Looks like you can emulate the ANS500/700 with MacOS roms even now https://github.com/pappadf/granny-smith/pull/120
Apple Network Server MacOS based ROMs found
- Thread starter eric
- Start date
Yes, in principle it's possible to boot Mac OS with the "prototype" rom in the emulator (I've tested with system 7.6). However, let me add some voice overlay to manage expectations:
First of all, a small disclaimer: an emulator is of course not real hw, so no result here transfers directly to the real thing. The emulator may be more "forgiving" than real hw, or simply deviate from what the hw actually does.
The system that managed to boot to the finder had two "hacks" that are not fully reflected in the final PR:
First of all a small hack for the VBL interrupt. Out-of-the-box, mac os booting on ANS weren't reciving VBL interrupts properly. Based on available documentation, my understanding is that the graphics adapter (cirrus logic) has no interrupt line at all, so I'm not sure how this should work on real hardware. I did a small hack to drive with with the via.
Second, a "nudge" for the scsi bus scan. The native scsi mgr hangs on every empty-target probe of the two fast/wide 825 buses. The ANS has a lot of potential scsi targets, so the scan effectively never completes without help (or at least take a very long time). This one may very well be a bug in my 825 model; it deserves further investigation, as I've seen similar things under AIX.
Bringing up mac os was just a side activity here, to add some more test coverage to the emulator. The real goal was AIX. However, it turned out to be a very healty excrsise that actually surfaced a number of other underlying emulator bugs.
So in short, yes, in theory it's possible to run Mac os on emulated ANS
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An additional disclaimer: AI tools were used extensively in this work - not only for coding, but also for debugging and reverse engineering. I know that is a red flag for some, and I fully respect that.
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Trying it out. I uploaded multiple ROMs.
1995-05-18 - 9630C68B - 2.26B6 ANS 300 & 500 & 700.ROM
1998-01-14 - 49B2BE8F - 2.0 ANS 300 & 500 & 700.ROM
1995-08-21 - 962F6C13 - 1.1.20.1 ANS 300 & 500 & 700.ROM
1995-08-21 - 962F6C13 - 1.1.22 ANS 300 & 500 & 700.ROM
1995-08-21 - 962F6C13 - 2.26NT ANS 300 & 500 & 700.ROM
But I had to move them manually from the upload folder to the rom folder. I think this should be automatic.
It does not accept both 1.1.20.1 and 1.1.22. Is it just using the 3 MiB 32-bit checksum? The 4 MiB ROMs also have a 64-bit checksum that covers the entire ROM. See DingusPPC romidentity.cpp and
MachineFactory::machine_name_from_rom.If I upload a ROM named "962F6C13", then delete it, and upload one of the 3 ROMs above, then it shows the name as "962F6C13" instead of "1995-08-21 - 962F6C13 - 1.1.20.1 ANS 300 & 500 & 700.ROM". Are the ROMs cached? Can they be renamed?
I have 5 ANS ROMs, but the UI only lets me select 1.1.22, 2.0, and another 1.1.22 (a duplicate?).
The "ROM Image" menu for creating a new machine does not indicate which ROM image file it is using. This info should be in the ROM Image menu or in the ROM list.
Is there a way to show the LCD or serial port output?
Do you know how to skip POST tests during boot? Is it a NVRAM setting or a key switch setting? For example, the DRAM tests for 512 MB take a long time. The testing should appear on the LCD or serial port.
Regarding the 512 MB limit. I wonder if that can be increased by patching the ROM. For example, in DingusPPC, I can patch the Power Mac 9600 ROM to detect 3.25 GiB of RAM. With more effort, maybe I can get that up to 3.75 GB. Mac OS 9 shows the RAM, but I don't know how to test that it is actually usable since Mac OS 9 limits itself to 1.5 GiB. I haven't tried booting Mac OS X (using XPostFacto) yet.
The Open Firmware console doesn't scroll correctly if I open the lcd device.
" lcd" select-dev " hello" write drop. Probably a bug in Open Firmware?Restart doesn't clear the screen.
The
DingusPPC doesn't emulate the built-in graphics controller yet, so I can't compare. Someone with a real ANS could try it.
In the Granny Smith emulation, this causes the display to go white but no text is output.
There's no reset (NMI) button or reboot button?
Regarding the scrolling not working correctly after doing
The screen device can't be opened again? Could be a Open Firmware bug. Or it could be a bug in the graphics controller emulation.
DingusPPC doesn't emulate the built-in graphics controller yet, so I can't compare. Someone with a real ANS could try it.
" screen" outputIn the Granny Smith emulation, this causes the display to go white but no text is output.
There's no reset (NMI) button or reboot button?
Regarding the scrolling not working correctly after doing
" lcd" select-dev. I think it's because the LCD device sets the number of rows/columns to 4/20." screen" select-dev fixes that.A big thank you for taking the time both to try it out, and also to write down a lot of good and valuable feedback! It is much appreciated!
I will answer in another thread, https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/the-granny-smith-emulator.5587/, as this will be a bit of a side track vs. this thread (and the original topic of this thread), and I don't want anyone to feel that I hijacking the thread - hope that it is ok that I keep this separate.