looking for a mac classic emulator for windows XP that works

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 12:05 am

looking for a mac classic emulator for windows XP that works?
Hey folks. Newbie here.

I've been trying to get a hold of Darek at emulators. com to see if he can help me out with a problem but so far, no joy. (Actually I just read the thread where it looks like Darek has hung it up. Oh well)

This is the deal:

I'm trying to run his Softmac emulator for windows XP on my pc, but I haven't been able to get it up and running. I'm hoping that someone out here knows something about running a 68k mac emulator (or any macintosh classisc emulator for that matter) on windows. I haven't been able to set ANY of them up.

I have an old MacPlus that I tried getting the rom off of to see if the emulator would run, but then I couldn't get my PC to read the disk. I'm not even sure if I copied the rom or not because I couldn't read it.

Why am I doing all this?

Well, I'm a big fan of the old school computers and I'm trying to get emulators on all the historical heavy hitters. The Mac classic emulator is the only one I'm missing out on.

I even bought a disk off ebay that has all the sharware Mac classic games knowing that at some point I'd get the mac emulator up and running.

Wow, so far it's been a dead end street. Can anyone help or at least point me to someone who can!!!????

Thanks in advance

Rhetro.

Post by **Cat_7** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 7:17 am

Hi,

To run up to Mac OS 8.1, you could use BasiliskII. It is by far the best 68xxx emulator around.

You can download the program from here:
http://www.gibix.net/dokuwiki/en:projects:basilisk2

On the same site, extensive help about setting up and running BasiliskII is available. If you don't succeed, please ask here.

Best wishes
Cat_7

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:48 pm

Hey Cat_7!!

thanks for helping out!

I have another post at another site and they said pretty much the same thing. The even recommended Sheepshaver for more recent apps.

I have another post at another site and they said the same thing.

My next problem is getting that rom off of my MacPlus. Unless somone can point me to ...ahem...a more "practical resource". But if I have to take it off my Mac Plus, I guess I can do it the hard and dirty way. Darek's tutorial didn't work on that either. Any ideas?

One other thing:

Does anyone recommend a program that can read mac stuff off a pc 3.25" drive or cd rom drive? I tried Darek's Gemulator. But It couldn't see the CD rom?

Thanks again for helping out.!!!

Rhetro

Tue Aug 08, 2006 9:45 pm

Rhetro wrote:My next problem is getting that rom off of my MacPlus.

Try "AutoCopyROM": http://www.geocities.com/terry_teague/autocopyrom.html

Post by **Cat_7** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:29 pm

The application you would need is called HFV Explorer. It is still to be found on the net:
http://files.oldos.org/files/macdl/hdexp131setup.exe

It reads mac floppies/cd's, and give you the opportunity to copy stuff straight to a disk image readable with Basilisk or Sheepshaver.

Other options are: transmac, macdrive, or ultraiso for cd's

Best wishes,
Cat_7

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 12:33 am

Hey Cat_7!

Thanks for posting. Just wanted to let you know that these were the following files I got:

1) BasiliskII-1.0.-0.20060501
2) gtk-win32-2.8.18-rc1
3) SDL-1.2.11-win32
4) hdexp131setup

I take it I got the right ones? There were multiple downloads and I just wanted to make sure that I'm on track.

The Autocopy rom is gone from that site. I'll google it and see if I can find it.

Thanks again.

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 12:35 am

Thanks Ronald!

Just wanted to let you know that that link is no longer valid.

I'll try a google search and see if I can find it.

Thanks for your help!!

Rhetro

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 3:33 am

Hey folks!

Thanks to your help I think I'm making progress.

I went ahead and followed the instructions and actually got Basilisk II up and running somewhat.

I have the following roms.

1-Quadra.rom
2-QUAD650.rom
3-PERFORMA.rom

the Quadra rom didn't work for some reason, but the other two gave me a blinking question mark on a 3.25!!! I take it that I'm getting closer!

The disks that I have for my Mac Plus are sys. 6.0.8

I take it that this is sufficient for playing all the old 68k games.

so far so good?

Thanks in advance.

Rhetro

Post by **Cat_7** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 6:00 am

Yes!

You are good to go. You can try to run system 6, but I'm not sure if it will work. Which OS you can install depends on the rom file. If the Quadra did support system 6, you might be in luck.

