ROM to ISO for 64 Windows

[Sines]

Trying to get this to work on my 64 bit windows. I think I've got everything in place, but while I have what I THINK is a valid ROM (From a 1991 Classic 2 Mac), it's a ROM, and not the ISO the guide says it should be. But I can't find anything to properly convert it. The first searches I pull up involve programs that claim that ROM is an invalid file type for conversion to ISO. So what should I use?

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

To set up BasiliskII, you will need a compatible ROM file and a a disk image or disk images that contain the Mac System installer. That disk image file could be an .iso image file, but not necessarily.

A ROM file is not an image file and cannot be converted to one. Compatible ROM files are Performa rom or Quadra 650 rom files that can be downloaded from the Redundant Robot site,

You may have confused a CD-ROM image file (could be an .iso file) and a ROM file. Despite having both ROM in the description, CD-ROM and ROM are completely different things.

See our setup manul for more information: https://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/basilisk_ii_setup

[Sines]

Right, I think in between the previous steps, and getting the ROM, I lost track of where I was on the setup procedure, and some careless reading of the guide got me confusing the ROM with the cd-rom. Anyway, with a bit more fiddling, I've got the Macintosh desktop to come up. I'll keep posting in this topic if I have further problems.

This is turning out to be a lot more difficult than installing ZSNES. I mean, I knew it would be, but the degree of extra difficulty has been surprising. I'm reminded of Richard Garriot lamenting how old games would get harder and harder to play while showing off his collection of old computers so that he could always play his oldest games. Ah well, I'll get this working eventually.

[emendelson]

If you want something easier, search the web for (using quotation marks):

"a similar system that runs system 7.6.1"

This will lead you a page where you can download a one-click BasiliskII setup for Windows. Forum rules rightly forbid a direct link to anything that contains an Apple OS.

If your antivirus warns you that there's something wrong with it, that's because some antivirus software flags everything written in the AutoIt scripting language. Feel free to upload the application to something like virustotal.com for detailed testing.

[Sines]

Alrighty! I've got the game booted. It's something my wife played when she was a kid, and was far too obscure to get any other way. You can see it at https://www.macintoshrepository.org/6091-math-ace-jr if you want to.

Only problem now is something that might just need general mac knowledge from the time. I have pretty much none (don't really have much Mac knowledge from any time really). Basically, the game is not fitting on the screen properly, and I can't do anything based on what I can see, nor with a few blind keystrikes. It appears to block me out of the rest of the OS, and I have to shut down the emulator through the windows task manager. I don't get that topbar (the Finder, I think it's called?) that might allow me to access settings. This strikes me as a typical problem, so I don't think it's related to the emulation, but I can't be sure. From the desktop, the Control Panel option for Screen says it can't be used, and I can't think of anything else I might do to adjust.

Not sure what else to do besides maybe fiddle with the GUI settings. Thoughts?

[Sines]

Okay, so my last response hasn't been approved for moderation yet, but I've surmounted that problem. I can now see the game full screen (I just adjusted screen size in the GUI menu), but it doesn't seem to respond to any action. I can click once to get past the intro sequence, and up to a section that tells me to type in my name. There appear to be a bunch of buttons I can press, but no matter what I do here, ALMOST nothing happens. I say almost, because I think the occasional key-press gets through to the game, because I once saw a 'D' on the line where I think the name is supposed to go.

The game doesn't appear to be frozen, I think, because msuic is playing, and after several seconds of me not doing anything, it helpfully reminds me to type in my name a second time, and then doesn't after that. So it's not a simple music loop.

I also can't get out of the game in any way. While the desktop is still visible, I can't click on anything there.

This unfortunately does sound more like a game problem, but perhaps there's an emulation issue to it, or perhaps someone with more Mac knowledge than me knows how to solve something like this. About all I've been able to figure out is that Alt functions as the four-leaf clover Mac command key.

[Sines]

Okay, sorry for the triple post, I'd add this as an edit if I could, but my last comments are still not past moderation. After typing the last message, the game seemed to react to.... something I did. I tried hitting Alt+Everything, and it seemed to, very slowly and without any clear indication of why, accept my name as 'S'. Once I got past the initial difficulty of getting the name in, it seems to run just fine.

I have no idea if I'm going to encounter this problem every time I try to boot it up, so I'm just leaving it on for now. Maybe this knowledge that everything else runs fine will help pinpoint what the problem with name entry is.

All I can say for sure is that I don't have any difficulty typing in the rest of the emulator. I was able to type just fine in the games readme. If anyone knows what the heck happened to make this run more smoothly in the future, I'd appreciate that. I'd even be happy with just knowing what to do to make it work eventually every time.

I won't be posting any more before all these messages get by. My wife isn't home, so I'm just going to leave this running in the background for her so she can try it right away, without me having to divine what I had to do to get this far.

Thanks for all the help getting this working, both from the forum, and to the makers of Basilisk! If I can't get this running any smoother, I'll still have achieved my goal. As annoying as it was, it's been a while since I had to troubleshoot something like this, and I realized how much I missed it. I think I might have had more fun solving this puzzle than my wife will with the game ^_^

EDIT: Once I tried booting the game again, it let me select an existing save without hanging up. So I'm fairly sure this is a glitch with the game itself at this point. As long as I don't need to make another save file, I'm 100% set.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

The game runs fine here in BasiliskII with System 7.5.5 installed.

1. Which System version did you install in BasiliskII?

2. Did you enable sound in the Sound control panel?

3. Depending on the installed System version, you probably should have done a custom installation of the game, without QuickTime and Sound Manager because you probably already had later versions of those extensions installed.

4. When typing your name in the game, the letters appear after a pauze of a few seconds, so type slowly.

5. For entering your name and confirming the chosen level you use the Return key. Otherwise you play the game only with mouse clicks on the various objects.

6. Finding a way out, finding how to stop the game is indeed a challenge. You have to go to into the submarine and when in the elevator there is a "Quit" box in the corner.

[Sines]

Thanks for your thoroughness! My wife has been pretty stressed out lately, so bringing back some silly childhood nostalgia has been good for her. And besides the nostalgia, we both love old crap from the 90s in general. This started when I saw Putt-Putt Saves The Zoo on sale on Steam (I have no idea how I came across it), and I just had to relive it. She made fun of me and then immediately set out to find her game.

I did find a part of the actual game that crashed, though it's simply one mini-game among many, so it's not a huge problem. I'll give these a try to see if I can't get it running better. Hopefully I can get it totally smooth. Having done it all once, repeating the procedure with a few other options won't be so hard. We'll see.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

If you did a full install of the game, better start all over with setting up BasiliskII and installing the System. Doing a full install of the game (instead of a custom install) may have downgraded some of the system files.

[adespoton]

Just so you know, all the Living Books titles (including Putt Putt) are now available for ScummVM, where you can play them natively on your OS of choice (Linux/Win/Mac) -- no need to emulate an entire OS to get to them anymore. That's probably how Steam was able to load them in; it's probably just loading Putt-Putt in a ScummVM wrapper.