Run MacOS 9 on an Intel Mac
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Who said you can’t use MacOS9 because you have an Intel Mac? It is completely possible with a little bit of tinkering, and a really cool universal application called Sheep Shaver, which came to us via tip from Kazaki. Sheep Shaver is a full speed ‘Classic’ emulator for Windows, Linux, and Intel based Macs, that runs older MacOS’s at shockingly full speed!
For the purposes of this tutorial, we will only illustrate how to run the classic environment on Intel Macs, but you can do this procedure on other OS’es as well. So lets teach your fancy Mactel a new, old trick.
- Download a copy of the universal binary Sheep Shaver and unzip it to a folder on your Mac.
- For the application to emulate the MacOS, you need a ROM for this program to act like a Mac. Thankfully Apple has helped us with this task. On their website they kinda make one available to download. The catch is that you need MacOS 9 to access the ROM, however with a little searching I found a ROM available to download, and fully compatible with Sheep Shaver here. (However if you want to extract your own ROM from the one on Apples server, you need to use TomeViewer)
- After you download the ROM, copy the file into the Sheep Shaver folder
- Open the Sheep Shaver GUI Application
- Click on the Memory/Misc tab, and click browse next to the ROM file field, and locate the MacOS ROM file that you stored in the Sheep Haver folder
- Also bump the MacOS RAM Size to at least 128MB
- The next step is to create a MacOS 9 volume to store your files. Click on the Volumes tab, and click Create.
- Save the new virtual volume to your Sheep Shaver folder, and I would suggest you make the image size at least 200 MB
- Once that is finished put your MacOS 8 or MacOS 9 CD in your Intel Mac and press the Start button. (If you don’t have an old MacOS disc floating around, Apple has an archive of full vintage operating systems available to download)
- Sheep Shaver will now launch the Universal version of Sheep Shaver and you can begin to install your OS
- You only need to run Sheep Shaver GUI once to setup your virtual machine, after that setup you can just simply launch Sheep Shaver
I noticed the speed on this emulator is REALLY fast, and creates a viable operating environment for any of your really old classic applications, also the emulator has access to your MacOS X drive so the exchange of files are really easy. However, sometimes Sheep Shaver required a forced quit to turn off, milage may vary.
Enjoy, and drop a comment to let us know if you have any questions.
The ROM downloads linked in this hint are all provided by Apple, and not hosted on this blog. Update: We ammended the title of the article.
Okay everybody! I’ve got sound. It was a stupid little tweak that gave the sound. In the ‘Sound’ area of the Control Panels, select Output and then highlight Built-in. I had scanned through this all before, but I just didn’t click ‘Built-in’ because I thought that since it was the only option on that list it would be set as the default. But no, you need to highlight it. Hopefully this will work with Graham’s System 9 CD (iMac bundled). I ended up using a retail version of System 9.0.4 instead of using his bundled software.
Many thanks again to Graham for all of his hard work.
Folks,
I would strongly encourage anyone interested in using SheepShaver not to waste their valuable time with this application. Life is too short to mess about with this pile of junk.
I’ve tried using Sheepshaver this morning to run applications like Appleworks, Photoshop and Quark Xpress and, on each occasion, the application has suddenly crashed, sometimes when you’re loading data, sometimes when you’re just watching the pretty lights. Doesn’t matter which disc the data is stored on, crash. There is goes, back to the OSX desktop.
Help is minimal. Support is minimal.
My advice – if you want a Classic Mac, just buy one for pennies off eBay.
I’ll be cranking up my old OS9 machine this afternoon.
SS is by no means stable or user-friendly now and shouldn’t be used in a productive environment. The main flaws of SS is lying on memory management and sound, and there are a number of critical bugs.
Post from a Sheepshaver for Windows and PPC Mac OS X user.
FYI – If you get Mac OS 9 working, you still need to transfer Mac OS 9 applications over to the SS/Mac OS 9 environment. The problem is that Mac OS X sees Mac OS 9 applications as documents and thus SS sees them as documents too when it gives Mac OS 9 access to them.
There are two ways to get around this.
