Thread
Booting 7.0.1 From:ROM (Mac IIsi) /W Apps! My New Toaster:-)
This thing boots sick fast,
I would say fully booted to the desktop in about 4 seconds.
love it because i have everything i want and need, don't have to worry about a SCSI hard drives going bad on me.
Don't Have to wait, for anything.
The computer runs silent,
At-least originally, the idea behind first macintosh to be like an appliance that just works, like a toaster. Steve Jobs would have thought this is perfect.
If i want the scsi zip drive, it works, or a floppy disk, pop in shows up on the desktop,
if i need write access, for an application or networking, i just boot holding keys R+A and it throws all 8 megs into ram disk,
there are still a few bugs were trying to work out here and there,
but over all this idea is rockin!
There is 2 guys that get all the credit! i wont mention their names unless they want to be known
But thanks guys for makin my friday!
images are high rez:
In Order to use this new ROM you must jumper pins as shown, to ignore on board rom.
Everything you see here is in ROM, no disks or hard drives connected, no network.
Very tidy look, /WO hard disk, Hey nice logo on the ROM
I would say fully booted to the desktop in about 4 seconds.
love it because i have everything i want and need, don't have to worry about a SCSI hard drives going bad on me.
Don't Have to wait, for anything.
The computer runs silent,
At-least originally, the idea behind first macintosh to be like an appliance that just works, like a toaster. Steve Jobs would have thought this is perfect.
If i want the scsi zip drive, it works, or a floppy disk, pop in shows up on the desktop,
if i need write access, for an application or networking, i just boot holding keys R+A and it throws all 8 megs into ram disk,
there are still a few bugs were trying to work out here and there,
but over all this idea is rockin!
There is 2 guys that get all the credit! i wont mention their names unless they want to be known
But thanks guys for makin my friday!
images are high rez:
In Order to use this new ROM you must jumper pins as shown, to ignore on board rom.
Everything you see here is in ROM, no disks or hard drives connected, no network.
Very tidy look, /WO hard disk, Hey nice logo on the ROM
Having this rom almost makes it like a Mac Gaming console
picture of the Custom ROM, It's like vintage and modern technology come together!
That is SUPER cool.
here is simcity, made sure that was on the rom
i built a city, i am going to let it sit for a few hours, see how stable this thing is.
so far its been rock solid.
i built a city, i am going to let it sit for a few hours, see how stable this thing is.
so far its been rock solid.
Thats 's awesome! Is this something that can be run on a smaller macintosh like the quadra? Or even a compact? This would be something I would love to have if I had the resource. I'm working on getting the imac to boot from a CF card for the silent type as well.. not as cool as what youre doing though.. :b&w: have fun
That's ALL in ROM? 8-o
That's f%*! That has to be one of the most brilliant things I have seen done with the custom ROM SIMM.
That's f%*! That has to be one of the most brilliant things I have seen done with the custom ROM SIMM.
i know , it takes you a second to realize how cool this is.
In My testing:
When you choose RA boot keys,(Copy Rom to Ram Disk) it takes like 30 full seconds before it boots.
This is only with the Macintosh IIsi, Macintosh IIci only takes like 5 full seconds.
Haven't tried the SE/30 yet, should work in that as well!
ok well norton utilities tops out at 398 on the "test volume" benchmark
its pegged, but it should be, its a ram disk. it won't let me run the test from ROM because it cant write.
In My testing:
When you choose RA boot keys,(Copy Rom to Ram Disk) it takes like 30 full seconds before it boots.
This is only with the Macintosh IIsi, Macintosh IIci only takes like 5 full seconds.
Haven't tried the SE/30 yet, should work in that as well!
ok well norton utilities tops out at 398 on the "test volume" benchmark
its pegged, but it should be, its a ram disk. it won't let me run the test from ROM because it cant write.
PM me if you are interested in one of these,i can get you in-touch with the right guys!
This ROM works with the following:
IIx, IIsi, IIci, and SE/30
This ROM works with the following:
IIx, IIsi, IIci, and SE/30
I feel like I've stumbled in on the middle of conversation. What, exactly, is going on here? What is in this IIsi?
