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BWF89
March 9th, 2006, 11:08 PM
Apparently it wasn't iMac G3's they were giving away rather Power Macintoshes from 1995 running System Software 7.something.

It only has like 12,500K of memory, they didn't wipe the hard drive before they gave it to us because it contains papers my some of my classmates wrote in 2003, they didn't give me the root teacher password so if I want to change something I'm out of luck, it doesn't boot from the CD rom drive, doesn't play audio CD's, and when I wanted to save my game of Dyno Park Tycoon it I couldn't find the save file to continue my game later.

So I'm either going to have to find the System Software 7 OS that Apple released as freeware or if it's even possible somehow install some kind of Linux that is optimized for really low preformance computers on whatever arcitecture Apple used on their computers back then. I'm not sure if they had PowerPC back in the day.

I'll post a picture of me and my computer later.

EDIT: Oh and it doesn't have a dial-up phone line port. Everything is serial. So unless my parents subscription ot MSN/Verizon comes with free dial up or they make an Ethernet to phone jack to serial adaptor I'll have to burn all my programs to a CD or floppy to install them.

mushroom
March 9th, 2006, 11:40 PM
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/
OS 7

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/System_7.5.5_Update/
Updates

BWF89
March 9th, 2006, 11:50 PM
I found the website right after I posted.

I was on floppy disc 9 of 19 when I realized that the floppys have to be formatted for either PC or Mac.

I'll try formatting them on my Mac. But last time I tried doing that (a couple of years ago) it took an ungodly time and I ended up giving up before one of them was formatted.

My parents want me to ask my computer teacher if she can find out what the admin password is before I go reinstalling the computer.

I found this website http://www.system7today.com/ that might prove helpful.

Should I install System Software 7 or find some kind of low preformance Linux if any exist for that kind of computer?

mushroom
March 10th, 2006, 12:00 AM
I say just go for OS 7.

http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/hfs/
I think you can use this to get those image files on floppies from your PC.

BWF89
March 10th, 2006, 01:49 AM
I say just go for OS 7.

http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/hfs/
I think you can use this to get those image files on floppies from your PC.
There is no such thing as OS 7.

The development of operating systems for the Macintosh computer goes as follows:

Classic Mac OS: 1984-2001
System 1-5
System 6
System 7 (what I'm have)
Mac OS 8
Mac OS 9

OSX: 2001-Present
10.1 Cheetah through 10.5 Leopard

I don't need any utility. I just need to get the admin password, or go to OfficeMax and buy some floppy discs formatted for Mac, or find some kind of Linux that I can run on it.

EDIT: Mac OS 7 is another name for System Software 7

Bandit
March 10th, 2006, 03:10 AM
There is no such thing as OS 7.

The development of operating systems for the Macintosh computer goes as follows:

Classic Mac OS: 1984-2001
System 1-5
System 6
System 7 (what I'm have)
Mac OS 8
Mac OS 9

OSX: 2001-Present
10.1 Cheetah through 10.5 Leopard

I don't need any utility. I just need to get the admin password, or go to OfficeMax and buy some floppy discs formatted for Mac, or find some kind of Linux that I can run on it.

EDIT: Mac OS 7 is another name for System Software 7


I thought they had some.. I know OfficeDepot may still have them..
Also try online.

I hope you get it running. I cant wait for a screen shot..

Cheers,
Joey

K.Mandla
March 10th, 2006, 06:57 AM
I missed a step. Where are the free Macs coming from?

Iandefor
March 10th, 2006, 07:05 AM
I missed a step. Where are the free Macs coming from? Yeah, I'm really confused here too.

briancurtin
March 10th, 2006, 07:18 AM
he won it from his school or something like that. they were getting rid of a bunch of macs and he won one.

Bandit
March 10th, 2006, 08:10 AM
I am just happy he got his own computer.
I really hope he enjoys it and gets it going.

BWF89
March 10th, 2006, 12:23 PM
Does anyone know a Linux, Unix, or BSD that will run on a Power Mac (see sig for detales) with only around 13,000K or memory? If System 7 doesn't turn out to suit my needs I'm going to need something that includes a floppy boot disc because this computer doesn't boot from the cd rom drive.


I hope you get it running. I cant wait for a screen shot..
It's in my moms digital camera. I'll post it tomarrow.