1) Burn a CD with Mac OS 9 applications on it. When SS reads CD into the Mac OS 9 environment, the applications are seen as applications and every thing works fine. Click and drag to your Mac OS 9 desktop or to virtual hard drive. (Warning: SS seems to hang or crash if a lot of external interfacing is done.)
2) Use ResEdit to modify file types. (Note: You have to use method #1 to get the ResEdit application into the SS/Mac OS 9 environment first.) Google for ResEdit to find a copy to download.
a) Launch ResEdit, and under the File menu, select Get File/Folder Info…
b) Open the file that you want to change into an application.
c) In the box labeled Type: just underneath the filename on the left, enter the four letter code APPL in all caps. (The few applications I have fixed for Mac OS 9 have all had Type: LPPA, which is APPL backwards. Must be Mac OS X’s way of rendering them totally impotent.)
d) Close the window which saves the data.
e) The file should be a launchable application now. (That is, if it originally was an application under Mac OS 9.)
It’s a shame those bozos at the now dormant ResExcellence website removed years of great resources and experience for Mac OS 9 and earlier.
As others have said, SS is a way to save old Mac OS 9 application data. Update, convert, or transfer to Mac OS X as soon as you can. In another 5 years, SS won’t be able to help and then Mac OS 9 data will be as ancient as Apple II disks. I have tons of old MacWrite Pro files (a great word processor in its day) that I plan on converting.
[Thank you Graham Hay for your SheepSaver package.]
I have had great fun with a stable emulator running system 7 (on osx) which was pieced together from the various links here: http://www.nothickmanuals.info/doku.php/minivmac?DokuWiki=38b0dcc5b21ee84d7fe84409c8092175
You’ll find everything you need. I could tweak and run any os version but the old b/w macs are great fun if you’ve not seen one running on osx it’s a great trick.
As for serious file conversions and older apps then I agree, buy an old Mac on ebay to do the job you need, or crank your laptop for Classic mode whilst running osx Panther or Tiger which frankly is pretty easy and stable. Intel is great but so is every Mac system ever made and it’s good to remind yourself sometimes of the great applications that we have lost and then find them again!
Hi, can anybody tell me how to get this Mac OS ROM file? Where can I find and download it? The link given in the article for downloading ROM is not valid! I don’t have access to Mac with OS 9 so I can’t extract ROM from Apple update file using TomeViewer. Please help!!
Well, I figured out a good way to transfer files, and make effective use of USB thumb drives and such, even though it seems Sheep Shaver can’t see USB drives directly.
Mount the USB drive on an old mac running pre- Os X. Use Disk Copy (in Utilities folder) to create a disk image the size you need, and save the file to the USB drive.
Mount the disk image
Copy to it the files/applications you need
Unmount the disk image
Unmount the USB device
Put the USB device into the computer running SheepShaver
Open SheepShaver GUI
Click on the Volumes Tab
Click Add
Navigate to the USB device (you may have to click on the Volumes folder on your main hard drive to see the mounted volumes)
Select the disk image stored on the USB device and click OK
Then launch SheepShaver, the drive should then mount on your Classic OS environment within SheepShaver like any other drive. You can then use this single drive to go back and forth between Classic os computers and SheepShaver, without loosing file type/creator or resource forks, using a USB mass storage device, via the image file on that device.
These steps may need some refinement, but I did get it to work, and it works quite nicely now.
for WOJTEKFF:
As for the ROM file, general searching on this page for ROM and on the web may also help find what you need. I forget where I got mine, but that’s how I found what I needed. I think I did end up using Tomeviewer on an older Mac.
If you want to share your e-mail address, I can try e-mailing you my ROM file.
Bill
http://members.aol.com/Bill222E
PS to the above,
You can probably create the image file within SheepShaver, saving it to the Unix drive, then copying the image to your usb disk, but I haven’t tried this.
I have SS installed on my iMac AL/20. It boots off the 8.5 Software Restore CD, but I cannot install the OS onto my ‘drive’ created in SS. The Drive I name iMacG6 (yes, for grins) and it shows up on boot into OS9 as “untitled.” I cannot get anything onto Untitled.
I’m d/l the SSPackage.zip now to see if that helps.
I’ve also noticed the screen paints rather slowly in SS. How sad.