This Macintosh IIsi has a Custom ROM Simm installed, This SIMM contains A Modified IIsi ROM, Mac OS and Applications. The custom simm has an 8mb capacity.
By Holding "R" down at power on, it will boot from rom to MacOS in Locked Read Only mode
By Holding "RA" down at power on, It copy's MacOS and Applications to an 8mb ramdisk, and is read and writable.
IF you use "RA" you want to make sure you have atleast 16 or so megs of ram because 8mb of it gets eaten up off the bat.
By Holding "R" down at power on, it will boot from rom to MacOS in Locked Read Only mode
By Holding "RA" down at power on, It copy's MacOS and Applications to an 8mb ramdisk, and is read and writable.
IF you use "RA" you want to make sure you have atleast 16 or so megs of ram because 8mb of it gets eaten up off the bat.
the Mac IIsi has been running (from rom only) for 24 hours straight, just now, i'd say its pretty stable.
pretty awesome!
pretty awesome!
Ok, I'v been thinking, Why would you want to buy one of these ROM SIMMS, and install it in your:
(IIx, IIsi, IIci, and SE/30)
- 32bit Clean! This simm will take your dirty 32bit machine and make it clean!
- Noise, With out the scsi hard drive in there, there is no noise at all.
- New Life, Even if you throw this in your SE/30 with a bad SCSI chip, Your machine is now up and booted, Apps running.
- Energy, if your aging PSU is already slightly weak, poping this rom in, and removing HD will relive your poor psu
- Speed, This thing is GD fast, were talking 4 second boot up times. Apps open as fast as you let off the mouse button, Instantly.
- Cost, Compared to CF2SCSI these simms are cheap! PM Dougg3 he will let you know the cost of a blank ROM 8mb simm
- 100% Fully customizable! you can put what ever you want on this thing, you got 8 mb's of space Talk to Dougg3 he sells a programmer for this 8mb simm, witch is also very reasonable in price.
- Reliability, your new rom is never going to develop bad sectors like Flash or Rotating media.
- Heat, the simm never even gets warm to the touch.
- Clutter, in the case of my IIsi, with out the HD, SCSI Cable, Power Cable, The inside of the case is now very tidy!
- Development, once you get this Rom Simm and programmer, you are open to options that were never available, including
changing boot up sound, and changing boot ICON, Etc
- Support, buying this will help continue the project, allows Dougg3 to continue making these simms
The only con I can think of is space, 8meg, however with 7.0.1 loaded on it, and Vintage apps, it seems like 8mb is plenty of room, you can always change what is on it, Taylor it to your liking!
(IIx, IIsi, IIci, and SE/30)
- 32bit Clean! This simm will take your dirty 32bit machine and make it clean!
- Noise, With out the scsi hard drive in there, there is no noise at all.
- New Life, Even if you throw this in your SE/30 with a bad SCSI chip, Your machine is now up and booted, Apps running.
- Energy, if your aging PSU is already slightly weak, poping this rom in, and removing HD will relive your poor psu
- Speed, This thing is GD fast, were talking 4 second boot up times. Apps open as fast as you let off the mouse button, Instantly.
- Cost, Compared to CF2SCSI these simms are cheap! PM Dougg3 he will let you know the cost of a blank ROM 8mb simm
- 100% Fully customizable! you can put what ever you want on this thing, you got 8 mb's of space Talk to Dougg3 he sells a programmer for this 8mb simm, witch is also very reasonable in price.
- Reliability, your new rom is never going to develop bad sectors like Flash or Rotating media.
- Heat, the simm never even gets warm to the touch.
- Clutter, in the case of my IIsi, with out the HD, SCSI Cable, Power Cable, The inside of the case is now very tidy!
- Development, once you get this Rom Simm and programmer, you are open to options that were never available, including
changing boot up sound, and changing boot ICON, Etc
- Support, buying this will help continue the project, allows Dougg3 to continue making these simms
The only con I can think of is space, 8meg, however with 7.0.1 loaded on it, and Vintage apps, it seems like 8mb is plenty of room, you can always change what is on it, Taylor it to your liking!
