Any love for the powerpc macs?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Tudo Bem, Apr 3, 2016.

  1. Bum

    Bum I Feel Loved

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    G4 UFO iMac was the coolest design
     
  2. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    I have a decrepit FrankenPowerbook. The keyboard connector broke clean off the motherboard and my hard drive ribbon ripped.
    So I have no keyboard covering the main board, external keyboard, and the wrong style of hard drive ribbon which doesn't allow the hard drive to sit right in the case lol.

    BUT it works haha

    It is a 1.67ghz 17 inch, if anyone has another one of these that is just laying around and wants to get rid of it, let me know :)
     
  3. tragedie37

    tragedie37 Active Member

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    I know this is a necro, but I'd rather keep it all in one place :) Any love for the PPC Macs up to 2019? I can dig out a PPC and pick up my coding again. While far from an expert, I am familiar with it.
     
  4. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    No one seems interested in it anymore :-/ I'd like to see it done. But sadly I am not that good to make it work.
     
  5. Torrinn

    Torrinn Active Member

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    I had that problem on my G4 Digital Audio machine until I got a Radeon 9700 that had been flashed to Mac. I think I was probably using a 16mb Rage 128 card before that.
     
  6. Torrinn

    Torrinn Active Member

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    Just out of curiosity, if someone had a sealed copy of the 2003 retail box release, would it be possible to redirect all requests to the live servers to the TAKP servers to make it work?
     
  7. Lenas

    Lenas I Feel Loved

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  8. Torrinn

    Torrinn Active Member

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    What does the TAKP server do differently that won't allow it to work and would the devs having a copy of the PPC client help to get PPC compatibility moving?
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2019
  9. Cadsuane

    Cadsuane People Like Me

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    that's complicated (computer HW/SW architecture and op sys design),
    and no
     
  10. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

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    We have tried several ways. The ppc client expects something back from login interaction. We dont know what that is.

    H
     
  11. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    It chatters back n forth from the expected login server. It's packets for login are unknown and different than what we use for current login.
    We have beaten the crap out of the client and gotten no where fast. Also have snags launching a PPC binary from command line. OSX didn't add the flags functionality direct at the commandline till later OS so we can bypass the launcher and patcher like we do on our modern client. Else I have found what initial url it pings the server with and it wants 2 files relating to checking if patch needed. No clue what the structure and contents of said files are.

    It is not as easy as just looking inside the client and making it go. We do have the PPC client as was and untouched. The focus has been on the working platform so no time to dedicate to reverse of PPC which would take considerable time and resource. That is IF it is even possible. I welcome anyone to look deeper into it, need not be a TAKP dev to mess around and try and reverse the client, figure out how to send commandline flags, run an apple script against the binary to make it launch etc...
     
    Elrontaur likes this.
  12. Torrinn

    Torrinn Active Member

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    It's sad that the PPC client is so different from the MacIntel and PC clients. The PPC Macs still have a considerable fanbase even this many years on and getting the client running might bring some of those people to the server. :(
     
    Elrontaur likes this.
  13. Elrontaur

    Elrontaur People Like Me

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    The PPC LaunchPad program would receive 2 files from the Sony login server that would trigger the app to launch. We're not sure if the local computer stored these files on the HD nor do we have any clue as to what these files contained. There is a theory that these LP trigger files might still live on someone's HD who used to connect to the Al`Kabor server. Speedz might know what the filenames are, but I think they might be hidden files that would take some skill to locate and/or decypher on an ancient HD.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2019
  14. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    I suspect they only loaded to ram. But it looks as tho they download, get accessed then delete.
    I think the best course of action is to figure out how to launch the binary via apple script or something like that.
    While it would be cool to emulate a SOE patch server, I am not sure we can realistically get that far.
     
  15. Torrinn

    Torrinn Active Member

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    It would be great if some insiders from SoE during the time period could show up and shed some light on this.
     
  16. manga303

    manga303 New Member

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    any news on that ? there are no mmo´s for powerpc :( so sad

    what else do you play on your g4, g5 till the ppc client is working ?
     
  17. Ripwind

    Ripwind People Like Me

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    I don't know if you're trolling, but I literally LOL'd.
     
  18. manga303

    manga303 New Member

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    hm i dont troll ... there was minons of mirth but the server got offline, wow is working only till tbc then blizzard drop ppc support, shadowbane emu is only win.
     
  19. Saskoris

    Saskoris Active Member

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    I played on old AK with a power pc Mac.
     
    Neealana likes this.
  20. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    We have a renewed interest once again in figuring out the PPC client.
    I have a request for all those that may still have a PPC that ran EQ once upon a time.

    It has to be one that was not wiped since actually going online with the game.
    It would be great if you could look for a file called com.sony.soe.EverQuestLP.plist
    This file will be in User/{login name}/Library/Preferences

    If you happen to find it, please upload it here or put it somewhere where we can grab it.

    This is a options file for the LP. The client makes one by default, but it seems some variables are missing in the default.
    I wish to see if one that was active has more options that we are missing.
     
  21. Busta

    Busta New Member

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    I have a hackintosh collecting dust in the basement, will dust it off and see if I can get it running again
     
  22. Cadsuane

    Cadsuane People Like Me

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    I think it would have be to a PowerPC, whereas hackintoshes were by definition Intel, no?
    Or am I forgetting about the compatibility layer and you had the PPC client running on it...
     
  23. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    yes it has to be the old PPC client.
     
  24. Devour_Souls

    Devour_Souls People Like Me

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    But would the PPC client running on an Intel mac via rosetta work? Or does it have to be the PPC client running natively?
     
  25. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    if you can find that plist file yes that would be good. It just has to have actually connected to SOE back in the day.
     
    Cadsuane likes this.
  26. necra

    necra People Like Me

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    I have all of that on my old g4 MacBook however I don’t think I have a charger for it
     
  27. Mechaike

    Mechaike Well-Known Member

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    I have my most of folders from EQMac still, but I don't have that. Any other possibilities I should look for? It's entirely possible I lost that particular folder when my last PPC mac died (close to time of intel client release).

    I do still have the game CDs, naturally. But that may not help for this particular file!
     
  28. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    Ok mystery solved. Got the files and there are no additional key options in the one used to log in.
     
    necra and Mechaike like this.
  29. Secrets

    Secrets Well-Known Member

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  30. Speedz

    Speedz Administrator Staff Member

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    The devs now have PPC in world on our local test servers thanks to solar. He did all the heavy lifting getting the server configured and even making a custom launcher script for it.
    The rest of us talked along giving ideas and assistance in testing and remembering some packet details.
     
    Yinn Yang, Mechaike, Cadsuane and 3 others like this.