Would it be too difficult/time consuming to make it OS 9 native? Then it could run in OS X with Classic. Or did I miss understand something?
The problem is that I am not familiar with the classic Mac toolbox, and I'm not sure if it's that worth it for me to learn. It's a lot easier to make a Cocoa app where all of the UI setup is given to you "for free". Maybe there are ways around that in classic programs -- I'm not sure. Plus, I only have Apple's MPW for a compiler -- I'm not a big fan of it.
I haven't been reading this overly closely so I may have missed something, but figured I'd just toss this out there: If this process depends on hacking the original Apple firmware upgrade file this may do bad things if you try running this on a B&W upgraded to a G4 ZIF. One of the things the firmware update did (to substantial outcry) was add a test to see if the user had upgraded to a G4, and if so to halt the machine before booting.
Thank you for that info -- I was not aware of that behavior and it's definitely something I want to protect against.
You might want to do the same (IE, copy whatever firmware is already on the G3, hacking the startup sound, and writing it back) to avoid the edge case of bricking someone's G4-upgraded B&W. (Which might be a real problem if they didn't save the G3 ZIF when they upgraded.)
Sounds like a good idea to me. I think it's pretty easy to read back the firmware because I *believe* running CopyROMs on a New World Mac actually dumps it if I'm not mistaken (rather than the Mac OS ROM file). If not, I know there's a way to do it. The problem with that approach, again, is I have to learn about classic Mac programming :-( It would actually be really interesting if someone could dump the Blue and White G4 enabler ROM -- maybe I could just add the necessary patch to my program and always add the G4 compatibility even if you're not on a G4 (assuming all the Newertech program does is change the firmware)
