It's not really that I made some awesome customizations or hacks, like you guys here, but I decided to write a short post about my experiences with my newly acquired PDQ.
The choice
I chose the PDQ because of two reasons:
The setup
It's a regular 233 MHz PDQ, except for extended RAM (384 MB) and a bigger HDD (9 GB). I also got it a floppy drive, a WLAN PC card and a PC USB adapter.
The system(s)
I currently triple-boot Mac OS X (10.2. 8) , Mac OS 9 (9.2.2) and Mac OS 8 (8.1). Apparently, the USB adapter wouldn't work with Mac OS 9 and below. Also, I still have some really old stuff that wouldn't run on anything above Mac OS 8. That's why I came up with this configuration.
The problems
I came across several problems getting to where I am now. I'm now going to briefly describe each one of them.
The USB adapter
Even though I was convinced that any OHCI-compatible PCMCIA USB card would work under Mac OS 9 (which was initially the only OS I intended to use on my PDQ), I found out that it was not necessarily true. I bought an AKE USB 2.0 CardBus BC168 and it wasn't even recognized by OS 9. I described it in detail in another thread. Trying a bunch of different USB drivers didn't pay off. I tried several methods that I found on the Internet (none of which were dedicated to this specific card, by the way), but I ended up installing OS X to be able to use it at all. My guess is that if I had managed to get a known-to-work card, I would have spared myself a whole lot of time and the need to install OS X. Nonetheless, the USB adapter works out of the box under OS X. And for the record, Mac OS 9 is limited to USB 1.1 speeds (the Apple's drivers wouldn't allow for more).
The WLAN card
This one was a more fortunate purchase. I got a Lucent Technologies WaveLAN Silver, which, after installing the AirPort drivers for the OS 9, was successfully recognized as an AirPort PC card. That made it really comfortable to use... until I installed OS X! There are a few options when it comes to custom WLAN PC cards under OS X. Firstly, I found IOXperts drivers but it is a commercial product and I really wasn't into any additional (and unnecessary) expenses. That's how I found the WirelessDriver, which sounded like the perfect solution. And in fact it was, but not without hassle.
The package that I got from the repository (1.0.0b5) wouldn't even install. I figured out that it was caused by the preference pane sub-installation. I fixed it by installing it in my home directory and then moving it to /System/Library/PreferencePanes/. But it wasn't over yet. The card still wasn't recognized by the Network preference pane (there was no new interface corresponding to the card). I figured out that the kext (Kernel EXTension) wasn't loaded, so I tried loading it by myself:
Indeed, there were some problems with the kext and it could not be loaded. The "-t" switch told me that the permissions / ownership of the extension were invalid. That was easily fixed by issuing the following command:
The other problem lied within the Info.plist - one of the keys had a value of an inappropriate type. That required a quick inspection of the mentioned file and the solution was also straightforward:
Now kextload should finally get the job done and a new network interface (named en1, most likely) should appear in the network preferences. In other words, you should be good to go.
The triple-booting
Unfortunately, my PDQ seems to be unable to boot from ANY CD. I've tried about 5 different installation discs (I know that at least 2 of them were successfully used to boot from before). No methods that I know of were of any help in this matter. I tried things like:
As my PDQ came with only one partition, I needed to boot from a different medium to be able to repartition it. My temporary solution was to use a RAM disk to store a minimal System Folder along with some utilities. It in fact did work flawlessly but then I found out that the Mac OS X installer ran under Mac OS 9 was capable of forcing the PDQ to boot from the installation CD. That's how I finally managed to get my HD partitioned.
When I got OS X up and running, I gave the Startup Disk preference pane a try and set the Mac OS 9 installation CD as the startup volume. It failed just like before so I was forced to install OS 9 using the Classic Environment (and installing OS 9 for it first). The installation went smoothly but I wasn't able to boot into the freshly installed system. This is what happens when I try to simply switch the startup disk under OS X and reboot:
1. The PowerBook reboots and the pre-OS X gray background appears. A moment later the Happy Mac icon shows up and stays on for a while.
2. Right when I'd expect to see the "Welcome to Mac OS" screen, the PowerBook reboots again.
3. Mac OS X starts loading.
The solution I came up with maybe isn't comfortable, but at least it works every time - I simply choose the Mac OS 9 installation that is dedicated to the Classic Environment and boot into it (that magically succeeds) and then use its Startup Disk control panel to finally switch to either OS 9 or OS 8. Going back to OS X from OS 9 is not a problem, but going back to OS X from OS 8 requires booting OS 9 first.
The AFP networking
Due to significant changes in the AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) implementations across the Mac OS versions, I was unable to set up file sharing between my MacBook Pro (10.8.5) and the PDQ (9.2.2) using AFP - both sides reported incompatibilities. As a temporary solution, I decided to use FTP - I set up an FTP server on the MBP and connected to it from the PDQ using Transmit. However, when I installed Jaguar the problem was gone.
The photos
There is nothing special about these photos but I decided to post them anyway
The epilogue
I hope that maybe someone sometime will find this micro-guide useful and it will spare him a bit of his precious time. Feel free to throw in any suggestions - I may have as well missed out something obvious.
The choice
I chose the PDQ because of two reasons:
- I needed the most powerful portable Mac that would be capable of sharing data with my SE (serial / floppy) out of the box and yet modern enough to be able to talk to my MacBook Pro.
