Trouble mounting a dual format ISO

[almeath]

I have tried to mount an ISO of the 1995 CD "Treasure Island Interactive" by Hollywood Interactive Digital Entertainment. It is supposedly a dual format "Windows 3.1 and Macintosh" CD. In System 7.5.5 in SheepShaver it is giving me the error that the disc is unreadable and needs to be initialized.

I then tried loading it in DOSBox and get an error that drive D does not exist, meaning it cannot interpret the format of the ISO. Also, I tried loading it within a Windows 3.11 environment within DOSBox, and it is likewise not recognized, either directly from the virtual drive, or through CD image mounting software.

Do I have any viable options to get a dual format ISO of this nature to work in SheepShaver? I accessed copies from both Macintosh Garden and the Internet Archive, so it is not down to a corrupt rip.

[MiaM]

Going off on a side track, on the Amiga there are CD file systems that can read dual format CD's. IIRC there are at least two, where one can be forced to mount the HFS part if you hold a key / mouse button or whatnot while inserting the disc, while the other will read both file systems but will always mount the ISO 9660 of a dual format CD.

It would be a long winded detour, but if it's a dual format CD then you should be able to read the HFS part using the Amiga emulator UAE and one of all the CD file systems available on Aminet (the main archive for freeware/shareware software for the Amiga).

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

I downloaded the ISO from macintoshgarden.org and tried to mount it as CD ROM in both SheepShaver and BasiliskII, using the new feature "Dynamically mount and unmount additional volumes" (see setup manuals). In both emulators the file mounted as "Audio-CD 1". That means that the file is not recognised by the emulator as a disk image file.

[emendelson]

I downloaded from archive.org, and had the same results that you mention ("Audio CD") when I dragged the ISO image into the desktops of my System761 and MacOS9 apps. However, when I added the CD to the prefs of my System761 app (from the option menu that appears when you hold down the Option key on startup), it mounted as "TREASURE" and let me start the game. However, it displayed only a black square inside the picture frame. I wonder if some QuickTime setting could fix this?

EDIT: I installed QuickTime 4.0.3 (Full Install) and the game ran perfectly. I'll update my System 761 app this week to include this version of QuickTime.

[adespoton]

This sounds like there's a disconnect between how boot-loading an image and dynamic mounting works.

Has anyone tried running the iso in QEMU or MAME yet to compare? Seems like we could test across different emulators using infinitemac.org, since it can load images directly from archive.org.

[almeath]

I've just tested it in MAME (System 7.1, Quadra 800) and it does work properly with the mount command "-cdrom", mounting as TREASURE on the desktop. So this is an issue specific to SheepShaver and Basilisk II.

[adespoton]

I've just tested it in MAME (System 7.1, Quadra 800) and it does work properly with the mount command "-cdrom", mounting as TREASURE on the desktop. So this is an issue specific to SheepShaver and Basilisk II.

Even more specifically, it appears to be specific to the new dynamic mounting feature -- as others have indicated, if you add the image as a CD to the prefs before boot, it loads correctly too.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

When I add the .iso from macintoshgarden.org as CD-ROM in SheepShaver Settings, it mounts again as "Audio-CD 1", just like when I try to mount it using the dynamic mounting feature in SheepShaver and BasiliskII . But when I add the .iso simply as disk, it appears as disk "TREASURE" on the desktop in SheepShaver and BasiliskII.

The dynamic mounting feature will mount disk images always as CD-ROM in both SheepShaver and BasiliskII. So the issue seems to be with mounting as CD-ROM for this type of disk images.

[MiaM]

Is that disk known to work with the version of Mac OS and/or CD file system driver you are using?

I would think that it's up to Mac OS within the emulation to detect what type of file system the CD has, and mount it accordingly.

By adding the ISO as a hard disk image in the prefs this logic is bypassed. Not sure how Mac OS handles a CD when it is inserted during boot, I.E. when the CD is visible before the CD file system driver has been loaded.

(I admit that I don't know if the CD file system is an add-on or part of the system file in various versions of Mac OS)

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

I do not know how it is supposed to look on a real old Mac, but in both SheepShaver MacOS 9.0.4 and BasiliskII System 7.5.5 I can open the disk. It looks a bit messy with mostly Windows files. But there is a Mac icon "TREASURE". Double clicking that icon will start the game, at least I can the various intros. In System 7.5.5 it seems to work fine, in MacOS 9.0.4 there are graphical glitches that makes in unusable.

