John Kettler Posted April 16, 2003 Author Share Posted April 16, 2003 Bumping this in hopes of hearing from BFC! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laxx Posted April 16, 2003 Share Posted April 16, 2003 no promises, but i will try this as a side hobby, getting the newer machines to boot 9.22. Gyene: thanks if you have, send it my way. In parallel, unknownst to everybody, i am a partner in an Apple Centre here in Asia, so I can probably get the CD as well. laxx 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrene Posted April 17, 2003 Share Posted April 17, 2003 I haven't been able to get to my Apple rep yet, but in the mean time... bump Gyrene 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 18, 2003 Author Share Posted April 18, 2003 Still waiting to hear from BFC and anxiously awaiting the results of our intrepid cybernauts and their delvings into the guts of the newest OS X only Macs. If you can really do this 9.2.2 add-on, then the Mac options of many, including me, will expand dramatically. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrene Posted April 18, 2003 Share Posted April 18, 2003 I've contacted my Apple mole, I should have a copy of the MacTest CD from "Beyond the Firewall" soon... Gyrene 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 18, 2003 Author Share Posted April 18, 2003 My cybernetic friend who's about to buy a whole bunch of Macs wants to know whether this workaround is usable on the new 17" iMac (takes AirPort Extreme wireless card, you see, as opposed to much slower AirPort) in particular as well as other OS X only machines. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 19, 2003 Author Share Posted April 19, 2003 Bumping and intensely curious! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted April 20, 2003 Share Posted April 20, 2003 Hi guys. Basically all your observations here are right on the money. As to what's failing in the Classic RAVE API under OS X, well, I wish I knew the answer to that. For the future, the new engine we're working on will use OpenGL and be native under OS X. That's of no help today of course, but at least the problem won't last forever. Charles 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 21, 2003 Author Share Posted April 21, 2003 Thanks, Charles! I shall now await the results from our intrepid cyber explorers before proceeding to the next step--which won't be as ignorable as a lone call to Apple from someone no one there knows. That plan has been circularly filed and justly so. Regards, John Kettler [ April 20, 2003, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted April 21, 2003 Share Posted April 21, 2003 Originally posted by John Kettler: My cybernetic friend who's about to buy a whole bunch of Macs wants to know whether this workaround is usable on the new 17" iMac (takes AirPort Extreme wireless card, you see, as opposed to much slower AirPort) in particular as well as other OS X only machines. Regards, John Kettler are you suggesting he is/will be testing the OS 9.x possibility of booting the latest 17 inch iMac? (supposedly it is OSX bootable only?) if so please keep us up to date thanks -tom w 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laxx Posted April 21, 2003 Share Posted April 21, 2003 okay, I have gotten a generic OS 9.22 cd, and I got a Mac testPro CD but this is a Feb version. Apple will give me a copy of MacTestPro sometime in the next few weeks. Better to restate the goals ---------------------- Background: ----------- New Macs cannot boot up to OS9 as they are "OSX" only. While you can run Classic mode under OSX, CMBB won't run. A generic OS9 CD won't boot under the new macs. Goal#1a ---- To create a OS9 cd which can boot up in the 2003 G4 Macs. Goal #2 ------- To install OS9 from the CD into a partition which can be booted up with out the CD. Goal #3 (optional) ------ To investigate how best to install OS9 co-existing with the OSX partition. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 21, 2003 Author Share Posted April 21, 2003 aka_tom_w, My friend isn't conducting the investigations himself. Rather, he is waiting to see what several other people here learn from their investigations as an aid to his own decision making in a huge computer purchase. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CombinedArms Posted April 21, 2003 Share Posted April 21, 2003 If anyone's thinking about buying a used Mac that is 0S9x bootable, a good source to buy one from is Small Dog Electronics: Webpage Here. My wife (a Mac fixit specialist) and I have been working with Small Dog for many years now and have found them very good to deal with: good selection, good prices, good service. I'm not associated with them in any way. Just thought it might be helpful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 Anyone have further developments, preferably positive and successful, to report? laxx, sounds as though you're making progress. CA, good suggestion, especially since you've actually done business with them. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 Bumping and hoping for some good news! