You have mainly 3 emulators, mini vmac for older machines running System6, BasiliskII for later 68k (MacOS 7.5.5 upto 8.0) and SheepShaver for PPC (7.5.5 to 9.0).

System software/OS compatibility depends on games, most of mid/late 90s stuff that will run under 7.xx will also work under 8 and 9, baring exceptions.

I'm mostly using BasiliskII under Windows to write sofware to floppy disks when needed.
Sheepshaver under BeOS on PowerMac as it's an easy way to run stuff at full speed.

You'll need to emulate PPC machines if the software is enhanced for PPC, but all PPC are compatible with 68k software, again, baring exceptions like specific system extensions (drivers).

Emulation is very good, you won't have problems with running MacOs, apps and games.
One minor exception, SheepShaver doesn't emulate the MMU, which isn't used by MacOS but is needed for other OSes.

You can find setup guides at emaculation.

Favourite games, that's a tough question, LucasArts classics are great in high res, Dark Forces in 640*480 for instance.
Wolfenstein 3d on the Mac looks better than the PC version too, from memory.

An old one I remember playing on a compact classic back in the day is https://www.lysator.liu.se/~ingemar/games/ing … kiing-game.html
Quite fun while difficult.

lolo799 wrote on 2024-07-11, 18:33:

You have mainly 3 emulators, mini vmac for older machines running System6, BasiliskII for later 68k (MacOS 7.5.5 upto 8.0) and S […]
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You have mainly 3 emulators, mini vmac for older machines running System6, BasiliskII for later 68k (MacOS 7.5.5 upto 8.0) and SheepShaver for PPC (7.5.5 to 9.0).

System software/OS compatibility depends on games, most of mid/late 90s stuff that will run under 7.xx will also work under 8 and 9, baring exceptions.

I'm mostly using BasiliskII under Windows to write sofware to floppy disks when needed.
Sheepshaver under BeOS on PowerMac as it's an easy way to run stuff at full speed.

You'll need to emulate PPC machines if the software is enhanced for PPC, but all PPC are compatible with 68k software, again, baring exceptions like specific system extensions (drivers).

Emulation is very good, you won't have problems with running MacOs, apps and games.
One minor exception, SheepShaver doesn't emulate the MMU, which isn't used by MacOS but is needed for other OSes.

You can find setup guides at emaculation.

Favourite games, that's a tough question, LucasArts classics are great in high res, Dark Forces in 640*480 for instance.
Wolfenstein 3d on the Mac looks better than the PC version too, from memory.

An old one I remember playing on a compact classic back in the day is https://www.lysator.liu.se/~ingemar/games/ing … kiing-game.html
Quite fun while difficult.

Great information here, thank you.

I've spent the last day or so exploring OS 8.1 on an emulated Quadra with a 68040... it's certainly been an interesting experience seeing how different everything is. Having not grown up with Mac gives me the benefit of having a completely objective look on the operating system without any positive or negative memories to influence my opinion.

Wasn't aware that certain games were actually better on Mac compared to PC; I'll definitely keep that in mind.

Check out this thread to see which games are better on Mac in one way or another Which games are better on a Macintosh?

I'd just add that while I was emulating some classic mac flight sims I ended up using Qemu (again emaculation is a good place to start).

And often overlooked but MAME has some more hardware accurate mac emulation as well. This was the only emulator that managed to get the mac version of F-117 Stealth Fighter 2.0 running without crashing or graphical issues.

lolo799 wrote on 2024-07-11, 18:33:

Favourite games, that's a tough question, LucasArts classics are great in high res, Dark Forces in 640*480 for instance.
Wolfenstein 3d on the Mac looks better than the PC version too, from memory.

I think same.

The good thing about Mac games or Mac ports from late 80s or 90s is that they have a higher screen resolution to work with than on PC of same time, often.

In essence, it's like this:

- 512x342 (or 512x348?) for monochrome games
- 512x384 or 640x480 for colour games (256c)

512x384 was half of 1024x768, interrestingly. Not sure if accident or not.
A 640x400 resolution did exist, too, for a short time. Not sure if games used it.
640x480 pels as a standard resolution for games got more popular during the System 7 and Windows 3.x days.

So you have the choice if you want to play on Mac using built-in QuickDraw or give the trio of Windows 3.1x+Win32s+WinG a chance. 😉
(QuickTime VR was made available to both platforms a like that need it.)

Some of the early 80s mono Mac games can be troublesome on OS 6, for this reason it's useful to have early System Disks (like 3.0-5.0) ready. By default Mini VMac emulates the Mac Plus, there are other versions available from earlier (Mac 128k) to later color (Mac II). However, I also found Mame's coverage of models and accuracy helpful with some games.

