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Reader and frequent Odyssey MailBag contributor Jonathan Tyzack responded:

That sounded reasonable to my very limited grasp of the esoterica of computer engineering, and I replied to Jonathan:

Or not.

I did some further checking, and have discovered that the currently offered G4 Power Mac tower models, which use DDR333 SDRAM, can all boot into OS 9 as well as OS X.

The new flat-panel iMacs also use DDR333 SDRAM, but cannot boot into OS 9, but the original generation of the flat panel iMac was dual-bootable, and I’m skeptical that there has been radical motherboard re-engineering for that machine making dual-booting any more technically difficult than with the Power Macs. Looks to me like an arbitrary firmware block.

The eMac, which presumably shares a lot of internal engineering with the iMac, but which uses PC 100 RAM, still supports dual-booting, and it’s Apple’s cheapest model, which implies that including dual-boot support is not a major engineering expense. Apple is having enough trouble holding its ground in the education sector without antagonizing its customers there by arbitrarily obsoleting their investment in Classic software and legacy peripherals.

I’m unconvinced again. As I initially said, I don’t fault Apple for not engineering the new G5 models to support OS 9 dual booting, although since they have to support Classic Mode in OS X I do wonder just how difficult OS 9 boot support would really have been. Just idle speculation. Perhaps it would have been a big challenge.

However, with G4 models, lack of dual-boot support does seem like more a marketing ploy than an engineering issue, and the latest G4 Power Macs, the base model of which retails for a modest $1,299 prove that DDR RAM is not an insurmountable impediment.

And as the Woz commented at Rochester this week (see Moore’s News Roundup Digest today), OS 9 is still very useful. He still uses it.

I don’t very much any more. Not counting OS 8.6 on my PowerBook 1400, I’ve spent less than one percent of my time booted into Classic over the last four months, but I don’t in the slightest fault users who are happy with the Classic OS, and who want to continue using it for either subjective or objective compatibility reasons, but who want or need a new Mac and are thus thrust on the horns of a dillemma unless they’re satisfied with opting for an older design like the G4 Power Mac, the eMac, a TiBook, or the iBook.

From Jace Nuzback

Charles,

I have an Apple Powerbook G4/500 with a fresh install of Mac OS 10.2.6.

I have no Classic OS installed.

I have a Mac OS 9.1 install disk from my G4 desktop.
I
‘m told that I MUST have a Mac OS 9.2.2 install disk f I wish to install on 10.2.6. Is this true?

If so, rather then pay over $100 of a 9.2.2 install disk, can’t I install 9.1 fresh, update to 9.2.2 then install OS 10.2.6 on top of that?

Is one way better then the other?

My main need for Classic Mode is to use my older applications.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat and Microsoft office.

This seems to work just fine on my G4 desktop.

Thanks for your time,
Jace

Hi Jace;

The Classic OS is very flexible about installation. I can see no reason why OS X 10.2.6 would not be able to recognize a copy of OS 9.2.2 upgraded from OS 9.1 for Classic Mode purposes. However, I have not actually tried such an installation myself.

One roadblock you’re likely to encounter is that your OS 9.1 install disk from the G4 may refuse to install the system on a different model machine. That has been my experience with OS restore disks -- both Classic and OS X -- that ship with new computers. For example, I can't get the OS 10.2.1 install disk that shipped with my iBook to boot my Pismo even to run Disk Utility from it.

There are other ways to skin the cat. You could just drag a copy of the OS 9.1 System Folder to the PowerBook from the Power Mac and run the OS 9.2.2 updaters over that, or connect the PowerBook to the tower using FireWire Target Disk mode, under which it will appear to the G4c as an external hard drive. Then you could proceed to install OS 9.1 on the PowerBook HD from the CD ROM drive in the Power Mac. I *think* this would work but haven’t tried it. Or you could install OS 9.1 on some sort of external media connected to the Power Mac and then drag it to the PowerBook HD. As I said, the Classic Mac OS is very flexible about this sort of thing.

As for legal technicalities, my general understanding is that it is permissible to install second copies of software on a laptop that is used by the same user as the primary desktop so long as both computers will not be used simultaneously, or something like that. Also, your Pismo shipped with a copy of OS 9 point something, and all of the OS 9s are incrementally upgradable to OS 9.2.2, so you're entitled to an OS 9.x install on that machine anyway (guess you don't have the original Pismo OS restore CD). I’m not sure about the fine print in the Mac OS EULA on this. I advise checking it out. You’re on your own and at your own risk in that regard.

If you can successfully install OS 9.1 (another option would be to buy a generic OS 9.1 install disk -- Other World Computing has then for $50) upgrading it with the OS 9.2 updaters (I think you have to run the OS 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 updaters sequentially) should work. You can’t hurt anything, and I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t work fine.

One thing I would encourage you to do is to take the trouble to reinitialize your drive with at least two partitions and install OS X and OS 9 on separate partitions. It will work OK with both systems on the same partition, but I prefer to keep them separate.

Charles

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore