That would indeed be cool!
Mac OS on ANS - Modding a ROM DIMM
- Thread starter Big Ben
- Start date
I’m afraid there is nothing special about booting MacOS it just boots like any other Power Mac: grey screen, happy mac and so on.
Open Firmware stuff was related to improper configuration.
Front LCD screen is disabled so nothing to see here too.
As far as building a ROM DIMM, I won’t be able to build others until someone design a new pcb board.
Open Firmware stuff was related to improper configuration.
Front LCD screen is disabled so nothing to see here too.
As far as building a ROM DIMM, I won’t be able to build others until someone design a new pcb board.
I just wanted to say thank you to Big Ben, John, joevt, stynx, dougg3, Eric & jocketlill.
It is absolutely amazing to see everyone come together to make something amazing happen!!!
If anyone is thinking about making a custom rom board, let me know. I was thinking of reaching out to Joe to see if we could get a blank SIMM created.
It is absolutely amazing to see everyone come together to make something amazing happen!!!
If anyone is thinking about making a custom rom board, let me know. I was thinking of reaching out to Joe to see if we could get a blank SIMM created.
bitsavers website has PowerSurge Flash ROM pictures and schematics.
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/powerpc/PowerSurge/ROM_Flasher/
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/powerpc/PowerSurge/ROM_Flasher/
On that note, I ended up making an OpenFirmware driver for the Cirrus Logic GD54{30,34,36,46} cards based on the FirmWorks codebase and some taking apart of the ANS code.
It seemed to work fine when I was emulating the Viper CHRP firmware.
If it's useful for anyone else, here you go.
The ANS code has one fcode image for the GD5430. I would have just used that to create an fcode image for a PCI Option ROM but some additions/changes would be needed to handle words that are in the ANS ROM but not part of the Open Firmware spec.
Your ROM is currently set to compile for GD5446 (sets the device ID in the fcode image of the PCI Option ROM to 0x00B8) but all the variants (GD54{30,34,36,46}) are handled identically by the code. They don't have differences that matter for the Open Firmware driver?
Do you have more details about this? What emulator? What virtual hardware? What OS or just Open Firmware?
Not really. The GD variants just have different VRAM amounts for the most part. Ideally the ROM variants could be handled better with a better makefile, but I wrote it in my spare time during Winter break.
I hacked together a QEMU that *mostly* boots the CHRP Viper and Cobra ROMs (I couldn't get the timing down for deserializing the weird bitbang DIMM/SIMM presence thing and actually implement the device model for that properly, so I patched 2 words to get past the memory sizing sequence.). Enough to the OF "ok> " prompt anyway.
I tried it with the FirmWorks PReP firmware as well. It "works" on both implementations.
Attachments
@joevt,
I just found this thread. I wish I could keep track (and understand) of all that is going on with PPC ROMs and how to flash them.
I still have a working ANS ROM SIMM that boots MacOS 8.6 and I guess MacOS 9.X (I haven't tried that) and I would love to make additional ROM SIMMs for anyone that wants one. I just don't know how.
First question, from this thread I see the images of the Flashgordan board. It appears that is was made my Apple, correct? Is there anyway to obtain one?
I have 32 AM28F020-90JC that I got from UTSource. I had planned on flashing them one by one because all I have is a TL866II Plus. If the Flashgordan board is available it would make dups much easier. I also received a different ROM SIMM from ClassichasClass that has 4 ROM chips (2 on each side) and if that can be flashed with the ANS MacOS code all the better.
Lastly, I don't remember or can find the OF commands to determine the exact ROM version. Would you mind helping?
adios,
jt
Probably not. You probably have to make your own or use a different flashing method.
Do you know if it's 5V or 3.3V? Is it 4 MiB? Since it only has 4 chips, it's probably not programmable by Apple's Flasher utility without creating your own flashing code. Apple's Flasher utility is useful only if you can boot with the ROM SIMM connected. If it's in the ROM SIMM slot, then it needs a bootable ROM to already be flashed, or it needs a switch to switch between two versions of ROM. The Flash Gordon board connects to a different slot (NuBus?), and the flashable ROM SIMM connects to that.
The version should appear when you enter Open Firmware. One of the device nodes may have a version property.
Capture the output of
dump-device-tree to see all the properties of all the devices.In Open Firmware, get and verify all the checksums from the ROM using the code at:
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/apple-network-server-macos-based-roms-found.4756/post-41390
@adespoton,
I have the infamous ANS MacOS ROM SIMM. My ANS 700/200 boots directly into MacOS 8.6. This was the current MacOS version at the time I received the MacOS ROM SIMM from Apple Business Systems engineer on the down-low. The ANS has Apple stock parts, 5 9GB Hard drives, an Apple 10/100 pci card & an IOGear USB 2.0 pci card. The drives are arranged in a RAID 5 setup using the MacOS Softraid software. The video is the stock built-in with no mods.
I recently found the IOGear USB card on eBay for about $20 for use with one of the ANS prototype Deep Dish systems I have also.
I am attempting to find a way to duplicate or create MacOS ROM SIMMs sourced from the working ROM SIMM I have,