Trypticon wrote on 2024-11-18, 13:30:

Some of the early 80s mono Mac games can be troublesome on OS 6, for this reason it's useful to have early System Disks (like 3.0-5.0) ready. By default Mini VMac emulates the Mac Plus, there are other versions available from earlier (Mac 128k) to later color (Mac II). However, I also found Mame's coverage of models and accuracy helpful with some games.

Good point! Thanks! 😃

Btw, there's an website that hosts online emulations of various Mac environments.
Might be useful for testing purposes.
https://infinitemac.org/

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-13, 23:35:

A 640x400 resolution did exist, too, for a short time. Not sure if games used it.

640x400 was used on PowerBooks; I think primarily greyscale PowerBooks except the 165c, the first colour PowerBook ever...

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-13, 23:35:

640x480 pels as a standard resolution for games got more popular during the System 7 and Windows 3.x days.

That's probably because 640x480 became more affordable. Colour Macs were unaffordable for home use until the launch of the LC/IIsi in late 1990, and the 'affordable' monitor to be paired with the LC for home use was the 512x384 12" CRT. You didn't really get affordable 640x480 on the Mac side until the LC 520-style AIO machines (and those in the U.S. were heavily education-focused, I thought?) and the launch of non-Trinitron 640x480 monitors, i.e. the elcheapo monitors launched in late 1992 with the Performas.

And really, Mac world didn't fully move away from the 9" B&W machines until 1993-1994ish. Look, for example, on the productivity side - 1992's Word 5.1a crawled on a 68000 B&W machine for as long as it had 2 megs of RAM and a hard drive; 1994's very poorly received Word 6.0 needed... probably a 68040.

VivienM wrote on 2024-12-19, 02:01:

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-13, 23:35:

A 640x400 resolution did exist, too, for a short time. Not sure if games used it.

640x400 was used on PowerBooks; I think primarily greyscale PowerBooks except the 165c, the first colour PowerBook ever...

Thanks for the info - yes, that makes sense. 640x400 seems to have been common among LCD panels. 😀
I think 8088 laptops had them, too, to display CGA graphics as line-doubled for better readability (some had AT&T/Toshiba video mode).

That being said, my Compaq SLT/286 from 1988 had full VGA in 640x480 already! 😁
(Just kidding! The model was pretty much the exception here.)

VivienM wrote on 2024-12-19, 02:01:

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-13, 23:35:

640x480 pels as a standard resolution for games got more popular during the System 7 and Windows 3.x days.

That's probably because 640x480 became more affordable. Colour Macs were unaffordable for home use until the launch of the LC/IIsi in late 1990, and the 'affordable' monitor to be paired with the LC for home use was the 512x384 12" CRT. You didn't really get affordable 640x480 on the Mac side until the LC 520-style AIO machines (and those in the U.S. were heavily education-focused, I thought?) and the launch of non-Trinitron 640x480 monitors, i.e. the elcheapo monitors launched in late 1992 with the Performas.

And really, Mac world didn't fully move away from the 9" B&W machines until 1993-1994ish. Look, for example, on the productivity side - 1992's Word 5.1a crawled on a 68000 B&W machine for as long as it had 2 megs of RAM and a hard drive; 1994's very poorly received Word 6.0 needed... probably a 68040.

That's a good explanation, thanks. I must say that I grew up with VGA pretty much, so 640x480 resolution "feels like home" so to say. 😀
Though I still think it's neat that Macintoshs had at least ca. 350 lines from very start.

Hercules and EGA (native) had used 350 lines as a minimum for graphics, too, which proved to be fine for serious work.
The Tandy 2000 and the Olivetti M24 (AT&T 6300, Logabax etc) had a close 640x400 resolution, too.

Trypticon wrote on 2024-11-18, 13:30:

Some of the early 80s mono Mac games can be troublesome on OS 6, for this reason it's useful to have early System Disks (like 3.0-5.0) ready.
By default Mini VMac emulates the Mac Plus, there are other versions available from earlier (Mac 128k) to later color (Mac II). However, I also found Mame's coverage of models and accuracy helpful with some games.

Thanks for the tip! System 5 was a bit before my time, but I've used to run original vMac (DOS) on a 486.. ^^
The problem with some vMac ports seems, though, that they can become crashy if full memory is selected (4 MB).
Unfortunately, 1 MB memory is a bit to little to run System 7.x. System 5, 6 can run on that configuration, though.