[almeath]

I should clarify that I was trying to get it work in the Windows version of SheepShaver. Whether I add it as a 'disk' or 'cdrom', either way it is still failing to show up as a readable disc image. This happens in System 7.5.5.

I managed to get the game to run under a Windows 3.11 installation in 86Box. On the PC side it appears to not be compatible with Windows 95 or 98. It could be a similar problem to the 'black screen' issue described above, but as I have it running in Windows 3.11 I am not inclined to experiment with different versions of QuickTime in Windows 9x. The most likely explanation is that QuickTime 2.0 on PC is only fully compatible with Windows 3.11.

[MiaM]

Sorry for going off on a complete tangent, but for Windows 3.x software I recommend giving otvdm a try. It's an open source API translator that allows Win16 (and DOS) applications to run sort of natively on a modern Windows computer. Since the API:s are really similar, afaik there isn't really any emulation going on, just translation. The only two downsides is that it's not possible to integrate running those exe files directly as-is, but you have to add them as parameters to the otvdm translator executable, and also modern Windows can't read the icon from the exe file and thus you need to run software that digs that out from a Windows 3.x executable and convert it to a format modern Windows can read, if you want your shortcut icons to be the ones provided in the executable.

I haven't tried any "advanced" software but things like the Mahjong game "Taipei", Tetris from Windows Entertainment Pack and the small utilities like the calculator in Windows 3.11 works perfectly. Also incredibly starting both otvdm and the Windows 3.11 calculator is faster than starting the bloated native calculator in Windows 10

[emendelson]

The game seems to play perfectly in my prebuilt MacOS9 for Windows app. I simply drop the ISO (from archive.org) on to the MacOS9.exe launcher and follow the prompts. Here it is:

https://mendelson.org/macos9win.html

In my BasiliskII setup for Windows, however, the disk is read as an audio disk only. Probably I need to figure out what the right extensions should be in BII, because the game runs in my BII for macOS setup.

[almeath]

The game seems to play perfectly in my prebuilt MacOS9 for Windows app. I simply drop the ISO (from archive.org) on to the MacOS9.exe launcher and follow the prompts. Here it

Which is all the more puzzling, given the title was released in 1995 and was supposedly designed for System 7.5 or earlier with QuickTime 2 compatibility. System 7.6 was not released until 1997 and QuickTime 4 in 1999, so under emulation it is working better with software that did not exist when it was released.

Also, I am not clear on why adding the ISO to my preferences fails in the Windows version of SheepShaver, where comments above are saying it should work. I am not sure how/if the Windows version supports dynamic mounting?

[almeath]

Sorry for going off on a complete tangent, but for Windows 3.x software I recommend giving otvdm a try. It's an open source API translator that allows Win16 (and DOS) applications to run sort of natively on a modern Windows computer.

Thanks, I will check that out. Generally, I am happy to run DOS and Windows 3.x programs under DOSBox, or in rare cases 86Box, when all else fails. A wrapper-like setup could be useful in some instances, as long as the programs are not speed sensitive on modern processors.

[emendelson]

In the category of puzzling details. Under macOS, I can make the game run in BII but not in SS. Under Windows, I can make the game run in SS, but not BII.

When I copy my BII disk image from macOS to Windows and try to run the game there, it still won't run under Windows, though it runs in the same disk image on macOS.

When I copy my SS disk image from Windows to macOS and try to run the game there, it still won't run under macOS, though it runs in the same disk image on Windows.

I'll leave this as an unsolved mystery for now, but I would be curious to know of anyone has any insights.

[MiaM]

Maybe send the images to the devs of SS and BII? Seems like good test cases for triggering some bug?

[adespoton]

Maybe send the images to the devs of SS and BII? Seems like good test cases for triggering some bug?

Kanjitalk755 is the current source maintainer, and he does minor bugfixes and feature changes as time allows, but the actual developers for BII/SS ceased committing code to the project a long time ago . But Kanjitalk755 will happily take PRs if someone thinks they've got a fix for something. I don't think Christian Bauer has been directly involved in the source code in over a decade, although he does still host the official website and accepts PRs to the original cebix branch from time to time.

[MiaM]

Oh, interesting. Then maybe just put the images somewhere online for anyone to have a look at, if they don't contain any personal information and whatnot?

[emendelson]

Anyone can download those systems (with the disk images) from https://mendelson.org/macos9osx.html and https://mendelson.org/macos9win.html. If you are interested enough to look into this, please go ahead and let us know what you find.