E-Maculation

Hi,

Since I just got sheepshaver running, I was trying to run a mahjong style game called "Shanghai" and "Shanghai II". Both result in it immediately crashing as it starts to load. I am curious if anyone here has any ideas why they are crashing and if there is a workaround?

I have temporarily posted a link to the application files so that some testing can be done if anyone is willing to take a look at it.
http://collinatorstudios.com/www/shanghai.zip

Thank you.

-patrick

I'm at the office and can't try out the game right now, but I looked on Macintosh Garden and saw that these games are rather old. There are reports on that site that both of the games don't work at all on PPC Macs.

If SheepShaver doesn't work for you, you should try running the game in Basilisk II or Mini vMac.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.. Well, actually both of these games worked on a Powerbook G4 with 10.4 running 9.2.2 classic....

-p

That's true, but SheepShaver has quirks of its own when running old software (and the first Shanghai game is from 1986, according to Macintosh Garden!).

SheepShaver is not a perfect emulation... and it will fail more often than a real Macintosh. As I said before, your best bet for these games is to try Basilisk II or Mini vMac.

Hi,

Ok.. I downloaded mini vmac, gave it a rom.. and then I read that it needed an os of 7.5 or earlier... I found that apple has 7.5.3 online for download at http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Su ... ion_7.5.3/

I can't seem to open this .smi file in OS X.. It says it failed to mount for the reason of "not recognized"...

So I tried doing this in sheepshaver, but it gives me the error of: "Unable to execute 'system 7.5.3 01of19.smi" This file cannot be used on this file system. Copy to a macintosh HFS or Macintosh enhanced disk and try again (-8812)

Any ideas?

-patrick

I use Mini vMac in Windows, so I can't really help with the installation, but the official page says:

"System 7.0.1 is available from Apple’s older software page in '.smi.bin' format. '.bin' can be decoded by any Mac version of StuffIt Expander, and probably other programs as well. This results in an '.smi' file that can be opened in OS X, mounting a disk image that contains 6 disk images that can be used in Mini vMac. "

It's from the "getting started" documentation:

http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/doc/start.html

I'm having a similar problem with another game, Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep. When I open the game, it crashes SheepShaver immediately, even though I've allocated more than enough memory to the application. I'm running the latest build of SS (disk image from an OS 9.0.4 system CD) on an Intel MacBook under Leopard. (The game's from 1995, other games from that era have given me no trouble yet.) For issues like these, is installing an older OS the best option? I apologize if this is a redundant question, HUGE thanks to those who made SS possible for us nostalgic old bats

Also, sometimes it just opens up to a black screen and SS locks up...

patrick99e99 wrote:Hi,

Ok.. I downloaded mini vmac, gave it a rom.. and then I read that it needed an os of 7.5 or earlier... I found that apple has 7.5.3 online for download at http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Su ... ion_7.5.3/

I can't seem to open this .smi file in OS X.. It says it failed to mount for the reason of "not recognized"...

So I tried doing this in sheepshaver, but it gives me the error of: "Unable to execute 'system 7.5.3 01of19.smi" This file cannot be used on this file system. Copy to a macintosh HFS or Macintosh enhanced disk and try again (-8812)

Any ideas?

-patrick

Are you trying to open the .smi from the Unix (shared) folder? This will not work for some reason.

In SheepShaver, drag the .smi file from the Unix drive to a Macintosh drive, then try and launch it from there.

It won't work to drag it from the Unix drive to the desktop. In Mac OS 9 and earlier, every drive has its own Desktop, so dragging it to the desktop doesn't change what drive the file is on.

I think that trying an older OS might be a good first step, if you've got the time. Perhaps try running the game in Basilisk II with System 7.5.5.

xeper wrote:I'm having a similar problem with another game, Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep. When I open the game, it crashes SheepShaver immediately, even though I've allocated more than enough memory to the application. I'm running the latest build of SS (disk image from an OS 9.0.4 system CD) on an Intel MacBook under Leopard. (The game's from 1995, other games from that era have given me no trouble yet.) For issues like these, is installing an older OS the best option? I apologize if this is a redundant question, HUGE thanks to those who made SS possible for us nostalgic old bats

Thanks for the reply. What's interesting is that I get varied errors when opening the game. Sometimes it crashes, or the latest is "error type 10, please restart". It sometimes varies if I'm in 256 colors versus thousands of colors, oddly enough. There's always the possibility that it's a corrupt game file, I guess. Time to investigate!

ClockWise wrote:I think that trying an older OS might be a good first step, if you've got the time. Perhaps try running the game in Basilisk II with System 7.5.5.

xeper wrote:I'm having a similar problem with another game, Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep. When I open the game, it crashes SheepShaver immediately, even though I've allocated more than enough memory to the application. I'm running the latest build of SS (disk image from an OS 9.0.4 system CD) on an Intel MacBook under Leopard. (The game's from 1995, other games from that era have given me no trouble yet.) For issues like these, is installing an older OS the best option? I apologize if this is a redundant question, HUGE thanks to those who made SS possible for us nostalgic old bats

Did you get the game on Macintosh Garden? I can try it out myself when I get home from the office.

Yes I did get it from Mac Garden, if you get a chance to try it out, let me know! Thanks so much!

ClockWise wrote:Did you get the game on Macintosh Garden? I can try it out myself when I get home from the office.

Xeper,

I got the exact same problems using SheepShaver (black screens on start up mostly) when using both OS 8 and OS 9.

HOWEVER... it seems to work just fine in Basilisk II with Mac OS 7.5.5. You should give that a try!

Extraordinarily kind of you to test it as well, thanks! Gonna give that a try right now!

ClockWise wrote:Xeper,

I got the exact same problems using SheepShaver (black screens on start up mostly) when using both OS 8 and OS 9.

HOWEVER... it seems to work just fine in Basilisk II with Mac OS 7.5.5. You should give that a try!

ClockWise wrote:Xeper,

I got the exact same problems using SheepShaver (black screens on start up mostly) when using both OS 8 and OS 9.

HOWEVER... it seems to work just fine in Basilisk II with Mac OS 7.5.5. You should give that a try!

Problem solved, Basilisk did the trick for that particular game. Thanks so much for the tip!