New to Mini vMac

About Mini vMac and all other 68k emulators, including SoftMac, Executor, and MESS.

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starfiretbt
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New to Mini vMac

Post by starfiretbt »

I am new to Mini vMac. I wanted to play the old mac games I played when I was a child that don't run on BasiliskII. I followed the guide and my Mini vMac does open, I am at the point of using "ImportFl." I have the file "importfl-1.2.2.dsk" and I know to drag it onto the Mini vMac program but I can't read the text files instructing how to install it. Do I need to install something else onto the "024M.dsk" (which I guess is the hard drive) to read the file?
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24bit
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by 24bit »

Usually I am creating disk images for the use in MinVMac.
Which games do you miss, especially?
I feel that disk images with the games could be added to the matching pages, if needed.
starfiretbt
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by starfiretbt »

I have a long list, some of them include...

Let's Get Tanked
Stuntcopter
glider
macninja
lawnzapper

Just to name a few. I used to get those Mac World cd's that had a whole lot of games on them. I really just want to revisit the games I used to play as a child. I can get the games from Mac Garden but according to the guide it sounds like I need to download those games into Mini vMac using this ImportFl file but I can't seem to get the text document to work to tell me how to use it. Am I supposed to read the document in windows? I assume I open the file in the emulator and drag the game files onto the emulator but I don't want to risk doing something that might screw it up. Besides, I might need a "simple text" program for Mini vMac.
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adespoton
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by adespoton »

If the games are already in a disk image, you can just drag the disk image over the running Mini vMac instance. ImportFl is only for when this won't work. Note that ImportFl doesn't recognize resource forks, so you need to properly archive any files being sent over.

Personally, my workflow these days is to use Basilisk II to move HFS files, using the shared folder. Copy the stuff to the image using the shared folder, then eject the image from BII and drag it over Mini vMac to mount. ImportFl is just a bit too clunky.
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24bit
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by 24bit »

starfiretbt wrote:I have a long list, some of them include...

Let's Get Tanked
Stuntcopter
glider
macninja
lawnzapper
All of these are hosted as img.sit files at Macintoshgarden.
Unstuff the files on your host machine (The Unarcher OSX/macOS or unar Windows) and drag the. img onto the running MiniVMac screen.
The Windows command line tool unar is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180617001 ... mmand-line
If you should need a bootable image for MiniVMac, you may use the fifth DL here:
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-753-emulators
Many old games will like System 6 better, maybe look here too for a boot "disk":
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mini-vmac-ready-go
starfiretbt
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by starfiretbt »

I'm afraid my computer speak is a little weak but your saying all I have to do is

1. Unstuff a download with "stuffit expander" for windows, which I downloaded for minivmac
2. drag the .img file onto the minivmac window and it's in?

I assume I should move the file onto that 024M.dsk to save them right?
Sorry to ask but what do you mean by "bootable image for minivmac," is that what I made when following the guide? And for this system 6 are you saying there are two different versions of minivmac for different games? Also if I don't need ImportFl what is it used for?
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adespoton
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by adespoton »

starfiretbt wrote:I'm afraid my computer speak is a little weak but your saying all I have to do is

1. Unstuff a download with "stuffit expander" for windows, which I downloaded for minivmac
2. drag the .img file onto the minivmac window and it's in?

I assume I should move the file onto that 024M.dsk to save them right?
Sorry to ask but what do you mean by "bootable image for minivmac," is that what I made when following the guide? And for this system 6 are you saying there are two different versions of minivmac for different games? Also if I don't need ImportFl what is it used for?
The games you're looking for are all stored on virtual disk images. These are compressed to save space as stuffit archives -- kind of like zip archives, but for old Macs. Any major archive extractor should be able to extract the .img file from the .sit archive; Stuffit Expander is the one by the company that created the archive format.

