Mac OS 9.1 queries

What color is your OS 9.1 install disk? Gray, or white with a big orange 9? Have you checked to make sure the disk is not damaged in any way?

If I remember correctly, the minimal OS for a B&W is OS 8.6.

to be quite honest, its a copy of a disk image i found floating around on the internet. and it's blue. i've verified the disk with disk utility in 10.4.11 and it checks out fine.

to be quite honest, pirated software is a big no no here..

It technically should only be a concern if its being distributed by me. which it isn't. And you use a PC why are you here?

I still want to know how you can boot into the installer without needing to run it from a cd rom. because if you copy the files to a hard drive it brings up an error stating that its not the original media. and i wish to find out how to bypass that.

i may not list myself as owning a mac but i do. In fact, ive been using macs 8 years longer than ive been using PC's. the real concern here is that what you want to do violates apple's EULA and copyright laws.

Sorry, you'll have to boot from the CD to run the installer.

As for no boot, looks like either the 'author' of the image file didn't form the disk image correctly, or you didn't burn the disk properly. How did you go about turning the disk image into a physical CD?

BTW, the issue about which the OP asks isn't limited to the consumers of 'found' OSes. Many folks are confused about how to (for example) make a archival backup copy of media they own and how to reproduce those BU copies once they're actually needed.

dan k

The EULA is not a legal binding contract, it's just a licence. Why would I buy a computer without an operating system designed for the computer when the only free available legal operating systems from Apple Inc. are unable to be installed and run on my computer system, when my system came with the said operating system at time of system's purchase? I did not get a disk with the operating system when i purchased my yosemite second hand. Good for you with using macs longer than a pc. I think the macs are amazing systems, I'm completely anti-x86 and windows. I have collected like 13 Macintosh systems from a plus to a g3 over the years. i'm planning to keep them until they become in big demand for collectors.

"Just violating apple's EULA and copyright laws" is a very polite way to put it. A downloadable OS 9 disk image on the internet sounds more like rapine. Apple would probably be very interested to know about such a thing.

Although, Apple does provide downloadable previous OS's on it's support site, but I don't know if they still haven't gone beyond OS 7.

There's a huge bell curve about internet theft and piracy, from little snatches to violent shameless brutality, so it's a little too easy to cast stones. I love the JPEG/GIF/etc. drag and drop to your desktop feature in Firefox. As I wrote on my purposely cynical blog: "The wide open pants pocket is a cozy temptation for innumerable guiltless violations, especially if the hand has been allowed to enter. We've all become a far-ranging chain link of cheap pickpockets circling the whole world wide, each in each other's pockets. Our identities are cast to the digital wind, and so is solid morality." I'm sure there's many pure among us as well--some more just from not needing to bother than a great sense of moral fidelity--but it would be interesting to see how many don't even engage in the little snatches and the reason why.

I still think scruples are overrated. When you live in an area like where I do with the lower decile of society's levels being high you learn to look past little moral dilemmas. And I'm sure the founders of the computing era would be proud with me, as Picasso said, "Good artists copy, Great artists steal."

Really?!!? "rapine"? Ummmm, come on HC, the guy is entitled to run OS9 on the bloody thing, it did come with it after all. Getting testy about the source of replacement OS media for an Apple system seems to me like the wrong place to put down one's moral feet. Save it for clear cut cases of SW piracy (if one must at all wave the high-morality flag about, that is.)

BTW, Apple used to (and may still for all I know) send me replacement media when I called and asked for it. They did that any number of times for systems I purchased second hand, Apple would send out brand spankin' new disks via FedEx next day, for free mind you, just on my request.

Still waiting to help OP with his/her installation issue . . .

dan k

Well, that's very interesting, dankephoto. I've never heard of such a thing. Are you registered as a software developer or something? Then it makes sense. But if that's not the case, why aren't there disk images for all Mac OS's on the support site? What's the purpose of the EULA? I don't see how posting a disk image of OS 9 isn't a clear cut case of sofware piracy. OS 9 is pretty old already, though. If it's not piracy, someone please post a disk image of 10.5. I'll say I lost mine. No, better yet. I just found a brand new discarded MacPro on the sidewalk.

