The Open Firmware Wiki

[sparty411]

Mainly on message boards and obscure webpages, no less.

Hey, he's certainly got a point.

There certainly must be something somewhere. Perhaps a retired Apple employee has documentation or something? Lol. If it is truly "open" then I'm sure there wouldn't be any legal repercussions for releasing it, 15 years or so after the last PowerPC computer rolled off of the assembly line. Maybe it would be worth reaching out to Apple's PR to ask them to release anything they have available? I don't know. I'm just brainstorming out loud.
[automerge]1586883121[/automerge]

Yeah, he does. It could be I like OF because I like archaic things

Touche'

 

[RogerWilco6502]

There certainly must be something somewhere. Perhaps a retired Apple employee has documentation or something? Lol. If it is truly "open" then I'm sure there wouldn't be any legal repercussions for releasing it, 15 years or so after the last PowerPC computer rolled off of the assembly line. Maybe it would be worth reaching out to Apple's PR to ask them to release anything they have available? I don't know. I'm just brainstorming out loud.
[automerge]1586883121[/automerge]

Touche'

I wonder if there's anyone on the forum who worked on OF...

And archaic things are my life

 

[z970]

There certainly must be something somewhere. Perhaps a retired Apple employee has documentation or something? Lol. If it is truly "open" then I'm sure there wouldn't be any legal repercussions for releasing it, 15 years or so after the last PowerPC computer rolled off of the assembly line. Maybe it would be worth reaching out to Apple's PR to ask them to release anything they have available? I don't know. I'm just brainstorming out loud.
[automerge]1586883121[/automerge]

Touche'

Well, the source code (or at least a derivative of it) is available on GitHub. That may contain a couple useful pieces of info.

Knowing Apple, they've probably shredded, burnt, and buried all records of Open Firmware at least ten years ago.

As for the retired Apple employee, that might be a viable route of action. Perhaps we could ask him if he's lunched with my uncle (who works at Nintendo).

 

[sparty411]

Knowing Apple, they've probably shredded, burnt, and buried all records of Open Firmware at least ten years ago.

The sad thing is, this honestly wouldn't surprise me if it were the case.
[automerge]1586884922[/automerge]

I wonder if there's anyone on the forum who worked on OF...

And archaic things are my life

I imagine if this person was lurking here, they probably would've chimed in by now 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[Amethyst1]

uncle (who works at Nintendo)

So that's why you're a Nintendorian

 

[z970]

So that's why you're a Nintendorian

How did you figure that?

 

[Amethyst1]

How did you figure that?

The quoted fact plus the fact that you have a GameCube and a Wii. BTW - it was meant as a joke. No offence intended.

 

[AC910]

A while back I dove into OF to figure out how to dual boot a g3 clamshell with a faulty cd drive. I documented the process here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...os9-via-usb-on-an-ibook-g3-clamshell.2016622/ Maybe it'll be useful here

 

[z970]

The quoted fact plus the fact that you have a GameCube and a Wii. BTW - it was meant as a joke. No offence intended.

No no, "my uncle who works at Nintendo" has been a running gag since the 80's meant to convey that someone knows more about internal company projects more than the commoner does. That too, was a joke.

Yes. Those two systems, especially the former, are not only dirt cheap but also hosts to some great titles, like F-Zero GX, and Metroid Prime Trilogy. The fact that they're 750CXe-based is just icing on the cake.

Don't worry about it, by the way... People are offended by everything.

@Tito910 Back to the subject, parts of this should definitely be integrated. Thanks for sharing.

 

[andloph]

i spent the hole evening with my A1095 to see why the hell it didn´t want to boot from usb.
have been reading about OF to understand better how it works and have tested different media types to see what works and what doesn´t.

Good news is : I have it booting from usb now.
Bad news is : it panics just after a minute or so but more about this later.

Here my thoughts :
- any drive bigger than 8 GB cannot be read.
- some small unbranded usb drives i have ( about 1 GB) were not seen by OF.
- usb cd-rom media is not accesible from OF.
- diskutill displays "media is not bootable" ( even if it is)
- media brand is probably irrelevant.
- partition layout has to be Apple´s partition layout, i´m not sure yet if MBR layout will work.
- same for filesystem, i´m not sure yet what fs are readable from OF but fat and hfs work fine.

My procedure was just to plugin the drives one by one and to check which ones could be seen AND browsed from within OF. For example :

dir hd:1,\

will list the first partition of the hd alias ( probably your first hard drive )

dir usb1/disk@1:3,\

will list the contents of the usb drive ( as detected in my system).

IF you can browse the contents then the usb drive should be bootable. Otherwise OF will apparently hang and you will have to reboot.

I will be testing a few more things and will update again soon.
The reason why i´m not concerned about the kernel panic is because the media i had to use is probably faulty but it is the only one that has 8 GB.

As a side note : OF is actually quite powerful, the only major thing that REALLY pisses me off is the fact that it thinks that EVERYONE uses an english keyboard layout. Imagine how funny it is to use on a keyboard with spanish layout ... and no, this cannot be changed AFAIK.

Now the big question : does anyone know if these roms are upgradeable ?

thanks !

 

[z970]

@andloph Would you mind adding your A1095's OF version (Boot ROM) to the list?

I can confirm that a 16 GB, I think USB 3.0 thumb drive works fine with Open Firmware version 4.4.8 on my MDD. Was able to boot Lubuntu 12.04 v4 off it, flashed with DD.

