Trying to put together a MacOS 8.1 SheepShaver environment

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:02 am

I've got SheepShaver running with the MacOS ROM that comes with the Apple ROM Update file, but that ROM is of too recent a vintage to boot an elderly OS like MacOS 8.1 (works fine with 8.6).

I'd specifically like to boot 8.1 on occasion because I have a couple of applications that broke under 8.5 and later. So I've been trying to snag an older ROM - I've been told I need an "old world" ROM to boot 8.1 in.

I've now unsuccessfully tried:

â€¢ ROM from WallStreet PowerBook
â€¢ ROM from 7100
â€¢ ROM from 7300
â€¢ ROM from beige G3

none of these appears to be SheepShaver-compatible.

I'm running SheepShaver under MacOS X, meaning I'm getting full advantage of my actual processor, so even if I could find 68K versions of the software I don't want to use Basilisk instead (it's considerably slower because it's emulating a 68040 chip instead of using the native PPC chip)

Anyone successfully booting 8.1 under SheepShaver? If so, what ROM are you using?

Post by **ClockWise** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:00 pm

Have you tried just using Basilisk II to run 8.1 instead?

iindigo · Post by **iindigo** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:34 pm

ClockWise wrote:Have you tried just using Basilisk II to run 8.1 instead?

True, that would work, but what if he/she wants to use some PPC apps in OS 8.1? For example, all the 68k browsers except iCab suck, but if he had PPC then he could run IE 5 for Mac or Netscape communicator 4.9.

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:37 pm

IE is not better than iCab, neither is netscape 4.x

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 10:53 pm

I guess you missed what I wrote about the speed hit and why I don't want to use Basilisk.

SheepShaver is nearly 10 times as fast as Basilisk in addition to being a PPC environment.

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 11:56 pm

it is a little hard for me to believe that a PPC emulator is working faster than a 68K one on a PC

Post by **ClockWise** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 12:42 am

I'm dumb... sorry. I must have skimmed that part.

ShadowFox · Post by **ShadowFox** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:09 am

PPC_Digger wrote:it is a little hard for me to believe that a PPC emulator is working faster than a 68K one on a PC

It's not running on a PC, it's running in OSX on a real mac.

SheepShaver uses the native PowerPC processor when run on a real mac. There is no CPU emulation at all, hence the much better speed.

I believe I've gotten OS 8.1 to boot in SheepShaver with an older Umax c500 ROM. If I'm remembering correctly (I haven't tried 8.1 in a while, been using 8.6 and 9.0.4), the Umax rom will allow me to boot 8.1 but not 8.6. The MOL rom I'm using now boots 8.6 but not 8.1. I also have a NewWorld B&W G3 ROM, but I've yet to get that to work properly, haven't had time to test.

I'll look into what I had booting 8.1 again, and let you know what I find out.

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 12:38 pm

ShadowFox wrote:
PPC_Digger wrote:it is a little hard for me to believe that a PPC emulator is working faster than a 68K one on a PC
It's not running on a PC, it's running in OSX on a real mac.

oh, i must have missed that part. (did you write it?)

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 1:54 pm

It's in the OP:

I'm running SheepShaver under MacOS X, meaning I'm getting full advantage of my actual processor...

dhazeghi · Post by **dhazeghi** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:47 pm

PowerMac 8500 (first gen.) worked for me with OS 8.1. Unfortunately, I'm trying to get OS 7.6 to work, and it does not work with that...

gb · Post by gb » Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:17 am

The Desktop G3 beige ROM works with MacOS 8.1. If

strings ROMFile | grep "Boot "

reports nothing of the following:
Boot TNT
Boot Alchemy
Boot Zanzibar
Boot Gazelle
NewWorld

then your ROM is likely to be badly dumped. Use ROMGrabber from MOL:
<http://www.maconlinux.org/download.html>

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 7:23 pm

I get coagulated peasoup, actually:

X5TNT Boot Beep w/Error Beep for Grackle/Heathrow Combockcx
CallComponentUPPNewAliasNewAliasMinimalNewAliasMinimalFromFullPathRes
olveAliasGetAliasInfoResolveAliasFileFollowFinderAliasMatchAliasUpdat
eAliasAECreateDescAECoercePtrAECoerceDescAEDisposeDescAEDuplicateDesc
AECreateListAECountItemsAEPutPtrAEPutDescAEGetNthPtrAEGetNthD...

