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Turning SheepShaver into a Pippin Emu?

Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 1:32 pm
by Rezsnore
Hi there,

I've been told it's possible to turn an old mac into a Pippin... here are the ONLY (poorly written) details I have, about trying to get Super Marathon to run on a Mac...

"Doesn't work on Macintosh, even with the PippinPPCLib extension found in the SDK you just get an error message that says 'This game is only for the Pippin.'"

"u have to copy the system folder over with ext.
i made a powerpc 333mhz <os 7 10 meg partition>a pippin,EVERY game runs,k,l,i,n is jpad up down left righ in most games,would be grate if mac os 8/9 had a KEYBOARD to jstick mapper"

Basically what this means is... the first person got the PippinPPCLib extension off the Pippin SDK and put it in their system folder... that wasn't enough according the the second user, you have to copy over the entire system folder also on the SDK (or on the Pippin disk you currently have inserted... every Pippin disk has its own system folder that it boots from).

Now, that was on a REAL Mac. I've been trying to do it with SheepShaver but can't get it to work... either the Pippin software gives me "Sorry, this game is only for the Pippin" message or SheepShaver just sits at the little smiley Mac Classic screen.

Has anyone else tried this and got it to work? I suspect it may be a case of it not working because it's trying to make the emulator do something it wasn't designed to do, but on the other hand the Pippin was basically a Mac... but not quite, so hmm.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 2:56 pm
by 24bit
Hello, nice thought about Pippin.
Do you have a real Mac for testing the setup the second user reported?
If so, it should be possible to create a disk image of that partition and try it with the Shaver.
A System7.5.3 or 7.6 10MB image should work with the 4MB ROM and SheepShaver.
I guess a 32 bit host would be the least likely to crash immediately.

Do you have something promising to try already?

Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 4:02 am
by Rezsnore
Sadly I don't have a Mac to try it on... I only have an old Mac Classic and a modern Intel Mac, nothing from the old PPC era.

Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 4:37 pm
by 24bit
Do you have an image of a Pippin game CD?
Some of them were supposed to run with a e.g. PPC7100.
If such an image would proof unable to boot the Shaver, there is no hope, I´m afraid.

Some material, mostly Japanese, seems to be available for download here:
http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/inde ... in/Various

Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 11:47 pm
by Cat_7
I tried getting a pippin system to run, using the system folder from the SDK (inlcuding the real finder on there) from the garden and adding some stuff from 753 (system, finder) but failed, hanging on the happy mac.

Best,
Cat_7

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 2:41 am
by Rezsnore
It seems it isn't going to work... I tried booting from the SDK but it just sits at the Happy Mac. I think SheepShaver just can't handle trying to be something it's not.

Does anyone else here have a 0S 7-8 era PPC Mac to test this on to see if it works on the real thing? I can easily provide software to try (The SDK, Super Marathon). It isn't copy protected, you should be able to burn the image onto a real CD and boot from it. Or you can make a partition... up to you! I'd really like to see if this works.

EDIT: Oh, I just remembered I gave my grandparents an old PPC years ago... I'll see if they still have it and test it out on that if they do. Will post results.

If it does work, it probably would be possible to modify the source code of a Mac emu to run pippin software... but I don't think any can manage in their current states (which is fine obviously... it wasn't designed for this!)

But if anyone else wants to try it first (I don't know when or if I'll be able to), go ahead!

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 4:55 pm
by 24bit
Would you like to provide a download link for Super Marathon then?
The PPC you gave away might be promising to try.

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 5:11 pm
by Cat_7
I copied the SDK (it has a valid system folder) to a cd-rw and tried to boot my 4400 with it, but that failed. Whether that is because I used a rw disk, I don't know.(EDIT: forget that, the Plexwriter in that machine does boot a cd-rw with os 9 on it) The SDK was meant for use on a normal mac, I believe?

Cat_7

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 10:01 pm
by 24bit
I am inclined to believe that the Pippin SDK disk and its "System Folder do not use" were meant to boot Pippin.
The Extensions folder has a Pippin ROM update and Apple Jack.
The toolkits on the CD are made for authoring Pippin CDs with PPC6100 Macs or better, running 7.5.1 or above.
After some study, it should be possible to create a demo pippinized CD with a Mac game on it, if someone feels the need for it.
The "Small Pippin Utility" e.g. in the "Pippin Utility" folder can be executed with SheepShaver.

After all, I doubt that the Shaver community can benefit much from a few Pippin items.

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 11:37 pm
by Rezsnore
Here is a link to a Super Marathon ISO:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2PY2XSE3

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 11:07 am
by Rezsnore
And here's what Wikipedia says (but of course it's not reliable)

"In every way, the Pippin is a Macintosh. Most of the Pippin software will run on Classic Mac OS (few will work with Mac OS 9). A third party created a Pippin bootable CD with Netscape that had the Macintosh GUI (Enabler 1.1), but was stripped of many of the extensions and control panels found on regular Macs. At least one Japanese title (Ultraman) existed that could run on Pippin, Mac, and Windows."

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 2:35 pm
by 24bit
The Pippin box was discussed here some years ago:
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewto ... ght=pippin
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewto ... ght=pippin
So yksoft1 is the person to ask, maybe.

Supermarathon seems to be a bad pick unfortunately, as it is reported not to work with Macs:
http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/pippin-anybody

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 2:39 pm
by Cat_7
Indeed! We bakers do not eat our own bread -> search the forum ;-)

Cat_7

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 4:42 pm
by 24bit
Would you care asking yksoft1 about this topic and a download link for a game, Cat_7?
As he managed to play some, he might be willing to tell a link.

Edit: Thanks to Protocol7, "Tunin´Glue" for Pippin (and SheepShaver) is available right now:
http://macintoshgarden.org/games/tuninglue

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 5:29 pm
by Cat_7
Yes, I did pm him.

Cat_7

Tunin´Glue help pages, Japanese

Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 2:51 pm
by 24bit
Could someone who is at home with the Japanese language, translate this to English please?
https://picasaweb.google.com/1058706857 ... directlink#

Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 9:28 am
by Rezsnore
Gah, I tried to find other discussions but missed obvious ones! Sorry people.

So! It's confirmed some Pippin games can work on SheepShaver/Mac (thanks Protocol7 and 24bit)!

Do we think that post earlier about someone making a Pippin partition and running Super Marathon is false?

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:24 am
by yksoft1
Most pippin games expect PPC Japanese OS.. KanjiTalk 7.5.3/7.5.5 will work best. Some games use DRM-like things and/or need direct access to Pippin hardware, those games will not work on Sheepshaver at all.

Re: Turning SheepShaver into a Pippin Emu?

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:54 pm
by Dandu
I'm not sure it can help, but i have a dump from the ROM 1.3 from the Pippin : http://down.dandu.be/ROM13

Re: Turning SheepShaver into a Pippin Emu?

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:29 pm
by adespoton
MESS/UME also has the Pippin fairly well documented.

For most games, there's really no difference between the Pippin runtime environment and any other Kanji Mac OS 7.5.3 environment. As yksoft1 stated, those that expect hardware DRM won't work, as the hardware hasn't been emulated.

Also, there's a bunch of Dutch software that uses the Pippin runtime environment, but not in the Japanese Bandai Pippin console; they used the Apple Pippin environment to build demo kiosks which were sold into Europe and Canada. Getting your hands on the CDs for these, of course, is more difficult than the consumer-facing Japanese Pippin games.