I have a 1 GB Crucial drive, and that works too. I also cannot yet say that anyone has confirmed SanDisk drives are working with any one version.

Needless to say of course, the inconsistencies are infuriating. They're a big part of why mapping out Open Firmware is so hard.

Regardless, thank you for your research!

 

[dreadone]

Hallo, because of installing Linux on G5, and the probs to activate newer graphic cards, i found this:

" First you should install linux with the original video card, then you need to delete from openfirmware the flag ://tbxi . In this way the FCode is not initialized. Then you need to reboot and check if your video card run, at boot you should not see any Apple logo and other screens. The video card should be started when linux taking control.
You need to have installed on Linux all the neeeded firmware for your newer video card (DRM, Xorg, Radeon e ATI/AMD ecc.) , then your newer video card should work."

here: https://forum.powerprogress.org/d/2...is-it-possible-to-use-a-current-graphics-card

Did someone tried this on a G5 ? Or is it fraught with risks?

Thanks for answer.

 

[z970]

@dreadone, @q66_ would probably be the most able to answer your question.

For various reasons, I believe he says the HD 6000 series are the upper limit for G5s.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Getting a 17" PowerBook G4 (not sure if it's an SLSD or a DLSD yet) soon, will update the OF version info with the OF version of that machine.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Just edited to include my PowerBook G4. It's identified as January 2005, oddly enough it has a newer revision of OF than my Mac Mini, which came out the same month and is also included here.

 

[Strategia]

I OC'ed to 1.58GHz on a Mini, but the problem is that Mac OS thinks it's running at 750MHz. I heard you can use nvedit in Open Firmware to display the speed correctly. Anyone know how?

 

[Zorka]

I cannot edit the wiki yet (not enough posts), but my PowerMac6,3 (iMac G4 17" 1,25GHz usb 2.0) has OF 4.7.8f1

 

[joevt]

I tried to make a distinction between Open Firmware version and BootROM version in the original post.

I cannot edit the wiki yet (not enough posts), but my PowerMac6,3 (iMac G4 17" 1,25GHz usb 2.0) has OF 4.7.8f1

Can you check the info reported by these commands?

dev /
.properties

dev /openprom
.properties

dev /rom/boot-rom
.properties

 

[Zorka]

I tried to make a distinction between Open Firmware version and BootROM version in the original post.


Can you check the info reported by these commands?

dev /
.properties

dev /openprom
.properties

dev /rom/boot-rom
.properties

/ Model PowerMac6,3 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

/openrom OpenFirmware 3

/rom/boot-rom $0004.78f1 build-date 11/05/03 at 07:54:33

Or do you need more information?

 

[joevt]

/ Model PowerMac6,3 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

/openrom OpenFirmware 3

/rom/boot-rom $0004.78f1 build-date 11/05/03 at 07:54:33

Or do you need more information?

I was looking for the exact string. Is it "Apple PowerMac6,3 4.7.8f1 BootROM built on 11/05/03 at 07:54:33" ?

 

[Zorka]

That's what it says

 

[Macbookprodude]

Is there a script to overclock via open firmware a G4 or G5 processor ?

 

[DearthnVader]

Is there a script to overclock via open firmware a G4 or G5 processor ?

Not really, tho you can control DFS on the 7447a/b and 7448 (with some fixes).

Also you can control bus slewing on the G5, but that's not on the /cpus node, it's down the device-tree.

Powerbooks and iBooks boot in dfs_low, so if you are booting an OS that doesn't have any control of DFS( like OS 9 ) then it's useful to set_dfs_hi so your CPU is running at full speed, unless you're just more worried about battery life than performance.

G5's boot with the bus at full speed and OS X/Linux have control for bus slewing, not so sure about MorphOS?

The Ibooks with the G3 750FX have a programable PLL that should be able to be set within OF. The G4's and G5's don't have software programable PLL's, tho you can use OF scripts that change the bus speed and cpu speed reported to the OS, this is not in any way overclocking anything, it is merely a superficial change, but in the case of OS X Leopard it can be useful to by-pass the installer's hard check for 867Mhz.

 

[adam25255]

Quicksilver 2002(if someone is able to add to the list)

 

[Macbookprodude]

Not really, tho you can control DFS on the 7447a/b and 7448 (with some fixes).

Also you can control bus slewing on the G5, but that's not on the /cpus node, it's down the device-tree.

Powerbooks and iBooks boot in dfs_low, so if you are booting an OS that doesn't have any control of DFS( like OS 9 ) then it's useful to set_dfs_hi so your CPU is running at full speed, unless you're just more worried about battery life than performance.

G5's boot with the bus at full speed and OS X/Linux have control for bus slewing, not so sure about MorphOS?

The Ibooks with the G3 750FX have a programable PLL that should be able to be set within OF. The G4's and G5's don't have software programable PLL's, tho you can use OF scripts that change the bus speed and cpu speed reported to the OS, this is not in any way overclocking anything, it is merely a superficial change, but in the case of OS X Leopard it can be useful to by-pass the installer's hard check for 867Mhz.

Hi, can you message me in private about this ? I tried this and I am not following maybe its my english as I don't understand a lot. So, I go into OF and look for set_dfs_hi to force my PowerBook G4 1ghz Titanium to stay running at full speed ?