John.Michael.Kane
March 10th, 2006, 04:04 PM
@BWF http://talinux.tal.org/ might work on it.

engla
March 10th, 2006, 04:12 PM
Hmm.. this is strange, it shouldn't be possible to lock you out of the computer without a serious system-installed hook.

Bear with me, I haven't used system 7 since 98 (or so), but try starting without extensions.
Hold shift when booting up, the computer should start without all system extensions enabled.. see if that lets you in.

Yeah, and for linux... in the old times, Yellowdog linux was about the only option for macs. (Now we have ubuntu/ppc, yayy!) I have no clue if they still stupport this, but you can look around http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/

BWF89
March 10th, 2006, 09:46 PM
Hmm.. this is strange, it shouldn't be possible to lock you out of the computer without a serious system-installed hook.

Bear with me, I haven't used system 7 since 98 (or so), but try starting without extensions.
Hold shift when booting up, the computer should start without all system extensions enabled.. see if that lets you in.
When I held down it just turned off extensions (whatever those are) and went streight to the insert password screen which I didnt know.

I asked my computer teacher if she knew the password and she said she'd ask our schools computer guy. The teachers are going to go on strike on Monday so if I don't have it by that afternoon I'll just reinstall System 7 or possibly find some kind of Linux to use.

I'm on the TA Linux download page
http://hotel.tal.org/pub/talinux/0.2.0-release/ppc/image/
but the images are only like 3.2MB and lower, and the Power Mac doesn't boot from the CD. Isn't there a small distro that just has a floppy boot disk and the actual OS on a CD? Do I have to put in some kind of command to erace the hard drive and hack into the BIOS or something? I was reading something earlier about Debian for the Power Mac and it said to do that.

Bandit
March 10th, 2006, 10:26 PM
When I held down it just turned off extensions (whatever those are) and went streight to the insert password screen which I didnt know.

I asked my computer teacher if she knew the password and she said she'd ask our schools computer guy. The teachers are going to go on strike on Monday so if I don't have it by that afternoon I'll just reinstall System 7 or possibly find some kind of Linux to use.

I'm on the TA Linux download page
http://hotel.tal.org/pub/talinux/0.2.0-release/ppc/image/
but the images are only like 3.2MB and lower, and the Power Mac doesn't boot from the CD. Isn't there a small distro that just has a floppy boot disk and the actual OS on a CD? Do I have to put in some kind of command to erace the hard drive and hack into the BIOS or something? I was reading something earlier about Debian for the Power Mac and it said to do that.

Try DSL i belive they have bootable floppy images..

BWF89
March 10th, 2006, 10:36 PM
Try DSL i belive they have bootable floppy images..
I wanted to use DSL but it's only for i386.

Bandit
March 10th, 2006, 10:45 PM
I wanted to use DSL but it's only for i386.
Dang didnt think about that...
Research Yellow Dog linux.
I seem to remember a long time ago a freind of mine had yellow dog linux running on a older mac with windows running in VM ware on the same system.

BWF89
March 10th, 2006, 11:43 PM
I couldn't find anything about Old World Macs on Yellow Dog's page.

I've been looking at Debians page and apparently they support PowerMac. But their site is so huge it's difficult to find the floppy disc/cd images I need.

Bandit
March 10th, 2006, 11:47 PM
Dang that sucks.. What did you ever figure out about reinstalling MacOS7? I knew you were looking for floppy disk.
You can buy unformated or IBM formated and format them to Mac format IF you can get into a regular user account.
Also check download.com or some website like that to see if you can get a program to format mac disk from a PC?
Its worth a try..

mips
March 10th, 2006, 11:58 PM
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/ch04s03.html.en
http://www.debian.org/CD/
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/ ###after you click on the version you select architecture.
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/


http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/hardware/breakdown/
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/hardware/others.shtml ### Read this ! Which one do you have ?
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/resources/downloads.shtml

Dark Nations
March 11th, 2006, 12:01 PM
I would like to see some screen shots of OS 7 if you can get them.

BWF89
March 11th, 2006, 03:35 PM
@Mips: I know where you download the PPC version of Debian but my computer doesn't boot from the CD. I'd need to have a boot floppy to tell it to read & install the operating system from the CD.

@Bandit: Here you go:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v399/BWF89/BWFsPowerMac.jpg

@Anyone who knows older hardware: Is there a way I can connect my Power Mac to the internet with some kind of adaptor? I have DSL w/ethernet and heres what the phone line serial port looks like.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v399/BWF89/PowerMacInternetPort.png

mips
March 11th, 2006, 03:57 PM
If you have another PC try and do a network install. I'm sure the one link I posted mentioned boot floppies.

