Is Putt-Putt out of gas?
February 18, 2007 2:48 PM Subscribe
How do I get OSX to run old Mac games?
I've tried to find this on Apple sites, the web, and here, but I'm a new Mac owner and perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology. We have just purchased an iMac/Intel core duo and it's pretty spiffy. But I'm puzzled by the apparent incompatibility of old dual-platform software, such as the offerings of Humongous entertainment (Freddie Fish, Putt Putt, and so forth), which purportedly run on both Windows and Mac -- but in the latter regard are marked for System 7.0 and higher.
Is OS X not backward compatible (this far)? Does one install patches or emulators to cope with this? I have looked at Humongous's site (now Atari), and they have a patch for purposes of OS 9, but not later . . . and I was wondering whether the latest OS, or maybe the new chips, changed everything. Sorry if this is a newbie blunder.
I've tried to find this on Apple sites, the web, and here, but I'm a new Mac owner and perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology. We have just purchased an iMac/Intel core duo and it's pretty spiffy. But I'm puzzled by the apparent incompatibility of old dual-platform software, such as the offerings of Humongous entertainment (Freddie Fish, Putt Putt, and so forth), which purportedly run on both Windows and Mac -- but in the latter regard are marked for System 7.0 and higher.
Is OS X not backward compatible (this far)? Does one install patches or emulators to cope with this? I have looked at Humongous's site (now Atari), and they have a patch for purposes of OS 9, but not later . . . and I was wondering whether the latest OS, or maybe the new chips, changed everything. Sorry if this is a newbie blunder.
On PowerPC Macs, there's an integrated Mac OS 9 emulator called Classic that allows you to run old programs. This has been ditched on Intel Macs, and in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.
SheepShaver posits itself as a replacement for Classic on Intel Macs, but I have zero experience with it.
posted by cillit bang at 3:06 PM on February 18, 2007
SheepShaver posits itself as a replacement for Classic on Intel Macs, but I have zero experience with it.
posted by cillit bang at 3:06 PM on February 18, 2007
Response by poster: Sorry for overlooking that -- I must have been searching for OS X as opposed to OS 10.whatever. It looks like I am hosed without an earlier version of the OS, and even if I could get one, installing System 7 on the Intel gives me the heebie-jeebies . . . can't imagine doing that on Windows.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 4:56 PM on February 18, 2007
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 4:56 PM on February 18, 2007
they have a patch for purposes of OS 9, but not later . . . and I was wondering whether the latest OS, or maybe the new chips, changed everything.
To answer this part of the question: OS X is a radically different OS in almost every way from OS 9/8/7/etc. It is built on top of BSD unix and descended from "NEXTSTEP", a really-ahead-of-its-time unix/window-server from the late-80s/early 90s with objective c as the main development language. Around 1997, Apple bought NeXT (which incidentally had been Steve Job's startup after Apple kicked him out in the mid-80s; this is when he came back to apple, and it was probably one of the best things they ever did). Apple's switch to OS X amounted to completely scrapping OS 9 (well, I doubt that is really true, since probably a lot of the OS 9 developers' expertise went in to modernizing NEXTSTEP). Many G3s and some G4s could dual-boot the two (in the same sense you might have windows and linux dual-booting), and most powerpc machines (all?) supported the "classic" environment which emulated OS 9. The emulation wasn't perfect and didn't tend to do well on system 7/8 games. But with the intel macs, they've dropped that support (not too surprising really, given that OS X is 6-10 years old now depending on how you count, and it must have been getting more and more painful to keep classic working, especially with the new chips). Turning an OS 9 app into an OS X app was not trivial, despite various compatibility layers, so there were a lot of developers, especially for already-released games, who didn't bother.
