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NT on PowerPC Macs!

mikeboss

mikeboss

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Aug 13, 2009
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switzerland
@LightBulbFun

could you try: Control Panel -> Network -> Yes -> Next -> Select from list...

I have NT4 SP6 (Service Pack 6a) running on MiSTer/AO486. the most promising ethernet adapters in the list of available drivers would be (found some adapters offered on ebay):

DEC DE 434 EtherwORKS Turbo PCI TP Adapter
DEC DE 435 EtherWORKS Turbo PCI Adapter
DEC DE 450 EtherWORKS Turbo PCI Adapter
DEC DE 500 Fast Ethernet PCI Adapter

are these drivers also offered on NT4 PPC? I was looking all over the internet for 3Com-NT4-PPC (3C905-TX) drivers. so far no luck...

EDIT
according to this document, drivers for the 3Com 3C595-TX should exist:
 
Last edited:
LightBulbFun

LightBulbFun

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Nov 17, 2013
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London UK
mikeboss said:
@LightBulbFun

could you try: Control Panel -> Network -> Yes -> Next -> Select from list...

I have NT4 SP6 (Service Pack 6a) running on MiSTer/AO486. the most promising ethernet adapters in the list of available drivers would be (found some adapters offered on ebay):

DEC DE 434 EtherwORKS Turbo PCI TP Adapter
DEC DE 435 EtherWORKS Turbo PCI Adapter
DEC DE 450 EtherWORKS Turbo PCI Adapter
DEC DE 500 Fast Ethernet PCI Adapter

are these drivers also offered on NT4 PPC? I was looking all over the internet for 3Com-NT4-PPC (3C905-TX) drivers. so far no luck...

EDIT
according to this document, drivers for the 3Com 3C595-TX should exist:
Click to expand...
1721245777544.png


I also notice that the DEC 21041 is on the list, I actually have one of these that came in my PowerMac 4400 so ima try that in my G3 BW see what happens

1721245978351.png
 
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R

Rairii

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Original poster
Feb 22, 2024
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KeBugCheckEx
The easy way to test is if PCI IDE controllers work fine in NT (not in ARC). atapi.sys should detect those fine, I'm just not sure about the PCI interrupt code in the HAL yet...
 
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mikeboss

mikeboss

macrumors 68000
Aug 13, 2009
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The 3Com drivers can be found on the NT4 installation CD:

/Volumes/NTWKS40A/PPC/DRVLIB.NIC/3C90X
/Volumes/NTWKS40A/DRVLIB/NETCARD/PPC/3C90X

/Volumes/NTWKS40A/PPC/DRVLIB.NIC/3C59X
/Volumes/NTWKS40A/DRVLIB/NETCARD/PPC/3C59X
 
Nermal

Nermal

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Dec 7, 2002
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New Zealand
Is there any "recommended" software for writing the image to CD-R? I've used ImgBurn on Windows, twice, verifying the disc each time, but my iMac refuses to mount the resulting disc and fails to boot from it (it reads fine under Windows though).
 
LightBulbFun

LightBulbFun

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Nermal said:
Is there any "recommended" software for writing the image to CD-R? I've used ImgBurn on Windows, twice, verifying the disc each time, but my iMac refuses to mount the resulting disc and fails to boot from it (it reads fine under Windows though).
Click to expand...
I, rather ironically?, burnt the boot loader ISO images in Tiger on my G3 blue and white, just because it so happened to also be the closest thing to hand with a optical drive in it :)

I just opened the image in disk utility and hit burn (ya know from back in the days before Apple utterly ruined disk utility with El Capitan onwards) and as above especially because its only a couple MB's in size I burnt it at the slowest speed offered (4x in my case)
 
Doq

Doq

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Dec 8, 2019
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The Lab DX
Not without lots of work. There's currently a pretty strong reliance on Gossamer-type systems, i.e. G3s and the G4 Yikes!

If you want to add that support yourself feel free to contribute though!
 
