This Rare Accelerator Only Works on This Mac

[@charlesswansonii9319]

I'd just leave it running Mac OS 9 to be honest. That's a perfect machine to be running the Marathon Trilogy on now.

[@Adams-78]

And emac still exist ;) for newer os on crt allinone

[@iiiiiifggffggffgfgfg]

And all the other OS9 gaming.

[@jlj945]

That’s not exactly the point of the channel, though. Also, it’s perfectly capable of having both installed.

[@commentarysheep]

Why not dual-boot? I agree with the guy before me; this channel is all about retro computer tinkering.

[@nickwallette6201]

I tried OS X 10.0 on my Bondi. It was... not pleasant. These things run OS 9 very well. OS X was too much for them.

[@zerofox3d]

The level of engineering that went into lots of the Sonnet upgrades was insane.

[@raven4k998]

yeah but the upgrade is so cool

[@akatsukilevi]

The 'denied' screen usually means that some compatibility check failed, got used to it during my hackintoshing time Usually setting the '-no-compat-check' flag on nvram does the trick(on hackintosh, using clover you can simply pass the flags, unsure how you could set it on the iMac G3)

[@bobpegram8042]

How do you do that? What should be typed in CLI? I ran into it with the video card on my H3 Blue & White when trying to install Adelie. Thanks.

[@akatsukilevi]

@@bobpegram8042 It's a boot flag argument, you can set it by using: $ sudo nvram boot-args="-v -no-compat-check" Basically, it just needs to be written into the NVRAM of the device into the 'boot-args' key If you're using Clover/OpenCore, or even one of the older Darwin bootloaders, you might have a option to pass arguments before booting

[@TheJoMan2]

At 16:34 you can see that you can set flags in x post facto

[@gentuxable]

First of all, boot with Command+V to get the output of the boot process there it would tell you why it hangs.

[@florider_hd]

Hey i just wanted to tell you that your videos are cheering me up in a bad phase of my life. This came just the right time. Thanks Action Retro

[@zatomlzxzanamolzy1253]

It's a good sign to recognise it as a "phase." I'll apologise in advance just in case. Sorry if this comes off as condescending, that's not what I intend. Don't let over thinkinking your feelings and situation hold you back, and just remember that everyone has bad times and regrets and mistakes that we all make more if an issue outbif than they're worth. Everything's going to be fine and you'll have a good life from now on. Good luck is coming your way, don't worry about it.

[@florider_hd]

Thanks for your kind words! I hope you’re well and stay well!

[@organiccold]

Be strong 💪

[@kazeko0]

Hope things get better for you bro

[@kryskarr23]

Same here. I’m pulling for you. Hope things are better soon.

[@krishnapriyaka3261]

watching these retro Mac videos is making me feel relaxed.. maybe because those 90s graphic design aesthetics of Mac OS reminds me of a much simpler time in my life

[@theharbingerofconflation]

I hunted this thing all over ebay for 3 years, quite the accomplishment that you found and won one!

[@halfsourlizard9319]

Few things are more satisfying than tech shenanigans to work around 'intellectual property' restrictions. Love seeing engineering that side-steps Apple's paternalistic b.s.

[@larrydanna]

“I guess I’ll read the instructions. Uh, not something I normally do.” At 6:01. Oh how I laughed, and laughed!! Priceless.

[@MarkyShaw]

There are so many crazy Mac upgrades I never knew existed! This is awesome. Those beeps sounded like the thing was on life support. Glad it pulled through like a champ!

[@nucflashevent]

11:40 -- It was very smart of Sonnet to keep the little cover at the bottom of the side panel so if you happened to be one of the few with a Rev A-B with a Mezzanine card it would still accommodate it.

[@kbhasi]

(13:06) The low pitched beeps it made while flashing the card ROMs reminded me of BBC News countdowns.

[@slowednation999]

very cool video Sean ! i myself just scored the deal of a lifetime in my eyes. i went to a retro games store close to my town a few days ago, and in that store was sitting a basically pristine blueberry iMac G3. the 98 model with the tray loader. it didn’t have a price tag on it so i approached the store worker and asked how much they want for it cause it also came with its original accessories. they only wanted $100. as soon as he said that, i was sold and now it’s mine. i plan to do so much with it i have always wanted my own G3 ever since they came out and i was a little kid with no chance of ever getting that kind of money 😂 i’ve already successfully put Mac OS 9.2.2 on it. just thought i’d share.

[@beenine5557]

I love how our childhood dreams can come true!