If you have a IIci, you can stick 128MBs in that puppy. So if you use the ROM+RAM combo, that machine will be crazy fast with plenty of storage!
my only issue is getting ahold of some 16mb 30pin simms,
i'm absolutely not going to pay the robbery prices on epay.
i'm absolutely not going to pay the robbery prices on epay.
It occurs to me that something handy to have in ROM on a compact Mac (SE/30 for example) would be a good serial terminal emulator.
Now that there can anything be preinstalled on that ROM, including the set up of a RAM disk with preconfigured contents, one could automate any task that formerly was doable with a warm restart, only. Hwo fast it works! Think of custom drivers for peripherals to boot from alternativley, like originally unsupported drives and removable media. I admit that I have no clue about the level of reverse engineering skills required for such a nice hack, but how about invoking a choice of available boot options by using the Option-Key ("Alt"), like in recent machines?
Btw.: Might this be related to the concept of a Helper Disk like used in XpostFacto, which enables old G3 Macs to boot from nearly any connected storage?
Btw.: Might this be related to the concept of a Helper Disk like used in XpostFacto, which enables old G3 Macs to boot from nearly any connected storage?
I missed something. Who's making these?
dougg3 
uniserver, is that 7.0.1 w/tuneup? I may need to get one earlier than anticipated . . .
Setting the SIMM up with a full suite of diagnostic/troubleshooting tools, basic apps like ClarisWorks, Z-Term and a GraphicConverter/SlideShow/Pictureframe app with a few simple games thrown in could be very interesting indeed.
uniserver, is that 7.0.1 w/tuneup? I may need to get one earlier than anticipated . . .
Setting the SIMM up with a full suite of diagnostic/troubleshooting tools, basic apps like ClarisWorks, Z-Term and a GraphicConverter/SlideShow/Pictureframe app with a few simple games thrown in could be very interesting indeed.
It should also be noted that bbraun created the amazing ROM disk driver that makes it all work, and olePigeon designed the ROM disk icon and the jolly roger logo on the SIMM and programmer board.
Good points, I thought he meant the BigSIMM that holds all that cool stuff . . .
. . . that bbraun got running.
I'm still diggin' the DigitalBuccaneer logo as well. :approve:
. . . that bbraun got running.
I'm still diggin' the DigitalBuccaneer logo as well. :approve:
It's still hard for even me to believe this all works, its almost like its black magic
AMAZING! We already knew it was possible, but seeing it actually running is just great 
If I understand it correctly, if no key is pressed upon power-up, the machine will try to boot from an ordinary disk, right? Could that be modified in order to make the Copy ROM to RAMdisk boot option the default, leaving some key for the disk boot mode?
If I understand it correctly, if no key is pressed upon power-up, the machine will try to boot from an ordinary disk, right? Could that be modified in order to make the Copy ROM to RAMdisk boot option the default, leaving some key for the disk boot mode?
I can update the driver to do that if there's actual interest. I have to go through some contortions to not boot the ROM disk so always booting it would be easier. It's just a matter of defining the desired behavior.
A behaviour according to existing standards would be most preferable, like firstly check for some Alt-key depressed to invoke a custom boot drive selection and (if that is not the case) secondly look up boot disk settings stored in PRAM. Probably one could allow to optionally directly address a boot partition like with HDT formatted drives, or even better pick a System Folder from a selection of disks or partitions }
Formerly used shortcuts to influence the boot drive selection should work, still. It is always nice to allow experienced users to utilize their knowledge in evolving systems, still.
Are there any chances to make this hack available for other machines, like a PowerBook?
Formerly used shortcuts to influence the boot drive selection should work, still. It is always nice to allow experienced users to utilize their knowledge in evolving systems, still.
Are there any chances to make this hack available for other machines, like a PowerBook?
i just wanted to say thanks again for the efforts of dougg3 and bbraun.
Is it at all possible to have a color logo for the Happy Mac? I know that new world machines have the color Happy Mac.
Interesting notion!
It probably won't work on some machines, such as the SE/30, which don't support color.
However, I don't see why not on color-capable Macs, such as the Mac II series.
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