System 7.6 on PowerMac G4 Sawtooth

[ealex79]

I think I remember that the installation of 7.6 was possible on this Mac with some tweeking, but I can't find information on this on the Net anymore.

I'll hopefully get such a G4 soon (if the girl from ebäahh remembers that, after receiving the money last week, she has to send me the computer as well) and I'd like to run 7.6 as well as newer OS on it, does anyone know how to do that?

Thx,

Alex

 

[Bolle]

I dont think you can run 7.6 on a G4 sawtooth. the newest machine i heard of running 7.6.1 is a beige G3.

you need the Mac OS toolbox to be in the ROM of the mac you want to run 7.6 on which the G4 doesnt have. I think theres no way to get around that with system 7.6. Later OSs that run on Macs without a toolbox in ROM have the "macOS ROM" file in their system folder to get around that. but i dont think you get 7.6 to recognize that file at all.

The oldest OS you may be able to run is 8.6 - maybe 8.5 with some hackery.

The only way to run system 7.6 on a G4 powered mac is to get a PowerSurge powermac (7300-9600) and put a G4 CPU upgrade in.

 

[QuadSix50]

I highly doubt it. Usually the Macs can only run the operating systems that came with them or greater. There are some "transitional" Macs that originally ran an older version and were then "refreshed" with a newly released OS from Apple when they were sold, but beyond that no.

The only way you would be able to run System 7.6 on a stock G4 Mac would be through emulation either through Basilisk or through SheepShaver (these I believe are mainly available in OS X).

 

[ealex79]

:-x What a pitty. :-/ I guess I remembered wrong (or just wished to remember it).

Thx anyways people!

 

[QuadSix50]

:-x What a pitty. :-/ I guess I remembered wrong (or just wished to remember it).
Thx anyways people!

Is there any reason why you would want to run System 7.6 over Mac OS 9 on the G4? Most apps should be able to run fine in OS 9.

 

[Quadraman]

I dont think you can run 7.6 on a G4 sawtooth. the newest machine i heard of running 7.6.1 is a beige G3.
you need the Mac OS toolbox to be in the ROM of the mac you want to run 7.6 on which the G4 doesnt have. I think theres no way to get around that with system 7.6. Later OSs that run on Macs without a toolbox in ROM have the "macOS ROM" file in their system folder to get around that. but i dont think you get 7.6 to recognize that file at all.

The oldest OS you may be able to run is 8.6 - maybe 8.5 with some hackery.

The only way to run system 7.6 on a G4 powered mac is to get a PowerSurge powermac (7300-9600) and put a G4 CPU upgrade in.

The beige G3 shipped with MacOS 8. It can't be downgraded. The 8600/9600 are the last Macs that can run 7.6.1 and it has to be 7.6.1, 7.6 doesn't work.

 

[Bolle]

i heard of a beige taht runs 7.6.1. it seems that you can tweak it somehow. it sure involves a lot of resediting.

we had a thread on that here some time ago but i think it didnt lead anywhere.

 

[Quadraman]

i heard of a beige taht runs 7.6.1. it seems that you can tweak it somehow. it sure involves a lot of resediting.we had a thread on that here some time ago but i think it didnt lead anywhere.

I'd like to see how that is done. 7.6.1 would fly on a G3. According to this thread

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=993

You can't even use a retail 8.0 disc with a beige G3. You must use the version that it shipped with or a later one so I don't see how you could in any way get 7.6.1 to work.

 

[Christopher]

I heard if you have a revision A beige board you could run OS 7.

 

[tmtomh]

As a rule of thumb you can never run an earlier OS on a machine - the one it shipped with is as early as it goes. Only someone who knows all the internals of Mac OS - i.e. an Apple engineer - could do it, and even then the machine would have to have a very similar hardware architecture to other Macs that are supported by the earlier OS.

FWIW, OS 9 absolutely screams on every G3/300 or faster Mac I've ever used it on. On such machines I doubt any OS7 variant would be faster - and might even be slower because of the amount of 68k code that's still left even in 7.6.1.

Finally, I imagine one could install Kaleidoscope in OS 9 and use it to theme the OS to look like OS7.x.

Best,

Matt

 

[Christopher]

OS 9 screams even more on a dual 450 G4 PowerMac.

 

[Bolle]

As a rule of thumb you can never run an earlier OS on a machine - the one it shipped with is as early as it goes. Only someone who knows all the internals of Mac OS - i.e. an Apple engineer - could do it, and even then the machine would have to have a very similar hardware architecture to other Macs that are supported by the earlier OS.

you can run system 6 on a 145B which normally shipped with 7

 

[ealex79]

:-x What a pitty. :-/ I guess I remembered wrong (or just wished to remember it).
Thx anyways people!

Is there any reason why you would want to run System 7.6 over Mac OS 9 on the G4? Most apps should be able to run fine in OS 9.

Testing... I'm learning Classic Mac OS Toolbox programming and Carbon programming, as a hobby which *could* be helpful on realworld projects as well (port old software f.e.).

And besides that I think that Mac OS 7's interface is just the most beautiful ever :b&w: .

I have the sourcecode of MacOnMac, of course I cannot test it since I came from 15 yrs of windoze to an Intel based Mac (last real Mac before was when I was a child). My little PowerMac will come after Pentecost (is that the right word??) and I will try MacOnMac.

 

[register]

The only way to run system 7.6 on a G4 powered mac is to get a PowerSurge powermac (7300-9600) and put a G4 CPU upgrade in.

A Sonnet G4 (sic!) upgrade for the 7200 series was available, also. This might work with 7.6 as well.

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

I seem to remember from reading the stuff on the net that using Rhapsody DR2 on a G3 works but without the extensions and caches, effectively rendering it a very expensive 603.

Wouldn't booting a G3 into 7.6.1 do the same (without the appropriate control panel)?

 

[tmtomh]

I seem to remember from reading the stuff on the net that using Rhapsody DR2 on a G3 works but without the extensions and caches, effectively rendering it a very expensive 603.
Wouldn't booting a G3 into 7.6.1 do the same (without the appropriate control panel)?

But I don't think a G3 will even boot into anything prior to 8.0.

M

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

Is it me or is this thread going around in circles?

Someone suggested it might be possible after some hacking, or using an upgrade card in an oder machine. I was just postulating on how a G3 would behave in such a circumstance...