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SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

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Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#41

Post by actionfromafar »

kstrauser wrote: post #29
dlevine wrote: post #9

The name SheepShaver is a play on ShapeShifter, which was a Mac II emulator for Amiga. I remember running an Amiga Emulator (UAE) AND Shapeshifter on top of that since it was the best Macintosh Emulation at one point in the late 90s.

Fun fact: ShapeShifter was virtualized, not emulated, so software ran at full speed. I used it to play Myst and other games on my Amiga. Its 68060 CPU was faster than any real Mac, so programs were screamingly fast on it.

For a very short period of time and circumstances (Mac PPC was out but some Photoshop plugins were m68k only) an Amiga with SCSI and a 68060 was the fastest Photoshop Mac. :)

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#42

Post by mahrain »

Sheepshaver is great, but I've found Qemu's PPC emulation has progressed probably beyond what Sheepshaver can offer. For instance, it can run MacOS 9.2.2 and even early MacOSX PPC versions. Due to it's emulation limitations (lack of MMU), Sheepshaver has some weird incompatibilities, for instance MS Office, that you won't encounter running Qemu. On Mac, the UTM app is a great place to start!

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#43

Post by simondotau »

scarface_74 wrote: post #12

If I could find fully functioning versions of Ambrosia’s software, I would download this in a heartbeat. I bought every game the minute it became available back in the day. Andrew Welch use to post here occasionally

No need to download anything. You can emulate a Macintosh in your web browser and play Ambrosia games including Bubble Trouble on Infinite Mac.

https://infinitemac.org/1997/Mac%20OS%207.6

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#44

Post by WoodenChair »

Edward Mendelson does an amazing job packaging Sheep Shaver with a bunch of built-in utilities and interfaces to your outer system that makes it much more usable out of the box:

https://www.mendelson.org/macos9osx.html

You can think about his work as a wrapper for Sheep Shaver with some quality of life improvements and some pre-installed software on the disk image.

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#45

Post by UncleSlacky »

scarface_74 wrote: post #12

If I could find fully functioning versions of Ambrosia’s software, I would download this in a heartbeat. I bought every game the minute it became available back in the day. Andrew Welch use to post here occasionally

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/software_search.php?pubi...

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#46

Post by NikkiA »

relistan wrote: post #37
kstrauser wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: ShapeShifter was virtualized, not emulated, so software ran at full speed. I used it to play Myst and other games on my Amiga. Its 68060 CPU was faster than any real Mac, so programs were screamingly fast on it.

I’ve got it on my Amiga 500 with Vampire 500 accelerator (so-called 68080 MMX). Pretty sure that’s nearly the fastest native 68k Mac, even if it’s an FPGA.

PiStorm is faster but then you get into nuances of arguing over if pin compatible emulation counts or not, and if not, why would an FPGA emulation.

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#47

Post by opan »

scarface_74 wrote: post #23
opan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried setting up SheepShaver on a Steam Deck specifically to play Bubble Trouble (no modern-PC-compatible versions or even similar games seem to exist), but I never got it to work. The easiest way I have to play it is firing up an old iMac G3.

It looks like there was a version that worked on Classic OS and OS X.

I recall some missing dependencies or drivers stopping the game from starting in SheepShaver. I was able to resolve some, but not all of them (I remember something with "carbon" in the name). It seemed like it was a sound-related issue, but the game wouldn't start at all, I couldn't even play it muted. I may try again at some point. Maybe there's a forum where I could get some help.

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#48

Post by brucehoult »

akoster wrote: post #34
brucehoult wrote: post #27

I use it to this day to run the "Best Books" accounting software (cut down MYOB) I bought in 1991 for the single-digit number of invoices I issue in a year. That's M68k software. Accounting doesn't change. The only thing I've had to do is change the GST rate from 12.5% to 15% in 2010. I use print to PostScript for invoices and reports then copy them to the host machine (which these days can be anything) and PDF or pr…

I think I found MYOB but not Best Books here: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/2021-m-y-o-b-v5-0-1 Is the interface similar for Best Books? and also in color?

Hah, I actually haven't used it since I was last doing misc consulting stuff before living in Moscow in 2015-2018. I found my BestBooks folder easily enough, but had an ancient SheepShaver. Downloading an Apple Silicon-compatible build from January 2025 I replaced the app file, pointed it at a disk image, dragged the BestBooks folder in via the Unix shared folder ... and it launched right up!

Here's browsing some oooold data...

https://hoult.org/bestbooks.png

https://hoult.org/bestbooks_about.png

BestBooks is apparently an offshoot of MYOB 3, your find is MYOB 5.

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#49

Post by karel-3d »

lproven wrote: post #38
karel-3d wrote: post #36

I used this to run the original Myst... on a PPC OS X iBook (I... think it was PPC. I genuinely don't remember). It worked great. Not sure about ARM64, but it should work there too. Well, sometimes it all randomly crashed once in a while.

The iBook range was PowerPC. Initially very rounded, truly clamshell shaped, then a white curved plastic rectangle. The MacBook was the similar-looking x86 range: plastic unibody cases.

I had the late white plastic one; I got confused, because the first x86 MacBooks looked identical.

Re: SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator

#50

Post by syndeo »

lelandfe wrote: post #24
dlevine wrote: post #9

The name SheepShaver is a play on ShapeShifter, which was a Mac II emulator for Amiga. I remember running an Amiga Emulator (UAE) AND Shapeshifter on top of that since it was the best Macintosh Emulation at one point in the late 90s.

RIP to the other Mac ShapeShifter: https://web.archive.org/web/20060613064350/http://unsanity.c... There was a whole community around theming OS X in the aughts, chock full of talented designers. It all depended on ShapeShifter. MacThemes2.net was bustling, along with self-important invite-only communities like macristocracy.com. Good times.

Gosh, I remember that so well and fondly miss it. Was a wild, whimsical time for sure. They made other fun "haxies" (as they called them) too, but ShapeShifter was always the coolest. To this day I remember my favorite was the green Aluminum Alloy theme; I liked Milk too. Somatic was wild as well!

Found a list with screenshots for those curious: https://www.mac-dvd.com/cool-mac-theme.html

I rocked CrystalClear Interface (CCI) from Musings from Mars for a good while too.

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