Edit: The second link describes the boot floppy procedure.

BWF89
March 11th, 2006, 04:19 PM
I'm on the Create floppy (http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/ch04s03.html.en) page, I have rwwrtwin (the RawWrite program) on my computer, but the website doesn't give you any working links to where I would get the floppy boot disc images.

Also, when I download the Debian PPC CD's (http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/) which one is the current stable version? "3.1 r1" or "3.1 r0a"?


If you have another PC try and do a network install. I'm sure the one link I posted mentioned boot floppies.
I can't do a netinstall if I can't get my PowerMac connected to the internet. It has a serial port with a picture of a phone on the back of it which I assume is the internet port but I don't know if an adaptor exists which would allow me hook up my broadband ethernet cable to it.

mips
March 11th, 2006, 04:24 PM
I have never used Debian or created boot floppies for it but from what i understand you create them from the CD's.

For network install I was refering to using the LAN port (if you have one) to another PC via crossover cable or directly from the net. Never done this either (except for Win), sorry.

Maybe search the Debain forums for Boot Floppy or something in that line.

BWF89
March 12th, 2006, 02:49 PM
So yesterday I drove to OfficeMax and bought 20 Mac formatted floppies that I could write the System 7 installation images (http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3/) to. But when I insert the disc my PC doesn't recognise them and I can't do anything with them ] (*,). I have plenty of IBM formatted discs that I could write the OS to. The Mac recognises them and allows me to save files to but when I go to insert it before it restarts to use as a boot disc it just boots up MacOS like it normally does.

Am I doing something wrong here? I just copy and paste the individual files to the floppy disks. Am I supposted to be useing some special program to extract the files from within the images? I tried useing 7-Zip but it had an error when I told it to excract. :-k

mips
March 12th, 2006, 04:26 PM
As far as i know a PC cannot read/write mac floppies by default.

You will need something like this or similair, http://www.macdisk.com/mden.php3

BWF89
March 12th, 2006, 10:51 PM
As far as i know a PC cannot read/write mac floppies by default.

You will need something like this or similair, http://www.macdisk.com/mden.php3
Thanks for the program. But it will only write files to Mac formatted discs if their 1MB or lower. I'll have to Google search for some kind of freeware program to do the same thing.

mips
March 13th, 2006, 09:53 AM
Thanks for the program. But it will only write files to Mac formatted discs if their 1MB or lower. I'll have to Google search for some kind of freeware program to do the same thing.

Thats why I said "You will need something like this or similair..." ;)

Let us know how it goes.

kadymae
March 13th, 2006, 08:09 PM
First off, if you haven't already, get your butt over to

http://www.lowendmac.com.

And figure out which kind of mac you have and what you can max it out to.

(http://www.apple-history.com can also help you identify what you have.)

If you have a 7200, 7500, 8500, 9500, you've got a machine that's worth spending the extra dime on because they expand nicely. They also have PCI slots and you can slap a network card in there.

(If you have a X1XX machine, forget linux. Nobody supports Nu-Bus machines on linux. It can still make a good classic Mac OS machine, though)

If you've got one of these, go to eBay and see about finding: cheap ram, ethernet adaptor, larger harddrive (make sure you don't have a scsi drive in there) and a disk for OS 8.x. (I think OS 8.5 or 8.6 would be best to get you modernish networking and browsers.)

You can also head over to www.sonnettech.com and see what kind of cheap processor upgrade you can find.

If it's a PCI PowerMac, I still think I have my YDL 3.X disks lying around. I'll see if they support booting on an OldWorldMac.

kadymae
March 13th, 2006, 10:34 PM
Okay, (back from lunch) I've looked at the OP's sig file and see that he has a 5260.

This is a Nu-Bus mac. I know of NO distros for this archetecture (PPC/NuBus). The Ram maxes out at 64MB.

Here's the LEM page for it.

http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/5260.shtml.

Provided the OP can find the correct ethernet Adapter on eBay, this will make a nice, durable, "surf the web and write papers" machine.

