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installing mac classic applications

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 8:55 pm
by FreeRepublic
I have MacOS 9 running directly (Sheepshaver) on Windows 10. I tried to add new applications from my old iBook, via a thumb drive, but am having trouble. An example is Eric's Ultimate Solitaire (EUS). OS 9 thinks it's a file, not an application. Perhaps not surprising, as it thinks it is 0k in size.

So I tried to follow my transfer process closely. EUS is the correct size on my iBook. I put in a thumb drive and copied it over. EUS is the right size on my thumb drive as seen by my iBook. I put the thumb drive in my PC and it shows the EUS application as being 0K in size. I import the file into Mac OS 9 and it sees EUS as being 0K in size. It does not realize that EUS is an application. When I attempt to open EUS it tells me that EUS could not be opened because an application could not be found.

I am perplexed.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 9:30 pm
by emendelson
You will need to reformat the thumb drive with a Mac disk format, like HFS+. Your Windows PC won't be able to use it, but you will need it for copying Mac files with resource forks from your iBook to your new Mac.

What you describe is exactly what happens when the thumb drive if formatted with FAT or ExFAT or any other non-HFS format.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 9:37 pm
by adespoton
Either that, or create a disk image on your iBook, copy all the software into that, and then copy the disk image to the thumb drive.

On the SheepShaver side, copy over the disk image, then use Disk Copy to mount the image and copy out the contents.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 4:07 pm
by FreeRepublic
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm copying from an old iBook to an ASUS PC running Windows 10, not to a new Mac.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 4:19 pm
by FreeRepublic
adespoton wrote:Either that, or create a disk image on your iBook, copy all the software into that, and then copy the disk image to the thumb drive.

On the SheepShaver side, copy over the disk image, then use Disk Copy to mount the image and copy out the contents.
Thanks for the suggestion. Almost worked! I think.

I wasn't familiar with creating a disk image, so my actions may have been somewhat random. It looked like I created both a disk image (.dmg) and generated a little folder that looked like a slender disk. They each have the same name that I assigned previously. I copied the files into the folder that looked like a little disk hoping that would also put the files in the dmg file.

I got the dmg file into my Mac classic environment on my ASUS Windows 10 computer. However Disk copy (Mac OS 9) said the image failed to mount.

Please note that I am not emulating OS X, just MacClassic. This is just a test so far. To really be useful, I should have about 35 gigs of storage. I'm guessing that Mac Classic can not accommodate so much storage.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 4:36 pm
by adespoton
Try this -- it should work.

On OS 9, create a 4GB blank disk image with disk copy. Copy that out to your thumb drive.

Mount that disk image on your iBook and copy the contents to it.

Eject the image, eject the thumb drive, then move it all back over to the OS 9 guest. Because it was created there, it should mount. It's possible that the version of Disk Copy you have on your OS 9 guest can't read dmg files created on the iBook. But the iBook should be able to read the files created on OS 9.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 4:55 pm
by FreeRepublic
adespoton wrote:Either that, or create a disk image on your iBook, copy all the software into that, and then copy the disk image to the thumb drive.

On the SheepShaver side, copy over the disk image, then use Disk Copy to mount the image and copy out the contents.
I did a better job with creating a disk image "... from folder" (at my source). Disk copy (at my destination) still failed to recognize it. I think we have an extensions issue. My iBook creates a dmg file. Disk copy in the emulated OS 9 looks for an img file.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 5:13 pm
by adespoton
Create the image on OS 9 and copy it back; there's no extensions issue, as OS 9 doesn't use extensions; it uses the file type and creator, and, if there is none, checks the file header.

The problem here is that if you created a modern OS X disk image, the image format may not be recognizeable by OS 9, and the outer container format stores the file information in the footer, not the header, so OS 9 will just see a generic binary file if the file type and creator have been stripped.

NDIF style images will work, but recent versions of macOS / OS X do not support NDIF images.

Also note that you actually have to open the disk image from within Disk Copy; double clicking in the finder won't work, because to the Finder, it's just a generic binary file unless you have your thumb drive formatted HFS+ and mounted within SheepShaver somehow.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 5:33 pm
by FreeRepublic
adespoton wrote:Try this -- it should work.

