Often you hear of emulating one OS on a computer of different system or architecture. Recently Mac on Windows emulation has basically ground to a halt, but the potential for Mac on Mac emulation arises, in the form of a new Classic Mode. Many emulators have tried to do so, but one stands out in particular, and that happens to be Gwenole Beauchesneís SheepShaver.

For those who havenít used it recently, SheepShaver has gone through the works, including better support and stability, networking and sound handling, file sharing between the host disk and virtual disk and a GUI Configuration utility to tie it together. But what really brings it to New Classic status is the fact it can do all this in Universal Binary, in that it works on PowerPC & Intel Macs. As a matter of fact, the only disadvantage to it is that it canít share a desktop environment with Mac OS X, and all Classic apps must run within the SheepShaver window. However you can run SheepShaver full screen and switch between OS 9 and OS X, so this isnít a massive issue.

So SheepShaver has all the advantages of full compatibility, including at the Toolbox and ROM level, something the PearPC project has been trying to achieve since mid-last year. Realistically, you can probably run just about every app made for OS 9 on this, however some that interface with hardware, such as a DVD-ROM drive, will not work. CDROM however, is fine. What really surprises me is that in our last review, SheepShaver worked at around the speed of a 603 and barely scraping the edge of 604. However, they have worked on this and can now announce full G3 and G4 speeds, without Velocity Engine for Classic compatibility. A quote from Gwenoleís Wiki:

'If you are using a PowerPC-based system, applications will run at native speeds (i.e. without any emulation involved). On other systems, SheepShaver provides the first PowerPC G4 emulator, though without MMU, to enable the execution of MacOS Classic. Performance with the current CPU emulator using basic just-in-time (JIT) translation techniques is roughly 1/8-th of native speeds.'

Additionally, the speed will be visible to the human eye, as SheepShaver can also now utilise the powerful QuickDraw 3D system to render the graphics in real time, not in the previous emulated display that ran at roughly 1 frame every second.

The one downfall at the moment was pointed out by a Beta tester, in that the Mac OS ROM Update Tome needs TomeViewer to extract, and TomeViewer is a classic application and needs a classic environment already. However on Intel Macs this is not possible. The solution is to extract the ROM from the tome on a PowerPC machine and use a USB Disk or Network Cable to move it to your new Intel Mac. Additionally this rom is pre-extracted already on the net, if you know where to look.

In conclusion, SheepShaver is coming along nicely and is a viable option to replace the old Classic Mode. It has many pros and virtually no cons, and is still in active development today.

Review: 4-1/2 out of 5.

SheepShaver Wiki Page & Download:
http://www.gibix.net/dokuwiki/en:projects:sheepshaver

Michael Brice
Mac On Mac Emulations