Introducing OS X to the 'Older' Machines...

By David Wilson (former President - WAUG)

I've been running a PowerMac 8500/150MHz for some time now and over the years I've added to the machine a USB card and more recently a FireWire card both made by Keyspan.

As the machine is PCI based the card installations were easy and I've never had any issues with them. This PowerMac 8500 is no ordinary Mac however. The main processor has been upgraded too and runs a Sonnet Crescendo G3/400/1MB processor (less than one half the size of the original card). [G3/400/1MB - translates to G3 processor running at 400Mhz with 1MB of cache on the processor card]. The machine is almost an equal performer with the iMac 400Mhz also in the study.

Tempted by the new Macintosh operating system Mac OS X and not to be left behind, I wanted to install the software and see what it's all about. Upgrading the iMac wasn't really an option. That meant that I need to upgrade the PowerMac, however Mac OS X 10.1 will not install on the Power Mac 8500 as this is not a machine that is capable of running this OS. Hang on one blinking moment - I have a G3/400 an equal to many iMac's, surely I can run Mac OS X. Fortunately Sonnet have a solution.

"Sonnet offers several innovative software solutions that enable you to install and use Mac OS X on many unsupported (pre-G3) machines, and optimize the performance of OS X on all processor-upgraded machines running it."

Installation of OS X!

I cannot stress enough! BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP.

Did I mention Backup?

For me the installation required a re-partition of my 8 GB hard drive which basically means erasing the disk and starting again (current operating system included). When I re-partitioned the drive, I set up 2GB for Mac OS 9, and 2GB for Mac OS X. On to the Mac OS 9 partition I restored my original Mac OS 9 backup and rebooted the machine. On to the Mac OS X partition I installed a vanilla Mac OS 9 as I believe I was instructed, though now I don't believe its actually being used.

The Sonnet PCI X Installer comes with a set of detailed and specific installation instructions. They are accurate and you must follow them to the letter. It is very important to save and print them for reading during the Mac OS X installation procedure.

After some heart flutters and some issues booting between Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 it is all working wonderfully now. [it does help to know how to reset your parameter ram] I also ran up the Apple Software Updates preferences and have gone from Mac OS 10.1.2 through to 10.1.4 without any issues. Just recently I also updated to 10.1.5, though the Sonnet web site does not indicate any support for it at this stage. I've got some shareware to upgrade and a fair bit of Mac OS X software to install. I now have the luxury of being able to play with the latest versions of iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto etc and to learn about the new operating system.

There is one issue though that remains un-resolved. I have a SCSI CD Writer - TEAC CD-R55S. Nothing that I have done so far under Mac OS X will recognise the device as a CD writer. Toast does not detect a CD writer present. So I still need to find a solution for this under Mac OS X. Everything still operates well when booted under Mac OS 9 and I can still burn CD's there.

One other thing, I am running Mac OS X on 118MB of RAM. The minimum recommended RAM for Mac OS X is 128MB. So while some activities are a little sluggish, I have no doubt that this would be significantly improved by adding more RAM.

Key Requirements

The key requirements for installing Mac OS X on an "older" machine with the Sonnet PCI X software are as follows:

• This software only supports the following models:
  • Power Macintosh 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8515, 8600, 9500, 9515, 9600
  • Workgroup Server 7350, 8550, 9650
  • DayStar Genesis and Millennium Series
  • MacTell XB-Pro
  • Power Computing PowerTower Pro and PowerWave
  • UMAX J700, S900
• You must have a Sonnet Crescendo or MAXpowr G3 or G4 processor upgrade installed in the machine.
• At least 128 MB of RAM is recommended, and more is better. Don't even try it if you have less than 96 MB.
• At least 1.5 GB of hard drive space is required for Mac OS X installation. More is recommended.
• If your hard drive is larger than 8 GB, it must be partitioned, and Mac OS X must be installed on a partition which fits completely within the first 8 GB.
• You will almost certainly need Mac OS 9.1 as well as Mac OS X. (If you buy the retail pack of Mac OS X, it includes Mac OS 9.1). You cannot install Mac OS 9.2 or later on these machines.

Known Issues

The following list of limitations comes from the documentation in version 1.2 of the Sonnet PCI X installer.

• The following computers are not supported: Power Computing PowerCenter, PowerCenter Pro, PowerCurve, PowerTower
• Some PCI video cards will cause a kernel panic under OS X when installed in a system with an onboard video port. This appears to mostly affect users with only one monitor connected to their computer through the PCI video card, but can affect dual-monitor setups as well. Systems with no onboard video port do not appear to have this problem. (Mac OS X issue)
• Certain SCSI hard drives are capable of booting Mac OS X. (Mac OS X issue)
• Mac OS X cannot be installed on certain SCSI hard drives. (Mac OS X issue)
• Internal floppy drives are not supported under Mac OS X or Mac OS X Classic environment. (Mac OS X issue)
• Serial printers are not supported under Mac OS X or Mac OS X Classic environment. (Mac OS X and third-party vendor issue)
• Certain CD-ROM drives (typically 2x-4x speeds) will not allow booting from the Mac OS X CD when the CD ROM drive is connected on the fast internal SCSI bus.
• Mac OS X is unable to boot from drives connected to a PCI card installed in one of the lower 3 slots of the Power Macintosh 9500 and 9600.
• The USB ports on the Sonnet Tango PCI card do not function under Mac OS X versions prior to 10.1. (Mac OS X issue) Tango FireWire ports are functional in all versions.
• SCSI termination errors that are ignored in Mac OS 9.1 may cause errors in Mac OS X. Users MUST make sure that devices in any SCSI chain are properly terminated.