I'm not trying to be mean. This has suddenly become an interesting topic to get to the heart of.

Why? You don't necessarily have to boot the CD to run the installer. Just insert the CD in the drive and double click the OS 9 installer icon. This works for 90% of all systems and installers. However, there is some trouble with the NuBus PowerPC Macs and 9.1. I'm virtually certain that the 9.0 to 9.1 updater requires the NuBus Macs to be booted from the disc. I could be wrong, but I don't think the same restriction applies to full 9.1 installer.

There could be two different problems as well. 1) The CD might not be bootable. If you didn't specify it as a bootable CD when you created it (a special option in Toast), then you won't be able to boot from it no matter what machine you try on. 2) The installer might require a genuine G3 to install OS 9.1. Many OEM CDs that shipped with G3- or G4-based Macs (the only ones current at the time of 9.x) have a check in the installer for the presence of the appropriate machine before they'll allow you to install the OS.

Anyway, the first thing to check is making sure that you set up the disc as bootable when you burned it.

Good luck!
Peace,
Drew

Oh, by the way, a licence is very much a legally binding agreement, at least, in the USA. It's been a long time since I took that business law class at the university, and someone in the profession may correct me, but anytime you click "accept" you are entering into a legally binding agreement, unless it's an agreement to engage in criminal activity. There are many types of agreements where a simple nod of the head enters you into a legally binding agreement.

Sorry, this second conversation in this thread is more fascinating to me than the first.

Err, I didn't actually think Apple would still be able to supply B&W-era replacement media nowadays. My point was that Apple has in the past considered the machine and OS as one entity with respect to license transfer upon second-hand sale of the box.

The thing is, the machine comes from Apple with a licensed MOS and that license goes with the machine to subsequent owners. So I don't think where you get your media is the issue, you legally are entitled to install an appropriate replacement MOS even if the Mac at hand didn't come to you with its original media.

Even as draconian as I know Apple's legal team can be, I don't think they would object to someone sourcing a copy of an OS the user is legally entitled to have and installing said OS onto its appropriate hardware. Look we're not talking about Photoshop or something, right?

And no, I wasn't a developer or anything like that at the time (late-Quadra/early-PPC era), I simply presented myself as just a Mac user who didn't get original install media with his second-hand Macintosh purchases. As I said, Apple used to do this, but may not do it anymore. I haven't needed any replacement MOS media in many years so I really don't know their current policy.

dan k

I believe you, but wow! The thought that Apple would ship you via Fedex, at their cost, a system install disk for your second-hand Mac sounds like something out of Ripley's Believe It or Not. Probably the explanation is that that was back when Apple was struggling just to survive and just keeping people on Macs any way possible was the goal. Or maybe you just have a very pleasant phone voice.

One of the arguments against EULAs are that you don't have a chance to read it before you open the package and thus lose the ability to return it if you don't like it. That's one of the major hinge points for invalidating them, IIRC, on purchased software. I'm not aware of any retailer that takes back opened software.

Heh, that was back in the same era when Apple had the toll-free 1-800-SOS-APPLE line and anyone could call up and get pretty much unlimited free Mac tech phone support. Just imagine them doing that now, talk about "Believe it or Not", right? That was before most companies (including Apple) cottened on to the idea of tech support as a profit center, not just a pesky cost of doing business.

dan k

They did say that they still give you copies of the software, but that's only if you have a really recent apple computer that didn't come with any older system software.

Well, Apple may be pretty relaxed about OS attainment, but you know who sure isn't. I put some Sony Vaio system recovery disks up on eBay for an old Sony laptop. They installed Windows '98. I don't even remember where I picked them up. Maybe at Goodwill or out of some box of stuff that a moving neighbor was discarding or something. Had them for years. I had no use for them, of course, but I figured someone probably would, so I put them up on eBay yesterday. Didn't expect to get much for them. My auction was yanked. I got an email that said:

"The rights owner, Microsoft, notified eBay that this listing violates intellectual property rights. When eBay receives a report of this type of violation, we remove the listing to comply with the law."

