The biggest obstacle for moving to an Intel-based Mac has been the lack of Classic support. Although I've eliminated my dependence on most Mac apps from the era of the Classic Mac OS, I still rely on Claris Home Page 3.0 (last updated in 1997) to write, edit, and publish site content.
I may have finally found a program that can adequately replace it, KompoZer, an unofficial bug fix and otherwise improved version of Nvu. I'm not sure it will make the grade, but it's the closest I've come under OS X.
Until I'm certain KompoZer will be an adequate replacement for Home Page, I need Classic - and the Intel Macs don't support Classic Mode. The best solution is emulation, and the best PowerPC Mac emulator is SheepShaver.
Looking forward, SheepShaver could become even more important, as it appears that Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" will not include Classic support on either Intel or PowerPC hardware. As SheepShaver is a universal binary, it should allow continued use of Classic Mac software with Leopard.
I've had a 15" MacBook Pro for a while and really like it. The screen feel huge, even compared with the 17" 1280 x 1024 display on my Power Mac G4. The keyboard is very good, and the large trackpad (especially compared with my last 'Book, a 400 MHz TiBook) is excellent.
To install SheepShaver, you need the program itself, a version of the Classic Mac OS between 8.5 and 9.0.4, and a ROM image. Downloading SheepShaver is easy, but acquiring a copy of Mac OS 8.5 took a while. Special thanks to Jason Schrader for sending me a full install CD for Mac OS 8.5.
The ROM image was a problem. Although there is a ROM image on the Mac OS 8.5 install CD (it's in the System Folder), every attempt to use it to launch SheepShaver failed. It took some research, but I eventually discovered that the ROM image on the Mac OS 8.5 CD isn't compatible with the MacBook Pro.
Kudos to Charles Ross of ATPM for sharing this info in Running Classic Software on an Intel Mac. From there it was a short trip to Apple's website, where I downloaded ROM Update 1.0. Then get a copy of TomeViewer from VersionTracker, use it to extract the ROM image (on my Power Mac, as TomeViewer itself is a Classic app), copy it to my flash drive, and then copy it to the SheepShaver folder on the MacBook Pro.
It sounds like a lot of work, and it took a while, but I eventually got SheepShaver to boot from the Mac OS 8.5 CD and install the Mac OS on it's disk image.
Next problem: How to update to Mac OS 8.6. Internet Explorer 4.01 is the only browser that comes with OS 8.5, and it's pretty bad. It hangs on a lot of pages, but I did manage to get to the iCab site and download a copy of iCab 3.0.3, which let me visit Apple's website to acquire the Mac OS 8.6 update. (I had to boost the amount of memory assigned to SheepShave to 128 MB to do this.) Phew!
The good news: It works. SheepShaver allows you to run the Classic Mac OS on Intel Macs. It's not as nice as Classic Mode, which made switching between OS X and Classic apps transparent. With SheepShaver (and other Mac emulators), you're working within a fixed window - and SheepShaver allows you to adjust its size at startup.
The most useful document for installing SheepShaver was Installing SheepShaver by Sons of Thunder Software.
It took some time to figure out how to move software to the SheepShaver disk image. I couldn't get it to mount my flash drive, which would have been the easiest way to do things. In the end, I burned a CD with my Mac OS 9.2.2 System Folder and Claris Home Page. This would let me copy favorite control panels and important preferences to the emulated Mac.
I made sure to burn the CD as HFS+ using Dragon Burn, as I know Mac OS 8.6 will recognize it. To do that, I had to shut down SheepShaver, insert the CD, open SheepShaver GUI, and add the disc as one of the volumes SheepShaver would mount at startup. A bit cumbersome, but I shouldn't have to do this often.
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