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BrandonMy Old Macs
I acquired 3 old macs from a teacher this school year: A PowerMac 5500/250 and 2 PowerMac 8500/120s, The 5500 worked fine, the 8500s didn't display anything, but I heard the "Happy Mac" boot noise, and would hear a system message beep if i let it run long enough, the other 8500 would boot only sometimes. So I bought a couple of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/VGA-MAC-Monitor-Adapter_W0QQitemZ200364693473QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea6aa97e1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_150wt_300 Hoping that the monitors were just bad and figuring that for how cheap they were if one didn't work it wouldn't be a big deal, and they work well. The 8500 that doesn't like to boot, seems to have a PSU issue, so I removed the RAM, and Hard drive and put it in the other unit that works fine with the video adapters. Then I wanted to Install the free System 7.5.3 from Apple's site. Its not a bootable image, but one you mount and run the installer :P So with the hard drives both having 8.5 it didn't want to replace files with older versions. Online there was no help, so I eventually got both hard drives working (each wanted its own channel) and used one to erase and install on the other, and then same in reverse. I now have 2 bootable System 7.5.5 disks! If only I could find a good use for this old PowerMac :)		2009-07-309:21 PM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
Put Windows on it! lol		2009-07-315:16 PM
BrandonRe:My Old Macs
That is probably the stupidest post on this forum. If I thought you were serious, I would make a new rank for you "Court Jester" :P		2009-07-317:39 PM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
Geez chill out! It couldn't even run Windows because PowerPC != Intel.		2009-07-319:14 PM
BrandonRe:My Old Macs
I thought the [quote]If I thought you were serious[/quote] and [quote]:P[/quote] would give away that I was joking :P		2009-07-319:22 PM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
My bad. :( I was a little edgy cos this stupid Calc course in the summer is anything but easy.		2009-07-3110:36 PM
BrandonRe:My Old Macs
Although I did think of getting a PCI card with the x86 CPU, so I could run like DOS and maybe some Win3.1 on it :P		2009-07-3111:05 PM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
I didn't know they made PCI cards that could do that. Speaking of Apple's old Mac OS ROMs, it's too bad Microsoft doesn't put up their old Windows versions (or even better make them open source). The only source code I have that's their's is the DOS 6 source code.		2009-08-018:05 AM
BrandonRe:My Old Macs
I'd like Win3.1 code, I'd hack it up :P		2009-08-019:12 AM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
I have the Windows 2000 code if you want. It's like 203 MB but there are some pretty weird comments in it. Apparently MS developers are aware of bugs and just write angry comments about how they aren't fixed. ;)		2009-08-019:49 AM
BrandonRe:My Old Macs
Nah, I'd only take it if it were free so I could distribute my edits. I think with the right developer Win3.1 could be made into a decent OS.		2009-08-0111:49 AM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
It seems like all Windows clones are focused on 32-bit Windows NT-based clones. It's too bad they can't make a clone of 3.1. Or why Microsoft has to protect it so highly! I mean it's 16 years old! GIVE IT UP ALREADY!		2009-08-0112:17 PM
BrandonRe:My Old Macs
I don't think using a M$ OS is the way to start anyways, probably using the linux Kernel with a custom Desktop environment and apps would be the way to go. I'd develop on a 400mhz system with 128mb ram, that way I know that it would run on less, I mean if you can dev with that a 200mhz and 32/64mb ram would be a basic workstation.		2009-08-0112:43 PM
ksrRe:My Old Macs
Given its relative simplicity, I wonder how hard it would be to disassemble Win3.1's binaries. The problem is once you make it 32bit (a big leap), support modern hardware - USB, ethernet, WiFi (a big leap) and so forth, you'll have something which looks nothing like Win3.1.		2009-08-0112:43 PM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
I have an old copy of Visual C++ 6 which could edit 16-bit DLLs and EXEs. I took a copy of Win 3.1 and modified it all around and called it "Turbo Windows". lol This was in 2003 and managed to get Windows to fit on 2 disks! Though it didn't have many programs (just Notepad, File Manager, and Program Manager).		2009-08-029:30 AM
SonicBritRe:My Old Macs
Ah the joys of windows 3.1, tis one of my favorite OS's. If you want to look at source for the drivers for windows they are available as the DDK (Device Driver Developer Kit), I can zip it up and post it somewhere if your interested, alot of stuff is in asm though! Pretty interesting if you want to look through how they did certain things.		2009-08-0310:30 AM
ToddRe:My Old Macs
Neat! Definitely worth sharing if you don't mind.		2009-08-033:11 PM

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