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 Question time. Do you think I should sit tight and wait to hear from our intrepid explorers, or should I go ahead and make my main move by contacting Leo Laporte, maven of Macs at Tech TV's ScreenSavers, and his Dark Side colleague Kevin Rose, hacker extraordinaire, in order to generate a lot of publicity heat on Apple, inform the gaming community of the problem, and to possibly ID a workable hack? Thoughts? Regards, John Kettler [ April 29, 2003, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibsonm Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 Originally posted by laxx: okay, I have gotten a generic OS 9.22 cd, and I got a Mac testPro CD but this is a Feb version. Apple will give me a copy of MacTestPro sometime in the next few weeks. Better to restate the goals ---------------------- Background: ----------- New Macs cannot boot up to OS9 as they are "OSX" only. While you can run Classic mode under OSX, CMBB won't run. A generic OS9 CD won't boot under the new macs. Goal#1a ---- To create a OS9 cd which can boot up in the 2003 G4 Macs. Goal #2 ------- To install OS9 from the CD into a partition which can be booted up with out the CD. Goal #3 (optional) ------ To investigate how best to install OS9 co-existing with the OSX partition. Can we add Goal 4 (optional) Sort out video card issue for latest PowerBooks that can boot into OS 9 and run CMBB but it looks terrible? I realise this is a much harder issue given that both Apple and ATI would need to get onboard to fix this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibsonm Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 Originally posted by CombinedArms: If anyone's thinking about buying a used Mac that is 0S9x bootable, a good source to buy one from is Small Dog Electronics: Webpage Here. My wife (a Mac fixit specialist) and I have been working with Small Dog for many years now and have found them very good to deal with: good selection, good prices, good service. I'm not associated with them in any way. Just thought it might be helpful. I can endorse CA's comments and Mrs CA's opinion. I've dealt with them a fair bit and they have been great (even given the extra issue of living on the other side of the planet). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mchlstrt Posted April 26, 2003 Share Posted April 26, 2003 JK, I'd say you want to have as much info on the Problem(s) as possible. You would also like to have solutions to those Problems identified as much as possible. However, this is mainly to make your job easier, which is primarily a Political one. You're trying to find the right person & convince them that their Company can gain more from solving this than it will cost them. We can give you info & advice, & you should probably map the whole thing out in your head or even on paper, but in the end you're 'The Man on The Ground' & it's your Play, so it's your Call. I'm certainly sending all the Positive Waves I can your way, Dude, if that helps. strt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 28, 2003 Author Share Posted April 28, 2003 mchlstart, Will take all the positive waves I can get. Got to offset Moriarty! I confess myself astonished that I've gotten so little feedback on what I considered to be a serious question, though. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 30, 2003 Author Share Posted April 30, 2003 Message Sent! (text below) Important Mac Story for Leo Laporte (and an Opportunity for Kevin Rose!) Leo, As the maven of all things Mac and a gamer to boot, I'm writing you in hopes that you can use your bully pulpit and technical acumen to help a tiny Mac game developer, help save what's left of Mac gaming, save Apple from itself and us from Apple's bad mistake, and maybe get us some workable drivers. Whew! The company, now a whole six people, is Battlefront.com (www.battlefront.com), which created and marketed via the Internet the revolutionary, 3-D, hybrid turn based wargame Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord (CMBO), winner of a slew of awards. Battlefront.com, which does all its development on Macs and then ports for PCs, then followed up with a new, even more successful game based on an enhanced version of the same engine, Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin (CMBB) (www.battlefront.com/index.htm), relying on Apple's statements about there being full RAVE API support in the as then unreleased OS X. There was no money or manpower to migrate to Open GL. The shift to Open GL was set for the new game engine set for debut about two years from now, CMX2. Here's what happened. Apple released OS X, and it didn't even have RAVE API as good as what OS 9.2.2 had. The effect of this was immediate and dire, for only CMBO would run under OS X, and that under 640x480 resolution after disabling the RAVE extension. CMBB wouldn't run at all under software emulation. The only remaining option was to run the game under separately booted OS 9.2.2, but Apple recently all but destroyed that option by eliminating OS 9.2.2 from all of its G4 machines (all PowerBooks, both new iMacs, all towers) except a very expensive, special order, dual processor 1.25 GHz tower and the bulky, heavy eMac. Effectively, this one-two combo all but demolished the Mac version of CMBB. Some who'd gladly buy a 17" PowerBook can't (no OS 9.2.2), some have bought PCs under protest in order to play their beloved CMBB, some have abandoned CMBB and won't return until the new, Open GL based, fully OS X compatible engine is released two years hence. Those of us left are stuck with older equipment, slower G3 based iBooks, or the aforementioned limited and/or clunky G4 options. Personally, I'm hoping for a miracle so I can get the new 17" iMac. My poor old 233 MHz Bondi Blue iMac won't run CMBB, you see. This doesn't sit well with the cutting edge Mac gamers, is costing Battlefront.com sales, is costing Apple sales, and it's hurting the Mac gaming community. The situation, bad as it is, has been compounded by Battlefront.com's recent announcement that special, expanded (better visuals, lots of new scenarios) retail editions of CMBO and CMBB will be Windows only. Why? "Known OS X compatibility issues." This will of course