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Old World ROM computers are the
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
(Mac) models that use a
Macintosh Toolbox The Macintosh Toolbox implements many of the high-level features of the Classic Mac OS, including a set of application programming interfaces for software development on the platform. The Toolbox consists of a number of "managers," software compone ...
read-only memory Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing sof ...
(ROM) chip, usually in a socket (but soldered to the motherboard in some models). All Macs prior to the
iMac The iMac is a series of all-in-one computers from Apple Inc., sold as part of the company's Mac (computer), Mac family of computers. First introduced in 1998, it has remained a primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since and evol ...
, the
iBook iBook is a line of laptop computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted entry-level, consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher- ...
, the Blue and White Power Mac G3 and the Bronze Keyboard (Lombard) PowerBook G3 use Old World ROM, while said models, as well as all subsequent models until the introduction of the Intel-based models that use
UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...
, are
New World ROM New World ROM computers are Macintosh models that do not use a Macintosh Toolbox ROM on the logic board. Due to Mac OS X not requiring the availability of the Toolbox, this allowed ROM sizes to shrink dramatically (typically from to ), and facili ...
machines. In particular, the Beige Power Mac G3 and all other beige and platinum-colored Power Macs are Old World ROM machines. In common use, the "Old World" designation usually applies to the early generations of
PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Prov ...
-based "beige" Power Macs (and sometimes the first
NuBus NuBus () is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT during between 1978 and 1979 as part of the NuMachine workstation project, it would subsequently be standardized by the IEEE in 1987. The first complete implementatio ...
-equipped models), but not the older
Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...
-based Macs; however, the Toolbox runs the same way on all three types of machines.


Details

PCI Power Macs with an Old World ROM contain an
Open Firmware Open Firmware is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It originated at Sun Microsystems where it was known as OpenBoot, and has bee ...
implementation, and a copy of the Macintosh Toolbox as an Open Firmware device. These machines are set to boot from this device by default, thus starting the normal Macintosh startup procedure. This can be changed, just as on New World ROM Macs, but with limitations placed on what devices and formats can be used; on these machines, particularly the early machines like the
Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (additionally sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in some regions of Europe and Asia) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from June 1995 to February 1997. It is powered by a PowerPC 604 pro ...
, the Open Firmware implementation was just enough to enumerate PCI devices and load the Toolbox ROM, and these Open Firmware revisions have several bugs which must be worked around by boot loaders or nvramrc patches. The Open Firmware environment can be entered by holding the key combination while booting. All Power Macs
emulate Emulate, Inc. (Emulate) is a biotechnology company that commercialized Organs-on-Chips technology—a human cell-based technology that recreates organ-level function to model organs in healthy and diseased states. The technology has applications ...
a
68LC040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola ...
CPU inside a
nanokernel In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...
; this emulator is then used to boot the predominantly 68k-based Toolbox, and is also used to support applications written for the 68k processor. Once Toolbox is running, PPC machines can boot into Mac OS directly. On all Old World ROM machines, once Toolbox is loaded, the boot procedure is the same. Toolbox executes a memory test, enumerates Mac OS devices it knows about (this varies from model to model), and either starts the on-board video (if present) or the option ROM on a NuBus or PCI video card. Toolbox then checks for a disk in the floppy drive, and scans all SCSI buses for a disk with a valid System Folder, giving preference to whatever disk is set as the startup disk in the
parameter RAM Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data. Non-volatile memory typi ...
. If a bootable disk is found, the
Happy Mac The Macintosh startup sequence for Apple Macintosh (or Mac) computers includes hardware tests and diagnostics which can trigger the startup chimes and/or other instances of success or failure of the startup routines. The startup sequence provid ...
logo is displayed, and control is handed over to the Mac OS. If no disk to boot from is present, an
icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
depicting a floppy disk with a blinking question mark in the middle will be displayed. If a hardware problem occurs during the early part of the boot process, the machine will display the
Sad Mac The Macintosh startup sequence for Apple Macintosh (or Mac) computers includes hardware tests and diagnostics which can trigger the startup chimes and/or other instances of success or failure of the startup routines. The startup sequence provid ...
icon with a hexadecimal error code and freeze; on Macs made after 1987, this will be accompanied by the Chimes of Death sound. On PCI-based Old World ROM machines such as the PCI Power Macs, the Sad Mac icon and the hexadecimal codes are not displayed but the Chimes of Death sounds will still be played. Since the Old World ROM usually boots to Toolbox, most OSs have to be installed using a
boot loader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer and booting an operating system. If it also provides an interactive menu with multiple boot choices then it's o ...
from inside Mac OS ( BootX is commonly used for Linux installations). 68K-based Macs and NuBus Power Macs ''must'' have Mac OS installed to load another OS (even
A/UX A/UX is a Unix-based operating system from Apple Computer for Macintosh computers, integrated with System 7's graphical interface and application compatibility. It is Apple's first official Unix-based operating system, launched in 1988 and disc ...
, which was an Apple product), usually with
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage, is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a ver ...
turned off. PCI Power Macs can be configured to boot into Open Firmware, allowing the firmware to load a boot loader directly (including others such as quik for loading Linux installations), or they can use a specially-prepared floppy disk to trick the Toolbox into loading a kernel (this is used for
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
installation floppy images). The simplest way to identify an Old World ROM Mac is that it will not have a factory built-in USB port. Only New World ROM Macs featured a USB port as factory equipment.


See also

*
BootX (Linux) BootX is a graphical bootloader developed by Benjamin Herrenschmidt, which runs as an application or an extension to Mac OS 8 and 9 that allows Old World Apple computers to dualboot Linux. It uses code derived from quik, a replacement boot lo ...
, the standard LinuxPPC boot loader for Old World machines *
Quik (boot loader) quik is a boot loader designed to start Linux on Apple Macintosh PowerPC systems based on the Old World ROM architecture. It was originally written by Paul Mackerras, and portions of its code were reused in all other Linux boot loaders for PowerP ...
, a replacement boot loader for Old World PCI systems


References


External links

* {{Mac_OS Macintosh operating systems Macintosh firmware