On OS 9, create a 4GB blank disk image with disk copy. Copy that out to your thumb drive.

Mount that disk image on your iBook and copy the contents to it.

Eject the image, eject the thumb drive, then move it all back over to the OS 9 guest. Because it was created there, it should mount. It's possible that the version of Disk Copy you have on your OS 9 guest can't read dmg files created on the iBook. But the iBook should be able to read the files created on OS 9.
I did step 1. I didn't actually make it 4Gb in size. Is that critical?. I was a little surprised to see the dmg extension.

I went to step 2, but could not mount the disk image. I could see the image, but disk utility said it could not mount it.

Thanks for all the help. As an aside, our local Mac expert pretty much refused to work on an old iBook of mine.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 5:51 pm
by FreeRepublic
adespoton wrote:Create the image on OS 9 and copy it back; there's no extensions issue, as OS 9 doesn't use extensions; it uses the file type and creator, and, if there is none, checks the file header.

The problem here is that if you created a modern OS X disk image, the image format may not be recognizeable by OS 9, and the outer container format stores the file information in the footer, not the header, so OS 9 will just see a generic binary file if the file type and creator have been stripped.

NDIF style images will work, but recent versions of macOS / OS X do not support NDIF images.

Also note that you actually have to open the disk image from within Disk Copy; double clicking in the finder won't work, because to the Finder, it's just a generic binary file unless you have your thumb drive formatted HFS+ and mounted within SheepShaver somehow.
"You Da Man." I actually don't know the source of that quote, but it's definitely a compliment. Anyway, no luck so far.

For whatever it's worth, I downloaded SheepShaver from the following source: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9win.html

In the past, getting a Mac ROM was an issue, but I had no issue here.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 6:13 pm
by adespoton
Ah; you've got emendelson's bundle -- that's not actually SheepShaver, it's a custom configuration of Sheepshaver to make a basic install easier.

Shouldn't be an issue here, as your problem isn't with running SheepShaver or getting files in/out of OS 9, but with reading the files you've copied over.

One thing that might work: taking the dmg-style disk image and selecting that as a virtual HD to mount in SheepShaver. I can't remember how emendelson's interface is set up to add images, but I think he's using a standard SheepShaver build inside his scripts. I haven't played around with his Windows builds at all.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 12:07 am
by emendelson
Try this:

In Windows, go to the MacOS9 folder, then the Programs folder, and run SheepShaverGUI.exe.

Click Create, and create a 2000 MB disk image (or anything large enough) in any convenient folder. It will be added to the SheepShaver system as a second disk.

Start SheepShaver. It will prompt you to initialize the disk image that you created. Choose Mac OS Extended (or whatever the exact name is) and initialize the disk. Shut down SheepShaver.

Copy the disk image to your Mac. Mount it. Copy into it whatever files you want to copy to it. Eject it from the Mac desktop (this is important!!!!).

Copy it back to your Windows machine, and overwrite the earlier version of the image file.

Launch MacOS9. The software that you copied from your Mac to the disk image will run from the disk image, or you can copy it to your SheepShaver disk image.

When you're through, either delete the disk image file or go back to SheepShaverGUI.exe and remove the image from the list of disks, or (preferably) both.

I just tested this, and it works.

P.S. If you have Dropbox or some similar service running on both the Windows machine and the Mac (not likely on your old iBook, of course), then you wouldn't have to copy the disk image file. Simply shut down SheepShaver on the Windows machine; mount the image file on the Mac and copy files into it, then eject it; then start up SheepShaver and access the files that you added to the disk image.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 6:52 pm
by FreeRepublic
emendelson wrote:You will need to reformat the thumb drive with a Mac disk format, like HFS+. Your Windows PC won't be able to use it ...
At first I thought this would not work because the Mac formatted disk would not mount on the Windows PC. Then I learned that the running OS 9 environment could see Window C and D drives. I hoped OS 9 could see a Mac formatted disk even if the physical Windows PC could not. No dice.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 7:02 pm
by emendelson
Yes, I shouldn't have posted that advice, because I hadn't taken in the fact that you were running a Windows machine. Unfortunately, it's too late for me to edit that post. But my second advice, two messages up, should certainly work.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 8:33 pm
by FreeRepublic
"In Windows, go to the MacOS9 folder, then the Programs folder, and run SheepShaverGUI.exe."

so far so good

"Click Create, and create a 2000 MB disk image"

I chose the size and gave it a name. But it seems that I should have made some selection to designate this as a disk image. How do I do that?