Big Brother doesn't mess around does he? How did they find my auction? Do they have someone on payroll checking the auctions, or do they give payoffs for squealers? Boy, lose your disks and you are out of luck. You think they're going to be knocking on my door next with FBI agents who'll send me off to the Malabar front?

But wait, aren't there lots of copies of second-hand retail Windows disks on eBay? Yes there are. What's the deal?

did you remember to include the licence sticker?

I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to know if that's a joke or not--I'm guessing it is--but I assume you mean that Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity sticker that's on PC's. Some are sliced like car inspection stickers so I assume that's a way of saying the OS on the machine is non-transferable. So "OEM" Windows are a one shot deal, retail Windows are not. In a sense, Microsoft owns the OEM disks, while retails Windows are actually owned by the consumer, but there's a limit to how many times it can be installed or something. We touched on this on another thread I created a while ago:
http://www.applefritter.com/node/20665

I suppose there is a big difference between Microsoft and Apple on this topic. Apple produces hardware and software, and the software only runs on Apple hardware (except until recently, but not legally so), so Apple has a different kind of hold on the software through its hardware, while Windows is basically software that is free-floating, so its glaring protections need to be tighter than Mac OS. With Windows, though, obviously you are not legally "entitled to install [just any] appropriate replacement MOS even if the [Windows PC] at hand didn't come to you with its original media." If you buy a second-hand retail Windows to reinstall a system on a used PC, then at least, Microsoft has gotten two sales in the past from the deal, whereas with second-hand recovery disks, they got only one. And actually, Apple could go after all the machine-specific Mac OS install disks on eBay for the same purpose if their EULA has the same restrictions. Guess they don't want to afford to hire someone to watch the auctions.

My question at this point is, if you buy a second-hand Windows PC from someone, are you legally allowed to use the recovery disks that came with it, or are they technically only supposed to be used by the original owner to reinstall the system? In other words, are the disks themselves legally transferable along with the computer?

I totally imagine that the software should be transferred along with the computer system. because you've brought a licence from the OEM for that software on that system. And with these repair disks, they're only intended for the actual system that came with them. It won't surprise me either if they intend for you to shell out simoleons for another restore disk. where apple kindly would just give you one. Apple even urged me to look at eBay for restore disks for my systems. and in leiu of the actual topic of this node. 9.1 is running successfully on my B&W G3! i got my hands on a 6300 with 8.6 on it and upgraded that and chucked the drive into my G3 and after making sure the Mac OS ROM file was there it just went with no problems. but my 200gb (partitioned of course) hard drive can't be accessed sadly. Its formatted in 10.3.9's disk utility, maybe the drivers are too new? i don't know.

Your 200GB, is there already stuff on it you don't want to lose? You've got it in the B&W as a slave? If so, does it show up in 9.1's Drive Setup? The one thing it sounds like probably happened was you didn't click the box in Panther's Disk Utility to install OS9 drivers along with the formatting. That would be why it's not showing up. Usually, though, that box, by default, is already checked in Disk Utility and you have to uncheck it to not install OS9 drivers. It would have been a conscious decision by you.

Interesting thread. Really interesting that the lawyer types keep things vague when it comes to software licensing. Or maybe vague isn't the word; overly precise to the point of obscurity is probably more accurate I think.

Anyway, a great source for older installer disks is the LowEndMac Swap List. Lots of members (and lots of crossover with AF), but be sure to read & understand the rules before posting, unless you like regular scoldings from the nannies.

yeah yeah yeah, though i don't remember if i've checked that box for the os 9 drivers or anything, and yeah i have many many files i dont wish to part with. though with that selling dilemma, you could try selling it with a piece of hardware, it could be anything even like a 286 processor and M$ should leave you alone.