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NT on PowerPC Macs!

R

Rairii

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 22, 2024
74
167
KeBugCheckEx
Here's the initial release for new world gossamer-derivative systems, expect bugchecks and instability, and even more if you're not running on lombard, as that's the only real hardware i have tested on.

Bare minimum of drivers, there's no support for PCI IDE controllers, only ATI cards supported for the modeswitching (and I have no idea if the code is even correct for any card pre-1.69 and not-Lombard!), I haven't even tested the cuda code on real hardware so I sure hope that's correct... also, no USB support at all yet (there's drivers in the arc firmware derived from openbios code but they're broken so the init code is commented out)

But the dream is finally real, of a sort.

Pull requests to provide support in the ARC firmware for things that I don't have (nvidia cards, old world, pci ide etc) welcome.

git repo: https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh
release page: https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh/releases/tag/v0.01
 
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Rairii said:
Here's the initial release for new world gossamer-derivative systems, expect bugchecks and instability, and even more if you're not running on lombard, as that's the only real hardware i have tested on.

Bare minimum of drivers, there's no support for PCI IDE controllers, only ATI cards supported for the modeswitching (and I have no idea if the code is even correct for any card pre-1.69 and not-Lombard!), I haven't even tested the cuda code on real hardware so I sure hope that's correct... also, no USB support at all yet (there's drivers in the arc firmware derived from openbios code but they're broken so the init code is commented out)

But the dream is finally real, of a sort.

Pull requests to provide support in the ARC firmware for things that I don't have (nvidia cards, old world, pci ide etc) welcome.

git repo: https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh
release page: https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh/releases/tag/v0.01
Click to expand...

Awesome! I am very much looking forward to playing with this on my G3 Blue and White :) and seeing what others manage to do with it on their own hardware!

thank you for sharing your hard work for all of us to have a play with :)
 
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LightBulbFun said:
Awesome! I am very much looking forward to playing with this on my G3 Blue and White :) and seeing what others manage to do with it on their own hardware!

thank you for sharing your hard work for all of us to have a play with :)
Click to expand...
on yosemite, the PCI IDE controller is unsupported for now, i'm not sure if it's possible to attach a HD to the other IDE controllers (probably the one that isn't really used would be harder lol)

also note for desktops that there's no working USB stack yet, ADB keyboard/mouse support only. (also the Cuda driver is untested on real hardware due to my lack of it)
 
Rairii said:
on yosemite, the PCI IDE controller is unsupported for now, i'm not sure if it's possible to attach a HD to the other IDE controllers (probably the one that isn't really used would be harder lol)

also note for desktops that there's no working USB stack yet, ADB keyboard/mouse support only. (also the Cuda driver is untested on real hardware due to my lack of it)
Click to expand...

the G3 blue and white has a Paddington ATA bus by way of the optical drive/ZIP drive thankfully, which I have in the past used for booting Mac OS X from a hard drive (all my G3 blue and whites are Rev A's so I have found the main PCI IDE controller to be rather cantankerous so I dont use it for much)

so the Paddington ATA bus is what I will be using on my G3 blue and white, I know in general that one can boot hard drives from it :) it might be a few days or so before I get round to it so I dont want anyone to wait on me if they also have a G3 blue and white!
 
oh, I didn't know there was an early hardware rev with an issue with the PCI IDE controller.

Heathrow/Paddington has two IDE controllers, but I guess the other one has those pins not routed anywhere/grounded on the Yosemite mobo?
 
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As someone who owns a ThinkPad Power Series 820, and used to own an IBM "PC Power Series" PowerPC "PC" that both run NT 4.0, and have been interested in "NT on alternative architectures" for decades, this astounds me.

This really is amazing, and the fact that this is happening nearly 30 years after it was relevant is even more ridiculous.