further negatively skew public perception of the Mac for gaming. The sordid tale (and related driver woes) is here: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=23&t=006771&p=2#000040 Is there a way out? I believe there is. Enter you and Kevin Rose. Potential Solutions Judging from extensive discussions with affected individuals, there seem to be two principal paths by which to get CMBB fully functional even on new G4s. The first is for Apple (or Kevin Rose!) to properly implement the same RAVE API that OS 9.2.2. had. This would let CMBB run properly, even though it lacks Open GL. As possessor of the aforementioned bully pulpit and being possessed of strong industry contacts, I believe you and your confreres may be able to light a real fire under Apple, private letters and postings to the Apple Tech board having yielded nothing. Likewise, you may be able to do something toward getting drivers released so that the video boards on Macs don't look like acid trips and even display fog and smoke properly. These issues are discussed in the main thread and over on the Tech Tips board at the Battlefront.com site. The second main issue, and where Kevin Rose comes in, is in finding or creating some sort of a hack which would put OS 9.2.2 capability into what are presently OS X only machines. There is some evidence, discussed in the main thread, that Apple disabled OS 9.2.2 only at the software ROM level, but no test results are back yet confirming this. If true, it would seem to offer real hope. Conclusion So there you have it, Leo, another sterling example of how Apple manages to make the great leap backwards in a boneheaded move some of us deem worse than scrapping the clone licenses. We of the CMBB gaming community in particular and the Mac gaming community at large earnestly solicit your help in protecting a tiny Mac game developer (so few left!) from Apple's dumb moves, in restoring our beloved game to the functionality it should've had if Apple had only done what it said it would, in saving Apple from itself (can it afford to throw away high end sales in a weak market?), preventing defections to the PC, and in at least saving what's left of Mac gaming. If you need further incentive, Battlefront.com recently announced the Q3 2003 release of the final, maximally enhanced (would you believe dust clouds?) version of the CMBO engine: Combat Mission: Afrika Korps, covering North Africa, Italy, Sicily and Crete! Effectively, this puts all the CMBB improvements back into much of the Western front and before the new engine is released. For the record, I am neither a part of nor a stockholder in any of the firms involved. Thank you for your time and help. Sincerely, John Kettler and the CMBB troops [ April 29, 2003, 11:22 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Originally posted by John Kettler: Message Sent! (text below) Important Mac Story for Leo Laporte (and an Opportunity for Kevin Rose!) Leo, As the maven of all things Mac and a gamer to boot, I'm writing you in hopes that you can use your bully pulpit and technical acumen to help a tiny Mac game developer, help save what's left of Mac gaming, save Apple from itself and us from Apple's bad mistake, and maybe get us some workable drivers. Whew! The company, now a whole six people, is Battlefront.com (www.battlefront.com), which created and marketed via the Internet the revolutionary, 3-D, hybrid turn based wargame Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord (CMBO), winner of a slew of awards. Battlefront.com, which does all its development on Macs and then ports for PCs, then followed up with a new, even more succesful game based on an enhanced version of the same engine, Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin (CMBB) (www.battlefront.com/index.htm), relying on Apple's statements about there being full RAVE API support in the as then unreleased OS X. There was no money or manpower to migrate to Open GL. The shift to Open GL was set for the new game engine set for debut about two years from now, CMX2. Here's what happened. Apple released OS X, and it didn't even have RAVE API as good as what OS 9.2.2 had. The effect of this was immediate and dire, for only CMBO would run under OS X, and that under 640x480 resolution after disabling the RAVE extension. CMBB wouldn't run at all under software emulation. The only remaining option was to run the game under separately booted OS 9.2.2, but Apple recently all but destroyed that option by eliminating OS 9.2.2 from all of its G4 machines (all PowerBooks, both new iMacs, all towers) except a very expensive, special order, dual processor 1.25 GHz tower and the bulky, heavy eMac. Effectively, this one-two combo all but demolished the Mac version of CMBB. Some who'd gladly buy a 17" PowerBook can't (no OS 9.2.2), some have bought PCs under protest in order to play their beloved CMBB, some have abandoned CMBB and won't return until the new, Open GL based, fully OS X compatible engine is released two years hence. Those of us left are stuck with older equipment, slower G3 based iBooks, or the aforementioned limited and/or clunky G4 options. Personally, I'm hoping for a miracle so I can get the new 17" iMac. My poor old 233 MHz Bondi Blue iMac won't run CMBB, you see. This doesn't sit well with the cutting edge Mac gamers, is costing Battlefront.com sales, is costing Apple sales, and it's hurting the Mac gaming community. The situation, bad as it is, has been compounded by Battlefront.com's recent announcement that special, expanded (better visuals, lots of new scenarios) retail editions of CMBO and CMBB will be Windows only. Why? "Known OS X compatibility issues." This will of course further