BWF89
March 13th, 2006, 10:48 PM
Provided the OP can find the correct ethernet Adapter on eBay, this will make a nice, durable, "surf the web and write papers" machine.
What would this ethernet adaptor for my 5260 Mac be called?

kadymae
March 13th, 2006, 11:04 PM
I did a search for AAUI to ethernet adapter under the Macintosh section of Ebay and,

I think this is what you need (http://cgi.ebay.com/Asante-FriendlyNet-AAUI-15-to-RJ45-Ethernet-Mac-Adapter_W0QQitemZ8777870486QQcategoryZ44926QQssPag eNameZWD10VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)



Also your school's IT person might have a few of them lying about. See what they can do for you.

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 12:49 AM
I did a search for AAUI to ethernet adapter under the Macintosh section of Ebay and,
I think this is what you need (http://cgi.ebay.com/Asante-FriendlyNet-AAUI-15-to-RJ45-Ethernet-Mac-Adapter_W0QQitemZ8777870486QQcategoryZ44926QQssPag eNameZWD10VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
Also your school's IT person might have a few of them lying about. See what they can do for you.
Thanks for the adaptor. Now all I have to do is find a freeware program that will let me write to Mac formated floppys on my PC (so I can write the OS installation files) or find the crack to the latest MacDisk utility which there doesn't seem to be any.

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 01:11 AM
I got the password.

I IMed this guy who goes to my school and he said that the admin old password was "relax1" so I boot the thing up and it worked!

mstlyevil
March 14th, 2006, 01:22 AM
I got the password.

I IMed this guy who goes to my school and he said that the admin old password was "relax1" so I boot the thing up and it worked!

Great! Now it is time to play.:mrgreen:

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 01:24 AM
Great! Now it is time to play.:mrgreen:
The weird thing is that he said one of his friends told him the password in 3rd grade and he remembered it to this day (were both in 10th grade now).

I'm downloading software from System7Today.com to burn to a CD so I can install it and the software comes in .SIT, .BIN, and .HQX formats. One of them has to the the default double click MacOS install file and I don't know why the other ones are in different formats.

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 01:56 AM
My Mac won't read any of the CD's I try to put into it.

When I put the CD in it says it wants to initialize the CD. So you can initialize it in either MacOS or DOS format. So I tried both and it won't recognise the disc on either of them. The OS even comes with an Audio CD Player but when I try to put in a music CD it doesn't recognise it.

So without CD support I'm stuck useing a floppy. For some reason the Mac can read (I've found this with some minimal experience) IBM formatted floppys. But Opera for OS7 is like 2MB and the max MB a floppy will hold is 1.4MB. So unless I can find a browser that will fit onto a 1.4MB floppy disk I'm basically screwd because than I won't be able to get the ethernet adaptor for it to go online.

mstlyevil
March 14th, 2006, 02:02 AM
Does it have USB ports? If it does you may be able to use a flash drive to load the drivers.

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 02:37 AM
Does it have USB ports? If it does you may be able to use a flash drive to load the drivers.
Nope, and I've thought about that allready.

mstlyevil
March 14th, 2006, 02:41 AM
Nope, and I've thought about that allready.

Dag Nabbit!

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 03:13 AM
Dag Nabbit!
I'll say. I never thought that it was possible for a computer made in the last 11 years to be so out of date that that it was completely useless except for playing Oregon Trails on.

If anyone knows of a text only browser that will fit onto 1 floppy disk for OS7 for their efforts would be greatly appreciated.

mips
March 14th, 2006, 12:48 PM
Try MacLynx, http://ccadams.org/se/lynx.html

Size is about 1.04MB for v2.7.1 older versions might be smaller.

kadymae
March 14th, 2006, 09:54 PM
Sounds like the CD rom drive is dead/dying.

You can *try* grabbing a blowdryer and blasting in there to loosen up and blow away any cruft and then see if it will read a disk.

You can also look on eBay for an external SCSI cd rom drive.

BWF89
March 14th, 2006, 11:29 PM
Try MacLynx, http://ccadams.org/se/lynx.html

Size is about 1.04MB for v2.7.1 older versions might be smaller.
I copied MacLynx to a PC formatted floppy disk but when I double clicked on the HQX install file on the Macintosh it just said "This file is too big to be opened up by SimpleText". Is there something I have to do to the HQX file before put it on a floppy and try to open it up on a Mac or is there some special procedure I'm supposted to use to open it up on the Mac? I don't think an install file is supposted to be opening up in a text editor.