I’m trying to decommission an iMac G3/233 but we have some games and PageMaker files we need to salvage first.
Where can I get a copy of the Mac OS ROM file?
I tried your link to the freely downloadable version but its a broken link.
The one provided by Apple is in .smi.bin format which can’t be extracted under Unix (I run OpenBSD).
Can someone please mail me a ROM?
Thanks.
Can somebody send me a ROM, please!Thanks.
Hello Everyone,
Posts should be short, I’ll try to be.
Amazing how active this page is, running a year and a half, and with many good comments and links. It was very helpful to me (so I’ll return the favor).
Many thanks to Gwenole Beauchesne and those who helped her develop and
refine SheepShaver. It is unreasonable for there to be any flames in this thread, the software is free, and yes, you will need some hacking skills to get it running (as if commercial software is problem free, or even freeware like the Linux distros).
I have some comments to help those having trouble.
1) The ROM in Mac_OS_ROM_Update_1.0.smi.bin from Apple does work, and is binary identical to ROMs found in the System folders of OS 8.6, variously known as newworld86.rom or MacOSROM86.rom iMac.1 PowerMac1.1 PowerBook1.1 MacROM for NewWorld.
2) Anyone wanting help needs to read this thread top to bottom (I did it over two days). This will remove redundant cries for help about files not found, etc.
3) I have considerable skills hacking, and it still took me nearly a week to get OS9 to boot on SS (took that long to get Basilisk II running, a day for miniVmac; I’m very meticulous).
4) For reference I’m a Windows person, but with the poor showing of VISTA, started using Debian, and now working with Mac emulators.
My “play” computer:
Pentium II 400MHz, 192MB RAM, Windows 2000 SP4
3 EIDE HDs, 1 SCSI HD, CRT monitor 24-bit color, 1024×768
On various partitions and HDs I have Win98, W2K, W2K, Debian; plus Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 running WinXP and various DOS, Win; VMware running Debian and other OSes.
5) So on one of my two Windows 2000 OS I have vMac, Basilisk II and now SheepShaver. I couldn’t get SS to boot with the newworld86.rom and a mounted ISO of OS 8, 8.5, 8.6, 9.2, nor with the 9.2 ROM (although now I know it won’t run anything over 9.04 – but who’s to know, but the 9.2 rom is RISC based). I was using SheepShaver 2.3-Pre (14.May.2006) from Gwenole’s site. The “pre” finally gave me pause, and I d/l’ed SheepShaver 2.2 (21.Mar.2005) and used the GUI from 2.3
This worked: OS9.img / newworld86.rom / MacOS RAM 64MB
Making new volumes is simple, tell SS to make one on your host hard drive, add it to the Volumes list and let SS format it. “My Computer” is an easy way to move programs about (host=W2K to guest=SS). You can mount HFS volumes in SS from Basilisk by adding them to the Volumes list in SS.
6) Later, I read in this thread that Al Cellier Jan 30th, 2008 used the August 2007 version of Sheepshaver and noted it was strange, only 736 kB. In fact, for the windows version, the executables are: SS2.3 – 630KB, SS2.2 1.32MB (seems Gwenole is tightening the code and compiling better).
7) That is an important lesson – newer isn’t alway better, and even number versions are more stable (at least in Linux).
So I’m having the same problem as the person above me. My mac is a “previous” model, meaning it’s from November 07, so it’s pretty new. I tried installing sheepsaver but then when I launch it (followed the directions and then hit “start,” it said that the RAM wasn’t right or something. :( I really really really want to play Power Pete/Mighty Mike, and other games too! Can somebody help me please? I saw the above post but I don’t know how to do all the things it’s talking about; I’m not computer-illiterate but I’m no tech either…..
I have uploaded another package that contains just the iMac Restore CD (without all the instructions and explanatory screenshots), but this time it is a Roxio Toast document. In other words it was created with Roxio Toast, not Mac OSX Disk Utility.
However, it can still be accessed by Disk Utility by changing the file suffix from .toast to .dmg.
I do not know if this will help Leopard users because I do not have Leopard to test it. I hope it can help you lot. You can download it from the following address (just click on it to start the download or, if the link does not work, copy & paste the address into your browser address field and hit ‘Enter’).
http://grazer/webstore/various/iMacRestoreCD-Toast.zip
Whoops. Disregard the previous post. The URL is incorrect.
