Powerbook 1xx : open firmware or debug boot ?

[Cedsrepairs]

Hello everyone, with a little friendly ping for @desertrout and @Byrd,

I'm new to the whole PB1x0 thing, and I wonder if there are debug boot commands of any sort ?
I looked at both the user & service manual, and if I believe them

- there is zero debug menu, boot menu, open firmware or anything like that
- the PB100 doesnt have a power buton, ok, can only be turned on by pressing a key, ookkaaaay, but it also doesn't have a way to turn it off (is that true ?) without having a proper MacOS booted up.

As my hard drive is currently not working, I boot it on MacOS install floppies, and it would be interesting if I could stop the PB100 without removing the plug

Also, i'd be interested in any kind of "pre boot" menu or debug thing that would at least give me my amount of RAM, CPU, or things like that

I'm sure I've got that on my 5400 but that is of course years later. Nothing on PB100, or PB180 ?

 

[cheesestraws]

There really isn't anything at all, I'm afraid. Not in the way you're thinking about.

The early Macs were only designed to run MacOS, and so there's no real line between firmware and OS: in fact, in origin, the System file was just a way to distribute patches to the ROM. There's no separate bootloader or BIOS; the OS starts from ROM, loads stuff from disc—which ends up replacing quite a lot of it—and then loads the Finder. It's more like, say, the Atari ST or some of the 8-bit microcomputers in that respect.

Apple were totally capable of doing it differently: the Lisa, which was designed with at least half an eye to running other OSes, has a rich firmware with a monitor. But I assume it didn't make it into the Mac because the Macintosh OS was going to be the only thing that's running.

Some Macs do have a diagnostic mode that you can get into by administering an NMI while at the flashing ? screen: then you get a sad mac on the screen and you can talk to it through its serial port to get access to various things. But it's extremely rudimentary and awkward. I can never find the documentation on it when I want to, so hopefully someone else has the magic keywords in their memory to find it.

 

[desertrout]

+1 to @cheesestraws answer. The only thing to add is to confirm that, yes, the only way to 'turn off' the 100 is to select 'Shut Down' from the Special menu in the OS -- there is no physical on/off switch, the closest thing is the reset button. This (along with press-a-key-to-power-on) is a design artifact from the Portable, of which the 100 was a refactor. 140's on up had a completely different design. No BIOS or boot ROM or monitor or Open Firmware or EFI though...

The 100 is an oddball, to be sure, and all the more lovable because of it.

 

[Cedsrepairs]

Sure,
I'm really new in the PB1x0 world (but as you can see in my signature, have done quite a lot in the pc world)
So I'm just catching up a bit with all the experts around here.

The PB100 is one one my favorites; together with my Tandy model 102 (which is so modern for its age) and the Atari portfolio.

 

[desertrout]

I'm also a big fan of retro portables... I've been meaning to expand into portable CP/M and DOS machines... I had an opportunity to scoop up a Hyperion and an Osbone 1 a couple years ago that I deeply, deeply regret not acting on. More recently, I missed out on a Toshiba T1100 auction - quite keen to get my hands on one of those. The Atari Portfolio looks very interesting!

 

[Cedsrepairs]

I’ve got two t1100 and I think I’m probably the only person left in the world with a t1100 modem card ( at least the only picture on the internet of it is one I took )

The machine itself is rather boring but it’s as vintage as can be.