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| PowerBook 540c - Did a thing (OS 8.6) | |
Although I like to stay true to my 68K roots, I recently acquired a PB 540c with the Apple 603e 100MHz upgrade card. So decided to take this up to OS 8.6, because why not? 🙂 Posted by: frontein1 on 2025-12-17 15:00:42 | |
| Although I don't have much interest in running PPC on a Blackbird, seeing 8.5+ on one always seems so exotic. Why not try 9.0.4? I'd be interested to see some benchmarks with Norton System Info 3.2, I guess performance is going to be even less than a PB5300/100 considering the 16MHz peripheral bus (vs the 5300's 25MHz). Posted by: croissantking on 2025-12-17 15:10:01 | |
| Yeah that looks pretty cool. I also finally got a PowerPC card but I am still running 7.6.1. I think I will always be a System 6/7 person. Posted by: jmacz on 2025-12-18 00:24:17 | |
| Does the bus-speed make the PB540c noticeably slow? Try running Marathon and see how that goes. Posted by: ArmorAlley on 2025-12-18 00:34:16 | |
| I had (and still have) a 520c with the nupowr 117, and boy it is slow with 8.5+! The original '040 with 8 feels way faster! Posted by: twelvetone12 on 2025-12-18 00:50:46 | |
Does the bus-speed make the PB540c noticeably slow? Try running Marathon and see how that goes.It would be the same 33MHz CPU bus as on a PowerBook 5300, 1400 or Duo 2300. So RAM and ROM access should be identical clock for clock. According to the Dev Notes for these models the 16-bit ‘030 peripheral bus runs slower on the 500 series (16MHz) vs on the PB190 or the above mentioned PPCs (25MHz). So, I’d expect Marathon to run slower than on a PB5300/100, for example, since it wouldn’t be able to push as many pixels out. Posted by: croissantking on 2025-12-18 03:38:38 | |
| I am interested in pushing this to 9.0.4 next. But can certainly say it is noticeably slow with 8.6, which isn't a surprise when considering the slow bus speeds. I think maybe what I want to see is if it would be possible to watch a YouTube video somehow on a Blackbird. I haven't actually done much research to see if anyone has tried this with WowTube, or a more modern browser, etc. Anyone have experience with this? Posted by: frontein1 on 2025-12-18 14:56:19 | |
see is if it would be possible to watch a YouTube video somehow on a BlackbirdYou’re bonkers! You’re off your rocker! Posted by: croissantking on 2025-12-18 14:58:25 | |
always seems so exotic. You’re bonkers! You’re off your rocker!Yes and Yes to all this @croissantking! Here it is now with 9.0.4. Taking baby steps.  Posted by: frontein1 on 2025-12-18 20:36:57 | |
| 🤯🫣 Posted by: jmacz on 2025-12-18 23:03:07 | |
| Next, take it to 9.1, then use OS 9 Helper to upgrade it to 9.2.2. Posted by: volvo242gt on 2025-12-19 03:28:12 | |
| Then sit it beside a Mac Mini running System 7.0! 😀 Posted by: adespoton on 2025-12-19 10:41:28 | |
Next, take it to 9.1, then use OS 9 Helper to upgrade it to 9.2.2.Yep one step at a time. Up to 9.1. Now moving on to 9.2.2. For no particular reason but the fun of it 🙂  Posted by: frontein1 on 2025-12-19 20:09:17 | |
Yep one step at a time. Up to 9.1. Now moving on to 9.2.2. For no particular reason but the fun of it 🙂Nice. Posted by: volvo242gt on 2025-12-20 10:46:49 | |
| What kind of medium are you using to upgrade each time? All I had to upgrade from 7.5.5 to 8.0 was the built in Floppy drive and it was quite the headache 😅. Posted by: tr3nch3d on 2025-12-21 15:03:31 | |
| presumably scsi Posted by: finkmac on 2025-12-22 10:19:42 | |
| Yes 100%, go with BlueSCSI v2 if you can. Makes doing stuff like this just so much easier. Then on macintoshgarden.org, you can easily get all the install media up through OS 9.2.2. Posted by: frontein1 on 2025-12-22 10:36:59 |