
Yeah, and especially nowadays, where these machines aren't really used in production settings anymore, so there's not much of an incentive to cram the PCI slots full of as many different interfaces as possible (and there's also the fact that even a basic USB card has a minimum of two ports, and usually more, which is 100% more useful than having a single port because not everyone wants a hub).

I think the main thing that makes this project intriguing are the possibilities for a tighter integration than is possible or practical with a regular PCI card (the ability to power the machine on using the power key on the early Apple USB keyboards and being able to boot from a USB disk being two things that come to mind).

We shall see how it goes.

I do believe it is pretty rare - I haven’t seen many beiges with a stock DVD-ROM drive, which I guess is how you’d identify that a machine had one of these.
I kind of want one, if only for the supposedly improved sound chip they use (Burgundy instead of Screamer). I seem to recall that the Burgundy sound chip was subsequently used in a later model of something, an early iPod, maybe? Or maybe it was something else known as Burgundy? Perhaps this notion is a fabrication of my tired mind?

c
 
Top