- When I was a kid, I always wanted to have one of "those black G3 PowerBooks".
The setup
It's a regular 233 MHz PDQ, except for extended RAM (384 MB) and a bigger HDD (9 GB). I also got it a floppy drive, a WLAN PC card and a PC USB adapter.
The system(s)
I currently triple-boot Mac OS X (10.2. 8) , Mac OS 9 (9.2.2) and Mac OS 8 (8.1). Apparently, the USB adapter wouldn't work with Mac OS 9 and below. Also, I still have some really old stuff that wouldn't run on anything above Mac OS 8. That's why I came up with this configuration.
The problems
I came across several problems getting to where I am now. I'm now going to briefly describe each one of them.
The USB adapter
Even though I was convinced that any OHCI-compatible PCMCIA USB card would work under Mac OS 9 (which was initially the only OS I intended to use on my PDQ), I found out that it was not necessarily true. I bought an AKE USB 2.0 CardBus BC168 and it wasn't even recognized by OS 9. I described it in detail in another thread. Trying a bunch of different USB drivers didn't pay off. I tried several methods that I found on the Internet (none of which were dedicated to this specific card, by the way), but I ended up installing OS X to be able to use it at all. My guess is that if I had managed to get a known-to-work card, I would have spared myself a whole lot of time and the need to install OS X. Nonetheless, the USB adapter works out of the box under OS X. And for the record, Mac OS 9 is limited to USB 1.1 speeds (the Apple's drivers wouldn't allow for more).
The WLAN card
This one was a more fortunate purchase. I got a Lucent Technologies WaveLAN Silver, which, after installing the AirPort drivers for the OS 9, was successfully recognized as an AirPort PC card. That made it really comfortable to use... until I installed OS X! There are a few options when it comes to custom WLAN PC cards under OS X. Firstly, I found IOXperts drivers but it is a commercial product and I really wasn't into any additional (and unnecessary) expenses. That's how I found the WirelessDriver, which sounded like the perfect solution. And in fact it was, but not without hassle.
The package that I got from the repository (1.0.0b5) wouldn't even install. I figured out that it was caused by the preference pane sub-installation. I fixed it by installing it in my home directory and then moving it to /System/Library/PreferencePanes/. But it wasn't over yet. The card still wasn't recognized by the Network preference pane (there was no new interface corresponding to the card). I figured out that the kext (Kernel EXTension) wasn't loaded, so I tried loading it by myself:
Code:
sudo kextload -t /System/Library/Extensions/WirelessDriver.kext
Code:
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/WirelessDriver.kext
Code:
sudo vi /System/Library/Extensions/WirelessDriver.kext/Contents/Info.plist
(Look for the key denoted by the following key path: IOKitPersonalities:Baystack 660 Wireless Network:IOKitDebug)
(Now change the consecutive entry - VALUE - to - VALUE)
(Save and exit - ESC, :wq, ENTER)The triple-booting
Unfortunately, my PDQ seems to be unable to boot from ANY CD. I've tried about 5 different installation discs (I know that at least 2 of them were successfully used to boot from before). No methods that I know of were of any help in this matter. I tried things like:
- holding the C key during boot,
- setting the CD as the startup volume in the Startup Disk control panel,
- holding Command+Option+Shift+Backspace during boot,
- resetting the PRAM / PMU.
As my PDQ came with only one partition, I needed to boot from a different medium to be able to repartition it. My temporary solution was to use a RAM disk to store a minimal System Folder along with some utilities. It in fact did work flawlessly but then I found out that the Mac OS X installer ran under Mac OS 9 was capable of forcing the PDQ to boot from the installation CD. That's how I finally managed to get my HD partitioned.
When I got OS X up and running, I gave the Startup Disk preference pane a try and set the Mac OS 9 installation CD as the startup volume. It failed just like before so I was forced to install OS 9 using the Classic Environment (and installing OS 9 for it first). The installation went smoothly but I wasn't able to boot into the freshly installed system. This is what happens when I try to simply switch the startup disk under OS X and reboot:
1. The PowerBook reboots and the pre-OS X gray background appears. A moment later the Happy Mac icon shows up and stays on for a while.
2. Right when I'd expect to see the "Welcome to Mac OS" screen, the PowerBook reboots again.
3. Mac OS X starts loading.
The solution I came up with maybe isn't comfortable, but at least it works every time - I simply choose the Mac OS 9 installation that is dedicated to the Classic Environment and boot into it (that magically succeeds) and then use its Startup Disk control panel to finally switch to either OS 9 or OS 8. Going back to OS X from OS 9 is not a problem, but going back to OS X from OS 8 requires booting OS 9 first.
The AFP networking
Due to significant changes in the AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) implementations across the Mac OS versions, I was unable to set up file sharing between my MacBook Pro (10.8.5) and the PDQ (9.2.2) using AFP - both sides reported incompatibilities. As a temporary solution, I decided to use FTP - I set up an FTP server on the MBP and connected to it from the PDQ using Transmit. However, when I installed Jaguar the problem was gone.
The photos
There is nothing special about these photos but I decided to post them anyway
The epilogue
I hope that maybe someone sometime will find this micro-guide useful and it will spare him a bit of his precious time. Feel free to throw in any suggestions - I may have as well missed out something obvious.