vMac for DOS in DOSBOX

About Mini vMac and all other 68k emulators, including SoftMac, Executor, and MESS.

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fanman93
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vMac for DOS in DOSBOX

Post by fanman93 »

I've gotten the original vMac for DOS running in DOSBOX, and I have to say I'm impressed with how far along the project has come. The DOS version only allows for disks up to 800KB in size to be accessed, which is due to the accurate emulation used. Of course, the DOS version lacks some functionality, such as switching/adding disks (which could, in theory, be done in the windows version, I haven't tried it myself). I noticed right from the start that it uses a config file, which was new to me. Extremely simple to use, however. They had even introduced screen hacks in the 0.1.9.5 version! That genuinely impressed me.

In terms of apps, I got ClarisWorks 1 to run, though I only have about 30KB left on my disk image for the files. It runs at full speed, and I haven't noticed any lag anywhere in the emulator (except the startup, where it performs a memory check). I highly suggest trying out this ancient software! It's nostalgia all over again.
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Post by Ambassador »

I tried FusionPC in Dosbox once, it was pretty slow. Also, I was always a little cautious because of this warning in the readme:
* DO NOT attempt to use pre-made 'bootfiles' or 'filedisks' from
other Macintosh emultions (such as vMac or ShapeShifter). These
will not only not work, but can cause the loss of data on your PC
partitions. If you use these types of files, you assume all risks.
I still don't understand why this would happen...
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ClockWise
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Post by ClockWise »

fanman93,

Do share with us some screenshots, please!

You can always email me if that's faster that uploading somewhere: mgoodine@gmail.com
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24bit
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DOS

Post by 24bit »

Hi fanman,
I just set up a WIN98 system for some tests.
Could you provide a link for the old version please?
fanman93
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Alrighty

Post by fanman93 »

ClockWise: Sure thing! I'm compiling a bunch of screenshots right now (for the LisaEm emulator and this one), so it'll only be a little longer.

24bit: Here's the link on the original vMac site:

http://www.leb.net/vmac/download/DOS/vM ... OS-Bin.zip

Amazingly, it's still on that website to this day. I would love to get the OS/2 version up and running, but it requires FixPack 17, which I don't have and can't get, unfortunately.
fanman93
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Post by fanman93 »

Image

vMac booting up in DOSBOX


Image

Welcome to Macintosh; your screen size is hacked.

Image

System 6.0.5

Image

Opening up ClarisWorks

Image

Selection

Image

It works! At full speed, even!

Image

Slight problem when trying to exit; you can't re-insert disks!

Image

Showing that 4mb of memory was possible

Image

Now this was interesting; I had never seen this before. Mostly because I had never formatted a 1.44MB disk image in Mini vMac, they were always larger.

Image

You have to switch off your PC just like you would a Mac: flip the power switch. No returning to DOS here.
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ClockWise
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Post by ClockWise »

Not that I'm trying to exploit all of you, but if anyone wants to contribute setup notes (or anything) for the wiki regarding these old emulators your work would be very welcome!

Welcome and desired, really!

Edited to add: those screenshots will go into the wiki ASAP!
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Post by fanman93 »

I'm willing to write up some notes (especially since this wasn't a very hard setup), though it may take a couple days. I'm getting the Lisa screenshots ready tonight, and could start the notes later on. It might be Sunday before they're done, however.
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Post by ClockWise »

Much appreciated!
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Post by Ambassador »

I would like to post the instructions for Fusion PC in Dosbox, but I think they be bit convoluted because I took the "warning" in the readme seriously and jumped through hoops.

Does this warning have any validity whatsoever? If not, I can post far simpler instructions.
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24bit
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Warning

Post by 24bit »

I really don't know either, but I used different images without any harmful actions.
Of course that was on my old P3 system and I wouldn'd have cared if I crashed it.
Thanks!
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Post by ClockWise »

Ambassador,

I asked Jim Watters (he used the old emulators more than anyone) on Delphi about that and he pointed out that sometimes the emulator can cause corruption of the hard disk image. It isn't about damage of anything on the host-system end. So this can be overcome just by doing some backups before you start plugging in your important Basilisk II hfv into FUSION.

And unless I misunderstood him, he seemed to suggest that it was mostly a SOFTMAC concern, not really a problem with FUSION. Maybe the warning was inserted into Fusion when Emulators, Inc. bought it.
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Post by Stephen Coates »

I used vMac for DOS a few years ago.

Here are a few screenshots (from 2003):

http://stevecoates.net/emulation/macint ... AC0000.BMP
http://stevecoates.net/emulation/macint ... AC0007.BMP
http://stevecoates.net/emulation/macint ... AC0011.BMP
http://stevecoates.net/emulation/macint ... AC0014.BMP

I can't remember what programme was used to generate the Christmas card.

This was running on a Windows 98se system which had been rebooted into DOS.
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Post by Ambassador »

I asked Jim Watters (he used the old emulators more than anyone) on Delphi about that and he pointed out that sometimes the emulator can cause corruption of the hard disk image. It isn't about damage of anything on the host-system end. So this can be overcome just by doing some backups before you start plugging in your important Basilisk II hfv into FUSION.
Thanks for clearing that up! :)
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re: vMac

Post by McIntosh »

Now we've just to get vmac to run in windows!




NOTE TO ALL PPL: vMac does not have a solid refresh rate. Because of DOS using text most of the time, the refresh looks crappy. Also: It runs in the command prompt!(Alt+Enter to exit full screen)
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