I have uploaded another package that contains just the iMac Restore CD (without all the instructions and explanatory screenshots), but this time it is a Roxio Toast document. In other words it was created with Roxio Toast, not Mac OSX Disk Utility.
However, it can still be accessed by Disk Utility by changing the file suffix from .toast to .dmg.
I do not know if this will help Leopard users because I do not have Leopard to test it. I hope it can help you lot. You can download it from the following address (just click on it to start the download or, if the link does not work, copy & paste the address into your browser address field and hit ‘Enter’).
http://grazer.free.fr/webstore/various/iMacRestoreCD-Toast.zip
is it possible to run mac os 9 on asus eee pc?
It could be great.
I have used Macs for years but finding the instructions confusing. A few months ago purchased the Intel MacPro 3.2 GHz with 4 HDD’s & now Panther OSX 10.5.3. I have the OS 9 install disk, & the Mac OS ROM Update 1.0.smi file. I made a Toast disk copy of the OS 9 install disk. Even with both images mounted I can’t seem to get anything installed / to work. Is there any simple A-Z instructions about how to get this installed & working? Ideally I’d like to get SheepShaver with OS9 installed on one of my non-system drives.
Oops I meant Leopard, not Panther. And I have read through instructions here http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/en/projects/sheepshaver/help
SheepShaver error: Cannot map RAM: File exists
OS 9 install disk in drive. Mac OS ROM Update mounted. OS9 disk image created & mounted. I can’t seem to sort this out. Be nice if someone who obviously knows could help. It seems once they get their problems sorted, it’s stuff everyone else. pfft I help out on forums daily with p2p tech issues. Be nice to get some return assistance. ;)
Graham,
Your first package worked fine for me under Leopard. I downloaded the OS 9.0.4 update from Apple and installed that overtop SheepShaver’s OS 9.0.4. This solved the problem that some other people were getting with the weird error when they tried to open the Sound Control Panel. However, in the sound output tab of the control panel, “Built-in” is not listed – in fact nothing is – so I’m still without sound.
Enabling/Disabling Sound Manager and Apple Audio Extension had no effect.
Lord,
My first thought is to make sure you don’t have more than 512MB of RAM set in the SS gui app.
If you’re using Graham’s package, then everything should work smoothly (except for no sound). I suggest completely removing SheepShaver and starting from scratch (sucks, I know).
I got SheepShaver all set up, filled out all the right settings in the GUI, my dad even checked it, but when i tried to play my game ‘Escape from Monkey Island’ a message comes up:
“Please make sure you are not running any application that takes exclusive control of your hardware.
Could not initialize your hardware.”
Nothing else is open on my computer, so what can i do to make it work, please help, i’ve been trying all day to play this game, thought i finally would be able but have been stopped at the last hurdle.
great advances to the SheepShaver’s OS community here:
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5275
Thanks for the tip TJ, but it still won’t work, i downloaded the new Sheepshaver but it says i need a new a ROM file, so i tried adding one that was linked on the site you gave, but for one ROM the page no longer exists and the other one i download then it says it needs to be updated but you have to sign up and enter personal details before it will let you download which i don’t want to do. is there any other way around it.
I looked at the Hardware requirements on the game and i should have them all, apart from not sure about ‘3D acceleration hardware’ could it be that which is stopping it from working?.
Thanks again
@ Becky…try Chubby Bunny…is Sheepshaver with out all the configuring…mac-on-a-stick is fun too…
how or where can i download it?
Try Google.
I am having exactly the same problem as Becky. Try as I might, I cannot get “Escape from Monkey Island” to work on COI Chubby Bunny (I couldn’t work out how to set up Sheepsaver, so that version made more sense) and I am getting exactly the same error message as Becky.
Any ideas?
Well, maybe I’m stupid, but when I click “Start” on SheepShaverGUI I always get the message “SheepShaver error: Cannot map ROM; File exists.” I have tried a New World ROM, a ROM extracted from Mac OS ROM Update 1.0, and the ROM from the system folder of an OS 8.6 installation disk. Always the same result. Can anyone help?