Short introduction to Mac emulators and their history
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:24 pm
A few months back I wrote a post for someone on another forum who wanted a summary of the different Mac emulators. Here is the response I posted. This is unedited so there are still some spelling mistakes, but it does provide a simple introduction to the different mac emulators, so I thought it might be of use to someone.
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I have had quite a bit of experience with mac emulators.
The best one is BasiliskII. I think there was an update a few months ago. Apart from that, there hasn't been any updates for a few years. There are two versions to choose from. The noraml version and the Jit version. I think the Jit version is faster.
Because BasiliskII is a 68k emulator (uses the same 68k emulator as UAE), it will only run upto MacOS 8.1.
It has planty of settings, including floppy, CD, HD, Network, Memory. Everything you could need. And it's free and open source.
It also has a feature called My Computer. It displays an icon on the Mac Desktop that is similar to the my computer icon on the windows desktop. In the config programme, you can select which windows drives you want to show up in the Mac. These drives will show up as folders in the Mac's My Computer windows. You can also drag files into a folder located in your BII folder, and these files will automatically be displayed in the My Computer window.
BII is still in development, but is the best Mac emulator. It is fast, has planty of features, and is very reliable.
This is definately the best Mac Emulator. It runs on Windows (there are win98 and NT versions, but they are both included in one package), Linux, BeOS, and Amiga.
Fusion PC runs in DOS and is OK, but hasn't been updated for years, but it can be a bit tricky to understand some parts of it.
SoftMac is developed by the same company as Fusion PC, Emulators Inc. (Fusion PC was purchased by emulators from Microcode Solutions a while back). SoftMac is commercial, but the free version is the same as the paid for version, but contains less stuff I think. SoftMac has a nice interface, and supports virtual SCSI disks. The Virtual Hard Disks used in BasiliskII show up as HDs, but are really just HUGE floppies. The SCSI disks in SoftMac are proper disks, and support things like partitioning.
Another option is Executor. This is also commercial, but has a free trial. It is developped by a company called ARDI. ARDI has had a few problems over this last couple of years, because the owner (I think) went into hospital. There hasn't been any news on there website for a while, so I'm not sure what state they're in.
Executor doesn't require you to have a copy of the MacOS, or a ROM, because it uses it's own system that will run MacOS software. It will only run System 6 and some System 7 software. It is availible for Windows and DOS.
The best site to visit for information on these and the PPC emulators is http://www.emaculation.com, some of the info there is a little outdated, but there are active forums.
Now onto the PPC emulators.
You need a PPC emulator to run MacOS 8.5 or above.
There is one called SoftMac professional that started a few years ago, but it's release date kept getting further and further away, and lat year, it was cancelled, so that no longer exsists, but there MAY be a new one coming soon.
The only decent PPC emulators are SheepShaver x86 and PearPC.
Sheepshaver was designed to run on PPC BeOS and was written by the person who wrote ShapeShifter, Basilisk and BasiliskII. It then got ported to windows (in 2003) by the same person who made the JIT version of BasiliskII. I can run upto MacOS 9. It is a bit unstable (especially the windows version), but it does work, and will run quite a few programmes.
PearPC got relesed either last year or 2003. It was the first (released) emulator that will run MacOSX. It will run MacOSX only (including Darwin and a couple of PPC linux versions). When it started it was extremely slow, but has spead up a bit. It is reasnobly stable (less stable than heepshaver for windows), but from what I've heard, it's really good. It will run MacOSX 10.1 upto 10.4. It doesn't require as ROM like sheepshaver does, because it doesn't actually emulate a Mac, but it does require the MacOS.
Here are the sites for these emulators:
SoftMac - http://www.emulators.com
Fusion PC - http://www.emulators.com
BasilsikII - http://www.students.uni-mainz.de/bauec002/B2Main.html
BasiliskII JIT and sheepshaver x86 - http://gwenole.beauchesne.online.fr/index.html
Executor - http://www.ardi.com
PearPC - http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/
PearPC support site - http://www.pearpc.net
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Here is the link to the original topic that I posted it in:
http://invisionfree.com/forums/classica ... topic=1716
Hope it is of use to someone.