Please look under Memory/Misc in the Basilisk GUI. It shows what Mac Modell ID you can choose. And it gives a hint as to which OS you can install.

I use the QUAD650.rom with Model ID Quadra 900 and cpu type 68040, thus allowing for Mac OS 8.0 and 8.1 to be run.

BTW: System 7.5.3 is free for download from Apple. Also free is the 7.5.5 update.

Good luck,
Cat_7

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 1:48 pm

Hey Cat_7

Thanks for helping.

I downloaded the sys 7.5.3 files from Apple, but the instructions said that I needed to compress the 19 files into a single disk image, and that I needed an earlier version to do that.

Remember, all of this I'm doing on a PC (which is probably the problem) Do you know where I could find the disk image ready to go?

I'm also writing every thing down, that I can install it later if my system crashes.

I noticed that I downloaded both gtk-win32-2.6.10-rc1
and gtk-win32-2.8.18-rc1

I think the instructions said to use the first one. Is there a difference?

thanks in advance Cat!

Rhetro

Post by **Cat_7** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 3:05 pm

About the gtk toolkit:
The difference should be the one with the higher version number should be more mature. But you can install either one. It is only needed to run the GUI.

To decompress the disk images and install the OS, some cunning planning was devised. (sorry, I have been watching too much "Blackadder", as the series is re-aired around here.)

Look here and thing will get clear:
http://os-emulation.net/basiliskII/syst ... index.html

Best wishes,

Cat_7

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 3:24 pm

Are you kidding!???

I love Blackadder!! Some of Atkinsons best work!! I knew that sounded familiar. We don't get bbc here in Texas! A Britsh friend of mine happens to have them all recorded.

OK Cat_7 Thanks for the info I'll take a peak at that!

Getting closer...and closer..

Cheers!

Rhetro!

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 5:14 am

Hey Cat_7

I went ahead and took a look at that link you sent regarding making a dsk image of the 19 files required for sys 7.5.3.

I got all the way to the the part where you make the image. However:

My Basilisk gui doesn't look like the one in the tutorial. I don't have anything that says "disk"

I can't enable my preferences. In fact, the only options (tabs) I have are Under Basilisk Settings:

Volumes
Graphics/sound
Keyboard/mouse
serial
Network
Memory/Misk
JIT Compiler

I went ahead and looked at my verison under help:

Version 1.0 Pre may 1 2006

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks again!

Rhetro

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:19 pm

The list in 'disk' in the tutorial is in 'volumes' on your version.

About the Mac Plus ROM, you can't read the floppy becase of a hardware incompatibility, that cannot be resolved by software, no matter what. The only way to get that file is to put the floppy in a real Mac with a SuperDrive (not the DVD burner, but the 1.44 MB floppy drive), and copy it to a PC floppy. (a SuperDrive can read and write both old 800k Mac floppies and 3.5" PC floppies)

Rhetro · Post by **Rhetro** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:16 pm

Hey PPC_Digger!

Thanks for the information!!

That's great to know, because I'm borrowing an Ibook right now. It doesn't have a 3.5 diskdrive. But I was wondering if I bought one, would that work? In other words, they do make a 3.5 super drive that I can hook up to the ibook?

If I can't get the two emulators (Basilisk II and Mini vMac) to read the .sit file properly after it's been decompressed, the I will have to go with your recommendation. Although my problem at this point seem to be with the decompressing process in general. I think it's corrupting the actual file, and that's why I'm having these problems.

Thanks for the advice!

Rhetro

Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:02 pm

You will need a Mac that has a "SuperDrive" floppy drive built in. Those "SuperDrive" floppy drives are not available separately. You will need a Mac with a functional floppy drive that was at least produced before Apple stopped using floppy drives. The first Mac that did not have a floppy drive was the 1998 (Bondi Blue) first iMac.

If the problem is the decompressing process, that has nothing to do with floppies. I am still not sure exactly what you are doing and how. Note that older .sit files will be damaged already by just saving them on a Windows computer. If the files are properly encoded into .hqx files, and .sit files that you download will always be encoded because otherwise they cannot survive on a non-Mac server, it should be no problem to transfer them to a emulated Mac with for instance System 7.5.5 on it, decode and decompress them with Stuffit Expander and write them to a disk image that older systems, like the emulated Mac Plus, can read.