[@_..-.._..-.._]

Similar one here. I was poking around the basement of my work and found a bunch of discarded Macs. A blueberry G3 slotloader 350 in mint condition, several g5 towers, a g5 iMac, a few 2009ish fully loaded Mac Pro towers, a 2010 iMac, even an original MacBook in poor condition 😂 they didn’t want to throw them out but didn’t want to keep them, so they gave them to me!

[@benotsilent6703]

0:55 - this is exactly why I subscribed to your channel.

[@StarFireG3]

Glad to see people are still modding old Apple hardware. Too bad I sold my early Bondi Blue. But I still have an »Sonnet Encore G4 500« card for my G4 400 laying around. Someday I will install it.

[@wagnerpanther]

Great video! For whatever it's worth, I have a Harmoni G3 600 upgrade that I found preinstalled on a Rev B Bondi Blue and I haven't been able to run any Mac OS X versions from an SSD after weeks of tinkering (and I have tried about 4 different adaptors, half a dozen SSD's of different sizes, IDE SSD's, M2 to IDE, etc.). I could get some SSD's to work on Mac OS 8.1/8.6/9.22 triple boot but I often ended up having disc problems on the 9.22 partition. I'm happy with the speed I get with a 120GB 7200rpm IDE HDD that I borrowed from a Sawtooth G4. It feels really cool to have such power on a classic Blue.

[@CralexKokiri]

Awesome that you were able to get a brand new card and document the process for future enjoyment.

[@dropes]

I haven't watched it yet (stopped literally at 1:02), but I just wanted to say that I love the onomatopoeias in your videos.

[@AlexKiraly]

I just love the enthusiasm on this channel.

[@CasioMaker]

Time for a spot of breakfast and the newest Action Retro video to keep me company

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Sean That is the slickest Upgrade by sonnet I have ever seen To bad that got rid of the Mezzanine slot on the later G3 iMacs

[@notation254]

Yo man, your channel is awesome. I just want to tell you that you're doing great work, and I look forward to your videos. Keep doing what you're doing.

[@alwinter]

Whoa. That's a huge improvement! I didn't know this was possible.

[@JustFixIt99]

Would love to see you send the original CPU board to DosDude and have him shoehorn a G4 Sonnet upgrade card onto it. Would be an awesome colab if the two of you could make it work.

[@DatBlueHusky]

problem is the firmware might not work and brick it

[@eDoc2020]

@@DatBlueHusky If it bricks, just unbrick it. It's not hard when you have the proper tools.

[@eDoc2020]

@@PyrrhianScavenger An EEPROM programmer is what you need to unbrick something. Just burn the original firmware back. Obviously it's best to make a backup first, otherwise you'll need to try to find a copy online and hope there weren't any unique IDs stored there. If the firmware chip is socketed you just unplug it and pop it in the programmer. Otherwise you hope there's a connector for easy in-circuit programming, or a special clip might work. Worst case you need to desolder the chip.

[@performa9523]

Oh man that is wild! I didn't even know that they had upgrade cards for the original iMac- that's amazing!

[@Kyle-xv5kv]

I'm sure there is a voodoo card you can get which adds into the mez slot on the underside of the logic board. Combine that with this monster CPU upgrade you've got a brutally powerful retro gaming iMac!

[@that_colin_guy]

Was about to comment this. That old mezzanine voodoo card is a rare bird.

[@AmstradExin]

You wouldn't believe how much of an upgrade a Voodoo is over a Ati Rage 2. With the Rage, Klingon Honor guard is barely playable and with a Voodoo 2 the framerate is maxed out.

[@andyttm14]

It sounds like a heart monitor is bleeping and it makes me think your computer is about to flatline or something😂 13:19

[@NightimeDemon]

It's really cool to see what is possible on these old macs. I never used one growing up until middle school and high school, when macs were using x86-based processors. I've learned a lot from you about the history of these computers and see their appeal. Keep up the great work!

[@gaeljehnno]

I used the same model back in school. Whe used the ir port with a cellular phone for connecting to the internet back in the day.

[@MSmith-Photography]

The upgrade shenanigans are a success!

[@GendoPrime]

Next you need to "borrow" Steve's Voodoo 2 for the mezzanine slot.

[@MoominBoomin]

Why haven’t you showed up in my feed ever? Love this kind of content, happy to sub

[@waydegutman7339]

That was an interesting upgrade to watch. Cannot help but wonder what other upgrades that can be done to it. 🎉

[@chrism869]

i wish i can take a break and get of, but i cant

[@zl0y]

I don't need this computer for work today! But I can just play around once a month! Cool video!

[@sherbournesubwaymess]

Back in the day, Sonnet engineers went out of their way for me. They used to send me beta/customized drivers/etc. They really were awesome to deal with.