negatively skew public perception of the Mac for gaming. The sordid tale (and related driver woes) is here: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=23&t=006771&p=2#000040 Is there a way out? I believe there is. Enter you and Kevin Rose. Potential Solutions Judging from extensive discussions with affected individuals, there seem to be two principal paths by which to get CMBB fully functional even on new G4s. The first is for Apple (or Kevin Rose!) to properly implement the same RAVE API that OS 9.2.2. had. This would let CMBB run properly, even though it lacks Open GL. As possessor of the aforementioned bully pulpit and being possessed of strong industry contacts, I believe you and your confreres may be able to light a real fire under Apple, private letters and postings to the Apple Tech board having yielded nothing. Likewise, you may be able to do something toward getting drivers released so that the video boards on Macs don't look like acid trips and even display fog and smoke properly. These issues are discussed in the main thread and over on the Tech Tips board at the Battlefront.com site. The second main issue, and where Kevin Rose comes in, is in finding or creating some sort of a hack which would put OS 9.2.2 capability into what are presently OS X only machines. There is some evidence, discussed in the main thread, that Apple disabled OS 9.2.2 only at the software ROM level, but no test results are back yet confirming this. If true, it would seem to offer real hope. Conclusion So there you have it, Leo, another sterling example of how Apple manages to make the great leap backwards in a boneheaded move some of us deem worse than scrapping the clone licenses. We of the CMBB gaming community in particular and the Mac gaming community at large earnestly solicit your help in protecting a tiny Mac game developer (so few left!) from Apple's dumb moves, in restoring our beloved game to the functionality it should've had if Apple had only done what it said it would, in saving Apple from itself (can it afford to throw away high end sales in a weak market?), preventing defections to the PC, and in at least saving what's left of Mac gaming. If you need further incentive, Battlefront.com recently announced the Q3 2003 release of the final, maximally enhanced (would you believe dust clouds?) version of the CMBO engine: Combat Mission: Afrika Korps, covering North Africa, Italy, Sicily and Crete! Effectively, this puts all the CMBB improvements back into much of the Western front and before the new engine is released. For the record, I am neither a part of nor a stockholder in any of the firms involved. Thank you for your time and help. Sincerely, John Kettler and the CMBB troops HI John did you try to send that to Steve.jobs@apple.com? Would you mind if I tried to? Sure you can all laugh but what harm would it do? someone out there must know steve jobs e-mail address? or at least some at Apple who is responsible for games and game developers? no? GREAT letter by the way Excellent work! -tom w 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted April 30, 2003 Author Share Posted April 30, 2003 Go for it! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 um..... the audience on the Mac games developers new groups is not VERY sympathetic. OF course it would be my guess that everyone at Apple says its all an issue for the developer (BTS ) to deal with. notice the posts below here are a few of this mornings replies "The fact that Rave won't be supported in Mac OS X was clear from the start. Die-hard Rave-only developers like Brian Greenstone of Pangea sucessfully switched to OpenGL, and even released early titles for OS X 10.0 (Cro-Mag Rally comes to mind). Which 3D API is the Windows version using? Direct3D? If so, then there must be some sort of abstraction layer for the underlying 3D API. Adding an additional OpenGL backend should be a simple thing. The game graphics look dated anyways, since they're using Rave, they can't add any special support for the features of today's graphics hardware (vertext and pixel shader, etc.). This should make the OpenGL porting task even simpler. Lots of other developer have done this. Apple is not to blame here. The developers clearly made a lot of mistakes. For one, they didn't get involved with the ADC to find out which APIs are going to be supported and which won't. They didn't adopt OS X as a development platform (it's been out for 2 frickin' years!), and they didn't try to find a suitable cross-platform solution,otherwise they would have decided to use OpenGL on Mac & Windows. So I'm not really feeling sorry for them for lost sales. Regards, Andreas AFAIK RAVE on OS X won't happen. RAVE development was dropped way before OS 9 was dropped from the development plan. As RAVE isn't part of the PC development either, I'm surprised it's lasted so long in this project. OpenGL isn't all that nasty to learn and use. Maybe someone would want to do a RAVE to GL conversion API for the RAVE holdouts ? Aaron Fothergill I don't think that this is the place for that. Although I don't think that there is a place for that. Personally I'm glad that Apple has buried Mac OS 9. Even still good luck to you. Perhaps someone else can port or write RAVE for OS X. Long live Apple, Long live Mac OS X, Joshua E Smith" [ April 30, 2003, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted May 1, 2003 Author Share Posted May 1, 2003 Okay, I've done my bit. Does anyone else have anything to contribute to the war effort? Experimental results would be most welcome, especially positive ones! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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