Home Forums Hardware Mac Desktops & Notebooks Summer 2000 iMac DV SE install disc

A local community college recently donated 7 Summer 2000 iMac DV SE to the museum I work at. This is good, because some of our popular interactive exhibits use 1999 blueberry iMacs, which are slowly dying off.

What is not good is that the donor did not include the original system discs with the iMacs when they threw them out donated them to us.

None of the earlier model iMac systems discs will install, nor will a regular OS 9.1 disc. I cannot install OS X because the exhibit software will only run in OS 9.

Does anyone have a summer 2000 iMac DV SE install disc to sell, or know exactly what CD version came with this machine?

I know it's a long shot on a ten year old machine, but thought I'd give it a shot.

Thanks!

According to MacTracker, the iMacDV SE (Summer 2000) originally came with OS 9.0.4. You can get that from FastMac.

I'll have a look. Thanks, Jon!

So I acquired the OS 9.0.4 version 2.1 iMac boot disc, but none of the iMacs will boot from it. It seems like the previous installations of 10.2 have affected the machine somehow; even after completely erasing the hard drive, the machien still boots to the OSX Assistant (which ahs no assistants loaded, so all it does is enable a shut down)

I've reset the PRAM using key combos and via the open firmware screen. I'm guessing that open firmware is related to the OSX installation as I do not recall it being on Mac OS prior to OSX.

Is there someway to reset the firmware to factory original, or are these machines now beyond having an OS 9 build?

Thanks!

To reset to defaults in Open Firmware, type in the following lines one after the other:
reset nvram
set defaults
reset all

After the last command the Mac will reboot. If you then press and hold the Option key and the OS9 CD is in the drive, it should be shown as a boot option.

Btw., OF came to the Mac with the PCI slots (PM8500/9500).

you may also be able to hold "9" on the keyboard to force it to seek an os 9 system to boot.

Those older machines were notorious for getting bent on booting OS 9 -or- OS X and not wanting to switch between them. Sometimes you could hold Option at boot and select the OS to boot, sometimes not. Zapping pram sometimes made the Option trick work when before it would not.

But really, isn't it time to get something newer? That's circa what, 98 or 99?

How about Summer 2000?

Well, FastMac and MacTracker have let me down a little bit. Or I could blame Apple... the tag on the machine states that it is a model M5521.

All reference I have found to this model number says that they were made in Summer 2000 and shipped with 9.0.4, and have a 300, 400, 450, or 500 MHz processor with a 100Mhz bus.

However, when I look at the machine properties in open firmware mode, it lists the manufacture date as 3/20/01. A closer look at the machine's properties under OS X showed the bus at 133Mhz and the processor speed at 700Mhz. Since it is self-reporting on this, I'm taking the machine's word over Mactrackers (which I have always found to be completely reliable before this).

So, I tried using my retail 9.1 CD to buld these, and the machines still wouldn't boot off it. I don't have a 9.2 retail to use, and was loath to buy another $30 CD that doesn't fix the issue.

I dug around and I found another iMac in storage that still had 9.2.2, so I started it up and target-disk copied the system files over to the iMacs I need OS 9 on.

The iMacs seem (to operate to the extent they need to) using this method, so it's what I'm going with. I'm not very happy about doing it this way, but need to get the holes in their exhibit area filled with something.

-----------------------------------------------------
Virtual1, I agree that it's time to put these iMacs out to pasture, or put them to better use as boat anchors. These iMacs are purposed as kiosks for a satellite facility of a non-profit institution. The content developed for these kiosks runs only on OS 9, the developer is long gone, and no one in power wants to spend any money on them. Yet they expect the technology to magically keep working. It's frustrating.

Still- I'm happy to have work, so I'll keep plugging away at it.

For the MOST PART you can drag and drop install OS 9. So long as the drive as OS 9 drivers on it. There's a firmware file there though in the System folder, of which I believe there were around 45 (yes really) variations. If you have a newer machine you will need a newer rom file, otherwise you will get bombs on boot, or things like failure to go beyond 640x480@16. It's basically a driver pack.

The last emacs to boot 9 for example required a very recent rom file or you would be stuck with 640x480 in a window in the middle of the screen. (it was 640x480, in the middle of a 1280x1024 screen, really weird) Sound also was a problem iirc.

Somewhere I have around 30 of those ROM files if you find you need one.
It's also worth nothing the last universal retail disk (9.2.1) did NOT have the correct rom file for those emacs.