[@MrGencyExit64]

Through the magic of editing, the optical drive magically reappears :)

[@RiggityWRECKED]

Sonnet is frickin awesome. Just recently picked up a McFiver for my 2012 Mac Pro 5,1

[@drewbeattie6346]

Pretty cool upgrade. Have to ask, what is that SSD to firewire adapter you got there?

[@DatBlueHusky]

its just a generic firewire external drive to a ssd. I have one thats 2.5 sata and i just stick a 120gb ssd in it

[@AnthonyChopra]

3:01 "And we can test that later" *While u show Sorrow for the G3imac that you will put it in pain again of opening it*

[@MagnumForce51]

How you got it to boot off USB early in the vid? I thought these Rev A to Ds couldn't do it and only the slot loaders that came after supported booting from Fireware only.... :P

[@georgesenda1952]

I loved my G3 and iMac DV but hated that the cd drives would stop working and the same goes for my beloved clamshell I book. I hated the slot loading ones. I hope to get another G3 or G4 this year so I can play my older games with an external Apple CD drive. I still have all my Apple 2 computers, all 6 of them. I love older games.

[@Scott__C]

I never had a problem with a slot loader myself.

[@The-i-Shakk]

Sweet video, I have a Rev A with all originals. Just replaced the PRAM Battery on it.

[@_..-.._..-.._]

16:20 “The NEXTSTEP is..”

[@liaminwales]

I loved my Imac G3, relay cool computer. The speakers where amazing, made almost all PC's sound so bad by contrast.

[@GraemeWoller]

Rocking that NIN T-shirt, bro!!

[@emantv5268]

This upgrade card finally enables a first gen iMac to talk and sync to a first gen iPod! And DV video capture for iMovie!!

[@mel816]

The tones during the ROM flashing remind me of those heart/patient monitors at hospitals😄 I wonder if it gives a "flatline" (long continuous tone) if there was an error in the flashing and fails to boot😛

[@keancv]

love the video. The sweaty palms is what makes everything worthwile. Rather than do the screen repair, F-B transformer, what about a mod to use a modern LCD?

[@BladeOlson]

I absolutely owned this and it was super easy to install.

[@nitrax8629]

Nice upgrade, though that Mezzanine slot is practically begging for a Voodoo 2 upgrade!

[@KennedoMaker]

Oo, I've been waiting for this upload since the little teaser in the G3 video haha

[@SteveChisnall]

My dream iMac would be a rev. B bondi-blue with the 600 MHz HARMONi, the GeeThree Stealth Serial Port, and the ForMac iProRAIDTV mezzanine-card that adds SCSI and a TV-tuner with composite-video-input, modded to also enable the use of an ADB keyboard and mouse, plus the ELO iTouch touchscreen kit and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo-drive transplanted from the last G3 model of iBook. I'd also want to swap some of the plastic parts from other colors of Rev C & D iMacs to make it rainbow. The fruit part of the apple logo from a strawberry iMac and the leaf from the lime iMac, for starters.

[@95Comics]

sonnet cards! my favorite! ive never had this one. or even seen it before only read about it. so awesome!

[@suddenlyvlogs]

Make sure you set up TimeMachine. Yknow, to back that A55 up.

[@jdmcs]

Nice upgrade!

[@stevemcknelly5036]

One of your better videos. I truly enjoyed it!

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

The fact all these aftermart upgrades exist is telling of the diffrence between what Apple wanted and what the users wanted

[@halfsourlizard9319]

It's almost like Apple actually doesn't know what people want ...

[@8ullfrog]

The firewire daughterboard was so elegantly designed, and then the parasite cord... wasn't.

[@halfsourlizard9319]

Oh, shit, we need to get power to it! Eh, just use a bodge wire.

[@nickwallette6201]

What else can you do? If there's no 12v on the CPU daughtercard socket, you can't just elegant your way into having it. :-) Not sure siphoning power from the logic (3.3v? 5v?) rails and using a boost converter would be wise, since you're passing that power on to an external device that consumes ??? amps, and is ... _hopefully_ ... well-behaved.

[@anumeon]

Well it sure is a Solid A55 State storage media.

[@mdkoehn]

I wonder if it would be possible to erase or replace the ROM on the upgrade card to restore it to "new" state.

[@sjgrall]

Maybe if I had gotten one of these plus a RAM upgrade, I'd have kept my then brand new 1999 Rev D (Lime) longer than just a few years.

[@_..-.._..-.._]

It’s downright genius how these aftermarket companies got around the rules! They aren’t allowed to use Apple’s proprietary ROM, so they copy it onto the board and then use it on their chip! 😂 Awesome times.

