July 1, 2012 SheepShaver MacOSX UB build for testing

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

New (July 1, 2012) SheepShaver MacOSX build for testing

In the past 6 months again improvements were made by several contributors. Here is the result in a new build for testing. To make sure that SheepShaver will continue to work on future OSX versions, efforts are gradually moving towards Intel 64-bit.

This build should work on any MacOSX version on PPC or Intel, from 10.4 (Tiger) to 10.7 (Lion) and possibly 10.8 (Mountain Lion). It has not yet been extensively tested on all possible configurations. Observations are welcome.

Download: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ronaldpr/sheepsha ... 1_test.zip


Some of the improvements:

- Gamma fix that allows running Ferazel's Wand and some other games.

- When SheepShaver is not using CD-ROMs (CD-ROM driver disabled in preferences), SheepShaver will no longer prevent ejecting CD-ROMs in the OSX host.

- Accidental mounting of disk images at the same time in SheepShaver and OSX is prevented.

- Copy and paste text both ways between guest MacOS and host OSX is now also possible in 64-bit mode. This solves the main obstacle for using SheepShaver in 64-bit mode. More: In 64-bit mode you can copy and paste formatted text both ways. This is tested with SimpleText and Tex-Edit Plus in MacOS and with TextEdit in OSX. It may work with more applications.


Some remaining issues:

- Copy and paste images from OSX to MacOS does mostly not work in 64-bit mode. (It works in 64-bit mode from MacOS to OSX and it works both ways in 32-bit mode.)

- On Intel: Disturbing partial color shifts after clicking anywhere in SheepShaver window after the window has been minimized or hidden and brought back in view. (The discoloration can be solved by changing and changing back the color depth in Monitors control panel or from the color depth control strip tile.)

- Only when running SheepShaver in full-screen mode in 64-bit mode in Snow Leopard: Serious cursor problems that necessitate a force-quit of SheepShaver.

[emendelson]

It seems to work very well under 10.7.4. But I can't get styled text to get copied in either direction. It gets copied only as plain text.

One question: The plist.info file lists the architecture priorities as: Intel 32-bit, then Intel 64-bit, then PowerPC. Is that right, or should it start with Intel 64-bit?

I've been following the discussion on the BII mailing list. Thank you for all the work you've put into this!

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

It seems to work very well under 10.7.4. But I can't get styled text to get copied in either direction. It gets copied only as plain text.

Styled text only works in 64-bit mode. Did you run SheepShaver in 64-bit mode? If so, which applications did you use to copy from and paste to?

One question: The plist.info file lists the architecture priorities as: Intel 32-bit, then Intel 64-bit, then PowerPC. Is that right, or should it start with Intel 64-bit?

Just like in my previous (February) build. It is done on purpose. For the time being the preferred mode on Intel is 32-bit. When SheepShaver is installed for the first time, it will run by default in 32-bit mode.

[emendelson]

Styled text only works in 64-bit mode. Did you run SheepShaver in 64-bit mode? If so, which applications did you use to copy from and paste to?

My apologies - I must have been running in 32-bit mode without realizing it. I've now made careful to set it to 64-bit mode, and I can exchange styled text between (on the OS X side) TextEdit (running in RTF mode) or Microsoft Word and (on the MacOS side) SimpleText or WordPerfect 3.5e.

Well done!

(P.S. I think the problem you noted when the color shifts is a problem caused by SDL, not by the SheepShaver code itself. I see the same problem when I run DOSBox under OS X.)

[24bit]

Perfect, Ronald!
(Not wanting to reduce the credits going to the contributors of course.)
A real big improvement and quite snappy on my low end Hackintosh too.
Thank you so much for sharing your work.

The weird colours feature seems to be still there, but not all the time when sending SS to the dock.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Perfect, Ronald!

Thanks, but note that the actual improvements were made by others. I just commented on issues, did some testing and compiled the application from the current state in the repository.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

(P.S. I think the problem you noted when the color shifts is a problem caused by SDL, not by the SheepShaver code itself. I see the same problem when I run DOSBox under OS X.)

Yes, that is also my guess. But it is still worth mentioning. You never know who is interested in digging into SDL. The problem did exist with SDL 1.2.14 and now still with SDL 1.2.15. It did not exist with SDL 1.2.10 that I used before (up to my November 11, 2011 build) for ppc and i386 architectures.

[PeterHolbrook]

Thank you for the new build. It seems to work as advertised. The improvement is appreciated.