OS 9 or 8.5 or Sheepshaver...

Question

OS 9 or 8.5 or Sheepshaver...

I have a 17" 2.4 Macbook Pro. Everything runs so well. But for some ***** and giggles I want to play some old favorites, especially Castles: Siege and Conquest. I cannot figure out Sheepshaver because I continually get stuck with a blinking question mark. I don't want to buy another universal install disk, which is probably the reason for the question mark and no CD loading. All I have is a copy from one I had purchased oh so long ago for a Performa that my parents got rid of not knowing any better. #1 - Can't something else be done here?

But I also tried it on my wife's 12" 1.33 Powerbook. I figure the PowerPC Classic would do something. And it loads without problem, but the window is completely white. I can hear the awesome music and the mouse can right click with the options on specific territories as if everything was there. Maybe a quicktime video problem - but I really wouldn't know where to start. It's been too long. And so I tried to put 8.5 over the 9.2, but I can't figure that out at all. Would a separate partition booted under 8.5 or 9.2 work alongside a Tiger partition? #2 - Where should I go from here?

I am happy to have the two options. And as much as I have exhausted Gwenole's, Macintosh Garden's, and Emaculation's site for hints, I have yet to ask a question. So, experts, it would be great to hear from you.

17" 2.4GHz Macbook Pro, 12" 1.33 Powerbook, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Dec 20, 2007 11:46 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 21, 2007 12:40 AM in response to Sam Schroeder

Hi, Sam -

Welcome to Apple's Discussions.

Re #1 -

No.

OS 9 is not supported by Apple for any Intel-processor Mac, neither as a boot OS nor as Classic. The only possible way to make use of OS 9 on an Intel-processor Mac is to use a third-party emulator like SheepShaver.

Most of the time a duplicated OS 9 Install CD will not work - it is not easy to replicate one exactly, to the point that it would be bootable on a Mac of appropriate vintage. You'll probably need to get a genuine one for use with SheepShaver, which I believe is limited to OS 9.0.4 or earlier.

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Re #2 -

A 1.33GHz PowerBook is not bootable to any version of OS 9, much less any earlier OS version. There is no workaround for this.

The minimum OS version which can be used as Classic is OS 9.1. Since that machine is not OS 9 bootable, the form of Classic that comes with it (a modified OS 9.2.2) is not the same as one that would have come with a machine which is OS 9 bootable.

You may find that a full-install version of OS 9.2.1 or 9.2.2 would work better. The problem is how to get one there, since any stand-alone OS 9 Install CD is not usable on that machine (the installers on such CDs will work only when the machine is booted to OS 9). One solution might be to copy a working OS 9.2.1 or 9.2.2 System Folder from another Mac, one which is OS 9-bootable and so woud have a complete OS 9 System Folder.

However, you may be facing a limitation of Classic - if a program requires direct access to the machine's hardware, such as many games do, it will not run well, if at all, in Classic. The reason - since Classic is OS 9 run as a program while the machine is booted to OSX, OSX retains control of the hardware.

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