R

Rairii

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 22, 2024
74
167
KeBugCheckEx
Porting just the ARC firmware to uninorth will be an interesting undertaking. I poked around the uninorth registers and I'm pretty sure the PCI endianness switch register bit from bandit got removed in uninorth, so all the drivers will have to deal with MSR_LE on an otherwise wholly big endian system (and that's the case for NT too).
 
PowerPCFan

PowerPCFan

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Mar 5, 2022
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Doq said:
Not without lots of work. There's currently a pretty strong reliance on Gossamer-type systems, i.e. G3s and the G4 Yikes!

If you want to add that support yourself feel free to contribute though!
Click to expand...
I really don't know what that even means lol
 
E

eastone

macrumors member
Feb 23, 2014
64
47
Vaasa, Finland
Rairii said:
I'd need to implement proper dbdma support, and I have absolutely no idea how that overblown dma controller is meant to work...
Click to expand...

A different question: is it possible for the nt to see any physical PCI card at all, f.e.an Ethernet card or a PCMCIA controller?
 
R

Rairii

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 22, 2024
74
167
KeBugCheckEx
eastone said:
A different question: is it possible for the nt to see any physical PCI card at all, f.e.an Ethernet card or a PCMCIA controller?
Click to expand...
The HAL can enumerate the PCI bus fine, the main issue is that I'm not sure if the PCI interrupts are working. I tried to implement them but haven't actually checked if the implementation works yet; if it does, then the PCI IDE controller on Yosemite should work under NT (not ARC firmware), but I don't think anybody's checked yet.
 
Project Alice

Project Alice

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Jul 13, 2008
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I assume I’m mistaken, but aren’t the first gen clamshell’s basically identical to the tray loader iMacs? I attempted to boot it on my 300MHz blueberry and was greeted by open firmware instead. Never hurts to try though lol
 
LightBulbFun

LightBulbFun

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Project Alice said:
I assume I’m mistaken, but aren’t the first gen clamshell’s basically identical to the tray loader iMacs? I attempted to boot it on my 300MHz blueberry and was greeted by open firmware instead. Never hurts to try though lol
Click to expand...
iBook G3 Clamshell's are all Uni-north machines, in-fact I think technically apples first Uni-north machine

always found it quite interesting that people think they are grackle based iMac Trayloaders, despite all the ways they are obviously Uninorth (the working with 512MB DIMM,s the AGP graphics, the Ultra ATA 33 bus and so forth)

I guess its the colour that does it just mentally overides all the things that say otherwise!



ironicly because they are early Uninorth machines, such that they use regular PPC750L CPU's you can quite easily swap a 7410 G4 into one and run 10.5.8 leopard on one, it always tickled me how the very first iBook G3 was the only one which can currently run 10.5.8 Leopard (until someone makes an interposer for 750CX/CXe/FX CPus for other ibooks!)

 
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Project Alice

Project Alice

macrumors 68020
Jul 13, 2008
2,092
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Post Falls, ID
LightBulbFun said:
iBook G3 Clamshell's are all Uni-north machines, in-fact I think technically apples first Uni-north machine

always found it quite interesting that people think they are grackle based iMac Trayloaders, despite all the ways they are obviously Uninorth (the working with 512MB DIMM,s the AGP graphics, the Ultra ATA 33 bus and so forth)

I guess its the colour that does it just mentally overides all the things that say otherwise!



ironicly because they are early Uninorth machines, such that they use regular PPC750L CPU's you can quite easily swap a 7410 G4 into one and run 10.5.8 leopard on one, it always tickled me how the very first iBook G3 was the only one which can currently run 10.5.8 Leopard (until someone makes an interposer for 750CX/CXe/FX CPus for other ibooks!)

Click to expand...
I only have 2 clamshells, and I haven’t played with them much at all. They were the last Macs I actually bought and I made sure they worked, cleaned them up and set them on my shelves with the others. I didn’t really do that much research on them. I knew they were AGP based. I was surprised to see the multi-boot picker on my 300MHz one.
 
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