Since Intel machines don't allow Classic to run anymore, you might think that you can no longer develop Revolution apps to run on OS 9/Classic Mode now that you have an Intel machine. Wrong-O! You can install SheepShaver, which is a MacOS PPC emulator on your Intel machine.

To do so, you'll need a "generic" or "universal" Mac OS 8 or OS 9 install disk (SheepShaver currently supports OS 9.0.4 or earlier), access to an OS 9 machine (or to an OS X machine that can run Classic), and about 30 minutes of your time.

NOTE: It is critically important that you have the right OS 9 install disk - one that is OS 9.0.4 or earlier and effectively one that did NOT come with another Mac, but was one that was bought off the shelf. If you don't have the right disk, you will be unable to complete installation. (If you don't have a disk like this, you can check eBay, etc. to see if you can get one.)

Here's the steps (borrowed from the Ambrosia Software Web Board and edited by yours truly):

1. Create a folder for all the SheepShaver data to go into. I would suggest something easy to type, like "sheepshaver" in your home directory. For the purposes of this, I'll assume that you chose /Users/username/sheepshaver.
2. Get a Mac ROM. The one in your Classic system folder may work (I've been told it should, but mine didn't). I would suggest downloading a ROM update from Apple and using TomeViewer to extract the ROM. (TomeViewer is a Classic app itself.)

3. Find a machine that can run Classic or already has OS 9, download the ROM Update and TomeViewer, decompress them and launch TomeViewer. You can then choos to open a "tome", which will be on the disk image for the ROM Update. There's an extract option, so select the ROM file and extract it. However you obtain the ROM, name it "ROM" and place it inside the "sheepshaver" folder.
4. Download SheepShaver. (You want the "MacOS X Universal Binary" near the bottom of the page.)
5. Decompress SheepShaver and put it where you want. I would suggest keeping it seperate from the "sheepshaver" folder created above, and naming the application folder "SheepShaver-May06" (or whatever date the release was). All of the releases for a while have been numbered 2.3, so the only way to tell them apart is the date.
6. Open "SheepShaverGUI.app".
7. Create a SheepShaver hard drive. Press "Create..." in the window that appears. Change the size to something usable; I would suggest 400-600 MB. Navigate to your "sheepshaver" folder and name the drive something like "os9hd". Press "OK"; it will take a few moments to create the drive (the program hasn't frozen).
8. Change the "Unix Root" to /Users/username/sheepshaver/share (or wherever your "sheepshaver" folder is).
9. In the "Graphics/Sound" tab, make sure that Window mode is selected (fullscreen will freeze in this version!) with a refresh rate of 60hz. Change the width/height to either 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768, depending on your screen size. I would recommend you use a standard 4:3 resolution (one of the three I listed). Make sure "QuickDraw Acceleration" is on, and "Disable Sound" is off (don't worry about the Output and Mixer devices, they aren't used on OS X).
10. In Keyboard/Mouse, turn off "Use Raw Keycodes" and set "Mouse Wheel Function" to your liking if you have a mouse wheel (which isn't recognized by OS 9 so SheepShaver has to do something else to pretend).
11. In Serial/Network, make sure "slirp" is the Ethernet interface.
12. In Memory/Misc, set the RAM size to something reasonable given your computer. 128MB should be more than fine (have it set to 64 just to quickly jump in and out of OS 9, if you're planning on doing a lot you should probably do 128 or higher). Change the ROM path to /Users/username/sheepshaver/ROM (or wherever your "sheepshaver" folder is). You can use the Browse... button for that. Turn off "Ignore Illegal Memory Accesses" and turn on "Don't Use CPU when idle".
13. Insert your OS 9 (or earlier) install disk, then press the "Start" buttton at the bottom. It should boot from the CD; you can then initialize your OS 9 hard drive and install OS 9.

NOTE: If you are either told that it crashed (less likely) or you get the standard question mark blinking in the disk icon, don't panic. Sometimes this happens. If so, quit SheepShaver (you may have to force quit), and then with your OS 9 disk in the drive, launch the "SheepShaver.app" application (NOT the "SheepShaver GUI" app). It should "kick in" and recognize the CD and boot from there.

If for some reason it still doesn't boot, check your OS 9 CD. It is likely that it is not a "universal" CD, but is one designed for a specific model of Macintosh. If this is the case, you'll have to get a true "universal" CD and try again.

14. Use Special -> Shutdown to always shut down SheepShaver (just like a real Mac). After the install, shut down and remove the CD. Run "SheepShaver.app" again. Open the "Sound" (not "Moniters and Sound") control panel and set the output correctly so you can hear sound. Sound and networking should both work; you're good to go!

Creating a Shared Hard Drive

Here's how to create a hard drive you can share between your OSX environment and SheepShaver:

1. Launch Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app).
2. Click on the "New Image" button in the toolbar.
3. In the sheet that's displayed, navigate to where you want to store the shared hard drive image file (I like to keep it in the SheepShaver folder), and save it with a name that means something to you (mine is called "SSShared" and I'll use that for this example), of a size that you like (or you can leave the default "40MB"), with Encryption set to "none", and Format set to "read/write disk image". Disk Utility will create the image file "SSShared.dmg", and mount it on the desktop.
4. In Disk Utility, select the SSShared.dmg image and click the Eject button.
5. Quit Disk Utility.
6. Launch SheepShaver GUI.
7. On the Volumes tab, click "Add..." and select "SSShared.dmg"
8. Click "Start" to run SheepShaver. It should mount the volume "SSShared" on the desktop, and you can start copying files to/from it.

The only caveat is that you get very unpredictable results if you attempt to keep the .dmg mounted in OS X at the same time as SheepShaver is running with the drive being displayed... files have been lost and the .dmg can get corrupted, so make sure you fully unmount the drive (imagine you're putting something on a floppy in one machine to carry to the next machine).

If you have any problems getting this going, or if the instructions above don't work as "advertised", let me know!

Posted 9/27/2006 by Ken Ray to the Use-Revolution List
Modified 10/11/2006 by Ken Ray
Modified 12/17/2006 by Ken Ray to add OS 9 disk warning