[Ti] Anticipation

[Holly Sisson]

On Friday, March 21, 2003, at 04:46  PM, Trevor J. Hutley wrote:
> As far as I understand it, the latest Ti (unless the deadline has been 
> extended) will not boot at all from OS9, although of course Classic 
> perates within OS X.  But no booting from 9.
> Maybe not even booting from pre-Jaguar OS X?
--Actually I just read the following on MacFitIt 
(http://www.macfixit.com/index.shtml):

ALERT: Booting Mac OS 9 on 2003 (Mac OS X only) Macs

After months of searching, it seems that we have finally found a 
solution for booting Mac OS 9 on Macs released after January 1, 2003 - 
which are designated as exclusively capable of booting Mac OS X by 
Apple.

Apple recently posted a new file to its private Apple Service Provider 
web page (accessible only by account-holding Apple technicians and 
resellers) titled "MacTest Pro for Power Mac G4 (March 2003) Version 
7.8.1 supports all iMac (Flat Panel) 15 inch systems only."

The file is a CD image which can be downloaded and burned, then used as 
a startup disk. Testing in "Mac OS X-only" flat panel iMac system 
revealed that the image properly booted Mac OS 9.

Users can then copy a stripped-down Mac OS 9 system folder to their 
hard drive, and select it with the "Startup Disk" System Preferences 
pane, delivering a Mac OS 9 bootable internal disk.

It appears that a new MacOS ROM file (ver. 9.8.1) allows booting from 
the image.

Of course, this solution is only readily accessible by Mac service 
providers, but it shows that Mac OS 9 boots are not impossible on 
Apple's new machines. Also, please note that Mac OS 9 startup was not 
tested on any machines other than the 2003 flat-panel iMac.