Tiger on a Wallstreet PDQ 300MHz?

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Level 8

46,839 points

Tiger on a Wallstreet PDQ 300MHz?

I recently obtained a Wallstreet II PDQ 300MHz running OS 9.2.2 with 192MB RAM & an 8GB hard drive with 4.6GB free. I have a G3 Pismo 400MHz running Tiger quite good. I was thinking about trying Tiger on the Wallstreet using XPostFacto.

Anyone have Tiger on their Wallstreet & how does it run?

 Cheers, Tom 😉

 G4 1.25MHz MDD, G3 400 FW Pismo,, Mac OS X (10.5.6), OS 10.4.11/9.2.2, Canon LiDE30 Scanner, Canon i960 Printer, Belkin UPS

Posted on Mar 17, 2010 7:16 PM

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Answer 1

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cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Mar 17, 2010 8:28 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

Hi Tom:

There are several threads in this forum where this was done. This one by Tinkerman has some interesting details. jpl, Mr. Wallstreet himself, has several responses in which he reports his experience with Tiger on WallStreet.

😉 cornelius

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Answer 2

Texas Mac Man Author

Level 8

46,839 points

Mar 18, 2010 6:36 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

Well I did it. I downloaded/installed XPostFacto v4 & installed Tiger 10.4. I have Tiger installed alongside OS 9.2.2. I still need to install the 10.4.11 combo update. I have slightly less than 1GB free space so I need to trash some of the Tiger installed files & some OS 9 files. With only 192GB RAM, I'll be using some hard drive space for Virtual Memory.

I have a USB PCMCIA card installed so I have USB (also works in OS 9.2.2). For ease of use, I'm using an ADB connected mouse, which works when booted into Tiger.

Below is a picture showing the Apple System Profiler.

As I use it more, I'll post some updates on using Tiger on this old Mac.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 3

Texas Mac Man Author

Level 8

46,839 points

Mar 19, 2010 7:31 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

I updated Tiger to 10.4.11. The Wallstreet can boot with OS 9.2.2 or 10.4.11, plus while booted in Tiger, the OS 9 apps can be run in classic mode.

Also installed the OS X apps Firefox browser v3.6 & NeoOffice v3.0.2. As expected these apps open/run rather slow because of the 300MHz processor speed, the 66MHz bus speed, and only 192MB RAM. But everything does work. XPostFacto is an amazing hack.

One thing that's different in both OS 9 & 10.4 is the lack of operation of the Startup Disk control panel in OS 9 & Startup Disk preference in OS 10. Neither now work. XPostFacto's OS selection window has to be used to switch booting to either OS. I put the XPF icon in the dock for easy access.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 4

teknohed

Level 1

0 points

Mar 28, 2010 4:12 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

I'm running 10.4.11 on my WS with a maxed-out 512mb RAM and a Sonnet Crescendo G4 and it does indeed run quite sweetly. I can even get some divx films running nicely in full-screen 🙂

Have you managed to sort out the brightness control, or lack thereof, yet? Also, the fan spins up whenever I put the machine to sleep unless it's plugged into the mains. These issues aside, it was definitely worth the trouble making the jump from Tiger.

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Answer 5

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Mar 28, 2010 9:26 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

Hi Tom:

Nice going on the WS. I have not yet, myself, gotten around to doing anything on my old Beige desktop. It has only the original 5 GB HDD, and that is kind of tight for OS X. I hesitate to put any money in it, choosing instead to max out the RAM on my MBP, and installing a new Seagate 500/7200 HDD. Runs like a charm. I'll see if I can pick up a second hand drive for the Beige. Your adventure has piqued my interest, again.

Thanks for posting about your work.

😉 cornelius

PS: Thank you for leaving feedback in Apple Discussions by marking the "solved" post.

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Answer 6

Texas Mac Man Author

Level 8

46,839 points

Apr 4, 2010 6:12 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

I made one repair to the WS. Both the laptop battery & PRAM battery were dead, so every time I started up with the power adapter, I would have to reset the date/time. So, I bought, for $10, a new PRAM battery from BetaMacs. Installing a PRAM battery in a WS is not easy. I followed the instructions provided at ifixit.com. To install a new PRAM battery requires an almost total disassembly of the WS. Took me about 1.5 hours, but I had no screws or parts left over & it booted up the first time.

On my Pismo, the PRAM battery can be changed in less than 5 minutes, because it's located under the keyboard.

The WS only has 192MB RAM (64MB + 128MB). I'm going to see if I can find (cheap) a 128MB or 256MB RAM module to replace the 64MB. Tiger requirements state 256MB minimum.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 7

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Apr 4, 2010 8:11 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

Tom:

Bumping up the RAM is a good idea. You can max out the RAM at 512 MB if you wish. One caveat: the WallStreet needs to have low profile modules, particularly in the lower slot.

😉 cornelius

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Answer 8

Allan Jones

Level 9

69,728 points

Apr 6, 2010 8:35 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

Tom--Another RAM caveat:

I found on three different WS 300mHz processor boards that they wanted the RAM (I did 2X256MB) to also have the same number of devices per side. The first RAM kit (upper and lower modules shipped together) had one module with 8 chips/side and the other with 7. The pair worked paired on both a 233 and a 266 processor card, but not the 300. Each module work by itself on the 300 board or with a smaller module. The problem only appeared when I tried to exceed the "published Max RAM."

I worked with the vendor and got one extra module with 8/side and all was happy. Later while upgrading another WS (I maintain three for a friend who loves them) I installed two 7/side modules on a 300 board and they worked.

So ask for the same number of chips/side if you try going to 512MB.

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Answer 9

Texas Mac Man Author

Level 8

46,839 points

Apr 6, 2010 7:00 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

As a test, I inserted a MacSense model WEP-800 AeroCard Extreme (802.11g) wireless card (currently used with my G3 Pismo) into the Wallstreet's PCMCIA cardbus slot. It was plug and play while booted in OS 10.4.11. Didn't work when booted in OS 9.x.

For wireless with OS 9, this link has some info, but I haven't tried anything. *Wireless FAQ For Older Apple PowerBook Computers* http://home.earthlink.net/~kjvann/

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 10

Texas Mac Man Author

Level 8

46,839 points

Apr 15, 2010 1:11 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

As I stated above,

The WS only has 192MB RAM (64MB + 128MB). I'm going to see if I can find (cheap) a 128MB or 256MB RAM module to replace the 64MB. Tiger requirements state 256MB minimum.

I bought (on eBay) a 512MB low-profile RAM module. However, I decided not to install it in the WS. I also have a G3 Pismo with 768MB RAM (512MB + 256MB). So I removed the 256MB and installed the 512MB; giving the Pismo 1GB. I installed the 256MB in the WS in place of the 64MB; giving the WS at total of 384MB - 128MB more than Tiger's 256MB minimum. Plus, when the WS is booted into OS 9, it doesn't need Virtual Memory, which provides more hard drive free space.

I also installed a neat freeware utility called Scroll Switcher for OS X. It puts dual arrows on the horizontal & vertical scroll bars.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 11

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Apr 16, 2010 7:24 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

Nice going, Tom. Now both your Pismo and WS have upgraded RAM. Cool.

😉 cornelius

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