[G4] On Open Firmware (was: G5 question)

[John Baltutis]

On 11/6/08,  "Richard Klein" <richspk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Tony Sheeley <t_sheeley at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Wow!! I was hoping, but didn't really 'expect' to get any G5 answers.  You
>> guys are great.
>>
>> "If the G5 is like the G4 it uses OpenFirmware"
>>
>> I wouldn't know anything about this, I'm still fumbling my way around on the
>> G4.  I'll google OpenFirmware and find out.  Thanks.
>
> I looked at the Wikipedia entry for OpenFirmware, and it looks like
> all the PowerPC Macs use it.  They didn't switch to something else
> (EFI) until they switched to Intel processors:
>
> "On a PowerPC-based Macintosh, the Open Firmware interface can be
> accessed by pressing the keys Cmd-Option-O-F at startup.[2] This
> functionality is generally only used by developers or troubleshooting
> I.T. personnel; for common users, the Mac OS X operating system
> provides a high level graphical user interface to change commonly used
> Open Firmware settings. For instance, it is possible to specify the
> boot disk or partition without directly using the Open Firmware
> interface. Other Open Firmware settings can be changed using the nvram
> command while the system software is running."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openfirmware#Access
>
> I'm not having any luck finding an OpenFirmware command summary

<http://support.apple.com/kb/TA44318> has the summary that you're looking for.