Challange for Hakintoshers

[psyjax]

I wan't to install OS7.x on a partition. I wan't to sooooo bad!! I don't know why      

I just wan't that snappy retro feel.

Anyone got any ideas where to go about figuring a way to hack it in?

EDIT: vMac is not an option! I wan't to get OS7 running on my new Quicksilver hardware!!! OMG it's gonna fly    

EDIT2: Basilisk was just released for Mac.... interesting. www.emulation.net.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax v6.9 /Dave ]

[Kintaro]

I wanna get Jaguar on my Mac Classic with 4mb of ram... but its not gonna happen!

[hm_murdock]

The hardware won't boot it. To run System 7, you have to have an old world Mac that has the Macintosh toolbox in ROM. The new ones (iMac, Blue G3 and later) have a tiny OpenFirmware ROM that loads the ROM from a file on the HD (look for the Mac OS ROM file in the System Folder of Mac OS 9). System 7 doesn't include the ROM file, and simply won't boot.

And if it would boot, it wouldn't run on the hardware. Apple software and hardware are closely tied together. the 8600/300 was the last Power Mac to run a release of System 7 (7.6.1). Beige G3s require 8.0, 1st Generation iMacs require 8.1 or 8.5. Blue G3s require 8.5 or 8.6. G4s require 9.0, 9.0.4, 9.1, or 9.2/X depending on the model.

Running System 7 might actually be SLOWER than running 9.2.2 because 9.x is optimized for G3s and better, and System 7 has a whole shitload of 68K code that would run in slower emulation mode. I don't know how much slower, but it would probably feel boggy and sluggish at times as it switches between native and emulated code.

Oh yeah, and System 7 doesn't have guard pages, improved memory protection, support for CDR, iTunes, Carbon, or HFS+. Without Carbon support, you won't be able to run about half of modern software, and without HFS+ support, you'll never get system 7 and Mac OS X on the same partition. Honestly, I don't think a Power Mac G4 can boot off a standard HFS disk.

I like your idea... if I could do it, I'd run System 7 on my iMac, but unfortunately... it won't happen on a New World Mac.

[cocoamix]

You might be able to install if you change the GestaltID.

There used to be a program called "I Wish I Were" that did this. It can screw things up, so beware. I'll see if I still have a copy anywhere, or you can search the net.

More on GetsltIDs here

[psyjax]

Well, it would simply be a matter of emulating the ROM and booting up 7 in a Classic Mode style environment. Much like BasiliskII. I installed 7.3 on it last night.

[hm_murdock]

Running it in a VM like BasiliskII would be about the only way to do it as I really don't think that OpenFirmware will recognize a system file older than what it's told to boot.

If you had something that loaded in place of the system file, the way Mac OS X does (it has the MACH kernel that gets loaded instead), it could then call the system 7 system file and boot it... but I don't know of anything under the sun that would do it. And even then, you'll probably get the good 'ol "Update your installer" error.

Remember that current Macs are drastically different from anything System 7 ever ran on. Here's a partial list of things that won't work if you ever get system 7 started...

USB
Firewire
Airport
Carbon
Classic in Mac OS X
Your mouse and keyboard (they're both USB)
Video acceleration
OpenGL
Any game since Starcraft

And that's far from everything. System 7 was great in its day, and is great on period hardware, but it simply will not run on a modern Mac.

Fire up Basilisk or vMac for nostalgia. If you want quickness, use Mac OS 9, but why do that when there's OS X?

Edit: As a consolation prize, download this...

http://www.alltel.net/~redrocker/sys7.zip

Unzip it and put the unzipped file into System Folder > Appearance > Theme Files. Then open the Appearance control panel, go to the Appearance tab, and drop down where it says "Apple Platinum" and choose "System 7" and voila!

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: The Jimmy James X 10.3.6 / Bob ]

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by psyjax v6.9 /Dave:
I wan't to install OS7.x on a partition. I wan't to sooooo bad!! I don't know why        

I just wan't that snappy retro feel.

Anyone got any ideas where to go about figuring a way to hack it in?

EDIT: vMac is not an option! I wan't to get OS7 running on my new Quicksilver hardware!!! OMG it's gonna fly      

EDIT2: Basilisk was just released for Mac.... interesting. www.emulation.net.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax v6.9 /Dave ]

You could probably install System 7 on your new Mac(without an emulator) if you have a PCI Rom card that has an old 68k Rom image on it.

[ravuya]

Pre-7.5 versions will not work with Open Firmware AFAIK.

I suppose you *could* boot from a System 7 folder, but I think the ROM would stop you (much like trying to boot System 4 on a Quadra won't work).

Try using the Mac OS X version of Basilisk II.