Through a Castle Darkly

June 7, 2007 1:08 PM

How can I get this classic mac game to run on XP?

So far I've done the following:

1. Installed Mini vMac
2. Got a Boot ROM
3. Gotten the virtual mac to boot up on my laptop.
4. Downloaded the Dark Castle .sit file.

When I dragged the sit file to the vmac, I get an error saying I am using an unformatted disk and if I'd like to format it now. I tried decompressing the .sit file but only got a bunch of jpegs and a binary that gives me the same error when I drag it to the vmac.

I need to run this on an XP laptop, but I have access to a g4 powerbook at work.

Can someone tell me if the .sit file actually contains the game and if not where I can get it. Or if I should be using a different emulator. Or what I'm doing wrong. Thanks.

posted by damn dirty ape to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Response by poster: I'd have more details but I did this at home last night and am at work now.

I also downloaded a blank .dsk file and created a virtual 10 meg drive for this. I tried dragging the .sit file there and got the same results. It looks like vmac expects a .dsk image and if doesnt get it in this format it brings up that floppy error. If this is true how can I move a binary file onto the vmac emulator?

I'm also running system seven. I've been following these directions here.

I also downloaded a .hqx file from some random website but both my xp machine and powerbook say its corrupt.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:14 PM on June 7, 2007

Any way you can get vMac to have a TCP stack? You could let it connect to a Windows share (via DAVE or something similar) and copy the file over that way.
posted by mkb at 1:16 PM on June 7, 2007

Response by poster: On review of the metaltheater website, it looks like I should have mounted the blank image first then system 7. I'll give that a try when I get home. Still, if someone can verify that the binary is actually playable in vmac that would be great.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:39 PM on June 7, 2007

"I have access to a g4 powerbook at work. "

Well, your problems are solved, then. Un-stuff the SIT file. Mount a blank .dsk image on your Mac (you might have to rename it to .img for this step, I forget). Copy the contents of the SIT file (you realize it's an archive, right? There's stuff inside it.) to the image. Unmount the .dsk image.

Trot the .dsk file over to your other machine. Fire up vMac. Mount the image file. Play.

"...actually playable in vmac..."

Yes. Dark Castle played just fine when I last tried it a couple of years back.
posted by majick at 1:49 PM on June 7, 2007

Response by poster: mkb, sorry but the minivmac app doesnt support any networking.

majick, thanks, I'll give that go. Actually, I was asking if the linked game ROM was playable. The binary is the sit archive has a funky name that doesnt seem like a mac file.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:52 PM on June 7, 2007

Best answer: You're doing something wrong, then.

I went to the linked site and downloaded DarkCastle.bin. I ran that through TheUnarchiver and got a folder named "Dark Castle" which contains:

pocketbook:~/Downloads majick$ ls -l DarkCastle
total 1576
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 0 Aug 27 2002 Castle Preferences
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 0 Aug 27 2002 Dark Castle
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 0 Oct 5 2002 Data A
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 0 Oct 24 1986 Data B
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 0 Apr 18 1991 Desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 0 Sep 26 1986 Finder
-rw-r--r-- 1 majick majick 1024 Oct 8 1986 System


It even looks bootable.

(Nevermind the file sizes. Most of the guts of old MacOS games are stashed in the resource fork, and won't be immediately visible to ls)
posted by majick at 1:59 PM on June 7, 2007

Response by poster: Whoops, my french is not so good. I was downloading the file underneath goodies, not the .bin file linked to Télécharger.
posted by damn dirty ape at 2:07 PM on June 7, 2007

Use the BasiliskII emulator. It's extremely good, and it will allow your Mac to see a directory on your Windows drive as though it were just another Mac volume.

Should run beautifully. BasiliskII rocks.
posted by Malor at 5:37 PM on June 7, 2007

have you got a USB memory stick around? try this:

http://portableapps.com/apps/operating_systems/mac-on-stick

The other PortableApps run fine, but I haven't tried this one.

But if it's not total lies, you should be able to put both a mac OS 7.1 AND your game on a USB key/drive/stick/why-haven't-we-settled-on-a-universal-name-for-these-yet and just run it on any windows machine, instead of worrying if you're installing the right stuff on your XP PC.
posted by bartleby at 5:18 PM on June 8, 2007