Sounds like the CD rom drive is dead/dying.
You can *try* grabbing a blowdryer and blasting in there to loosen up and blow away any cruft and then see if it will read a disk.
You can also look on eBay for an external SCSI cd rom drive.
I tried a blowdryer and blowing through a straw and neither worked. If I buy an SCSI drive do I have to be careful of what country it comes from? One I was looking at was being sold out of the UK and I don't think their PAL devices will work on my NTSC ones.

Bandit
March 14th, 2006, 11:52 PM
If its a CD-ROM TBK it doesnt have the country codes. DVD drives do. But sometimes you can get lucky and they not be set.

kadymae
March 15th, 2006, 12:22 AM
I copied MacLynx to a PC formatted floppy disk but when I double clicked on the HQX install file on the Macintosh it just said "This file is too big to be opened up by SimpleText". Is there something I have to do to the HQX file before put it on a floppy and try to open it up on a Mac or is there some special procedure I'm supposted to use to open it up on the Mac? I don't think an install file is supposted to be opening up in a text editor.

It's been so long since I did anything with anything before OS 9 that I'm blanking on that.

At this point I would try emailing the guys that wrote the program to see what they say.


I tried a blowdryer and blowing through a straw and neither worked. If I buy an SCSI drive do I have to be careful of what country it comes from? One I was looking at was being sold out of the UK and I don't think their PAL devices will work on my NTSC ones.


You don't need to worry about this with a CD-Rom drive. You probaby aren't going to get a very fast drive, either.

Just make sure that you get one with the right scsi pin combination.

The other thing you can try is, once again, talk to the IT Person at your school and see if they have any other dead computers of the same type sitting in a back room somewhere. See if you can cannibalize a good CD drive out of one of these.

mips
March 15th, 2006, 08:15 AM
I copied MacLynx to a PC formatted floppy disk but when I double clicked on the HQX install file on the Macintosh it just said "This file is too big to be opened up by SimpleText". Is there something I have to do to the HQX file before put it on a floppy and try to open it up on a Mac or is there some special procedure I'm supposted to use to open it up on the Mac? I don't think an install file is supposted to be opening up in a text editor.


.hqx files are compressed files and you need another application similair stuffit expander to uncompress them on the Mac in order to see the contents.

I dunno which version will work on System7

http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/sw/archive.html
http://www.jagshouse.com/classicsoftware.html
http://www.sfu.ca/acs/howtos/c/c-14.htm

BWF89
March 15th, 2006, 11:28 PM
.hqx files are compressed files and you need another application similair stuffit expander to uncompress them on the Mac in order to see the contents.

I dunno which version will work on System7
I got StuffIt 9 for Windows and extracted my MacLynx .hqx file. But when I copied it to my floppy disk and put into my Mac none of the files that were on there was the install file. The ones that were small enough just opened up in SimpleText.

Wheres the install file?
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/9188/maclynxfiles2sq.jpg

EDIT:Upon further inspection the file which I suspect is the install file shown in the picture as "MacLynx b1 PowerPC" shows up on my Windows computer but doesn't show up when I put the PC formatted floppy into my Mac and open it up.

Bandit
March 15th, 2006, 11:54 PM
Do you have a serial port on the Mac?
I was wondering if it was possible to setup a NULL link between the two system. One serial port plugged into another.
I think the modem cable spot on the back of the Mac is much like a serial port and you may be able to purchase a serial D-sub adapter for it also.
That way you can setup a link between both computers and trasfer your files over to the Mac and then use the mac to copy the OS7 images to disk.
Cheers,
Joey

BWF89
March 16th, 2006, 12:08 AM
Do you have a serial port on the Mac?
I was wondering if it was possible to setup a NULL link between the two system. One serial port plugged into another.
I think the modem cable spot on the back of the Mac is much like a serial port and you may be able to purchase a serial D-sub adapter for it also.
That way you can setup a link between both computers and trasfer your files over to the Mac and then use the mac to copy the OS7 images to disk.
Cheers,
Joey
What I was incorrectly refering to as a serial port for the internet wasn't a real serial port (as serial ports are rectangular). It was some kind of round port (posted in a pic somewhere in this thread). I have a serial port in the back of my PC and I have ports that look similar to the ones on my Mac on my PC but none that match up exactly.

There are these things on the back of my Mac that look like holes where wires ports would come out of but are covered in plastic casing that I would have to take apart the mac to see.

mips
March 16th, 2006, 08:24 AM
Ok, i give up, my knowledge of Mac is limited to null.

Maybe it would be better to ask for help on the PPC forum here or go to a Mac specific forum.