USB Dongle in SheepShaver

About SheepShaver, a PPC Mac emulator for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux that can run System 7.5.3 to MacOS 9.0.4.

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Floreg
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USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by Floreg »

Hi,

first: I managed to install Mac OS 9 on my iMac! What an awesome piece of software. Thank you so much!

Now I have an issue where I'm stuck.

I have a very old homeopathic Software called "ReferenceWorks" which needs an USB Dongle (I have!)

The dongle is not a drive I could see in Drive Utility.
Is there a possibility to give Mac OS 9 access to this USB Dongle via SheepShaver?
Or is there a way to emulate the dongle in Mac OS 9?

Thanks a lot for your answer! It would be a big big help if we could continue to run this software on the new system
Flo
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24bit
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by 24bit »

When ShapeShifter/SheepShaver was coded the USB interface was rarely available.
The authors of the emulators never attempted to include USB, MIDI or MMU in their work back in the day.
There was SCSI support, but I don´t think this will help.

If your software was coded Universal binary or PPC, your best bet might be a virtual machine running 10.5 Leopard on x86.
The Classic emulation from Apple only worked on PowerMacs until 10.4 Tiger, but Rosetta, emulating the PPC environment was there until 10.6 Snow Leopard.
My 10.5 instance in VMWare works with all kinds of USB devices, worth giving your dongle a go methinks.
Floreg
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by Floreg »

Hey,

thanks for your quick answer.

The software only runs in classic environment on PPC Macs. The old Powerbook is now approaching it's end of life and I have to find a solution.

I'm not sure if it was coded Universal binary or PPC but I will give it a try and install 10.5 or 10.6 on a Parallels virtual machine and try to use Rosetta...

Thanks again a lot!

Flo
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24bit
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by 24bit »

If your app wanted Classic and USB, thats it for now, I fear.
Lets hope for QEMU running 9.2 flawlessly some day soon.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

A MacOS application that needs the Classic environment will not run in Rosetta. The Classic environment enables running classic MacOS software in OSX on PPC. Rosetta enables running OSX PPC software in OSX on Intel, not classic PPC software.
Last edited by Ronald P. Regensburg on Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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adespoton
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by adespoton »

So... best bet is actually running QEMU-PPC/KVM in Linux, once OS 9 is fully functional. QEMU allows for USB passthrough.

Until then, your best bet is probably to try to locate a crack that bypasses the dongle, or a dongle emulator that'll run in OS 9.
Floreg
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by Floreg »

I slowly remember the old migration path when I've read your answers... thanx a lot for helping me!

Final result: Classic app does need a PPC-Chip and 10.4.x, therefore right now no USB support in an MacOS 9 Emulator like SheepShaver to pass through the dongle.

Alternative:
Until then, your best bet is probably to try to locate a crack that bypasses the dongle, or a dongle emulator that'll run in OS 9
@adespoton Do you know any Dongle Emulators/Cracks for Mac OS 9? I own the Dongle so that is not a problem.
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adespoton
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Re: USB Dongle in SheepShaver

Post by adespoton »

I don't know any cracks for ReferenceWorks offhand; however, it looks like the dongle maker has migrated to an emulator: http://www.donglebusiness.com/emulators ... e-emulator -- so if you can set up a machine where you can dump your dongle data, they can migrate you to an emulator.
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