NOTE: This page is OLD! It is presented for ARCHIVAL purposes. There is a much more up to date version in our wiki. Please use that version. The wiki version includes new SheepShaver setup guides for Windows and OS X.

Description...

SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Macintosh emulator distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. A collection of ports allow users of SheepShaver to run Mac OS 7.5.2 through 9.0.4 on a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux and MacOS X. When Sheepshaver is installed on a PowerPC based system, applications run at native speeds. When the emulator is installed on other systems, applications run at about 1/8 native speed (ref). SheepShaver is seen as a good replacement for the Classic Environment which is not available on Intel Macs or in the most recent versions of Mac OS X.

As SheepShaver does not (and most likely will never) emulate a memory management unit (mmu) it is limited to emulating the aforementioned versions of Mac OS. Those interested in emulating MacOS X should try PearPC.

Development of SheepShaver was suspended in April of 2008, although volunteers have contributed some bug fixes since that time. Check our collection of unofficial releases for those.

A setup guide for the emulator is available here. The emulator requires the use of a ROM image to function. ROMs are not available here, but a Google search should help. More information about ROM files is over here, while people already using Basilisk II can legally aquire a ROM image using this guide.

This website hosts a very active support forum.

Some History...

Sheepshaver began life in 1998 as a commercial application for BeOS, allowing users of that operating system to run applications written for MacOS. It was developed by Christian Bauer. With the decline of Be, Sheepshaver was released as an open source application in 2002. Development since then has been driven by Gwenole Beauchesne, who has ported the emulator to Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Windows users should take note of Beauchesne's disclaimer: "Please note that I am pretty careless of the Windows version since I am not a Windows developer."

Sheepshaver is lately the most exciting Macintosh emulator, and the one with the largest following.

Required Reading

|Article|	|Author|	|Home Page|
SheepShaver Windows Quick Setup	Staff	E-Maculation
SheepShaver OS X Setup	R. Regensburg	Sheepshaver Forum
Help Center Documentation	H. Spoelstra	Official
SheepShaver ROM Information	Staff	E-Maculation
Chinese Language Setup Guide	Felix Ding	E-Maculation

Links

Downloads of various ports
Official Page (old)
Support forum SheepShaver

Files

|File Name|	|Size|	|Source|
Windows/Linux/MacOS ports	Various	G. Beauchesne
Newer (unoffical) builds	Various	Support Forum

Screenshots

page updated 30 September, 2008