Congratulations. 1st post in in the Mac area. However, I would presume from your post that you're using a "Modern" Mac and not emulation?

I use lots of emulators... on my modern Mac 😉

Mac-gaming used to really suck! But then came VGS (PSX Emulator) and MAME and made things a bit better.

Douglas Adams (who even wrote about Macs in his books) insisted on making a Mac version of his game Starship Titanic, and I'm sure he would insist to make an update for OS X... Anyone up for the task? I've got absolutely no programming skills - But I got the game and still want to play it! 😀

'Chipi

Nicht, it's not the first post, it's just the first post in over thirty days. (There was another by Stiletto about Basilisk II.)
Regarding Starship Titanic, I agree that it's a great game, but why can't you run it using the OS9 emulator that's built-in to OSX? What prevents this from working?

It's dosen't work very well... Not a lot things do under the Classic "emulator" in OS X.

I'm not only thinking about making it playable directly in OS X, but also "preserve" it for other (future?) systems - Maybe Starship Titanic is not a VOGONS yet? But it will be soon 😀

It uses a lot of Quicktime Movies and VR. This should be simple...?

'Chipi

Snover wrote:

Nicht, it's not the first post, it's just the first post in over thirty days. (There was another by Stiletto about Basilisk II.)

Oops. Forgot. I guess if you see movement in a graveyard, it's not necessarily a zombie.

Wanagawachipi wrote:

It's dosen't work very well... Not a lot things do under the Classic "emulator" in OS X.

Have you tried other "Classic Mac" emulators?

I don't know of any...

But my point was also to start "preserving" it now and make it easier to update again when eventually it will become a very, very old game on some future new system.

Not to emulate a whole system (Mac OS 9 or Windows), just have the engine to run the game... Like ScummVM?

'Chipi

Wanagawachipi wrote:

I don't know of any...

Well there is VMac:
http://mac.emuscene.com/downloads/computers/macintosh.shtml
or
http://emulation.net/macintosh/
This, however is limited to emulating the original Macs (B&W, etc...).
Although, I'm surprised that I can't find a Mac port of "Basilisk II". It shouldn't be too hard to make a Mac version using the source. This is the best "all-around" Mac II emulator out there.

While I'm at it, Zophar has a nice catalog of emulators for the Mac:
http://www.zophar.net/mac/mac.phtml

Not to emulate a whole system (Mac OS 9 or Windows), just have the engine to run the game... Like ScummVM?

Don't count on it. There are a lot of games out there. Emulating a system that can run them allows you to play (theoretically) all of them. A rebuild of a game engine will only work for a small group of games.

I'll go ask some of my friends.

Theoretically, it shouldn't be too hard to port Basilisk II to OSX, given that there is a Unix/X11 port of Basilisk II. However, I'm quite surprised I haven't seen it done yet.

The homepage of Basilisk II is here: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/B2Main.html

It mentions that the only available ports are BeOS R4 (PowerPC and x86), Unix with X11 (tested under Linux, Solaris 2.5, FreeBSD 3.x and IRIX 6.5), AmigaOS 3.x, and Windows NT 4.0 (mostly works under Windows 9x, too).

Aha! It wouldn't work with Baslisk II anyhow:

Starship Titanic requires a 120MHz PowerPC (180MHz recommended), MacOS 7.5 or later, 32MB of RAM (I recommend 32MB of free RAM), 160MB of hard disk space for a small install, a display capable of at least 640x480 in thousands of colors, and a 4X speed CD-ROM drive.

But this here says it should work fine in Classic Mode: www.clanmacgaming.com/macosx.php?show=D ... %20Titanic

What problems are you seeing again?

There was a Windows version of Starship Titanic, BTW. Maybe you could buy it (if you could find it) and run it in Virtual PC for Macintosh?

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Don't count on it. There are a lot of games out there. Emulating a system that can run them allows you to play (theoretically) all of them. A rebuild of a game engine will only work for a small group of games.

Well maybe I'm asking a lot... But that's just what I want - Just the game engine to run Starship Titanic... It's not like it's a super advanced 3D engine or anything. It uses a lot of standart Quicktime. The game is quite primitive but the story is great.

Stiletto wrote:

But this here says it should work fine in Classic Mode: www.clanmacgaming.com/macosx.php?show=D ... %20Titanic

What problems are you seeing again?[/B]

Hmmm... Maybe I just need more RAM to run it better...? But I don't have Classic installed anymore... And in soon only few people will.

Thanks,
'Chipi

"Classic" or OS9? Very few people will have OS9 installed since Jobs plans to remove support for OS9 / OS10 dual. 🙁

DosFreak wrote:

...Jobs plans to remove support for OS9 / OS10 dual.

Looks like Mac people are going to need a "self-contained" PowerMac emulator to run their stuff...and soon.

That's bad as there aren't any out there (real ones that is...).

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Looks like Mac people are going to need a "self-contained" PowerMac emulator to run their stuff...and soon.

That's bad as there aren't any out there (real ones that is...).

It's not that bad... Everything important has been ported og remade in native OS X versions - Just not Starship Titanic...! 🙁

X.2 is finally a lot better than 9

'Chipi

Have you tried emailing the software company? (I doubt they'd make a patch, but you never know.)

They're not around anymore... Their webpage (http://www.tdv.com/) is now a tribute page for Douglas Adams - I've tried to mail his manager... Maybe there is someone sitting on the code, and want to release it...?

I suggest that it (just the game engine) will come with a optional shareware donation for Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund or Save The Rhino.

http://dianfossey.org/
http://www.savetherhino.org/

'Chipi

The game used a customised engine created by The Digital Village. However, it consists of mostly Targa graphics, wave files, and quicktime videos. (I extracted the media from the .ST files a while back.)

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Although, I'm surprised that I can't find a Mac port of "Basilisk II". It shouldn't be too hard to make a Mac version using the source. This is the best "all-around" Mac II emulator out there.

Hah! Found it while I was searching for something else.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pear_computers/

Kick ass. 😀

Now all we need is an update for the Windows version...