hello everybody,

i'm an ex amiga user that was a very long time ago, actually), who is occasionally tinkering with aros and reading a lot of amiga related forums.

as i do happen to have an old power mac, and saw that the new 2.6 is supposed to run on it, i decided to give morph os a try.

here's what happens:

the open firmware screen appearing is red,
says something about no console avaible,

then morphos boots.
i see the butterfly, slightly off center. morphos doesn't seem to get the resolution right.
when ambient is finally avaible, the screen stay mostly black. i see some occasional window borders and graphic fragments, but that's it. when i click around i do see some graphics glitches, appearing lines that suggest that a drawer was opened and so on, and i managed to see a menu displayed correctly (i think in mui prefs, but i honestly don't know where i clicked, since everything is black).

i see some screen borders, and when i resize, the redrawn borders stay on screen -- a mess of lines.

i got the standard ati graphics card (i think ati rage pro 128 with 16mb vram), and 448 mb ram.

any clues anyone? i'd really like to try morph os.

i posted the same at this thread on amigaworld (http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=32539&forum=28#583532) under the name grainclouzd (since shortcircuit was taken there already back then when i registered), but i guess to post it here makes more sense - so i registered here.

cheers,
clemens

It looks like it's Rage pro 128 initialization problem. You could check if the following makes any difference: Hold down ALT-key while booting to get into bootmenu and then choose the MorphOS CD.

Please post back if that helps in any way.

thanks piru,
that worked!
ihave to say morphos feels impressive and kind of "complete"!
gotta play around with it a bit more!

Note that for now you'll probably need to go thru the boot menu each time. Another alternative is to find a replacement gfxcard (radeon 9000 might be the easiest to find, but note that Mac require OF firmware in them).

We will obviously address this issue in a future update, if not earlier.

[ Edited by Piru on 2010/10/10 19:59 ]

Piru what is the line of the radeon monitor called ccedma_disable (on-off)?

Thanks

ok thanks for the advice!

i have to see if i can get the machine back for regular use - i donated it to my family a few years ago, when it became to slow for current mac os versions & apps for serious work.
chances are good, however, since it's becoming too slow now for them for doing emails & www under 10.3.9 ;)

I'm having a similiar problem. I'm not exactly sure what gfx-card it is that I'm using, and I don't have any good way to find out since there is no other OS on the machine, and the harddrive was removed from the machine a long time ago. But if I look on the card it says "Rage 128P" on a sticker, so I guess it's a card that should be working, and it has 32MB of VRAM.

When I boot I get messed up graphics, I can see that the OS sort of is there but can't make any of the graphics out, but the mousepointer is moving and I could even drag a totally black window around. Holding down the Alt-key while booting made no difference.

Here is what it looks like:
moserror.jpg

Sorry for the bad quality of the picture, but I'm using my Phone, and a CRT monitor and the room was kinda dark.

Quote:

It seems that some areas are sort of write protected and can't be overwritten. As you see the MorphOS bootlogo is kind of visible and it can't overwrite it with the desktop graphics for whatever reason.
What kind of PN number is written on the top of the card (not on an extra sticker but directly printed on upper pcb layer of the card, it's formatted like PN xxx-xxxxx-xx) ? Actually, most cards should be 16MB in fact, at least the ones that came with PowerMac G4 machines.

Update:
Ok, here is a quick test hack which requires to go into OpenFirmware on startup (keep LeftWin RightAltGr , "O" and "F" pressed on a std pc keyboard)

enter:

0 90001660 rb!

then

mac-boot


If that doesn't help please post the output of

90001660 rb@ .

here

Thx for your help.


[ Editiert durch pega-1 an 2010/10/13 2:14 ]

> Holding down the Alt-key while booting made no difference.

Maybe installing (or live booting?) Linux may be an interim workaround:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7423&forum=3&post_id=77464#77464

Quote:

Wow, that did it! Unfortunately (for me) I tried this the last minute before having to go to work, so now I really want to go home and play with it some more.

Will I need to go through the Open Firmware and do this every time I'm booting MorphOS for now?

[ Edited by fx on 2010/10/13 10:59 ]

Very insightful... What does that "0 90001660 rb!" mean for OpenFirmware? Please, don't directo me to some cryptic FORTH language manual!

Quote:

Well, you need it once when powering up at least. It should survive a reset.
It can be added as nvram script as a temporary workaround until a new MorphOS release is around as well. There should be infos on the net how to add/enable OF startup scripts.

Anyone that needs a 9000 Pro video card for their G4 PowerMac can contact me. I have at least one extra that came out of a MDD G4, so it is the Mac model, not a PC model that has been re-flashed.

@Pega-1

This can be accomplished by using nvramrc:

boot to OF and execute:

nvedit
(edit the nvramrc to include the "0 90001660 rb!" line - the editor commands can be found here)
control-c (to exit the editor)

nvstore (to store the changes)

Setenv use-nvramrc TRUE (to set the script to run on each startup)


Disclaimer:
I've not yet tested this myself (I have no Rage 128 card), but if it causes problems then boot back to openfirmware, and type:

Setenv use-nvramrc FALSE (to prevent the script running on each startup)


I hope that helps you guys with Rage cards, please could someone test and report back if it does/doesn't work for others in the same predicament.

Best Regards



Rich

Sorry but... sound is enabled for this powermac?, mine doesnt sound, volume icon is deactivated all the time.

My ahi prefs are unit 0: hifi 16bit stereo++

Edit:

OK sound is only supported on 3.4 to 3.6

Any soundcard compatible with mos and this powermac?

Thx.

[ Edited by kickstart on 2010/10/15 4:00 ]

Quote:

from http://www.morphos.de/hardware.html: SoundBlaster Live! (emu10kx)
Since Soundcards need not get initialized by the firmware there is no boot rom on these cards, so any pci card should work.

>> Any soundcard compatible with mos and this powermac?

> from http://www.morphos.de/hardware.html: SoundBlaster Live! (emu10kx)

For completeness' sake:
https://morph.zone/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1788

@boot_wb

Well, I edited the nvramrc but it does not have any effect when booting !

It's as if the "0 90001660 rb!" line is being ignored while booting ???

And yes, I did set the SETENV to use the nvramrc ;)