Sad macs.

Anything about Mac emulation that does not belong in the above categories.

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MacintoshGuy
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Sad macs.

Post by MacintoshGuy »

Is it possible for a macintosh to recover from a Sad mac without having to be forcefully restarted?
Also, Is it possible for new world ROM's to get sadmacs?
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: Sad macs.

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

The sad Mac startup icon was used in 68k and old world PPC Macs. It indicated a severe problem that prevented startup, usually a hardware problem. It was accompanied by error codes and/or special sounds that came in place of the normal startup sound. On later Macs only various sounds were, and are, used to indicate a problem that prevents startup.

No, you cannot recover from a sad Mac without restart. Usually more than a restart is needed to first solve the underlying issue (like loose RAM).
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adespoton
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Re: Sad macs.

Post by adespoton »

The one sad mac that can be triggered and easily recovered from is the "0F00D" error, which can be triggered by hitting the interrupt switch during first disk access. A soft reset will fix this. This error can also occur when the floppy cable is loose, or a hardware component of the floppy system (either the drive itself or the on-board controlelr) is damaged.

I'll echo Ronald though; sad macs were used on old world Macs as a way of identifying a hardware issue; usually the hardware needed re-seating or replacement to fix the issue.
Jorpho
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Re: Sad macs.

Post by Jorpho »

I think the only time I saw a Sad Mac in person was when I tried to use the startup floppy from an ancient Mac Plus (I think it was System 5) in an LC 475. I don't know what the technical details are, but at least the problem was solved just by removing the floppy and rebooting.
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