(goes on for screens and screens like that, with no spaces; hard returns inserted to keep msg board post from running several feet off to the right)

I used GetROM. I'll try using ROMGrabber on the same machine and see how it works, thanks.

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 6:52 am

oh i remember the days before pearpc when i had to dump a rom from a 68k mac to use fusion pc or basilisk ii. no more (i have pearpc)

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:32 pm

PearPC looks like the coolest thing since ice cubes, but not of much use for me on my PowerBook

Can you imagine the speed I'd get running PearPC within VirtualPC under OS X on a six year old Macintosh "WallStreet"?

(Now if someone ports it to OS X and enables it to use the native PPC processor rather than redundantly emulating it, that would be a different story. Run a second session of OS X in a window? Yeah, I could go for that!)

But thumbs up to all you folks with PCs who are seeing "Welcome to Macintosh" on your PearPC screen.

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:36 pm

AHunter3 wrote:Can you imagine the speed I'd get running PearPC within VirtualPC under OS X on a six year old Macintosh "WallStreet"?

i had the same thought a few weeks ago.

BTW do you recommend me buying a mac?

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:38 pm

AHunter3 wrote:Can you imagine the speed I'd get running PearPC within VirtualPC under OS X on a six year old Macintosh "WallStreet"?

i had the same thought a few weeks ago.

BTW do you recommend me buying a mac a power mac g4 or a gaming pc?

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 10:43 pm

I'm pretty much a hard-core Mac zealot and I'm pretty much game-ignorant.

If you want games, unless you know the games you want are available in Mac versions and will perform to your satisfaction in the Mac version, and you don't need to use any Mac-only software, get a PC.

If you really need to run PC-only software such as AutoCAD or Access, and need to run it often, AND you don't need to use any Mac-only software, get a PC.

Otherwise, hell yeah, get a Mac, emulate the PC using VirtualPC. VPC is still a much more refined emulator than PearPC, and aside from the above-mentioned exceptions life is better doing Mac natively and emulating PC operating systems than vice versa.

If you want other opinions, you'll get more of them by posting a new thread with a relevant subject title.

NeXT · Post by **NeXT** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:31 am

AHunter3 wrote:PearPC looks like the coolest thing since ice cubes, but not of much use for me on my PowerBook

Can you imagine the speed I'd get running PearPC within VirtualPC under OS X on a six year old Macintosh "WallStreet"?

What version of Windows do you use on Virtual PC to run PearPC? I want to try it out on my PowerBook G4 (Titanium)

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:14 pm

I haven't done it. If I were to do it, I'd go with the most minimal flavor of Windows capable of running PearPC -- what are the requirements? Would PearPC run under NT?

It's described as glacially slow on anything but the most blisteringly fast PCs. Running that emulator within VirtualPC would be geologically slow as opposed to merely glacially slow. Instead of "start a process and go for lunch while it launches", it'd be more like "go take a vacation".

-------------------

In other news: I ran the Rom-grabber utility mentioned above on a beige G3 tower and copied the resulting ROM file back to my PowerBook but it won't boot -- any MacOS under SheepShaver at all, as opposed to working fine with 8.6 but not 8.1

It comes closer than previous attempts to use that machine's ROM, obtained by using GetROM. At least now it gets as far as drawing the initial black screen. But no further, hangs right there.

I ran Rom-grabber on the Beige G3 after booting with extensions off, then rebooted to enable AppleTalk and the ability to move the file over the network.

Any clue as to why this isn't working?

