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Hardware module

What it does

Hardware asks the selected classic Mac to describe itself through one bounded probe at a time.

The macOS Hardware module

Availability

Both guests serve a census, but probe coverage differs. PowerPC exposes the full Workshop page; NOW-68K serves the subset its System 7.1 managers and hardware can answer.

On the modern Mac

The host pages results without rewriting absent, partial, refused, or failed into empty rows. The selected machine remains part of the result. PowerPC volume capacity uses the wide HFS API when the guest supports it, rather than the legacy 2 GB-limited fields.

On the classic Mac

The PowerPC Hardware page selects probes and renders their rows. NOW-68K offers the same probe registry through its wire and console at its smaller bounds.

The PowerPC Hardware page

Common tasks

  • Run the overview before choosing a specialized probe.
  • Use Dump ROM to ask the selected PowerPC guest to copy its complete ROM image into the Files share, transfer that exact file over NOW, and save it with a unique name in Downloads.
  • Record the machine, build, probe, and verification rung with any result.

The census is passive, but machine names, network addresses, volumes, and hardware inventory may still be private when screenshots or logs are shared.

Failure states

Unknown probe, absent manager, partial read, unsafe probe refusal, page limit, and disconnect remain distinct.

Current limitations

A probe listed in the contract is not automatically implemented or proven on both guests. The PowerBook 1400 ROM presentation combines the 3 MiB Toolbox region reported by Gestalt with its separate 1 MiB boot region, while retaining the raw measured row. The 64 GB volume result, 4 MiB ROM dump, and known corpus checksum remain to be verified on the physical PowerBook 1400c. Consult the live capability and coverage table.

For developers

See contract coverage and verification levels.