MacOS 8.6 on Quicksilver?

[Phil168]

I was just wondering if Mac OS 8.6 could be installed on a Quicksilver. I know 8.6 can be installed on the earlier G4 Sawtooth model. Has anyone tried to install it on a Quicksilver? Thanks.

[Cory5412]

Almost certainly not. If it will run then it will probably either:

• run poorly
• critical functionality will be missing

The first version of the QuickSilver is essentially a re-painted Digital Audio board, the second version ("QuickSilver 2002") has some slight hardware changes that make even the QS01 and Digital Audio's OS preloads work poorly on them, I believe it's the Ethernet PHY so the dA's preload of 9.1 will "run" but you will not get networking.

 

I have had the best success on these and other Macs form this era by using the 2003 eMac install CD to put 9.2.2 on them.

 

If you need 8.6 for some application or stability reason, I recommend getting a Yikes or a Sawtooth or upgrading a blue-white G3 with a G4, if you have some G4-specific need.

[Phil168]

Thank you for your answer. I have some old applications and games from my Power Computing days and some of them keep crashing my QS running 9.2.2. I do have an old Beige G3 which I have been able to install an SSD (with your help, thanks!) but it's a little erratic. Between a Yikes or Sawtooth, which one would you recommend? Thanks.

[Cory5412]

Both Yikes and Sawtooth are pretty good machines, so it kind of depends on what you want, and, to be honest, the answer to this question also partly depends on what software it is and why it's crashing.

 

If this software is known to be incompatible with 9.2.2, you can get an older G4 that runs 8.6, but if there's something else wrong, 8.6 on an older G4 may not solve the issues you're having.

 

As background: The Yikes is a refreshed blue-and-white G3 with a G4 instead of a G3 CPU installed. Fine system overall, it fixed most/all of the trouble the blue G3s (especially the early ones) had with IDE so even with a G3 chip installed they're great systems. They have PCI graphics. Typically real solid runners.

 

Sawtooth is a newer platform, they had some faster CPUs available, there are faster CPU upgrades for the sawtooth, they support more memory (2GB vs. 1GB) if running OS X is of eventual interest and they have an AGP graphics slot, for support of better graphics card (again, more helpful for OS X.) I believe that the Sawtooth had the UniNorth chipset and with that new chipset Apple added the ability to boot Mac OS 8/9 off of USB, which may be convenient. Firewire disk booting and target mode are also working/fixed in the Sawtooth, relative to the blue G3 and the Yikes.

 

In reality my advice is to look for both if you KNOW that 8.6 will fix your problems and buy the first one that comes up.

 

You might already know these things, my apologies in advance:

 

Memory note: Mac OS 9 is extremely comfortable with 256, any more than that is only really necessary in higher end apps and in 9-era multi-tasking settings, say you want to run Photoshop 7, Dreamweaver MX, Word 2001, and iTunes all at once. At 1 gig of RAM, Virtual Memory becomes disabled, which introduces some (mostly unimportant on machines this new/powerful) slight logistical annoyances. It wont' use any more than 1.5 gigs at all, and so my take is generally that running 9 on anything with more than a gig of RAM is mostly a waste of time unless you have some exceedingly specific use case, like some server software or some kind of really giant filemaker database or whatever.

 

The 1GB RAM ceiling in the Blue/Yikes is, genuinely, Not a Problem.

 

Performance Note: For older 7-era software and even for most 9-era generic productivity software, Mac OS 9 and its software basically feels around the same speed doing general maneuvering on any Mac with a 300MHz/1MB G3 or better. Most Mac OS 9 use cases, especially in a vintage context, don't really benefit from using newer or higher end Power Mac G4s, and the biggest reason to go for a Power Mac is basically flexibility relative to iMacs and reliability compared to Apple's laptops.

 

OS 9 also rarely benefits from duallies, but having a dual G4 that exists is better than not having a Mac, so. There are faster upgrades for the G4 but I'd recommend using it stock to see whether or not you've got anything that noticeably maxes out the CPU. (This would be stuff like, video/3d rendering, software development, certain audio programs, file compression, etc etc.)

 

EDIT: I couldn't find a reference for the UniNorth thing off the top of my head so please someone say something if I'm remembering that wrong and it was actually the gig or digital audio that added that.