Copy “Work” directory to Blackbox directory, fix Mac OS types and compile modules. Module SubsystemName is located at Subsystem/Mod/Name. It will probably need code modifications to run on old Blackbox version.
I need to check if it run on old version.
I have 8.0 on the machine that runs BeOS, and so I can run that in SheepShaver (which is a Mac runtime environment that runs under BeOS.)
I have 9.22 on the Powerbook that will run under Classic (which is the same idea as Sheepshaver)
I have 8.6 that I can probably get to run natively on the hardware.
I can probably also boot in to 8.0 on the Mac running BeOS.
I think other than 7.5.3, which I can probably get running as well, we should be covered. I never had much luck getting qemu to run Mac stuff under OSX. It flatly refused to boot the Jaguar installer. This is why I’m using actual hardware.
I’ll start with getting the environment working. I can then see how far I get with the rest. I might be asking you some questions though.
I was maintaining and working on our PPC port for years. I finally abandoned it once I came to a real-word conclusion:
Mix the above together, and it’s an expensive architecture to architect for and target. At the time ARM was a better focus. Now risc-v is an awesome target to focus on 
Sure, that is all somewhat true. But the point is not to necessarily port Haiku. It is more to explore nostalgia and do something fun.
I happen to have a bunch of old Macs. So it is kind of fun to play with them. It would be interesting to get emulation going. This is all borne out of ~20 years of owning PowerPC hardware and using BeOS on it. And wanting to get newer stuff working for fun. And wanting to learn stuff along the way. The hardware that runs BeOS doesn’t have BGA issues AFAIK, as I believe it is pretty straight ahead PCI based 603 and 604 based hardware.
I don’t think the PowerPC hardware is in any worse shape than a lot of vintage hardware. I doby too many period motherboards capable of running BeOS are still working without some capacitor issues also.
Until what stage it progressed? MMU? File system mount? Threads? Userland?
PowerPC emulator is not expensive at all. Even native BeOS PowerPC emulators are available (but I am not sure does it have working MMU, but Qemu definitely have).
But I have no motivation for Haiku PPC port, I have no PPC hardware and I don’t see any advantages of PPC over ARM and RISC-V. Only userland virtual machine for running PEF PPC BeOS executables may be interesting for me.
How difficult would it be if one were to buy a POWER9 system from Raptor Computing? I’m considering one for my next workstation build, and would like to contribute to the PPC port, if it would be something I could pull off (if it wouldn’t be a from-scratch effort).
Build fixes, fixing 64-bit OpenFirmware support, etc.
https://git.haiku-os.org/haiku/log/?qt=grep&q=powerpc
https://git.haiku-os.org/haiku/log/?qt=grep&q=ppc
PowerPC used to boot the Haiku Loader. We could get into our kernel… but nobody ever wrote drivers to pick up the PCI bus, etc.
Yes, that was as far as it got. This was sometime around 2010 when Apple introduced the first Mac Mini. So it got all the way to “cannot find any boot partitions”.
No BeOS ABI compatibility was planned for the PowerPC port at the time. It was using gcc4.
Seeing that we have a port to the Motorola 68000, I see no reason to have fun with PowerPC as well 
Well… I do have an Amiga 500+ that I have yet to tuen on since I got it from storage… 
My only 68000 Macs are long gone. One I gave away without ever turning it on, and the Mac Classic I had went to a new home (and had bad caps.) Oh - I also had a Classic 2 at one point, I got given for free, but that was DOA and I never managed to revive it - full on checkerboard at boot.
I was reading an article for the PowerComputing PowerTower Pro G3 250. Was there any PowerPC G3/G4 boot patches for BeOS 5 PPC ?!?
There were users booting BeOS 5.x on PPC clones with G3 add-on daughtercards/accelerators.
Nostalgia endures…
I heard that very early Beige G3’s could Boot BeOS if the “personality card” was removed. But my one certainly did not. As far as I know, there was no reason it couldn’t boot, save drivers and the work needed to make the loader function on the hardware.
I believe nearly any supported machine that has a G3 upgrade can be booted in to BeOS with said G3 upgrade installed.
I doubt anyone has tried the limited number of G4 upgrades available for the very latest machines that Be supported - let alone the retrofitted >1Ghz G4s that some people have done (https://68kmla.org/forums/topic/54884-building-the-fastest-power-mac-9600/?tab=comments) but I wouldn’t be too surprised if those still work.
A port for ppc can be a way to get Haiku on the Wii gc GClinux does?.
I dug up some old code from an ancient hard drive and now have my InputServer filter that detects the Mac keyboard power button working.
It is the same action as under MacOS. I guess this could be triggered by another key combo, so maybe I will port it to Haiku at some point.
I’m planning to get a Github account for all this stuff. I just need a way to get code to that account!! There’s no git client for anything this old unfortunately… I have a CVS pserver running, but it currently is readonly and I couldn’t work out what the trick is to make it read write…
Maybe. It’s not that easy though. There is a lot of hackery to make that sort of thing happen. I would settle for an emulator that ran PowerPC BeOS and that we could target PowerPC Haiku to. I kind of wish there was something like the RISC-V tinyemu for PowerPC.
FS_UAE is not a ppc emulator? or maybe i am wrong-
I recommend take backups.
It should be possible to connect BeOS hard disk to computer with Haiku. Or it is some pre-BFS file system?