I moved the file/folder/disk over to SheepShaver, it recognized the size but did not ask to reformat, and did not recognize it as a disk image.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 9:11 pm
by emendelson
FreeRepublic wrote:I moved the file/folder/disk over to SheepShaver, it recognized the size but did not ask to reformat, and did not recognize it as a disk image.
My post did not say anything about moving the file/folder/disk. It just said to create the disk. Like this:

1. Start SheepShaverGUI.exe.

2. Click the Create button.

3. In the "Size (MB)" field enter 2000 or some such number.

4. In the "Selection..." field, enter any name you like, though it's probably best to add an .IMG or .DSK or maybe even .DMG extension, for example, "MyDisk.IMG" or "BritneySpears.DSK" or "LudwigVanBeethoven.DMG". This will create the disk image in the same MacOS9\Programs folder with the existing MacOSHD.dsk image.

5. Click OK.

6. Click the Start button - we're just doing this to get the disk initialized; normally it's best to start MacOS9 from its own shortcut.

7. When SheepShaver starts up, it will display a message saying "This disk is unreadable" etc.

8. In the Name field, type any name you like.

9. In the Format dropdown, choose Mac OS Extended [size of the disk you created]".

10. Click Initialize.

11. Click Continue.

12. Shut down SheepShaver.

Now copy the disk image to your old Mac, and follow the instructions in my earlier post. Do not do anything that my post doesn't tell you to do - this is very important. Don't assume that I've left out any steps. I haven't.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 10:18 pm
by FreeRepublic
Works like a charm! Stupendous!

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 6:04 pm
by FreeRepublic
emendelson wrote:

When you're through, either delete the disk image file or go back to SheepShaverGUI.exe and remove the image from the list of disks, or (preferably) both.

I just tested this, and it works.
It works great. I have an old Ibook version of a program and a particular file up and running. Next to it, I have a newer Windows version of the same program and a corresponding file. It's like having two computers side by side, but much less cumbersome. In addition, I can copy and past text from one to the other (both ways).

I have a continuing need to move files back and forth from my old iBook. So I'm wondering if I need to take the steps listen above, namely removing the disk image file and removing the image from the list of disks. I thought I'd run this pass you first before giving it a try.

Thanks for all the help you've provided.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 6:20 pm
by emendelson
FreeRepublic wrote: I have a continuing need to move files back and forth from my old iBook. So I'm wondering if I need to take the steps listen above, namely removing the disk image file and removing the image from the list of disks. I thought I'd run this pass you first before giving it a try.
Why not just try it and see what happens? I don't think you'll need to remove the image from the list. But make a backup of the disk image (you should do this anyway) and try it. Let us know what happens.

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Wed May 22, 2019 6:34 pm
by FreeRepublic
emendelson wrote: I don't think you'll need to remove the image from the list. But make a backup of the disk image (you should do this anyway) and try it. Let us know what happens.
You are right; I don't have to remove the image. In fact, I can work off the image disk just as I can the MacOS9 disk. I can treat the image disk as a removable drive. That's useful to me as I will be shuttling information to and from my old iBook.

Working off the image disk seems to have another benefit - additional memory. The MacOS9 disk has a gig of memory. The content of the image disk does not count against this. (Perhaps I should have figured that out when you provided the example of formatting it to 2,000 MB). So it seems that I have almost unlimited storage available for my purposes. That's a "game changer."

Re: installing mac classic applications, no USB

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:46 am
by THEDOCTOR
I have an iMac, and want to install classic applications. I have created the "extra" disk and can burn it to a CD (I made it 500 mb) and no doubt can put that into the internal drive on the iMac.
Question about mounting the image, moving/copying applications to it, and then re-burning onto a different CD for moving back to the Windows 10 machine (inside SheepShaver).

Will that work? It seems as though it should. Please advise!

Thanks

Re: installing mac classic applications

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:23 pm
by emendelson
Why not try it and see? You can't do any harm by trying it.