Ask HN: The Future of Classic Mac Emulators

1 point

12 years ago

Shapeshifter and Basilisk II have gotten long in the tooth. Compiled for Windows 2000 and under, using old GTK libraries, and being hard to get to work. I am sure the 68K and PowerPC Emulation part works, but the API calls and libraries used on the host operating system need updating.

http://basilisk.cebix.net/

http://shapeshifter.cebix.net/

For example the Network and CD driver does not work in 64 bit Windows, you need to do TUN/TAP to get networking to work. It is very complex either you run a 32 bit Windows box, or an old version of Windows with an outdated GTK library or you struggle to try and make it work with a modern Windows system and have to avoid using the Network and CD drivers.

I think maybe the Mac Emulation stuff can be added to the MESS or QEMU projects if the source code is still available for ShapeShifter and Basilisk II. The websites that used to host it went dark and some other people are rehosting it but may or may not have all the files and source code.

The Amiga 68K Emulation is much better, and I think that the Classic Mac 68K emulation and PowerMac emulation should be better as well. I'd like to see support for IBM's OS/2 PPC in QEMU if possible, but that might be asking too much like a PowerPC BeBox emulation.

QEMU has limited PowerMac support: https://plus.google.com/+JasonStevens/posts/a6o3Yg6iGhb

If you need to do a Dotcom Startup, maybe you can offer some sort of Classic Mac Virtual Machine the user pays a license for and has a web interface into accessing it.

I can see Apple doing this for their Classic Mac series for customers who need access to the old operating systems in order to run legacy Mac software. It could compete with Microsoft Azure if they update it for modern Mac OSX and the OSX Server.