Once you've got the .img file extracted from the archive, you can just drag it over a running Mini vMac window, and it will magically appear as a disk on the desktop. You can then run the software on that "disk", or copy it off to another virtual disk, including your boot image.

System 6 is a Mac OS version. Some older games run better in System 6, some run better in other versions. Many older games come on a disk image that also contains the required system files to run the game -- Dark Castle is a game in this category. For these, you can fire up Mini vMac with no boot disk, and get to the flashing ? -- then drag the disk image over the window, and the smiling mac will show up, then the game will run.

ImportFl is designed for situations where you need to get software onto a disk image -- for example if you grabbed something off the Info-Mac archive and it's <somesoftware>.sit.hqx -- you can move that through ImportFl, then expand the archive *inside* Mini vMac to extract the software and run it.

Does that all make sense?
starfiretbt
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by starfiretbt »

That worked. I got to play a game I hadn't played since I was a child called "Pararena." I tried it on BasiliskII but it worked very poorly and I couldn't enjoy it. I was also able to add it to my 024M.dsk. I still have some questions...
1. I still can't read to simple text documents that came with the game disk. Is there a program for that?
2. Is the Stuffit program a demo? It says demo when I opened it up, I was having trouble unstuffing the game as it wouldn't unstuff for a few min. I think I also remembered it asking me a couple of days ago to update it or something, is that something I need to do?
3. Last, it sounds like "system 6" is a type of old macintosh system. Is that what Mini vMac emulates or does Mini vMac emulate something else like a system 5? If I don't have the right system set up as directed from the guide how do I set up system 6? Also how will I tell if a game runs better under 6 than I guess 5?
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adespoton
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Re: New to Mini vMac

Post by adespoton »

starfiretbt wrote:That worked. I got to play a game I hadn't played since I was a child called "Pararena." I tried it on BasiliskII but it worked very poorly and I couldn't enjoy it. I was also able to add it to my 024M.dsk. I still have some questions...
1. I still can't read to simple text documents that came with the game disk. Is there a program for that?
2. Is the Stuffit program a demo? It says demo when I opened it up, I was having trouble unstuffing the game as it wouldn't unstuff for a few min. I think I also remembered it asking me a couple of days ago to update it or something, is that something I need to do?
3. Last, it sounds like "system 6" is a type of old macintosh system. Is that what Mini vMac emulates or does Mini vMac emulate something else like a system 5? If I don't have the right system set up as directed from the guide how do I set up system 6? Also how will I tell if a game runs better under 6 than I guess 5?
1. When you say simple text documents, do you mean SimpleText documents? You need to have SimpleText installed on your 024M.dsk image to open documents created with it. SimpleText is included in system installs starting with System 7 -- before that, TeachText was included, which should be able to open the same documents if you launch it and select the document from the Open dialog.

2. We'd need to know which Stuffit program you're using -- there are many versions for many platforms. Again, this is like WinZip for Windows.

3. "System 6" is like "Windows 10" -- it's an operating system. Mini vMac emulates computer hardware -- by default, a Macintosh Plus, although you can use custom variations to emulate anything from the original 128K Macintosh (and even the Twiggy prototype) through to a generic Macintosh II computer. System 6 was the last Macintosh operating system to run in 24-bit mode; System 7 and later run in 32 bits and have some basic multitasking capabilities. Most people trying to run old games tend to prefer running the Macintosh II build of Mini vMac with System 7.5.5, although some games are on disks pre-configured with earlier operating system versions; they'll work just fine on the same emulator. I believe we have some walkthroughs for this in the wiki section of the website.

Pararena will run on any Macintosh from the Plus onwards, and any operating system from System 6.0 through Mac OS 9.2.2. This means it'll run under Mini vMac, Basilisk II, SheepShaver, QEMU, or any of the other Mac emulators out there.

Useful links of my creation for further reading:

Classic Mac Game Matrix
List of Mac OS versions
List of Mac OS ROMs
Mac Emulation Matrix
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