Now I need to load NT on a Bondi iMac to sit next to my eMachines eOne running Rhapsody. :-D
 
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I'm tempted to try this out... later. I have a "compatible" iMac G3, which if I understand correctly isn't actually compatible because there's no USB support yet. I guess it remains to be seen whether it's practical to run it on one of these machines.
 
alright very primilarinary results with a G3 Blue and White Rev A, G4 7400, 1GB SDRAM, Rage 128 setup

sadly the display is all messed up on the Rage 128, (on both versions I have)

1720975835948.jpeg


so the menu is not very navigable

1720975935931.jpeg


but I still thought for giggles, it would be rude not to :) I unwraped my sill shrink wrapped OEM copy of NT4 Workstation, popped the disc in the ODD

1720976001963.jpeg


actually verfied the disc was universal version, so was not unwrapped in vain LOL

1720976036675.jpeg


and I pointed the boot loader towards the CD's setupldr as per the instructions and I actually got the Windows NT setup screen :)

1720976051708.jpeg


not got any further, because I have not tried to format any drive, I am not sure if I would be able to with the messed up menus? but its pretty cool to see none the less!


sadly I dont have any ATI Rage Pro based PCI card to try or I would :)
 
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Rairii said:
also note for desktops that there's no working USB stack yet, ADB keyboard/mouse support only
Click to expand...

Nermal said:
I have a "compatible" iMac G3, which if I understand correctly isn't actually compatible because there's no USB support yet.
Click to expand...

In the event USB support never happens, or takes longer than patience lasts, just thought I'd note there are hardware workarounds for that:

USB-ADB Converters. Tinkerboy, Drakware, or Wombat?

Can we get a Pros/Cons for the following ADB-USB converters? From what I can tell, they're the only actively maintained devices for using Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) peripherals on USB-capable computers. tinkerBOY ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) to USB Keyboard/Mouse Converter - $33 BMOW ADB-USB Wombat...
68kmla.org 68kmla.org

I've tested one of these before, can't remember which one (it's been a while) but it did work to allow USB peripherals with an ADB-only Mac. FWIW.

Edit: I should note that I have no idea if any of these work the other way round, so if your Mac has only USB and no ADB, maybe this solves nothing. Again, FWIW.
 
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Nermal said:
I'm tempted to try this out... later. I have a "compatible" iMac G3, which if I understand correctly isn't actually compatible because there's no USB support yet. I guess it remains to be seen whether it's practical to run it on one of these machines.
Click to expand...
Depending on how "down and dirty" you want to get, the tray loaders do have all the hardware for an ADB port including solder pads for one. People have fitted ADB ports to them.

I'm not sure if anyone has tested on a Yikes! G4 yet, but fitting one should be even easier there given that the Yikes! LoBo essentially is the same as the B&W G3 but just omits the physical port...
 
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Raging Dufus said:
In the event USB support never happens, or takes longer than patience lasts, just thought I'd note there are hardware workarounds for that:

USB-ADB Converters. Tinkerboy, Drakware, or Wombat?

Can we get a Pros/Cons for the following ADB-USB converters? From what I can tell, they're the only actively maintained devices for using Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) peripherals on USB-capable computers. tinkerBOY ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) to USB Keyboard/Mouse Converter - $33 BMOW ADB-USB Wombat...
68kmla.org 68kmla.org

I've tested one of these before, can't remember which one (it's been a while) but it did work to allow USB peripherals with an ADB-only Mac. FWIW.

Edit: I should note that I have no idea if any of these work the other way round, so if your Mac has only USB and no ADB, maybe this solves nothing. Again, FWIW.
Click to expand...

I have a Griffin USB-ADB adapter(iMate?). I've used it for years, but it presents to the computer as a generic USB keyboard. I've used an Extended/Extended II a lot with one of these adapters on G4s, G5s, and Mac Pros in OS X. The first time you plug them in, you'll be prompted to press the keys next to the shift key, just as if you'd plugged in a Windows keyboard.

I say all that to say that I don't think that's a solution-they're still depending on USB support.
 
