Backporting HFS+ to Mac OS 8.0 and earlier

[soviet]

Please pretty please

 

[LaPorta]

Any chance I could get an already patched System file for 7.6.1?

 

[LaPorta]

Actually, being the simple person I am, I followed your GitHub notes and realized that all that was needed was a cut and paste job from one System to the other in ResEdit. Much easier for me to do than fool around with scripts and command line stuff. Got it to work from the 8.1 System onto 7.6.1. Thanks!

 

[croissantking]

Actually, being the simple person I am, I followed your GitHub notes and realized that all that was needed was a cut and paste job from one System to the other in ResEdit. Much easier for me to do than fool around with scripts and command line stuff. Got it to work from the 8.1 System onto 7.6.1. Thanks!

Which resources did you copy/paste?

 

[LaPorta]

If you follow the GitHub notes, the resources are as follows (for 7.6.x, at least):

ptch -20217

And

'ptch' 41, the Disk Cache
'boot' 22460
'PACK' 2, the Disk Initialization code, and related resources

Per the notes, in 7.5.x, also copying boot 3 would be necessary, but I haven’t done this.

 

[croissantking]

Thanks, I'm going to try this later. It would presumably be possible to make this into an extension, right?

 

[LaPorta]

If someone was able to write something that could patch these resources at startup before they were loaded, presumably so. I’ll rope in @cheesestraws and @Crutch since they seem to know a lot about this sort of thing.

 

[croissantking]

Working for me too now, Mac OS 7.6.1 on a PB1400c.

 

[Phipli]

If someone was able to write something that could patch these resources at startup before they were loaded, presumably so. I’ll rope in @cheesestraws and @Crutch since they seem to know a lot about this sort of thing.

Hey LaPorta! It's easier than you think.

If you have your before and after files, ResCompare let's you automatically create a patch. The only problem is I think the target would need to be identical. I might look at making a more general (and dangerous if it can be run on anything) patch later if this turns out to be much of an issue, if someone hasn't already.

ResCompare is worth knowing about

 

[LaPorta]

Hey, I’ll have to check that out! I could likely then make a 7.6.x specific patch at the least.

 

[Paralel]

What's the earliest version of System 7 this could work on? Regarding 68k machines you mentioned that there is a limitation on what hardware it can run on. What is that limitation?

 

[croissantking]

What's the earliest version of System 7 this could work on?

It’s been tested working on System 7.5.5.

 

[croissantking]

Regarding 68k machines you mentioned that there is a limitation

We need to do some ‘gtbl hacks’ (and adding in the ‘boot 3’ resource on 7.5.5) to get this working on 68k, although I couldn’t find any more detail on this on the GitHub.

Apparently a Quadra 900 doesn’t need this?

 

[LaPorta]

One thought I had: could you imagine how big this would have been when 8.1 came out? It would have made headlines in Macworld that you could just do this to have compatibility.

 

[croissantking]

One thought I had: could you imagine how big this would have been when 8.1 came out? It would have made headlines in Macworld that you could just do this to have compatibility.

I wonder why nobody investigated at the time.

 

[LaPorta]

One thing that doesn’t work exactly right: if you try to format a drive, there are two choices for format type, but they say the same thing. In 8.1 and up the choices are Mac OS and Mac OS Extended. Maybe there is an STR resource or something for that.

 

[croissantking]

One thing that doesn’t work exactly right: if you try to format a drive, there are two choices for format type, but they say the same thing. In 8.1 and up the choices are Mac OS and Mac OS Extended. Maybe there is an STR resource or something for that.

I noticed this too (does formatting work?), and also you can’t tell if I drive is HFS+ formatted or not in the Get Info window.

 

[Phipli]

Hey, I’ll have to check that out! I could likely then make a 7.6.x specific patch at the least.

Did you have any luck with ResCompare?

I started writing something for fun, but overcomplicated it. But I'll add a "patch" mode for easy use. Yes, Gary is hard coded at the moment

 

[LaPorta]

Sorry, won’t have any time until this weekend. I also have another idea in mind for a patch…

 

[Paralel]

If there is any chance you guys can bring this to 7.1.2 68k, I'd be very interested in that. It essentially acts like 7.5.0, is that is any useful information.