Here's a challenge for you guys

About SheepShaver, a PPC Mac emulator for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux that can run System 7.5.3 to MacOS 9.0.4.

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Bhuij
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Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by Bhuij »

Hey all--

Just found this forum while reminiscing about the good old days of playing Ambrosia Software games and stuff on our Mac OS9 machines in my childhood.

I have what might be the most messy installation situation yet -

I'm running the latest version of Mavericks... on my Hackint0sh. So I haven't actually attempted installation yet, but I suspect I will run into problems once I get everything together.

A few initial questions: I can't seem to find the right Mac OS 9 installation CDs, even on eBay. What is the best way to get my hands on an OS 9.0.4 CD? Next, where can I get a ROM? Finally, is it possible that I could install everything I need (including Mac OS9 games, etc. once the emulator is running and stable) on a flash drive and run it from any Mac running the same version of Mavericks as mine?

Thanks in advance!
emendelson
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

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24bit
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by 24bit »

Quite a few are running OSX on compatible PCs. ;)

The usual SS app stores its config file in your /"username" directory,
therefore you wont be able to copy a working installation to a flash drive easily.
The virtual volumes for SS can of course be carried around.

Maybe look here for the standalone sheep-vm wrapper made available by emendelson which may do what you want: http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewto ... =33&t=7363

Max1zzz has the Mac Anthology, covering OS7 to 9 in many languages, on his private server.
See here for details: http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/max1zz ... mac-server
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

24bit wrote:The usual SS app stores its config file in your /"username" directory,
therefore you wont be able to copy a working installation to a flash drive easily.
A self-contained .sheepvm virtual machine is portable.

The feature was added to SheepShaver for OSX in 2009. I promised to add instructions to the SheepShaver OSX setup guide a long time ago, but I never got to it. :oops:

Done now: Virtual machines
Last edited by Ronald P. Regensburg on Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:27 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Silent Flamer
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by Silent Flamer »

I thought we don't help Hackintosh users, lol.

I believe I've heard SheepShaver already having ROMs bundled together, but if you don't have one, ensure that you owned a Mac in the past (high chances you did...), and go grab one from the internet. It is not too hard to find.

With the OS situation, same thing; it's preferable that you constantly find a way to buy a CD, but if you insist, the Macintosh Garden and some other servers all have 9.0.4 running around.

*EDIT* Another thing on the ROM part; if you have a PowerPC machine lying around and functional, you can go ahead and follow the guide somewhere around here to extract the ROM of it, which you can then transport back to your Hackintosh.
toshiba1
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

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adespoton
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by adespoton »

Useful for getting files maybe, but after all the headaches I've seen from people actually using chubby bunny, going the .sheepvm route seems much preferable, even if you have to do something like view package contents of chubby bunny to get the appropriate files.

However, on the ROM side, I've never had issues with the ROM on my OS 9 CD for running SS. Of course, you need access to TomeViewer to grab that in the first place, which makes things more complex.

At one point, I was thinking of tweaking emendelson's script wrapper to auto-extract the ROM file from the disk image you drop on it -- then all you'd need to get SS running is the CD and the wrapped SheepShaver bundle, and you'd get sliced disk images and .sheepvm at the same time.
emendelson
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by emendelson »

adespoton wrote:At one point, I was thinking of tweaking emendelson's script wrapper to auto-extract the ROM file from the disk image you drop on it -- then all you'd need to get SS running is the CD and the wrapped SheepShaver bundle, and you'd get sliced disk images and .sheepvm at the same time.
Terrrific idea - is there any chance you could pursue this? I think it's far beyond my abilities, unfortunately.
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adespoton
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by adespoton »

I attempted it back when you were first working on yours, but didn't find I had the time to do a complete search, yank and insert from .iso format :\

If you've got the time, I could get you pointed in the right direction; it's not as hard as you might think -- you just have to parse the iso directory structure, locate the correct place in the image file, and copy it out. And I figure that we could even cheat and just figure out where it is in the common images, and do a sha1sum to figure out which iso we were dealing with to rip the file :)

The tricky bit would be that you have to either mount the disk image or do the parsing by "hand" to locate and copy out the install tome, and then you'd have to extract the rom file from the tome by "hand" too. The formats are all documented, so it's just a case of implementation, but it still takes time and patience to get the parsers working just right.
emendelson
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by emendelson »

I do this stuff mostly to relax - it's like playing chess - so if you want to provide some pointers, I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise results. And maybe someone more expert than I am will be interested in picking up the problem.
Jorpho
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by Jorpho »

Someone suggested adding tome-extraction support to The Unarchiver (I love that thing), but I don't know if that will happen.
https://code.google.com/p/theunarchiver ... ail?id=638

Apparently the relevant documentation is in the source for Universal Extractor, which in turn is derived from InstallExplorer. I'm vaguely tempted to take a swing at it myself. (Python is bound to have something for traversing ISO structures.)

(Sometimes I wonder how complicated it would be to make an external program that would reassemble the gigantic, messy, multipart System 7.5.3 and 7.5.5 downloads into something that can be more readily used by an emulator.)
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adespoton
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Re: Here's a challenge for you guys

Post by adespoton »

Python definitely has the ISO structure traversal code available -- I'm not sure if it's got the HFS code though; I haven't checked for that in the vaults for years.

The tome structure isn't that tricky, but nobody's bothered to write a parser/extracter for it recently, as it's a pretty niche issue. CREATING tomes is slightly trickier, but it might be worth it to create a single-disk 7.5.5 installer. Not sure where Apple would be on allowing that.

It's too bad you can't just yank the ROM file off the ISO -- but I don't think that one works with SS. You need the copy in the install tome.
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