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@Rairii trying it in your custom build of dingusppc I cant seem to get any further then this when I go to try and format the drive, I have tried to create the custom installer image a few different ways but it seems it cant find itself (although it does see both the cdrom and hdd on the previous page) this was with release 0.02, should I try one of the nightly builds, or am I doing something wrong? :)
1721060752927.png
 
LightBulbFun said:
the G3 blue and white has a Paddington ATA bus by way of the optical drive/ZIP drive thankfully, which I have in the past used for booting Mac OS X from a hard drive (all my G3 blue and whites are Rev A's so I have found the main PCI IDE controller to be rather cantankerous so I dont use it for much)

so the Paddington ATA bus is what I will be using on my G3 blue and white, I know in general that one can boot hard drives from it :) it might be a few days or so before I get round to it so I dont want anyone to wait on me if they also have a G3 blue and white!
Click to expand...
This is my plan on my B&W too, excited to try this, it's my project for next weekend!
 
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mikeboss said:
maybe try neozeed's pre-built installer image? it can be found in his blog-post:
Click to expand...
Sweet! I was able to use this to make a working image in @Rairii's port dingusppc

image (5).png



but even after updating the image to the latest 0.03 release I seem to be unable to boot it on my G3 blue and white, although I am just taking the 1GB image I made and DDing it to a larger CF card so I dont know if thats upsetting things, the the ARC firmware does still see the drive etc but actually trying to boot gives me errors

1721080434127.jpeg


1721080444560.jpeg


at this point hitting any key, kicks me back to the main menu and trying Start windows again gets me

1721080473574.jpeg


1721080484018.jpeg


and trying the load the RAM disk option gives me the above


forgive me if this is just a case of one cannot simply DD an emulator.img to a physical drive, and one has to actually run through the setup on the real hardware with the real disk, but just thought I would mention it just incase :)

(or so that other people know what they can and cannot get away with LOL)
 
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alright further messing around, this time I tried installing with bare metal, I dug up out my CD-R's burnt a 0.03 release loader which itself seems to work :) i can load the RAM disks no problems and parition the hard drive alright (this is with the HDD as master ODD as slave so im booting the ODD via the zip alias zip:,\\:tbxi) but sadly I cannot seem to launch the NT setup itself it just fails right away after doing run a program cd:\ppc\setupldr step, not sure what to try at this point, I did with a minimal amount of RAM still got the same error, I wonder if it does not like the G4 7400 CPU I have installed? sadly I dont have a G3 ZIF to hand to try that, but yeah thought again I would post for information sake :)

1721147207729.jpeg
 
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weckart said:

Someone else has had a go on a B/W.
Click to expand...

yeah turns out NT4 actually has PVR check and bails if its not one it likes! who knew NT4 PPC of all things has a CPU check like that!

github.com

NT4 Setup Fails on PowerPC G4 upgraded B&W G3 · Issue #14 · Wack0/maciNTosh

Hey, so yes, me again, sorry! So my B&W G3 is actually upgraded to a G4 with a Sonnet card - yes, I was kinda curious if a wickedly fast NT4 PPC system was doable. Unfortunately the NT4 text-based ...
github.com github.com

there is meant to be a patch in the ARC firmware to stop NT from bailing but it seems to not be working atm sadly, hopefully its fixed before not long :)
 
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I also noticed in the comments that someone with an iMac got his USB mouse and keyboard working so getting this to work on a G4 might happen sooner rather than later.

The last issue remaining is that once this is up and running, what then? There is precious little software written for NT4 for PPC. Hopefully, it might spur on a bit of open source porting, since dedicated PPC machines capable of running NT are rather thin on the ground otherwise.
 
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Someone recently ported Neko Project 2 to NT PPC.

Good news is that MSVC is available for PowerPC, so you can port/make software fairly easily.
 
Woop! took a bit of finagling with general G3 Blue and white Rev A general cantankerousness, had a point where just after installing it would not boot the graphical setup until I went down to 512MB of RAM but dont know if thats a bug or my G3 blue and white just being itself

1721233516285.jpeg



but I finally got NT4 SP1 running on it, using @Rairii's 0.04 release :) (this is onto a 10GB Segate drive as the master device on the Paddington ATA bus)
1721233369743.jpeg


tis seriously awesome :)
 
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