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:27 pm

AHunter3 wrote:It's described as glacially slow on anything but the most blisteringly fast PCs. Running that emulator within VirtualPC would be geologically slow as opposed to merely glacially slow. Instead of "start a process and go for lunch while it launches", it'd be more like "go take a vacation".

what do you mean? virtual pc translates x86 inctructions to ppc ones (so the instructions powerpc has will execute in powerpc speed and they are the only ones required for pearpc)

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:01 am

Uh, no.

PearPC emulates the behavior of the PowerPC CPU in order to run PPC instruction-set operating systems such as MacOS X, and its programs, on an x86-architecture computer.

Running PearPC under VirtualPC, which emulates the behavior of the Pentium Intel CPU so as to run PC operating systems and their programs on a Macintosh, doesn't change that fact. The copy of MacOS X (or Linux PPC or whatever) that you install within PearPC running under Windows NT in the VirtualPC environment does not execute natively on your real hardware Macintosh's G4 processor -- instead it executes on the emulated one that PearPC is providing for it, and that emulator is an x86 program that is running in the Windows NT environment and it is not executing natively on your real hardware Macintosh's G4 processor either -- it executes on the emulated Pentium that VirtualPC is providing for it.

VirtualPC is a Macintosh-native program. It, and it alone, is being directly handled by your genuine native G4 chip.

This would not be true of a hypothetical port of PearPC to the Macintosh platform -- like SheepShaver, such a port could indeed run natively on the Mac's genuine G4 chip and would be nearly as fast as the native OS X environment in which it is running. But if you had that you would not need VirtualPC at all. And you can't have that because unless I completely missed the news, there is no such port.

If you want to run PearPC you have to run it on the hardware (and software) environment that it runs on -- that would be an intel-compatible PC running Windows or Linux -- or else you need to emulate that environment. Running VirtualPC lets you run it on the Mac by emulating the intel-compatible PC. You could install either Windows or Linux in your emulated PC and then, within that environment, install PearPC.

Now do you see why it would be geologically slow? It would be an emulator within an emulator.

I've done an emulator within an emulator: I've run the Windows version of Basilisk II under NT in VirtualPC, and even gone online with it. But PearPC, unlike Basilisk II, brings even relatively formidable PCs to their knees. (Partially because it's still young yet, they'll get it faster; but also because it's a hell of a lot easier to push around the Motorola 680x0 instruction set and, within it, Macintosh System 7 or early OS 8, than to push around the PowerPC instruction set at the necessarily much faster rate to run a PPC operating system usably fast. MacOS X in particular is hard to push around in emulation -- it feels less than snappy on the slowest/oldest G3 machines, and they get to run it natively!).

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 2:39 pm

why don't you try it and see how it goes? (what can you lose except a few minutes)

AHunter3 · Post by **AHunter3** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 3:17 am

The size of my Windows virtual hard disk is not conducive to storing a 2 gig (or larger!) Mac .img file to be my "Macintosh HD" within PearPC.

Trust me on this.

PearPC would have no way of knowing that one layer out, beyond the world of the emulated PC, exists a real PowerPC chip that could execute all this Mac code very quickly. PearPC thinks it's running on a PC, not on a Mac emulating a PC.

Because nothing running within VirtualPC's environment has any comprehension that it's not running on a real Intel Pentium based PC.

And the surrounding OS, MacOS X, along with the real PowerPC processor that runs it, do not execute the code within the copy of MacOS X that gets installed wtihin PearPC. It doesn't even execute the code within the copy of Windows that gets installed within VirtualPC.

It just executes the code within VirtualPC itself, which is Mac-native PPC code that just happens to emulate a PC. And that emulator executes the Windows code and the code of the program PearPC, which is PC-native x86 instruction set code that happens to emulate a PPC. And that emulator in turn is what executes the code of the PowerPC-based OS that you install under PearPC.

Think about it.

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:29 pm

perhaps try it using shared folders.