[HN Gopher] Mac ROM-Inator II Restock and Partnerships
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Mac ROM-Inator II Restock and Partnerships
Author : electricant
Score : 32 points
Date : 2023-09-11 18:18 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bigmessowires.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bigmessowires.com)
| johnklos wrote:
| Modifiable ROM images let us do all sorts of things like add
| support for more memory via higher density SIMMs (Quadra /
| Centris 610, 650, 800), add support for non-native and not
| normally supported hardware, fixing bugs, and so on.
|
| I'm considering getting one so I can have a low power, boots-
| straight-into-use LocalTalk to ethernet bridge with print drivers
| and printer sharing. Another option is network booting, since
| network file sharing is so incredibly easy with classic Macs.
|
| Fun!
| jandrese wrote:
| Apple liked to artificially cripple their machines in the ROM.
| I had a Mac LC as a kid that was limited to 10MB of memory
| because otherwise it might affect sales of the Mac II Ci. Being
| able to remove these artificial limits is great.
| dougg3 wrote:
| One interesting thing I've discovered recently is that everyone
| (including myself) is doing the ROM SIMM pinout slightly wrong
| when used in Quadras. The existing programmable SIMMs seem to
| work in the 610/650/800 and 700/900/950, but I think the
| onboard ROMs aren't being properly disabled, as someone
| discovered when trying one in an LC 475. I'm probably going to
| write a blog post about the topic soon.
|
| Also, some exciting news is that ROM disk hacks are definitely
| on the way for the Quadras. It's possible to unlock the full 8
| MB of ROM space in several of the Quadras. I've seen video of a
| Quadra booting from a 7 MB ROM disk. Too bad most of them after
| the 700/900/950 don't have the socket populated :-( The pads
| are there at least, for people who dare to add it themselves...
| sneak wrote:
| > _Friendly competition is great, but it creates a potential
| dilemma for me if someone buys another vendor's ROM SIMM and
| reprograms it with BMOW's base ROM in order to get the on-the-fly
| ROM disk decompression and other features. It could turn into a
| situation where my base ROM software is subsidizing another
| competing product. To compound the problem, I didn't have any
| clear usage policy or "license" for the base ROM to say whether
| this type of use was OK. Furthermore my FC8 compression algorithm
| is free open-source, but the BMOW base ROM which incorporates it
| is not. This all created a large gray area._
|
| Imagine thinking that copyright should protect your revenue
| stream that is based on making tools for infringing the
| copyrights of others.
|
| Admittedly the thing they're making unauthorized derivative works
| from (the Mac ROM) is abandonware, but the idea is still silly
| and hypocritical to me. Copyrights are ridiculous to begin with,
| ignoring them in one case while trying to wield them against your
| community in another is extra ridiculous.
| wmf wrote:
| I am also opposed to "paying to pirate" but that's not how I
| see this situation. He has added significant value over the
| original Mac ROM and that's what he's charging for. Acting like
| nobody's allowed to make money hurts communities.
| indrora wrote:
| One thing I find interesting is the "please don't back this up"
| mentality of some of the older gray area content.
|
| I get it, you don't want (bigcorp, chinese clones, etc) causing
| you problems. But when you die, what happens? Who's going to be
| there to pick up the parts?
|
| I feel like so many things should get hucked right onto Internet
| Archive as soon as someone says "please, no, don't" just out of
| pure self preservation.
| snvzz wrote:
| Definitely.
|
| Archiving wouldn't go anywhere if we didn't ignore individuals
| for the benefit of humanity as a whole.
|
| By all means, back it all up.
| [deleted]
| brian_herman wrote:
| Wow this looks amazing.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Nice. I've got the ethernet card for my SE/30, and I always meant
| to upgrade it to 128 megs of ram. Maybe I should get this.
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