Here's some information about the history of Apple's OSs if you want to read more.
posted by advil at 4:56 PM on February 18, 2007
To answer this part of the question: OS X is a radically different OS in almost every way from OS 9/8/7/etc. It is built on top of BSD unix and descended from "NEXTSTEP", a really-ahead-of-its-time unix/window-server from the late-80s/early 90s with objective c as the main development language. Around 1997, Apple bought NeXT (which incidentally had been Steve Job's startup after Apple kicked him out in the mid-80s; this is when he came back to apple, and it was probably one of the best things they ever did). Apple's switch to OS X amounted to completely scrapping OS 9 (well, I doubt that is really true, since probably a lot of the OS 9 developers' expertise went in to modernizing NEXTSTEP). Many G3s and some G4s could dual-boot the two (in the same sense you might have windows and linux dual-booting), and most powerpc machines (all?) supported the "classic" environment which emulated OS 9. The emulation wasn't perfect and didn't tend to do well on system 7/8 games. But with the intel macs, they've dropped that support (not too surprising really, given that OS X is 6-10 years old now depending on how you count, and it must have been getting more and more painful to keep classic working, especially with the new chips). Turning an OS 9 app into an OS X app was not trivial, despite various compatibility layers, so there were a lot of developers, especially for already-released games, who didn't bother.
Here's some information about the history of Apple's OSs if you want to read more.
posted by advil at 4:56 PM on February 18, 2007
installing System 7 on the Intel gives me the heebie-jeebies
It won't work on an Intel Mac anyway.
posted by oaf at 5:39 PM on February 18, 2007
It won't work on an Intel Mac anyway.
posted by oaf at 5:39 PM on February 18, 2007
Best answer: You can play Putt-Putt and Freddie Fish specifically on your computer with the ScummVM emulator.
posted by marionnette en chaussette at 6:19 PM on February 18, 2007
posted by marionnette en chaussette at 6:19 PM on February 18, 2007
Purchase a used iMac, you can probably find one for less than $50, and play away!
posted by HuronBob at 7:22 PM on February 18, 2007
posted by HuronBob at 7:22 PM on February 18, 2007
Yes, the best way to do this is to purchase a Mac old enough to have a PowerPC processor, and either run Classic, or install OS 9.2.2 native on it.
SheepShaver isn't at a level of polish that I'd recommend it to someone who would ask this question.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:03 PM on February 18, 2007
SheepShaver isn't at a level of polish that I'd recommend it to someone who would ask this question.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:03 PM on February 18, 2007
Another blog entry with a bit of a SheepShaver how-to if you want to put a little geek elbow grease into this.
Also, a little searching of some Bittorrent sites shows some pre-made disk images for SheepShaver might be out there for downloading. The disk images should be usable across platforms under SheepShaver, I'd think.
posted by xiojason at 8:09 PM on February 18, 2007
Also, a little searching of some Bittorrent sites shows some pre-made disk images for SheepShaver might be out there for downloading. The disk images should be usable across platforms under SheepShaver, I'd think.
posted by xiojason at 8:09 PM on February 18, 2007
Response by poster: Very educational, everyone -- many thanks. And here I thought that Macs were so legacy-friendly! Once I develop the courage, will try the ScummVM.
P.S. "SheepShaver isn't at a level of polish that I'd recommend it to someone who would ask this question." Man, that's cold, but fair enough.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:43 AM on February 19, 2007
P.S. "SheepShaver isn't at a level of polish that I'd recommend it to someone who would ask this question." Man, that's cold, but fair enough.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:43 AM on February 19, 2007
I didn't mean it that way, C.M.! I just meant that it doesn't look quite ready for prime-time, although there are probably a bunch of professional coders using it quite happily right now. I certainly couldn't get it to work when I tried.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:24 AM on February 19, 2007
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:24 AM on February 19, 2007
Once I develop the courage, will try the ScummVM.
ScummVM probably doesn't require courage -- it is very easy to use and install. (Though I've only used it for lucasarts games.)
posted by advil at 2:13 PM on February 19, 2007
ScummVM probably doesn't require courage -- it is very easy to use and install. (Though I've only used it for lucasarts games.)
posted by advil at 2:13 PM on February 19, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by chairface at 3:06 PM on February 18, 2007