[@TatsuZZmage]

A thought came to me what if they expected the HD parasite to relie a spinning disc for power and you removed that load imagine if it fried from bad design. @12:36 i doubt it will but still. also betting its a onetime use item from the now overwritten factory firmware.

[@felixg3]

Hope to see you mod an eMac G4 sometime!

[@paulwalker427]

Splendid episode

[@JayJay-88]

Yay, new Action Retro video 🥰

[@stpworld]

i have a dv imac and the schooo left all there stuff and made a cool start up screen to

[@AngeloTelesforo]

I have a revision B and I’ve put a DVD rom in it, but the original processor can’t handle DVD decoding… I wonder if yours now does.

[@ericwood3709]

Fix your CD-ROM, damn it. You failed to reattach the spring mechanism that keeps it pushed up toward the front. I learned that the hard way years ago.

[@MikeFromDownUnder]

Thanks for sharing this.

[@organiccold]

Now, that was actually really cool :)

[@DonaldTubbs]

If the Rev D boots far enough to flash it's ROM onto the card can you put it back in the Rev A and boot? Would the Rev A inherit any functions/upgrades from the Rev D?

[@moeskido]

Can you provide some information on that Firewire SSD? I could make some good use of one of those!

[@1eyedwilli3]

I just bought an eMac 1.25 G4. IT WORKS perfect, but man that display is fuzzy.

[@mickburek3202]

Did you "bless" the drive before trying to boot off of it? That's what always messes me up when doing stuff like this.

[@2dfx]

I'm pretty sure the Sonnet ROM code modification breaks XPostFacto...could be mistaken though.

[@PhirePhlame]

Huh, judging by the beeps and the fact that it works while there's no ROM present on the system, there must be some kind of built-in service feature that the software uses to flash the ROM?

[@idiedoflaughterinc.666]

I love crazy NERD projects. Nice one, lol

[@richardwernst]

So why did you go to OS 9 vs. the 10 you had installed (on spinning drive) to install the card, does it/the installer software have to run under 9? And what did you finally do to fix the nonworking CD drive?

[@danwat1234]

What about overclocking? May actually need active cooling!

[@alextirrellRI]

I love that this adds FireWire but also keeps the mezzanine slot.

[@cheze_bun]

Me in the hospital after getting hit by a car 💀 😂 13:08

[@joepena5771]

Now you have to upgrade the video too! The iMac Game Wizard Voodoo2 card.

[@HungryManticore]

Sean, have you heard of Fienix OS? It's a Linux distro based on Debian, created specifically for PowerPC Macs. Might be a good alternative for Adelie.

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

Afaik, Sonnet is still around. They now make Thunderbolt peripherals, primarily for Macintoshes.

[@cleothebirb7973]

Is there a backup of that disc? I got a 600 mhz version and I would like to try it out

[@zaxchannel2834]

I recall being sad I wasn't able to do a CPU upgrade in the 600MHz Snow iMac G3 I used to have :P

[@asystole_]

Love the NIN t-shirt!

[@tappdarden]

I had a rev D new. And I wanted this accelerator so much. Would be great to have FireWire !

[@helloimacat000]

Who want a iMac G3 With most overlocked maxed power and mods?

[@em5345-]

Me.

[@joseph58tech]

Who doesn't?

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@joseph58tech Me lol. Life long windows user who's never owned a Apple product, strangely I still really ejoy this channel... I think it's the shenanigans

[@gamingmark54]

​@@joseph58tech me 😢

[@pje_]

yeah 10 GHz with 128 cores ... on an iMac G3 😂

[@bltvd]

“When you take a sip you buzz like a hornet / Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets”

[@HoloScope]

7:54 What! How did you do that! Witchcraft!

[@cpaek72]

Did you ever try to transfer the sonnet to another imac to see if it works?

[@pje_]

~ 1:10 someone just started spamming messages to my Nokia 3310 and I was on a loud profile, I started panicking

[@therobb5738]

Love the Nine Inch Nails shirt

[@windowsxpnt2347]

wonder if you will ever get the voodoo 2 card you could get for the mezzanine slot

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Now you need the even more unobtanium Voodoo Mezzanine card. :-D (Sadly, the only mezzanine card I have is a SCSI card. I wish I had gotten a Voodoo card.) I always wondered if the Harmoni would work with a mezzanine card.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

You might need a SCSILVD to SATA Adapter to let you use a SSD drive.

[@bmichel5581]

I'm curious how this would stack up against Dosdude1's 400Mhz G4 / 1MB L2 upgrade he did to his slot loader

[@ast3663]

..Sean miraculously has access to unobtainable NOS upgrades all the time..

[@stevencarlson5422]

where in the world do you find this awesome stuff