Steve
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I have had quite a bit of experience with mac emulators.
The best one is BasiliskII. I think there was an update a few months ago. Apart from that, there hasn't been any updates for a few years. There are two versions to choose from. The noraml version and the Jit version. I think the Jit version is faster.
Because BasiliskII is a 68k emulator (uses the same 68k emulator as UAE), it will only run upto MacOS 8.1.
It has planty of settings, including floppy, CD, HD, Network, Memory. Everything you could need. And it's free and open source.
It also has a feature called My Computer. It displays an icon on the Mac Desktop that is similar to the my computer icon on the windows desktop. In the config programme, you can select which windows drives you want to show up in the Mac. These drives will show up as folders in the Mac's My Computer windows. You can also drag files into a folder located in your BII folder, and these files will automatically be displayed in the My Computer window.
BII is still in development, but is the best Mac emulator. It is fast, has planty of features, and is very reliable.
This is definately the best Mac Emulator. It runs on Windows (there are win98 and NT versions, but they are both included in one package), Linux, BeOS, and Amiga.
Fusion PC runs in DOS and is OK, but hasn't been updated for years, but it can be a bit tricky to understand some parts of it.
SoftMac is developed by the same company as Fusion PC, Emulators Inc. (Fusion PC was purchased by emulators from Microcode Solutions a while back). SoftMac is commercial, but the free version is the same as the paid for version, but contains less stuff I think. SoftMac has a nice interface, and supports virtual SCSI disks. The Virtual Hard Disks used in BasiliskII show up as HDs, but are really just HUGE floppies. The SCSI disks in SoftMac are proper disks, and support things like partitioning.
Another option is Executor. This is also commercial, but has a free trial. It is developped by a company called ARDI. ARDI has had a few problems over this last couple of years, because the owner (I think) went into hospital. There hasn't been any news on there website for a while, so I'm not sure what state they're in.
Executor doesn't require you to have a copy of the MacOS, or a ROM, because it uses it's own system that will run MacOS software. It will only run System 6 and some System 7 software. It is availible for Windows and DOS.
The best site to visit for information on these and the PPC emulators is http://www.emaculation.com, some of the info there is a little outdated, but there are active forums.
Now onto the PPC emulators.
You need a PPC emulator to run MacOS 8.5 or above.
There is one called SoftMac professional that started a few years ago, but it's release date kept getting further and further away, and lat year, it was cancelled, so that no longer exsists, but there MAY be a new one coming soon.
The only decent PPC emulators are SheepShaver x86 and PearPC.
Sheepshaver was designed to run on PPC BeOS and was written by the person who wrote ShapeShifter, Basilisk and BasiliskII. It then got ported to windows (in 2003) by the same person who made the JIT version of BasiliskII. I can run upto MacOS 9. It is a bit unstable (especially the windows version), but it does work, and will run quite a few programmes.
PearPC got relesed either last year or 2003. It was the first (released) emulator that will run MacOSX. It will run MacOSX only (including Darwin and a couple of PPC linux versions). When it started it was extremely slow, but has spead up a bit. It is reasnobly stable (less stable than heepshaver for windows), but from what I've heard, it's really good. It will run MacOSX 10.1 upto 10.4. It doesn't require as ROM like sheepshaver does, because it doesn't actually emulate a Mac, but it does require the MacOS.
Here are the sites for these emulators:
SoftMac - http://www.emulators.com
Fusion PC - http://www.emulators.com
BasilsikII - http://www.students.uni-mainz.de/bauec002/B2Main.html
BasiliskII JIT and sheepshaver x86 - http://gwenole.beauchesne.online.fr/index.html
Executor - http://www.ardi.com
PearPC - http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/
PearPC support site - http://www.pearpc.net
---------------
Here is the link to the original topic that I posted it in:
http://invisionfree.com/forums/classica ... topic=1716
Hope it is of use to someone.
Steve