Two questions for my first time here!

So I just got my first SheepShaver emulation up and running today, and I'm trying to install TaskMaker onto it. I have the zip file downloaded from http://www.robotroom.com/StormImpact.html, and I expanded it inside SheepShaver using Stuffit 5.5, but the unzipped files still show up as SimpleText documents instead of applications, and I'm at a loss as to what to do.

Second, has anyone used an Iomega ZipDrive with SheepShaver? I'm looking into resurrecting my family's 20-year-old PowerPC, and ZipDrive use would be enormously helpful.

Thanks!

Hi, welcome!

I read on the site that the guy who programmed these games used zip-it 1.4 to compress the games.
Download zip-it from here: http://www.info-mac.org/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=1266 , install it and use it to unzip your game.

I downloaded both zip-it and the game in windows. From within SheepShaver (with Mac OS 9.0.4) I then used the Computer feature (or Unix shared drive, in case you using a Mac) to copy both files into Mac OS. The Zip-it hqx file uncompresses when double-clicked. Start the Zip-it program, select the taskmaker.zip and choose "extract" from the menus. That should give you a Taskmaker folder with all icons intact and the program will be executable.

About the zip drive: that question can't be answered without first some questions in return What kind of zip drive is it? Reading you owned an old mac, I gather it is a SCSI zip drive (or was it an USB zip drive already?). You didn't mention what your host system is. Are you currently using a Mac or a Windows PC to run SheepShaver? Does your current PC have a connector that allows you to hook up the zip drive?

Best,
Cat_7

ZipIt worked like a charm, thanks!

The zip drive is an Iomega Zip 100 (the one for the 100MB disks) and it uses a 25-pin connector (I'm not sure if that's SCSI or not.) I'm using Windows 7 64-bit, and my laptop dock actually has the appropriate port, to my great surprise.

Laptop docks like IBM´s port replicator will most likely provide a parallel port (IEEE 1284).
So you will have a way to move files from your laptop to the ZIP cartridge at least.
For the next step you will probably need another ZIP drive with SCSI port.
The ones with SCSI can easily be picked by looking for the SCSI ID selector on the back of the device.

Both PC and Mac used the same 25 pin female connector but the PC for parallel signals and the Mac for SCSI. A SCSI device should NEVER be connected to a parallel port on a PC.

So you need to make sure which port type the zip uses. My guess would be that, as I understand you had it connected to your old mac, that it is of the SCSI type. If, you would need a SCSI adapter in your laptop/PC to connect it. And then you would need to install the old BasiliskII 142 build to be able to get to the files on your zip drive.

But first things first, we need to know whether you zip drive is SCSI or not.
SCSI port (mark the symbol used for SCSI): http://www.cs.uaf.edu/~olawlor/ref/mac_ ... i_db25.jpg
Parallel port: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paral ... r_port.jpg

Best,
Cat_7

Yep, the drive uses SCSI, but the dock port is parallel. There's no way for SheepShaver to interact with the drive, only BasiliskII?

By default Zip-It applies MacBinary encoding to each file, so in theory using Stuffit Expander on the "SimpleText" documents would do the trick too.

There's no way for the computer to interact with the drive, period. You would need a SCSI interface for your laptop.

I see there are USB to SCSI adapters out there, but they're kind of expensive; another parallel-port Zip drive might be a better idea.

I think you can access Macintosh Zip discs using HFV Explorer or possibly TransMac.