Working around Mac OS X Leopard restrictions

Oh wow! I've got a huge sense of accomplishment tonight. A Powerbook G4 belonging to a friend "recently" (happened several months ago) crashed and it was not until just recently she was able to get it to me to have fixed. I think the hard drive did an oops and she couldn't boot into her Mac OS X 10.3 system. It figures that this would happen because the factory restore CDs with the computer only have Mac OS X 10.2. Anyway, they restored with 10.2 and couldn't get the programs they needed working.

So the mission was to install Mac OS X 10.5 onto this older laptop. The CPU is an 800mHz G4, which surprised me because I thought it was a 867mHz, at least it was when I owned it. In any case I started doing some research after purchasing a Mac OS X 10.5 DVD.

So I ran into some articles about installing Leopard via another supported computer. So I tried this with my newer Intel Mac. This WILL not work as the Intel Macs need a different partition map than the PowerPC ones do, so the old Mac will not boot into the newly installed OS.

That was an hour wasted so I went back to the drawing board and found some articles about hacking the install package on the DVD but that was also too time consuming. Then I stumbled upon using Open Firmware to trick the Leopard install that my computer has a 867mHz processor.

This seemed extremely promising, but the article I found was incomplete. The install package not only checked the property set for the " clock-frequency" but also the " min-clock-frequency" and " max-clock-frequency". So, in order to trick the Leopard installer into thinking you have a 867mHz processor follow the directions below.

1. Boot into Open Firmware. Press Cmd+Option+O+F as soon as you turn on your computer.
2. At the prompt that should come up type in the following:

dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0

3. Press Enter and then type this line:

d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property

4. Then:

d# 867000000 encode-int " min-clock-frequency" property

5. Then:

d# 867000000 encode-int " max-clock-frequency" property

6. Finally, tell Open Firmware to boot from the CD

boot cd:,\\:tbxi

That should get you going. Now in my case I had to do more digging for the last step. The CD drive in the laptop I'm working with is basically pooched and I didn't have time or money to find a replacement. So I was working with an external DVD burner connect via firewire. The following Open Firmware commands should be used to boot from a firewire drive.

devalias cd /pci@f4000000/firewire/node/sbp-2/disk@0

Then...

boot cd:,\\:tbxi

Now I'm installing Leopard and waiting for it to finish so I can get this lappy G4 sent off to my friend! Hopefully it won't be too slow.

This was a pretty neat exercise for me. I learned a fair bit about how a Mac gets going after you hit the power button. After messing with a computer for well over an hour, more like 4 or 5, while wishing to spend more time with my family, it is a huge sense of relief and accomplishment. Hopefully you will find this useful!

New Job

Well its time for a new job! I'm excited to start with Techmation Electric in the near future. I have some safety courses to take before I begin work but I'm looking forward to it.

I'll let you know more soon!

Electric Car Conversions in Calgary

I had a comment from a while back that I missed and I want to apologize for my tardiness.

I did do a little research into electric car conversions happening in Calgary and there are not very many. It seems people will send the car away to be converted. There is a fellow in Calgary who has converted an older Saturn car to electric and a Kawasaki motorcycle. Neat story and has lots of pictures and links for the do-it-your-self type of person.

On the note of fuel economy in gas vehicles, my wife and I did some testing with our two vehicles. We were starting to become appalled that our newer vehicle, a 2007 Dodge Caliber, was not getting its advertised mileage rating on the highway. Well I was anyway, Stephanie thought it was doing fine.

I remembered a few years ago it was recommended in an auto magazine that to reduce fuel mileage you just have to drive a little slower. We put it to the test. On the highway our Caliber can get about 34-35MPG (Imperial Gallons) traveling at 100-110km/h. We slowed our speed down to 90km/h and we were able to get 38-39MPG on several separate trips to different locations.

I was intrigued and tried it with the Saturn SL1 we have. Driving fairly aggressively and at typical highway speeds I was getting varied mileage, an average of about 36-38MPG. I tried driving at 90km/h on a couple highway trips and I was able to get several tanks of fuel higher than 40MPG, one wa 45MPG!

The downside to driving slower, other than having to leave and extra 5 or 10 minutes earlier for a 100km trip, is that you have to be sure you are not becoming a hazard to other drivers. The Queen Elizabeth II highway here in Alberta is getting very busy and people drive fairly quickly (not uncommon for people to average 120-125km/h) and so be careful you don't block too much traffic.

Well I hope the commentator on my previous electric car post finds this post and hopefully it helps a fair bit.