61–69 of 69 posts
It’s too bad there isn’t more momentum in the Mac emulation scene. It seems like it stalled out with SheepShaver and Basilisk II. The only new thing is “make it run in JS.” I would love to see an emulator that could run later OS versions like Tiger.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Interf…
Somewhat related: Previous, an emulator of NeXT boxes. https://previous.unixdude.net/
Those are all really old builds. Strongly recommend one of the following alternatives: - On Mac or Linux, building version 3.6 from the SourceForge repo (r1603 is a good revision): https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/ - Using one of my Windows builds from here: http://rhetori.ca/next/ - If you just want to gawk, see the WASM port here: https://infinitemac.org/ (also WASM ports of Basilisk II, SheepShaver, Mini…
Are there any advantages to BasiliskII/SheepShaver these days? Seems like QEMU has caught up on the Macintosh emulation side for both 68k and PPC. The only hole is early Macs which Minivmac handles quite well.
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 also maintain a decades-old Macintosh that is kept simply for offline tax / accounting / business invoicing (USB print). Even as a Millenial, it is extremely frustrating that modern versions of Excel/Office/&c are always trying to be so [un]helpful ... auto-dates/-formatting is just such an absolute nuissance. The day this machine dies will be one of great personal mourning / frustration. Thanks for the emulation a…
Actually I almost never use a GUI word processor, just a lot of markdown/asciidoc or simply plain text. I do use Google sheets a lot for all kinds of stupid little things -- just so convenient that it's all automatically on every computer/phone/tablet I own -- or anyone else's computer I have access to, and I can share reader or editor links with people etc.
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 personally like to run my PowerPC 68050, 6502 NES emulator virtual python environment on the cloud, so that way you can virtual machine while you virtual machine while you virtual machine while you virtual machine while you virtual machine while you virtual machine while you virtual machine while you virtual machine.
Okay, Okay, I know what you're thinking Amazon AWS engineers, not enough virtual machines, not enough abstraction, we'll leave it to the pros for that!
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.
I love playing with SheepShaver (and BasiliskII and MinivMac). I created disk images for the various 68K/PPC Mac emulators that have not just my early game sources but the compilers/tools to build them (if you're into that sort of thing). The commercial games are here: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/SoftDorothy-CasadyGreene... But I have a repo with the shareware games and two more repos of games that were never…
I just wanted to say that I LOVED Glider 4 when I was a kid. I had an Amiga 500 and later a 1200 but probably played Glider more than anything else, except maybe Frontier Elite 2, in my father's Macintosh LC.
A bit later on there were decent flight sims: FS4, Hellcats (amazing for the time), A-10 Attack!, F/A-18 Hornet, and the hardest to do well in: Flying Nightmares.